exxon exxon starting to see a penny of that money it's somebody else who just sold a thousand shares is going to get my money. that's right and any way you look at the stock market you'll notice that the initial public offerings when the new share is issued in the company actually gets the money that's a tiny percentage of the transactions in stocks that occur every day in the united states and so exxon doesn't see a penny of the money or you know our mythical company there is no benefit to the economy and yet if i can make money playing with that stock i pay a maximum fifteen percent income tax rate is this just seems not to eat the e.u. . the word you have used and associated with you and stephen resnick and others is this word marxian. i've heard of marxist what is marxian economics. well it's just a way of distinguishing the word when it's used as an adjective to describe something else from the time when infused there's a picture of a person so people are marxists but the approach they use the theory they use the ideas they use are marxian ideas that come out of that marxian tradition what are the one of the marxian got now it's i confess it's been thirty years i did read most of das top attala and i read the communist manifesto which was more of a rant you know marx and engels. but it seems to me that marx is analysis of raw capitalism of uninhibited capitalism or what we might

exxon lawyer also confirmed the judge has thrown a gag order over the case prohibiting anybody from talking about the case. four months into the trial the judge has told exxon they need to wrap up their case by the end of june. mike schuh, tucson, back to you. >> 400 additional homeowners have lined up to sue exxonor damages relate ing to the spill. >>> for a quick look at stories in the baltimore sun. d. rupper berger was one who knew about the najibullah get osama bin laden. >>> meet this week's top atheletes and recipes for your cinco de mayo fiesta. for all of these stories and a lot more read tomorrow's baltimore sun and look for the updated forecast. >>> right now a maryland man may be dieing in a cuban jail part of an unfolding international trauma. the u.s. government contractor is desperately appaling a 15 year sentence for trying toover throw the castroe regime. >> reporter: alan gross went from a comfortable night in the maryland suburbs to living night mare. lost in a cuban prison after the gross profit there branded the aid worker a spy. his family now fears he could die inside that communist jail. >> alan has done nothing wrong. >> reporter: depending on who you believe, gross was either working on a secret u.s. government mission to bring democracy to cuba. >> alan gross. >> repor

following the retail giant, in revenue, not surprisingly, are three oil companies, exxon mobil, chevron and conoco phillips. exxonas the most profitable company on the fortune list. >>> just in time for the prime home buying season, mortgage rates are at their lowest level on the year. the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate loan is 4.71%. that's the same as back in january. it's not as low as it was in november, which was the all-time low record. >>> usda says that americans spend half of their food budget in restaurants. among the factors, how much parents worked, their schedules. also, this surprised some of the researchers, how much dad eats out. fathers should be encouraged to eat healthier and also maybe eat at home. >>> here's proof, now, that elvis really has left the building. for the first time in more than half a century, elvis not among the 1,000 most popular baby names. jacob, actually, is the most popular boys name. isabella is for the girls. your little one's name. >> that's my little lady. i never considered elvis, though. maybe throwing that around for our little guy. >> and enjoying your first

of interest from shell exxon and chevron and also from cheney is an indian company as such so i believe that crossing over to turn to those companies and the first of all to exxon shell chevron to continue negotiations and try to push the project forward. let's take a look at the markets now oil prices are up slightly from tuesday those concerns continue over the uncertainty of the future of greece's economy like sweet is trading around ninety nine dollars a barrel range is around one hundred eleven dollars a barrel the time to that's take a look at how the stock markets are performing asian stocks are trading in the black on the way this day and saying it's helped by buchan bottom in energy and property starts that's after the market declined from the last of the previous fourteen sessions human impulse gratian of china is adding around one percent on stronger commodities energy stocks are also on the rise in japan with index corp up nearly three percent in the tech sector going to see its electronics is up more than four percent and it reports about its plans to restore chip making capacity after recovers from the earthquake. and here in russia both the r.t.s

expression of interest from shell exxon and chevron and also from cheney as an indian company is that so i believe they're close enough to turn to those companies first of all to exxon shell chevron to continue negotiations and to push the project forward. bella ruse may ask for a loan from the international monetary fund in order to so with mounting financial problems they can freeze prime minister also says russia has agreed to help bellerose with more than six billion dollars of loans half of that will be provided as a payment for the future sales of belorussian goods to russia the country is struggling to cope with the worst crisis in a decade it's not a quarter of its reserves this year trying to support weakening local currency the decline of the belarusian ruble has resulted in a significant decrease of the citizens by buying power and a shortage of foreign goods. let's take a look at the markets all prices are up slightly from tuesday those concerns continue over the uncertainty of the future of greece's economy flights which is trading at around ninety seven dollars a barrel of oil brant is around one hundred ten dollars a barrel let's have a look at how th

expression of interest from shell exxon and chevron and also from cheney is an indian company has so i believe the crossing of to turn to those companies and first of all to exxon shell chevron to continue negotiations and to push the project forward. bella ruth may i ask for a loan from the international monetary fund in order to solve its mounting financial problems because greek prime minister also says russia has agreed to help us with more than six billion dollars in loans half of that will be provided as a payment for the future sales of beneficial goods to russia the country is struggling to cope with the worst crises in a decade its last quarter of its reserves this year trying to support the weakening local currency the decline of the validation ruble has resulted in a significant decrease of the citizens buying power and a shortage of foreign goods. look at the markets now will prices out on the rise as the weekly u.s. currency is encouraging investors divide in dollar price from oddities also investors are waiting on a key inventory report from the u.s. which is expected to show a decline in oil stockpiles light sweet is trading at around ninety eigh

first quarter of this year compared to last year, all these oil companies, exxon, conoco, chevron, b.p., made record profits. exxon is up 69%. they made $10.7 billion in profits in the first quarter. and what is particularly outrageous is they are making all this money and my friends on the other side of the aisle continue to protect the subsidies and tax breaks they get. it's outrageous. they cut money for poor families trying to heat their homes in the winter, and on the other hand they go out of their way to protect big oil from any amendments that we can bring to the floor here to be able to go after these subsidies and tax breaks. my colleague from california, the chairman of the rules committee, says we don't want your sympathy. we want your vote. i brought this amendment to go after the subsidies that the oil companies currently enjoy, taxpayer-funded subsidies, three times in the rules committee. all three times it was voted down. so enough is enough. and in terms of this rule, i want to point out something. you know, there was a rule -- there was an amendment offered by the gentleman from iowa, mr. boswel

