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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sm1th who wrote (16813)

5/29/2012 2:53:57 AM

From: koan

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 85487

	5/28/2012 10:18:03 AM
	Read Replies (2) of 189987

ExxonMobil Makes US Energy Policy Analysis by Tim Wall Mon May 28, 2012 08:39 AM ET The American government's energy policy is as murky as crude oil. Political divisions have kept lawmakers from agreeing on a single direction to follow, so depending on who is in power, energy policy shifts from one ideology to the other. A far more stable energy policy can be found in the ethos of ExxonMobil. The corporation favors profiting from American dependence on fossil fuels and that policy is unswayed by political winds. That stability, combined with hundreds of billions of dollars, means the most coherent and influential energy policy in America comes from that of ExxonMobil, according to Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation. Exxon "functions as a corporate state within the American state, constructing its own foreign, economic and human rights policies," Coll wrote in his new book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power." "They're closer to a consistent source of energy policy than the federal government in part because of their scale," Coll said on the Daily Ticker. ExxonMobil pump in roughly $450 billion in annual revenue, whereas the annual budget of the Department of Energy was only $27 billion in fiscal year 2011. ExxonMobil's steady strategy allows the company to "achieve their objectives much more successfully than presidents who come and go,” Coll said. To put their policy in practice, ExxonMobil needs political support. The corporation only looks for that support from the Republican side of the aisle, said Coll. More than 90 percent of ExxonMobil's campaign contributions go to Republicans. One policy ExxonMobil doesn't want to see is limitation of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, Coll said. In 2010, they shelled out $30 billion to buy XTO Energy, a company focused heavily on fracking. "I wonder given the breadth of concerns that have arisen over fracking whether that's really a wise and sustainable strategy for them," Coll said. "They're going to have to build trust at the local level around this country as these techniques go forward." IMAGES: Birds killed as a result of oil from the Exxon Valdez spill. (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, Wikimedia Commons) Workers using high-pressure, hot-water washing to clean an oiled shoreline in Prince William Sound site of the Exxon Valdez spill (NOAA, Wikimedia Commons) http://news.discovery.com/earth/exxonmobil-makes-us-energy-policy-120528.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1