See No Exxon, Hear No Exxon, Speak No Exxon

ExxonBush Administration to its own EPA: LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!

The Environmental Protection Agency -- they're supposed to be working for you and me, to protect the environment, like the sign says. We pay their salaries, and they are working for Exxon. And when they finally start to do the job we pay them to do, the ExxonBush White House sends them a memo that they officially refuse to open the email.

The EPA -- Bush's EPA! -- reports that toughening vehicular emissions standards will produce $2 billion to $1 trillion in economic benefits for the United States economy -- why that's almost enough to start paying for the War in Iraq -- and the ExxonBush White House killed the report.

Why could that be?

The Bush Administration has been arguing the automakers' and the oil companies' line all along: curbing carbon emissions will cost the economy, and it will cost jobs.

But they've been lying to you.

You see, when we take action to transform the American economy into one that does not rely on oil, we -- that's you and me -- will profit handsomely.

But it may cost the oil companies and the car companies some short-term stock uptick.

Well, it will cost the oil companies their long-term economic survival, if they don't start working toward a new energy future. But they're afraid the new energy future will be more difficult to control with pipelines and ships and barrels and dollars per gallon. That's why it will be cheaper for us -- you and me.

So they refuse to open the email -- that way, in court proceedings or forced testimony, they can argue that they never saw the memo.

Hmm ... where have we seen that story before? Ahh, yes -- when Condolleezza Rice did not read the memo from George Tenet, outlining the reality of the intelligence on Iraq's intentions to purchase uranium from Niger ... which she then used to scare us into invading Iraq.

Most prominent is her claim that the White House had not heard about CIA doubts about an allegation that Iraq sought uranium in Africa before the charge landed in Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 28; in fact, her National Security Council staff received two memos doubting the claim and a phone call from CIA Director George J. Tenet months before the speech. Various other of Rice's public characterizations of intelligence documents and agencies' positions have been similarly cast into doubt.

Tell me again who they're working for.

Well, perhaps we should follow the money.

Who has profited at every turn -- from the disastrous war in Iraq; from the threats against Iran; from the failure to take action on climate change?

Who has been writing our nation's energy policy to enshrine oil's dominance from within the White House, at the cost of innovation and progress, and who has sent its envoy to international climate talks to kill meaningful action -- resulting in another lost decade?

You see, Exxon profits from the melting of the ice caps (more oil under there! Easier to ship!) and Exxon profits from the drowning of New Orleans (oil prices up! 2005 -- biggest corporate profits in history!) and Exxon profits from the flooding of the Iowa corn crop (no corn, no ethanol -- less supply, higher gas prices, bigger demand -- more profit!)

And who will pay for the consequences -- the destruction of New Orleans, the drowning of the Midwest, the death of the Boy Scouts in an endless swarm of tornadoes, the failure of the corn crop? How about the inability of Americans to feed their families, because oil prices are so high?

Exxon is running the country -- even as its flacks (such as Michael Gerson, the BushExxon propagandist who gave us the smoking gun as mushroom cloud that Rice used to scare us into invading Iraq on Exxon's behalf) argue that the oil companies should not be taxed -- because if they are taxed, then they will stop drilling, which will raise prices.

Barack Obama, who supports imposing a "windfall profit tax" on the oil companies, is wrong, Gerson says, because we should not punish "American oil companies."

There are few such things. ExxonMobil and their ilk are multinational corporations, with loyalty to no entity but the uptick in stock price this quarter.

You might think that Halliburton, its former CEO being Vice President of the United States, would be an "American company" -- but it is now a Dubai company.

This after reaping billions and billions of American citizens' tax dollars -- and hiding their offices in empty offshore mailboxes, to avoid paying taxes themselves.

Why must each American citizen pay again and again and again and again -- to subsidize exploration; to purchase land and hand it over for exploration for a pittance; to maintain a military presence and, indeed, to go to war (hundreds of billions of tax dollars more), and pay again at the pump; and pay again for the remediation of environmental devastation caused by oil spills -- and Exxon pays nothing?

Not even a measly half a percent of the Largest Corporate Profits in History, to make whole the citizens of coastal southern Alaska, whose livelihoods were wrecked when Exxon's pilot ran the Valdez aground?

Instead, they bought the White House, and bought themselves their own Supreme Court -- and here we have it, no punitive damages. The ExxonBush Supreme Court says Exxon need not pay. Twenty years in court to take it to the top. And they won.

The lesson for American Justice is that if you pockets are deep enough, you can buy the system and guarantee your outcome -- which deepens your pockets further.

You might have noticed that every nation on earth with oil wealth also has an autocratic government. Iran, Burma, Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia. It's called consolidation of wealth and power. It's why Franklin D. Roosevelt used the tax code to redistribute wealth. Too much money in the hands of too few individuals is the death of Democracy.

And Gerson is arguing we, the American people, owe the oil companies something?

For seven and a half years, the Bush Administration has run the Federal Government as little more than a subsidiary of Exxon.

And Mister Gerson would have us play the fiddle for Exxon; It's the devil's jig.

There is no reason that Americans making $12,000-30,000 a year should be financing the research and development departments of multinational corporations reaping profits in the hundreds of billions per year -- and have no say in how that money is spent.

Right now, they're using it to buy politicians and enshrine their permanent dominance over the energy economy -- and over every aspect of American life. Witness the economic effects of high gas prices. They translate rather quickly into high prices for everything, including food and water and shelter.

But Gerson is right that the windfall profit tax is a dumb idea -- It's small ball, an end-of-the-pipe solution.

We need to transform the entire economy.

We need to cut all oil industry subsidies and shift them to perfecting new energy sources and new means of distribution -- solar and wind power; decentralized energy distribution; and Ultra High Efficiency automobiles and public transit systems.

Transforming the energy economy into one that does not rely on the kindness of ExxonMobil executives and Saudi Oil Ministers will be bad for Exxon executives and bad for the Saudi and Bush royal families, and it's bad for Hugo Chavez and Than Shwe of Burma, and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs, and it's bad for Bush's soul mate, Vladimir Putin -- and it will be very good for the rest of us.

That is why they're working so hard to prevent it.

That is why it is time we make it happen.