from shell exxon and chevron and also from cheney is an indian company has about the work on the arctic shot so i believe that trust me have to turn to those companies and first of all to exxon shell chevron to continue negotiations and to push the project forward. to look at the markets oil prices a slightly lower the solve the concerns continue that the debt crisis in greece will curb european growth now european stocks down on tuesday as investors digest weak german economic data chosen french conglomerate weak from four percent after reporting an eighty one percent drop in net profit late monday an actual sector's getting go shares in societe generale and in paris in paris and b.n.p. part of god came one point four percent afterward it was upgraded soup overweight from equal weight at morgan stanley vodafone shares are up in london up through according revenue above market expectations. here in loss of coffee obviously the markets continue to trade in the red this hour the back of all the world's worldwide market trends now let's look at some individual share moves here on the rise ics precious metals not a point of metal is up more than three percent after reporting rec

why was remember in the exxon valdez, it was the photographs of oil soaked birds that caught people's souls and people organized aggressively in their response and shutdown exxon stations and protested and demanded policies and they got out of the bush administration a critical piece of legislation. the oil pollution act. in 1969 off the coast of santa barbara when an oil well. they were galvanized and ready. they sought imagery that captured the hearts and souls and years later they got earth day, the clean air act and the environmental protection agency and 11 years of organizing later they got a moratorium on offshore drilling. the brown pelicans soaked in oil, state bird of louisiana captured people. captured our hearts and minds. pictures started to go away and what most people assumed was the pictures were going away because oil birds were going away. less birds, less images. as the number of oil birds increased the photographs were decrease in. the reason why was we started threatened to be thrown in jail if we went with and 40 miles, 40 feet of additional if we went on beaches where there was oil. i was trying to go on boats to take pictures and talk t

exxon oil alone made 70% more this year than they did last year. exxon holds the record for making more than any corporation in the history of our country in years past. these oil companies, i repeat, made $36 billion in the first quarter. the industry's $36 billion in quarterly profits means they are making about $4 billion a week, and yet the u.s. government has given these companies billions of dollars in corporate welfare every year. that's unnecessary. why are taxpayers on the hook for oil companies that are doing just fine on their own? if we're serious about reducing the deficit, what an easy place to start, i say to my friend, the speaker of the house of representatives. it's really a no-brainer. let's use these savings from the taxpayer giveaways to drive down the deficit, not drive up oil companies' profits. we need to make one thing very, very clear, madam president. wasteful subsidies have nothing to do with gas prices. these oil handouts have existed for decades. prices have continued to rise. oil executive paychecks have also continued to rise. in the state of alaska, they are paying $8 or $9 for gasoline. in the state of california, there are places where you pay as much as $5 for a gallon of gasoline. here at an exxon station along the waterfront, i looked out the other day and the gas prices there were within a few cents of being $5 a gallon. that's here in our nation's capital. so that money americans are paying at the pump are not related to those subsidies that i've talked about, but those profits are proof enough that they don't need them, the companies don't need those subsidies. even big oil c.e.o.'s like the head of shell and republicans in congress, even my friend the speaker said on occasions that these subsidies aren't necessary. some of our conservative colleagues have a hard time stomaching giving a hand to those who need it the most. madam president, we should all agree in the interest of fairness, common sense and saving taxpayer money that we cannot continue with this corporate welfare for the big oil companies who need it the least. that's a good place to start. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate wi

exxon valdez had rammed into the alaskan shoreline in 1989. when instead of being forthcoming and doing what they should have done, exxon fought over every penny with the communities in alaska. the families and the fish #ermen whose descrieives it destroyed. -- whose lives it destroyed. instead of stepping up to pay the court-awarded damages of $5 million, exxon said, to health care with that verdict-- --to heck with that vempletd we'll fight it. we'll fight it all the way. and they did. for years knocked down the amount from $5 million t billio0 million. they paid a health care of a price to the lawyers. they'd rather give it to them than to the american people. in the end, took more than 20 years for exxon to pay for what it had done. some victims died while waiting for the company to make things right. we should not be giving big oil $4 billion in tax breaks each year. their profits exceeded for the year last year $100 billion, these companies. larger than lots of countries. we should be investing in ways to break our dangerous addiction to oil. we should be investing in innovative approaches to moving people and goods, including increasing funds for transit, creating a world-class high-speed rail network, and expand #-g the number of things like electric cars on our road. we should also boost our country's clean energy industry making sur

exxon mobil and just tell you somethingasn' you're not aware of, mr. president because it hasn't been set on the floor yet. in 2010, exxon mobil's total tax expense in the united stateswere were $9.8 billion. that's what they paid in taxes t 2010. that includes incomehat tax ex8 and 1.6 billion to 9.8 billion in tax has exceeded the 2010 u.s. operating earnings of seven and a half billion dollars. what we're saying they paid $9.8 billion in taxes. they only $ received 7.5 billion in terms of earnings from the united states.heir now why is that? is because 80% of operations or in other countries. c they are in 100 differentcharget countries. not one of the other countries churches taxes when they go offy shore. we are the only country -- irges believe are the only country tht that churches united states taxr on production that takes place in some other country. now for that reason, if you d single out -- if we tax like most people do it would be a tah credit and not a tax it all.thaf nonetheless, they were that year of $9.8 billion. year, that's 2010. operating the u.s. operating earnings were 2.6 billion. e more than $8 billion came from reerations in more than 100 countries worldwide. here is a member of washington. duringst the first quarter on $6 those earnings of $2.6 billion, diacritic tax expense and paid a tax of $3.1 billion. now, they are paying more thanyu for getting out of this country. i think sooner or later you have to come up and just tell thewari truthnk so what's happening.. it's all class war for and i think we know that. they're all t bad. i pduction and yet, you know, we have a lot of production in the state of oklahoma. we have companies like anadarko who i really doing a lot to relieve this problem. and i know it's going to happen. it didn't pay us obviously and it's not going to pay us. the if it had come at the nexter target with even smaller domestic companies. good i remember coming down to the floor last year when i couldad senator from vermont had a billt i just happen to get your inten- to stop them debate it it and defeat it. now that he'll even used in that the picture of the check from wt exxon mobil as to what the taxwn liabilities for her. opini totally wonrong in my opinion as apparently in the opinion of 61 of the 100 senators as they joi, legislation. now do we have a solution to the problem? not this is not rocket science. and right now we have said many, many times it just happened in s the last eight months congressional research service,t floor anded it on the question the fact they are nonpartisan, objective. our recoverable reserves in gren coal, oil and gas are greater in america than any other country in the world. we have to recoverable reserves. the problem is we have the political problem for thelise, liberals here come along with liberals in the white house come including the president will nol exploit iran's resources. we have all the oil t and gas ad coal that is out there.of t we can be totally dependent.o in a very short period of time if we just go offshore on all three coasts along with the north area, and more and with the public lands. as they say, e

