Working families are being gouged at the pump while the 24 largest oil and gas companies – including Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP, among others – earned $174 billion in net profits over the first nine months of this year. This includes $74 billion in the third quarter alone. For Exxon this is its highest return since 2017. Kyle Herrig, the president of Accountable.US, a Democrat-friendly watchdog group that focuses on exposing corruption, commented, “Americans looking for someone to blame for the pain they experience at the pump need look no further than the wealthy oil and gas company executives who choose to line their own pockets rather than lower gas prices with the billions of dollars in profit big oil rakes in month after month.” And these are the same companies that are at the core of causing the climate catastrophe.
Herrig makes a good point. But the real issue is not just to lower prices at the pump, but to get the money where it’s being hoarded, by taking over these companies that cause so much harm and using their wealth to do good. But, to do that, we obviously can’t count on Herrig, or Democratic Party politicians, including Biden, all of whom have been in positions of power far too long without dealing with the real problem.
