percent this year that's rivaling its record profits from two thousand and eight how about chevron conoco phillips there are expecting an increase of about thirty three percent this year compared to last year now president obama did promise that a new government task force is going to look into speculation as well as manipulation of the oil markets but we'll see if i can really achieve anything and if at the end of the day it's just the corporations that are going to end up winning out now joining me to discuss this is economic policy and there are think that star or pat thanks so much for joining us tonight thanks but now let's start with obama's announcement that he made it last week where he said he's creating this task force to investigate manipulation speculation and see if there's anything illegal going on in the oil markets is it really a question of if the only planet you know that this is going on well we know there's a lot of speculation it may be questionable questionable behavior going on illegality is a different thing i think the interesting point is that the bill in congress passed

the most profitable corporation in the history of the world going back to the roman empire chevron conoco phillips as well as financial institutions like goldman sachs citigroup and bank of america and defense contractors like boeing and general electric along with a handful of other transnational giants spent over a billion dollars in the last decade lobbying congress to keep intact corporate tax loopholes a billion dollars spent just a few blocks from here on just five hundred thirty five members of congress how is this fair and how long can they get away with this and joining me now is adam smith direction communications director of public campaign and daniel harper of the weekly standard gentlemen welcome thank you. daniel and yes exxon mobil paid not that in zero nine they got a rebate of one hundred fifty six million chevron ten billion profits in two thousand and nine no taxes nineteen million dollars rebate bank of america for now have billion in profits last year paid no taxes got a two billion dollar refund you know i literally have a list here of about twenty of these i don't want to bo

chevron, co conoco phillips, and hess. what do you think they have going for them. >> that's right, susie. what's happened is that these down-stream results tha they're going to report starting next week are going to really surprise the analysts, and i think they're going to surprise the street. that's because they've had such a terrible time in the refining margins for the last five, six, seven quarters. this is the first time they're going to make a lot of money. it will make a big difference on the bottom line. i think there is a moment here when you can leverage into some of these names and wait for these reports to come out and take the surprise up with the market. >> now, these stocks are off of their highs. do you still see upside for them? are these buy and hold kind of stocks? >> absolutely, they're buy and holds. but in terms of this refining profit, it is going to be the sharp kind of value play where you're going to try to get the stocks before it makes a big rise, based on a report that is going to be a lot be

in recent years, exxonmobil, chevron, conoco-phillips and shell have all put down stakes in the canadiantar sands. there's a lot of oil here. enough to keep generating oil company profits for a long time. >> we can extract oil for about 155,000 barrels per day for about 40, 50 years ahead of us. even at minus-40, we keep going, keep digging. it's cold here obviously for the people, for the mechanics, but we keep going non-stop. >> smith: the problem is that the oil here is mixed with sand and clay, and extracting it comes with a cost to the climate. that's because the process uses lots of heat, pressure and chemicals. the result is that oil from the tar sands has a carbon footprint two to three times greater than ordinary crude oil. >> the tar sands are a goopy mess. the tar sands are not really sustainable. there's no way canada can meet its global warming commitments with the tar sands. any claim the canadians have ever had to being green and greener than the us, which i think they'd like to believe... the tar sands, you know, throws out the window. but, look, oil is $90 a barrel. so t

these subsidies have helped b.p., chevron, conoco phillips, exxonmobil and shell make a combined profit of nearly $1 trillion over the past decade. that's trillion with a t. give me a break. our amendment would have raised $40 billion that would have gone straight toward deficit reduction. unfortunately, but not surprisingly, our amendment was defeat odden a party line vote. that shows exactly where the republican priorities are, madam speaker. a radical redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the wealthiest people and corporations in the country. yesterday, our republican friends unveiled their budget proposal. that budget takes extreme right wing trickle down economics to new levels. they want to destroy medicare as we know it and impose a huge tax increase on middle class seniors through higher health care costs. they want to eviscerate medicaid by turning it into a block grant program. they want to cut food stamp programs, environmental protection and medical research. programs which actually create jobs and improve the lives of american working families. at t