exxon mobil and tell f you something you're not aware of, mr. president because it hasn't been set on the flooronmobil's total yet. in 2010, exxon mobil's total tax they expense in the united states for taxes $9.8 billion. that's what they paid in taxes in 2010. that includes income tax six and in more than 1.6 billion. the 9.8 billion in taxes 201 exceeded the 2010 u.s. operating earnings of $7.5 billion.hey what we are saying is they paid $9.8 billion in taxes. they only b received 7.5 billion in terms of earnings from the united states. now why is that? is because about 80% of their operations are in otherther countries.hen the third 100 different countries. not one of the other countries charges taxes when they go off shore there. we are the only country thattes charges the united states tax on oth production that takes place in some other country.st singl now for thate reason, if you taxnot a t them like most people do it would've been a tax credit and i taxol. b nonetheless, they were yea accountable for paying taxes byuring year's $9.8 billion. a look at this year was 2010. our during the first quarter of this this partular year u.s. operating earnings quarter o that this figure company were 2.6 billion. that's the first quarter ofheir 2011. earni the ngrest of their earnings more00 than a billion dollars came from operations in more than 100s a countries worldwide. du here is a member wilker in washington. during the first quarter of those earnings, u.s. earnings of sachs t $2.6 billion, they incurred aof tax expense and paid a tax of $3.1 billion. now, they are paying more than of th they're getting out of thisl country.the they think sooner or later you have to pinchas told the truth of what's happening. it's all class warfare and i bi think we knowg, b that. big bad oil. you know, they are all bad.okla and yet you know, we have a lot of production in my state of oklahoma. anadarko, who are really doing a relie lot to relieve this problem. i know it's going to happen. it didn't pass obviously in not but if going to pass. n but if it had the next targetonform would be the smaller domesticur company. remember coming down to the floor lasher winner could and he senator from vermont had a bill and was bringing up auc you it know, i just happened to get w, t here in time to stop it and are debated and defeated. che they even held at the picture of exxonbil as a chat from exxon mobil as tod what the tax liabilities were totally wrong in my opinion and 100 sators apparently an opinion of 61 of the 100 senators because they join me and opposing that particular legislation. - now, do we have a so- lution to the problem? hav this is not rocket science. i mean, right nowon we have an accent on the floor many, many times that it just happened in the last eight months. that congressional research service nobody has stood on the floor and question - the fact they are nonpartisan, object is.and ty our recoverable reserves in cold oil and gas are greater in any america than any other country in the world.e now we have those recoverable reserves. the problem is we have a here will -- political problem, where the in liberals here along with exploit liberals in the white house including the president lamont there x what our own resources. we have all the oil and gas andhe middle cold without they are. in a we could be totally independent of the middle east. in a very sho

exxon valdez tragedy and a lot of lessons learned there. we haven't made much progress in terms of the technology and advancement from the cleanup in the water from the exxon valdez 20 years ago to what we saw. it's one of those wake-up calls who is doing the research who is doing all of this. we can't be in a situation where the technologies for the cleanup have just been at a standstill while the technologies that allow us to produce in different conditions under place placed, they're allowing to us leapfrog forward. good for us. also what has to leapfrog with that are the technologies and the advancements that give us that protection, if you l or that assurance that in the event of a disaster that we are prepared. i would like to think that when it comes to the use of dispersements or other spill contain measures, we are spending the same amount of time and energy to introduce them and to keep them current as we are facilitating the technologies to access the resource. >> in complete agreement, ma'am, i would support any legislation that does that. >> we'll work. thank you. >> senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i want to get back to the r and

exxon what the price of oil actually should be today with all other things being equal. and mr. tillerson said, the head of exxon, the price of the, producing the next marginal barrel of oil was probably between $60 and $70 a barrel. that is $30 to $40 a barrel profit at current prices. it's simply not credible to think that these companies would significantly change their investment decisions if they lost these tax breaks and the congressional research service in a report last week concluded exactly the same thing. i began my remarks this afternoon mr. president by quoting george w. bush at the newspaper publishers convention in 2005. he said that the companies, the major companies did not need incentives to drill for oil at that price. i continue to ask how in the world, given george w. bush's comments in 2005 and the other considerations i've outlined here, that again prices are way in excess of inflation. again profits are a record high. how in the world can you justify getting industry-specific subsidies when george w. bush said that no incentive -- no incentive -- and he said it without a qualifier and with a caveat -- were warranted if you wanted to drill for oil. i hope my colleagues as we move to this vote will keep in mind the words of george w. bush then. in my view, they are even more accurate today. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. omr. coburn: mr. president, firt i'd ask unanimous consent that the order for republican speakers include myself and senator blunt, and the orders for senators mccain and chambliss be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: i'm pretty amused at one the senate's doing. we sit here with a $1.6 trillion deficit and we're running bills based on political philosophy rather than what the real problems are in front of our nation. oyou know why soil expensive today? it's because the dollar's on its back and oil's priced in dollars. and if you want the price of oil to go down -- like it has this week and the tail end of last week -- is you want the value of the dollar to go up because the world trades oil in dollars. why is the dollar down? the dollar's down because an incompetent congress continues to spend money that we don't have on things that we don't absolutely need. and if you want the dollar to improve in value, what you'd have to do is hold the congress accountable for doing what they were elected to do, which is live within our means. and we can't come together and solve the very real problems. you realize that if, in fact, our deficit wasn't $1.6 trillion but about $600 billion, the price of the dollar would shoot way up and the price of oil would go down? now, we hear all these stories, i get all these letters from all of my constituents saying you've got to eliminate the commodities speculation. we can do that in this country. we can say, you can't speculate on oil unless you can take delivery. and that will do nothing to the speculative price of oil because oil is an international commodity and people are always going to speculate on what they think the price of a needed commodity's going to be. so if we controlled all the economics in the world, we could control that speculation, but we can't. but what we do know is price controls don't work. they don't work at all. so if, in fact, we want to fix the price of oil, what we have to do is fix our economic mess here and strengthen the dollar, which will lower the price of oil and lower the price of gasoline. the debate we're going through here is all about politics, creating somebody that's bad. do you realize the five big oil companies make less than 8% return on their sales? they make a lot of money but they're giant companies. but compared to most other of the s&p 500, their return sales is far less. and they're not making record profits. they made record profits when oil was $142. that's when they made record profits. it's this -- this habit we have of saying -- and let me draw a corollary. if i'm an iowa farmer or from indiana or illinois or oklahoma and i have a great corn crop and the price of corn is $4 and i decide not to sell my corn, right? i decide not to sell it and now all of a sudden corn's $6.80. oh, i'm going to sell it now at $6.80. now, what are we going to do? are we going to penalize that farmer for having a resource that he took a risk on in not selling at a higher price? we're going to say wait a minute, we're going to double or triple tax you? the other thing that i'm amazed at, you know, most people know me as a doctor but i spent ten years as