Political Skullduggery

The bullshittery from the administration never fails to amaze.

The idea the White House is going to initiate a probe of Big Oil is preposterous. They may bust some individual gas station owners for profiteering, but nothing onerous will be forced upon the administration's friends.

President Bush yesterday called for price-fixing investigations and several measures aimed at holding down the fast-rising costs of driving.

Amid growing Republican unrest about the politics of $3-plus gasoline, Bush told the Renewable Fuels Association he will take the unusual step of suspending shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to boost supply and help hold down oil prices. The president also said he will temporarily ease environmental regulations that require the use of cleaner-burning fuel additives to cut down on summertime pollution.

Still, according to industry experts and administration officials, Bush's efforts at best are likely to shave a few cents per gallon off the cost of gasoline.

The GOP is proving unwilling to do anything to help the gasoline-buying public. In fact they are actively fighting moves to increase taxes on oil company profits.

While Republican leaders sharply criticize soaring gasoline prices and energy industry profits, GOP negotiators have decided to knock out provisions in a major tax bill that would force the oil companies to pay billions of dollars more in taxes on their profits...

The biggest of the (three Senate provisions that would boost federal taxes on the oil industry) would change accounting rules that apply to oil in storage. Currently, oil companies are allowed to calculate the taxable value of their inventories based on the value of the oldest stocks, when oil may have been worth $30 a barrel. But much of the inventory may have been pumped from the ground when oil was selling for more than double that. Critics say that understates the value of the companies' oil supplies purely to lower their tax payments.

Another would prevent oil companies from deducting from their U.S. taxes the royalties paid to foreign governments.

The third, which would repeal the provision in last year's energy law allowing companies to write off in two years the cost of geological exploration, received new life after Bush's speech, Senate tax aides said.

The oil industry itself is planning to fight back at any governmental restrictions (not that there will be any) by increasing their lobbying footprint.

The oil industry is preparing a new, multimillion-dollar lobbying and educational campaign in response to growing political pressures brought on by rising gas prices, oil lobbyists said.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry'’s main trade group, plans a yearlong grassroots lobbying push that could cost in excess of $30 million to explain how the industry works and what has caused pump prices to jump.

The simple deflection of blame by pointing to a lunatic war of choice in the Middle-East has been considered and rejected by Big Oil as unsportsmanlike.