Oil industry reaping benefits on campaign contributions

Opinion: May 13, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

San Jose Mercury: The day after House Speaker John Boehner demanded trillions in budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, Senate Democrats offered him a small down payment Tuesday: a plan to cut $21 billion in unneeded federal subsidies to the extraordinarily profitable oil industry.

Not surprisingly, Republicans quickly labeled the proposal a tax increase and declined to provide any support, probably dooming the idea. Nonetheless, this debate, along with one in the House over expanded oil drilling, tells us a lot about GOP leaders’ real priorities, as opposed to what they say is important.

In the first quarter of 2011, the five largest multinational oil companies made nearly $36 billion in profits. Yet Senate Republicans who say debt and deficits are their top priority want to continue funneling taxpayer dollars to companies piling up massive profits, even as Congress cuts funding for food stamps and schools.

The GOP is rewarding wealthy campaign contributors, and over in the House of Representatives, a plan to expand oil drilling provides further evidence of that.

Just over a year after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and left more than 200 million gallons of crude in the ocean, Congress has not done a single thing to improve oil rig safety. Yet last week, with the help of nearly three dozen Democrats, the GOP majority passed a bill requiring the Obama administration to speed the sale of oil leases in Virginia and the Gulf of Mexico — a process that was slowed to allow for better safety and environmental analyses.