an accountant and business manager. i have a degree in accounting. and the lack of knowledge of my colleagues on standard -- american standard accounting principles is amazing. every benefit they're talking about taking away won't go away because they're all legitimate business expenses and they'll all be expensed. why did the congress back in 1906 give this advantage to our oil companies? why did they do that? because drilling for oil is a capital intensive business and it -- if you want more oil found, what you have to do is be able to generate the internal rate of return to put that capital in. so we offered accelerated write-off for expenses. now, it's interesting that we're not going after all the oil companies or all the gas exploration. we're only going after the big five. why is that? because my colleagues know that if you did the same thing to the ones that are actually producing most of the gas in this country, all the new technology which the r&d tax credit and the intangible drilling costs allowed to be developed that makes this country with a hundred years worth of natural gas, would go away. and the smaller- and medium-sized oil companies will never be able to have the capital and continue to perform and raise our level of energy resources ourselves. so what we're -- what you're hearing on the floor is a charade. the price of oil is high because the dollar's weak. now, if you want to punish somebody for that, punish the u.s. congress, punish the federal reserve, punish the executive branch, but don't go after somebody who's going to create 90,000 new jobs in our country this next year. we always look for the right political moment to make somebody look bad. well, the people that look bad is the u.s. congress because we don't have the guts to stand up and say we need a cogent energy policy that says we're going to go after our own resources, we're going to use every asset we have to utilize cleanly and friendly the tremendous reserves that we have in this country. we know we have 160 billion barrels of recoverable oil in this country. they're not proven but that's what the estimate is. we're the third largest oil producer in the world. we could become the second largest oil producer in the world if we had a cogent government policy and environmental policy. we have oil out the kazoos. we're going to find more oil as we explore for more natural gas. right now, we're only importing 47%. 47% of our oil needs. it was 65% less than ten years ago. why is that? a part of it is smaller demand because we've been in a recession, but the vast majority of it is the very technology that they want to deny the past write-off for is what has created gas liquids that have filled the void. it's better than the best crude oil in the world, and that's coming out of north dakota, it's coming out of west virginia, it's coming out of oklahoma and texas, great stuff, easy to refine, cheap gasoline in terms of the costs to get it from a product to a product we can use. so i'm pretty well disgusted with what i'm hearing on both sides of the aisle because the real problem is not the price of oil. the real problem is the price of the dollar. and if we will fix that, we'll fix tons of things that help our economy. but we're recalcitrant to the point we won't do the things that we need to do. our government's twice the size it was 11 years ago, two times the size. no wonder we're running a $1.6 trillion deficit. no wonder that we don't have the effect -- we have the largest number of regulations to ever come out of the administration in the history of the contract in the first two years of this administration. it is killing job formation. it is causing people not to invest. it is causing a lack of economic growth in our country, because we have people making decisions that have no idea what they're doing or what the ramifications of those decisions are. they're lawyers whose first creed is don't do what's best for the country, do what's safe for the bureaucracy. that's how we're running this government today. we have 45% more regulations issued in the first two years of the obama administration than anybody else has ever done. and we wonder why we're not getting job creation. we continue to refuse to debate on the senate floor the very real issues that are in front of this country. the very real issues like what part of government do we do without? how do we get a future for our children. fact is, we've lived the last 30 years off the next 30 years of our kids. and that bill is do. it's not due a year from now, it's due now, and we're tied up in knots because wave this false indication that a debt limit means something. if a debt commitment meant something, we wouldn't be raising the debt limit. it would say we would quick borrowing. but instead every time we come up with the debt limit, we're asked to raise the debt limit. we won't make the hard choices of what part of government is not valuable in light of the fact that we're cutting the legs off from under our children and our grandchildren. so this debate, you're going to hear a lot of finger pointing about what's bad with big oil, what's bad with oil, what's pride with the price of gas. what's bad is congress isn't doing its job, we're not addressing real issues and solving the real problems in this country. with, that i yield the floor. -- with that, i yield the floor. mr. paul: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: sports teams often have a motto. they want to describe how they're going to win the event. well, the senate democrats have a motto and it goes something like this -- "i'm from the government and i'm here to hel help." well, beware when your government comes to help. they've figured out that there's a problem. the problem is that gas prices are rising and people are being hurt by the rising prices. actually, if you measure inflation the way we did back in the 1970's, we've got inflation of 10%. senator coburn's exactly right, it has to do with we're losing the value of our dollar. our dollar's going down in value because we spend money we don't have and we're running up these enormous deficits. but it is a problem, nonethele nonetheless. but those who believe that government is always the answer are rushing to rescue you, rushing to rescue you from high prices at the gas pump. but they haven't even diagnosed the problem so they're going to come up with the wrongdoing. their solution is to raise taxes on oil companies. do you know what taxes are? taxes are simply a cost. if you run a business and i raise your cost, you will raise your prices. so let's see, prices are too high so we're going to raise the cost which will raise the prices further. makes absolutely no sense. but it's because their month the is he is wrong. their motto is i'm here from the government and i'm going to help you. their motto is, it's the government that's going to solve your problems. but they're going to solve your problems by compounding your problems. the price of gasoline is a problem. if you include the price of gasoline in the price of food in the c.p.i., it would be 10% or higher. people are struggling to pay for gas. one are the main things that people pay for who are just getting buy? their gas, their food, their rant. so how are we going to make it better? we're going to make it worse before we make it better. we're going to raise the cost of the oil companies by raising their taxes, which means you'll pay more at the pump. it is economic i will literally and it's what's wrong up here in washington. we still have too many people who don't not the basic economic realities. if you raise costs on a business, if you taxes on a business, you will raise prices at the pump. now, the interesting thing is, is there are some answers. they say, well, let's go after those greedy oil companies because they're making a profit. out of every dollar you spend at the pump, about 7 scents profit to the oil companies. well, you know what? if you eliminate profit, you i wouldn't have oil companies. everybody works for a profit. we all work harder because we want to maximize our profit. well, who owners the oil companies? is it a bunch of greedy people running their fingers through piles of gold? are they midas in a room full of gold? you own the oil companies. i own the oil companies. you have a 401-k, you have an i.r.a., you have a mutual fund, you own the oil companies. okay? corporations are owned by people. do some people make a lot of money in the corporations? yes. but if we limit that or try to obscure that or try to get rid of profit, you'll get rid of companies. and then where will they go? they will go overseas. oil companies are international. make it hard for them to do business here, and they will flee our country, and they already do. we have high corporate taxes in our country, and so they keep their profits overseas. lower corporate taxes. don't raise taxes, lower taxes. people will bring their profits home to the united states. this is their profit. the oil companies make about 7 cents on the dollar. how much does the federal government take? the federal government takes 18 cents of every dollar. you want to have lower gas prices this summer? you want to help the people who are struggling? let's have a gas tax holiday. it's only a short-term solution. let's get rid of the 18 cents for the next four months through the summer season. it will cost the treasury, there will be less money coming into the treasury, $10 billion to to $12 billion over four months. let's take it from somewhere else. we're spending $30 billion a year in foreign aid. this is money we give away to other countries so they can build schools, so they can build bridges, so they can rebuild their infrastructure. we give this away to foreign countries. a lot of times, it winds up in the hands of foreign leaders who simply steal it. mubarak was said to have gotten gotten $60 billion over 30 years and accumulated at least least $10 billion to -- to -- $5 billion to $10 billion that we can count that he stole. many leaders throughout the world have stolen our foreign aid money and used it for their own personal aggrandizement. let's eliminate the gas tax. let's take the money from foreign aid and let's give it back to the american people who have worked hard to earn it. you can't do this forever, but you could do it for four months and pay for it by getting rid of foreign aid. that would help people. that would lower the price of gasoline, and that would be a stimulus to the economy. so what i'm saying is let's have a gas tax holiday. let's eliminate federal taxes for the next four months on gas, and let's take the money that would be lost, put it into the highway fund, but let's take it from one we're giving away to other countries. that would be a short-term answer. there's also a long-term answer. senator coburn was right that much of the price of gasoline rising is from inflation. basically, we're destroying the value of the dollar. but there is another reason gas prices rise, because demand for oil and gas is outstripping the supply. why don't we have more supply? because the current administration is basically an enemy to production, an enemy to drilling, an enemy to all things related to energy. we now are going back and looking at permits to mine coal that have been approved for ten years. we are taking away drilling permits to drill for oil in utah, in alaska, off our coast. if we want gasoline prices to be less, if we want to send less money to middle eastern countries that hate us, who we have to buy oil from, let's make more here, let's drill for oil, let's produce more here, let's drill in alaska, let's open up new places to drill. could we do it responsibly? yes. nobody wants to damage the environment. do it responsibly, but let's produce energy here. we have, as senator coburn says, says, 160 million barrels of oil wait be to be extracted. let's go for it, but we have to have a government that's friendly to energy. we have a government now, an administration that is unfriendly to energy, and at every aspect of producing energy places roadblocks. they think for some reason that we can get electric electricityy our country from some windmills that are made in china. what we need is we need oil and gas production in our country. we need nuclear energy in our country, and we need coal in our country. we have the ability, we have the resources, but we need to get government out of the way. instead, what we're doing is placing new obstacles. there will be a long-term solution that senator mcconnell and our party will introduce. i will support that also. it will encourage domestic production of oil and gas, domestic production of energy. that's what we need, but you're not going to get it until we have new faces here in washington because the current crop of faces are opposing production at every turn. so i'd like to conclude by saying that if you want to help people, even for a short period of time, that there is a short-term solution, let's get rid of the gas tax for four months. let's pay for it by not sending the money overseas to have other countries either steal it or build their own infrastructure. let's keep those u.s. tax dollars here at home. better yet, let's keep them in the pockets of the consumers by having a gas tax holiday. thank you very much, and i yield back the remainder of my time. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mrs. mccaskill: madam president, i rise to support the legislation that is going to be voted on in just a few hours, and i have listened to the last couple of speakers. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mrs. mccaskill: i ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. mccaskill: i've listened to the last couple of speakers, and while i certainly respect senator coburn's commitment to fiscal responsibility and he and i have worked together on a number of projects in that regard and have the same view of many of the spending habits around here, i've got to say i'm a little confused by the opposition to this legislation by my friends across the aisle. you know, we have two ways to spend money around here. one is through the appropriations process. the other is what i call tax goodies. and what these goodies are, they're called tax expenditures. what these do is they basically say to whatever group has successfully lobbied for them you're not going to have to pay all your taxes. so there's two ways that we deny the treasury money. one is by spending money. the other is by telling people you don't have to pay the money that the tax code says you owe. and -- and we put into the tax code special deals. now, many of the special deals are done because the case is made that they spur economic development or they spur some kind of activity in our country that we think is desirable. a good example is the interest deduction on people's homes. the notion is that we want to encourage people to buy homes so that we allow them to deduct the interest they pay on those home loans against their income tax. charitable deductions are another good example. we want people to give to charity, so we say you know what? you don't have to pay as much in taxes if you give to charity. the real estate sector is full of tax goodies for development of real estate and the creation of jobs that goes with the development of real estate. one of the big tax expenditures we have in our tax code are goodies for big oil. and that's really what this is about. now, can we get to where we need to be on our structural debt and our annual deficit without touching the tax code? no way. no way. are we going to have to look at revenues for multimillionaires? i think we are. are we obviously going to have to look at spending? of course we are. and aren't we going to have to look at the tax goodies? well, i would sure hope so because, frankly, as some of my colleagues across the aisle have said -- and i thought they agreed with us -- that cleaning out some of those goodies could potentially lower taxes for everyone. so where do we start with the goodies that are in the tax code? might we not start with the most profitable companies in the history of the planet? do they really need this extra money that we give them by telling them they don't have to pay the taxes that other companies have to pay? how many quarters will we have where we read the headlines record-breaking profits for big oil? how many times will we read that before we are willing to take the baby step, just the baby step of saying, you know, maybe these tax goodies for big oil are not a good idea in light of our deficit and our debt. maybe this is a good place to start. they made north of $35 billion in the last three months. now, i know that there are all kinds of things that are being put out there to kind of height behind as we cast this vote, because this is a tough vote, i think, for people who vote no. how do you explain to your constituents that are struggling around their kitchen table to figure out how they can afford to drive their kids to soccer practice, how do you explain to them that we think that instead of $125 billion -- instead of of $123 billion of profit big oil is going to make this year, they need to make $125 billion? that's what this is. instead of making $125 billion, north of $125 billion of profit this year, big oil is going to have to really suffer along with only $123 billion in profit. and that $2 billion that we want to take back from them is going to go towards the deficit. how do you explain that to people around their kitchen table? now, oh, this means it's going to -- the cost of fuel is going to go up. everyone has debunked that. really? the cost of fuel has gone up just fine and they've got all those subsidies. i remember when oil was $55 a barrel and they had all those subsidies. and by the way, all these subsidies didn't help them go out and do what they needed to do to keep the price of fuel down. and by the way, just today, a letter was sent to the f.t.c. by myself and other members of the senate saying what about this refinery process? you know, talk about economic ill literacy. maybe who -- illiteracy. anybody who believes the oil companies today are making a profit of 7 cents on a gallon has no idea what's going on with refineries now. a year ago at this time, refineries were operating at a capacity of close to 90%. today, they are only operating at 80%. now, why would that be? their profit per gallon of gas, just the refineries, has gone from less than 40 cents a gallon to 80 cents a gallon in a matter of a few months. 80 cents a gallon of refinery profit. many of these refineries were owned by the big five, the big five big oil. so why is that capacity down? is it because they don't have crude to go through the refining process? no, there's plenty of crude. and how about this? we are giving these big oil companies tax goodies, and what are they doing today? they're exporting a record amount of oil and fuel from the united states, exporting. they're sending it to south america, in mexico. so while my constituents are suffering mightily at the gas pump week after week after week, these guys are sending the oil they've produced with our tax goodies to another country, instead of putting that additional supply into our supply chain which, in turn, reduces the price. the more supply, the less the price. so, one, they have put back refining capacity. two, they're exporting more, and they want to say it's about drilling, really? we have got more rigs drilling right now in this country than we have in many, many, many years. we have production higher at this point, domestic production higher than it was at the end of the bush administration. we just issued 12 new deepwater permits in the last few months. there are all kinds of leases out there that are not being explored. meanwhile, cha-ching, these big oil companies are continuing to make profits that just make your jaw drop. so honestly, half seriously, you talk about economic illiteracy. i'll tell you what economic illiteracy is. it is thinking that these companies -- what about the fee market i always hear about from the other side of the aisle? what about that free market? why do they need our tax goodies to help them if this is truly a free market? and maybe they're right. maybe we shouldn't pick on big oil. but what a great place to start. frankly, if we can't take these things away from the most profitable companies in the history of the planet, how are we ever going to take them away from the mohair industry or how are we ever going to do what we need to do with the tax code in the real estate sector or any of the other goodies that we have larded up our tax code with to make it so complicated and so long that frankly the people that get the most advantages out of it are the families who can't afford to hire accountants and tax lawyers? meanwhile, the real tax rate for most americans is much higher than the real tax rate for most multinational corporations. so, i think economic ill literacy is talking a lot about the debt and deficit and not being willing to take this baby step to take back $2 billion a year that these companies get, that they don't need and they're not using to hold down the price of gas. i mean, when i realized how cynical this whole process had become is when today i got a question from a reporter that said, well, the oil companies say that most of these profits are going to these pension companies. give me a break. you know, really -- really? these guys want to talk about free market and how this is all about the bottom line and then they want to try to hide behind the fact that some of the pension funds have stock in their companies that somehow that justifies them feeding at the public trough? talk about greed ... talk about greed. so, i think this legislation is a real litmus test, because if we can't do this, then i question what we can do to right this ship that is all about the footprint of the federal government, how much money we're spending, and how many tax spen- tax expenditures are out there. anybody that tells you this is about raising their taxes, no. this is about saying to them that you have to pay the taxes that the free market says you should pay, not avoid taxes by these other goodies. this isn't about raising their taxes. this is about saying, you need to pay your taxes, like average citizens do, as it relates to their businesses. you shouldn't get this extra help in the tax code that allows to you avoid taxes. it's a tax expenditure. it's real money that will come to our bottom line as it relates to our deficit, and it is important to get it done. and, madam president, i yield the floor. correspondent madamr. cornyn: m? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, i would yield myself up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: madam president, i want to talk just a minute about the ill-considered proposal that we'll be getting on at 6:15 tonight and the administration's chaotic approach when this comes to national energy policy. i say "kay otoike pproach" because to pay attention to what the president and this administration have said about fossil fuels and energy will give you whiplash if you try to keep up with it because so many apparently inconsistencies between what is said and what is actually done and then when something like high gasoline prices becomes very much a concern around kitchen tables in america, then all of a sudden the president again, as he announced the last day or two, that he's all of a sudden hope for more domestic production here in america. but it is a problem for a number of reasons. one is that who in their right mind would invest the kind of money that is necessary in order to develop our domestic energy reserves when the administration and the president himself seem to be of two minds about whether we should punish domestic production or whether we should encourage it? and i would suggest to you that the message has primarily been one of how to discourage or how to punish domestic production of energy in favor of imported energy from abroad. for example, one of the mixed messages the president gave was in march of 2010 when he proposed expanding offshore drilling along the atlantic coastline, the eastern gulf of mexico, near my home in texas and the north coast of alaska. at the time he said, as follows. he said. "the answer is noter drilling everywhere all the tievment but the answer is not also for us to ignore the fact that we're going to need vital energy sources to maintain our economic growth and our security." wcialtion i agree with that statement. but, as you know, following the deepwater horizon incident last anger the administration overreacted in a way that killed jobs and discouraged energy production here at home. now, we all agree that when something like this terrible incident occurs, tweendz find out what happened -- we need to find out what happened, fix it and make sure it never happens again. but every time there is a car accident, we don't ban driving. every time there is an airplane crash, we don't ban flying. we find out what the problem is, we fix it, and then we move on. and that's not what happened in the gulf of mexico. first there was an overbroad moratorium that was issued by the administration, which ultimately ended up being struck down by a federal judge. but after that the administration was not through. where the former moratorium no longer existed, there was a permtorupermatoriu. m and only 12 deepwater permits have been approved in the last months. only 12. there were in addition cancellation of the dozens of lease sales in utah and montana and exclusion of new areas in the gulf of -- eastern gulf of mexico and off the atlantic coast. that's, to me, completely inconsistent with the president's statement just in march 2010. then we know there are numerous examples where the environmental protection agency has thrown up roadblocks and impediments to energy production right here at home. well, because the president has not had an adequate response or at least his actions have been inconsistent with his words, he reversed himself again this saturday and he said, now he supports more domestic oil and gas production, like he did more than a year ago. but my conclusion, madam president, is this is not an energy strategy. this is a public relations strategy. this is a how do i get reelected strategy. it does not solve the problem or the pain that americans are feeling at the pump. and, unfortunately, this strategy too often ends up being a job-killing strategy as well. but when high gas prices are in the news, when people around kitchen tables all over america are complaining about the loss of their discretionary income, the fact they're having to cut corners so they can drive their kids to school or they can drive to work, finally we hear -- have a new speech and a new announcement from the administration, but very little when it comes to a coherent energy strategy. another mixed message is that the administration at times have suggested that we have actually overproduced domestic energy. and you may ask, how could that be possible? how could it be possible that we are producing too much oil and gas here at home when we have to import 60% of what we use from abroad? well, the congressional research service that we depend on -- the arm of the library of congress -- has documented that america's recoverable resources are far larger than those of saudi arabia, china, and canada combined. we have more here at home than saudi arabia, china, and canada. and america's recoverable oil, natural gas, and coal endowment is the largest on earth. and we've learned in the last couple of years that america has more shale gas from previously unrecoverable reserves, thanks to new technology, horizontal trill drilling and the like. we've got enough natural gas to last us 100 years here in the united states. but compare that -- really, that gift we've been given of domestic energy at home with what the administration said just in 2010. the treasury department issues an interpretation or explanation of the administration's policies when it talks about energy production, and this is what the treasury department said in 2009 or 2010. the treasury department -- this is secretary geithner, appointed by the president, confirmed by the senate. but the treasury department said, to the extent the tax credit -- the tax credits we're talking about here -- encourage overproduction of oil and gas, it is detrimental to long-term energy security. so the treasury department, president obama's treasury department, are making the extraordinary claim that i have not heard any senator make here because it is so implausible, that these tax provisions encourage overproduction of oil and gas right here in the united states. if we are overproducing oil and gas in the united states, why is the administration telling existing lease holders they have to use or lose the leases that we have? it is an ideological fixation that says we have to discourage production of oil and gas even though about 80% of our energy needs are -- come from fossil fuels, because we prefer alternative forms of energy. well, i do, too. you know, solar panels, wind, biodiesel -- these alternative sources of energy are important, but we simply don't have enough of them to keep our economy moving and to remain -- and keep prices low for our domestic production, our domestic consumers, i should say. well, another part of this mixed message is our dependency on imported oil. on march 30, 2011, president obama was called -- called for reducing foreign imports by a third. but then he went to brazil recently when he told the people of brazil that he encouraged offshore drilling in brazil. and he said that america wanted to be brazil's best customer. in other words, other than producing what we have been given by the good lord right here in america, american production, american jobs, he wants us to be brazil's best customer by importing energy from abroad. well, part of the vote that we'll be having at 6:15 or so tonight is another part of the mixed messages that we have been getting when it comes to energy. this is the so-called close big oil tax loopholes act. now, we know why the senators who introduced this bill have dodge so: because they've been getting so much heat back home because of high gas prices, their constituents are demanding that they do something. but what we are proposing to do has nothing to do with bringing down the price of gas at the pump. in fact, it will likely increase the price of gas at the pump. in fact, the chairman of the finance committee on which i sit, he said, you know, this is not going to change the price at the gasoline pump. that's not the issue. i don't see that as an issue at all. the senior senator from new york said this was never intended to talk about lowering prices. the majority leader himself said, it's not a question of gas prices. its a a question of fairness and priorities. well, madam president, if gasoline prices being paid by americans all across this country aren't the priority, and if jobs that are created and sustained by producing domestic oil and gas right here in america aren't the priority, my colleagues who are proposing this legislation have the wrong priority. well now we're told they've got a new idea. the money that we supposedly save from these tax provisions will be used to pay down the deficit. but the truth is, the amount of money that would go to -- quote -- "pay down the deficit" -- even if our friends across the aisle had a conversion and decided that that was their priority rather than spending 43 cents on every dollar in borrowed money, borrowed from our kids and grandkids, and bought by the chinese it would only be a drop in the bucket in the $1.5 trillion deficit that we're spearnsing this year and the -- that we're experiencing this year and the $14 trillion national debt that we're going 0 have to reckon with in the next couple of months. if the deficit -- if deficit reduction is the priority, i submit the very best way we could do that is to pass a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution. but that's not the priority of the majority leader or of the majority, or of our friends across the aisle. so if the rationale is not to reduce gasoline prices, if the rationale to this bill is not to produce a balanced budget, then what is it? what is it? well, the majority leader suggested it was fairness. fairness. well, the chamber of commerce, united states chamber of commerce calls it punitive taxation, picking out five taxpayers in america saying we're going to raise your taxes and leave everybody else's the same is discriminatory and it is punitive. but it also, in the immortal words of rahm emanuel, former white house chief of staff, now the mayor of chicago, i guess it never let's -- it's a case of never letting a crisis go to waste to, advance another ideological agenda. but the truth is we know that our tax code is already biased against u.s. domestic energy producers. and if your goal is to tax people who are making money in america, this chart demonstrates that the oil and gas industry is down the list of industry sectors that are making far more money. the tobacco and beverage industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the computer equipment industry, the chemical industry, the electrical equipment industry, the manufacturing industry, the apparel industry, the machinery sector. all of those come well ahead of the oil and gas sector when it comes to making money. but you know, i didn't think making money was a crime in america. i thought we still believed in the free enterprise system and the very people that our friends across the aisle are going to be punishing are the retirees and the pension holders, the people who own stock in these oil and gas companies that are going to be forced to pay higher prices and ultimately be passed along to the consumer, i believe, in higher energy costs. the other revealing thing about this debate is they want to punish people who produce american energy right here at home, and they're going to leave opec and these other countries to pay lower effective relative rates. so if you raise taxes on american producers and you don't do anything to similarly raise taxes on their competition, what's going to happen? what's going to happen to the saudi arabian oil company? what's going to happen to the iraq national oil company, the kuwait petroleum company, the state-owned oil company of venezuela and the like? these are places where we end up buying oil because we don't produce it at home, and we're going to raise taxes on the people who produce it at home, and to make it in effect cheaper on domestic energy producers to produce it and sell it to us. it makes absolutely no sense. it's punitive. it's discriminatory, and it's not going to solve the problem that most america is complaining about today, which is high gasoline prices. in fact, it will make it worse. but if my colleagues want to talk about fairness, let's talk about fairness to the 9.2 million people who are employed in the oil and gas sector in america. now, i've witnessed the people who work in this sector in my state. in march, i visited a brand-new drilling rig that's using the very latest technology to produce natural gas from the hainesville shale in east texas. this is an amazing technology that goes down thousands of feet and drills horizontally and uses high-pressure fluids to fracture this shale, in effect a rock, to get natural gas out of it. down in the gulf of mexico after the moratorium was issued, i stood on a deepwater drilling platform that was left idle because -- the presiding officer: the senator has used 15 minutes. corn madam president, i'd ask for -- mr. cornyn: madam president, i'd ask for two more minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: i could go on about the impact on job creation in my state and across america, but if in fact our colleagues are interested in tax reform, if they really are concerned that the tax code is unfair and some people don't pay enough and others pay too much, i would just ask them to consider the fact that according to the congressional research service, 77.9% of our primary energy production in america is fossil fuel sources and that federal tax support targeted energy in 2009, 12.6% went to fossil fuels. 12.6% of those federal tax supports went to people who produce oil and gas. conversely, 10.6%, the congressional research service tells us, of primary source energy was produced using renewable sources. yet the federal tax support targeted to renewable sources of energy was 77.4%. so why are we picking on american oil and gas production, forcing us -- well, actually hurting job creation at a time when unemployment is unacceptably high, forcing us to rely on imported energy and actually rewarding our foreign competitors who will not have to pay higher prices. and when in fact, even as our friends across the aisle acknowledge at the very best, this won't bring down the prices tufrpl, they say that -- prices at the pump, they say that's not the point. if that's not the point, the point appears to be a game of got kh* ha and -- got cha and this finger pointing we've seen inside the beltway. i think the american people are sick and tired of this game playing when in fact they sent us here to solve real problems. if we could find a way instead of this game playing, instead of this phony game of got cha to try to work together to solve real problems to increase domestic supply which would bring down prices at the pump as the president acknowledged when he said we have to look at domestic production i think we could reward them in terms of appreciation, appreciation in terms of jobs being created here. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. rockefeller: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: madam president, to me, this argument is in fact all about fairness. it has nothing to do with class warfare. it has nothing to do with got' cha but has to do with abgrow tkpwaeugs of social responsibility -- abrogation of social responsibility on the basis of levels. every once in a while we have a debate here in the senate or senate committee that is revealing and stunning all at once. recently i had one of those moments when i had the opportunity to ask some questions to guess what? five executives from the largest oil and gas companies in the country. not linking price of gas, but in the people's minds it is, with the gas prices head up $4 a gallon, many people spending close to $100 a week to gas up their car, i was cautiously optimistic that we would have in this senate finance committee hearing a real dialogue on the idea that everybody had a shared responsibility and that you share your responsibility, in this case for the need of balancing the budget, coming closer to it, and then from that you then can share prosperity. but you've got to share responsibility first because that's what leads to the discipline that allows prosperity generally in this country to get ahead. i thought that the oil executives might at least veal a bit of -- might at least reveal a bit of discomfort on their part about how gas prices are standing like a dead weight on our economy, about the fact that they make so incredibly much, inexplicably, unexplainably much money, especially when they together earned just about $35.8 billion in profits in the first three months of this year. how wrong i was. they were eager only to defend the way big oil does business, defend the enormous salaries, defend the business model that puts control of gas supply in the hands of a few. one wouldn't even answer, when he was asked about his company's claim that trying to reduce taxpayer subsidies which is what we want to do given to this industry would be un-american. he said that a number of times in that exchange. it wasn't very fruitful, but it was insightful. as i said then, put simply, these men are all completely out of touch, deeply, profoundly out of touch with what the rest of the country is going through. and that's, again, what it's about. fairness. do you know other people are suffering? your situation is this. very profitable. other people are going on very hard times. and isn't there some way, in this case $2 billion a year out of -- instead of making $125 billion a year profit -- not just, you know, more money, but actually out of profit, $125 billion would go down to $123 billion. would not hear of it. would not hear of it. they are so caught up in their profits that they have lost sight of what is happening in mainstream, new hampshire, in mainstream, west virginia, across our economy, our schools, on main street and around the kitchen table. well, gentlemen -- the five -- here's some of what you need to know. for starters, the congress is in the midst of a full-throated debate about how to reduce our growing deficit without breaking the backs further of working families or leaving our seniors out in the cold. literally. or reducing our support for the veterans who serve our country, and children who just happen to be our future. we are debating proposals to cut back social security and the promise that we made to generations who have worked and want to live their final years with dignity. we're debating legislation that forces medicare to be privatized, how it costs about each senior citizen about $6,000 more per year. i hope they know that. medicare privatized, chopped up, made an optional grant program run by states to drastically scale back. the congress is debating deep cuts to federal programs ranging from highways and airports to medical research to coal mine safety inspections and money for schools. everything, everything. quite simply, we're talking about making drastic cuts to programs that touch the lives of virtually every single person in this country, except for them. and the slick executives seem blind to the real-world consequences of having made almost $1 trillion in profits during the past decade. profits. and while collecting $4 billion a year in subsidies courtesy of the very same u.s. taxpayers who i've just been talking about, the same taxpayers that were also forceed to pay at the pump and whose lives are being changed dramatically because of their position. why them? because they're a symbol. they are the top of the heap. they always prevail. they always win. they always have the lobbyists, the campaign contributions. they always can get what they want. everybody always caves to them because they're so big as they fly around in their shiny jets. i don't think it's going to be that way this time, madam president. and the same oil executives who blanche if anyone questions their megasalaries. speaking of salaries, it might be interesting to know that the c.e.o. of exxonmobil is paid $29 million a year. i'm just trying to think of new hampshire, the presiding officer's state of new hampshire, i wonder how many people make $29 million a year just in salaries. i don't know if that includes stock options or not. during my conversation with these executives last week, we talked a little bit about how the effective tax rate on their profits is significantly lower than what average workers make in my home state of west virginia and in the presiding officer's home state. exxon paid a 17% effective tax rate over the past three years. 17%. while the average individual in my state and the presiding officer's state paid an effective rate of 20%. now, is that class warfare? is that got ' cha or is that about fairness, about people doing something to help their country when the country is almost on its knees? the effective rate, to explain, is the amount of tax that you're actually paying on income earned when factoring in deductions and credits. it is a vast understatement to say that west virginia, like many others all across the nation, are not having an easy time during this period of record oil company profits, and they -- those five -- understand perfectly well that there is no longer any justification for maintaining generous subsidies for this highly profitable industry. the public appears to feel that way. the poll numbers are just stunning. 70-30, it's not right, we should take away the subsidies. it varies according to poll, but it's always high up. in