US Oil Companies Set to Reap Up to $126 Billion in Extra Profits Amid War on Ukraine

The countless reasons to transition off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible continue to be overwhelming. The madness must stop. It must. — Molly

A Chevron refinery is seen in Richmond, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

"It's high time for Congress to pass a windfall profits tax and prevent the fossil fuel industry from harnessing a war to make billions," said one campaigner.

By JAKE JOHNSON

A new analysis released Tuesday estimates that U.S. oil and gas corporations are poised to rake in windfall profits of up to $126 billion this year as they exploit Russia's deadly assault on Ukraine to raise prices at the pump.

Conducted by Oil Change International, Greenpeace USA, and Global Witness, the analysis uses a database that tracks the fossil fuel industry's production economics to assess how much money the industry is set to make as a result of high global oil prices.

"Under conservative estimates, we find the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry will collect a windfall of $37 to $126 billion in 2022 alone," the groups' report states.

The higher-end profit estimate is dependent on oil prices spiking to $120 per barrel this summer and remaining elevated as the West moves to restrict Russian oil imports—a major opportunity for U.S. fossil fuel companies, particularly as the Biden administration looks to ramp up gas exports to Europe.

If oil prices average $88 per barrel, the new analysis finds, the U.S. oil and gas industry would reap $37 billion in additional profits in 2022.

The report notes that the top beneficiaries of the windfall would be industry giants ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and ExxonMobil.

"It is unconscionable that U.S. upstream companies like Chevron, Occidental, and ExxonMobil, who receive federal tax subsidies totaling millions of dollars every year, are now set to make billions of dollars more from these high wartime gas prices," Tim Donaghy, the research manager at Greenpeace USA, said in a statement Tuesday.

"American consumers don't get a break from high prices just because we drill more here at home," added Donaghy. "Instead, we get more air and water pollution and higher public health risks. The only way to achieve true energy independence is to cut our ties with fossil fuels entirely."

Collin Rees, the U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, argued that the new findings bolster the case for a windfall profits tax of the kind congressional Democrats introduced earlier this month.

"From lobbying against climate solutions to actively spreading misinformation, the oil and gas industry has spent decades doing everything in its power to deepen our dependence on dirty fossil fuels," said Rees. "Now, Big Oil and Gas executives are rolling in cash while working families suffer."

"It's high time for Congress to pass a windfall profits tax and prevent the fossil fuel industry from harnessing a war to make billions," Rees continued. "This can be a clear step toward a fossil-free future if paired with real investments in a renewable energy future."

The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, led by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in the House and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in the Senate, would hit large fossil fuel companies with a quarterly tax equal to 50% of the difference between the current per-barrel price of oil and the average pre-pandemic price between 2015 and 2019.

"At $120 per barrel of oil, the levy would raise approximately $45 billion per year," according to a summary released by Khanna's office. The bill would use the new revenue to pay out a quarterly rebate to consumers.

A recent survey by the League of Conservation Voters found that 80% of U.S. voters—including 73% of Republicans—would support "placing a windfall profits tax on the extra profits oil companies are making from the higher gasoline prices they are charging because of the Russia-Ukraine situation."

Cassidy DiPaola, a spokesperson for the Stop the Oil Profiteering campaign at Fossil Free Media, said Tuesday that "while Americans are struggling to keep up with high prices at the pump and on their utility bills, Big Oil is profiting off of the war in Ukraine, driving up gas prices and raking in record profits."

"Fortunately, there's a simple way to stop this profiteering: put a tax on the excess profits oil companies are making because of this crisis and use the money to send a check to the people who need it," said DiPaola. "Making Big Oil pay for their greedy war profiteering is a win-win for our families and the climate."

Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/29/us-oil-companies-set-reap-126-billion-extra-profits-amid-war-ukraine

Watchdogs Say If Clarence Thomas Won't Resign, 'Congress Must Move to Impeach'

The long and continued deeply disturbing story of Clarence Thomas is now once again illuminated. And this is about way more than this one man. This story and struggle is yet one more symptom of the battle between what I believe to be the forces of ignorance, fear, patriarchy, misogyny, separation, and domination and the forces of integrity, truth, justice, partnership, equality, compassion, and love. These are such dangerous, scary, and painful times. And these times also hold great opportunity for us, for our human species, and our potential to evolve and grow beyond our adolescence into the fullness of adulthood and the wholeness of who we most deeply are. Deep ongoing prayers for our individual and collective awakening. 🙏 — Molly

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and right-wing activist Virginia Thomas at a Heritage Foundation event on October 21, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Fresh calls for the Supreme Court justice's removal came amid "damning" new evidence of his wife's involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

By JAKE JOHNSON

Calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign—or face impeachment proceedings—mounted late Thursday after text messages revealed that his wife urged former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to aggressively pursue efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The Washington Post and CBS News obtained dozens of texts that Ginni Thomas, a long-time far-right activist who attended the January 6 rally that preceded the Capitol assault, sent to Meadows in the wake of Trump's election loss, which she characterized as fraudulent while her husband was hearing election-related cases.

"Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down," Thomas wrote in a November 19 message to Meadows, echoing a slogan that served as a rallying cry for pro-Trump groups.

All but one of the texts between Thomas and Meadows, most of which were written by Thomas, were sent between November 4 and November 24, 2020. One text was sent on January 10, 2021 in the wake of the Capitol insurrection.

Justice Thomas, who is currently hospitalized with an infection, has thus far declined to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases in which his wife's right-wing activism could pose a conflict of interest.

Thomas was the only justice to publicly argue that the high court should have granted former President Donald Trump's motion to block the National Archives from handing White House documents over to a congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected Trump's request.

Sarah Lipton-Lubet, executive director of the Take Back the Court Action Fund, said in a statement Thursday night that "if one thing is clear" from the newly revealed text messages, "it's that there's much more to the story of Ginni Thomas' participation in the January 6 attack that the House Select Committee and the American public deserve to know."

"Given that Justice Thomas has already made known he won't recuse himself from cases related to his wife's right-wing activism, and the damning evidence of his wife's involvement in this attack on our democracy, Thomas is clearly unfit to serve on the nation's highest court," said Lipton-Lubet. "Clarence Thomas must immediately resign from his seat on the Supreme Court."

"If he refuses, Congress must move to impeach him," she added. "The integrity of the court, our judicial system, and our democracy as a whole depends on it."

At least one member of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), echoed the call for Thomas' impeachment. The House can impeach a Supreme Court justice with a simple-majority vote, but a two-thirds majority is required in the Senate for conviction and removal.

At the very least, the new revelations demonstrate why Thomas "must recuse from any Supreme Court cases or petitions related to the January 6 Committee or efforts to overturn the election," argued Gabe Roth, executive director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Fix the Court.

"Ginni's direct participation in this odious anti-democracy work, coupled with the new reporting that seems to indicate she may have spoken to Justice Thomas about it, leads to the conclusion that the justice's continued participation in cases related to these efforts would only further tarnish the court's already fading public reputation," Roth said.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported in January that Ginni Thomas has in recent years aligned herself "with many activists who have brought issues in front of" the Supreme Court.

"She has been one of the directors of CNP Action, a dark-money wing of the conservative pressure group the Council for National Policy," Mayer noted. "CNP Action, behind closed doors, connects wealthy donors with some of the most radical right-wing figures in America. Ginni Thomas has also been on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump student group, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, boasted of sending busloads of protesters to Washington on January 6th."

Mayer also observed that Ginni Thomas received payments from the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a right-wing anti-Muslim think tank. Despite disclosure requirements, Justice Thomas failed to report his wife's income from CSP in 2017 and 2018.

In an op-ed published before the text messages between Ginni Thomas and Meadows surfaced, MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan cited Mayer's reporting to argue that "Democrats should be loudly drawing attention to the fact that the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice supported Trump's coup attempt."

"There is a clear value in holding impeachment hearings to draw attention to Thomas and his wife and their inappropriate behavior, especially as an increasingly partisan, conservative-majority court guts voting and reproductive rights," Hasan wrote. "What would Republicans be doing if they had held a House majority and, say, Justice Sonia Sotomayor's spouse had supported attempts to block a duly elected GOP president from taking office and she refused to recuse herself from related cases?"

Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/25/watchdogs-say-if-clarence-thomas-wont-resign-congress-must-move-impeach

'This Is A Tipping Point': Justice Thomas Must Resign, AOC Says

It is beyond chilling that the wife of a Supreme Court Justice is deeply embroiled in QAnon and that her husband, Clarence Thomas, has acted in his judicial capacity in alignment with those beliefs. This is a danger to us all. It is my belief that we must take seriously the dangerous rising of fascism in our country. Thomas must go. He must. — Molly

If the Supreme Court justice does not step down, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said, he should face an investigation and possible impeachment proceedings.

 

By JULIA CONLEY

 

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday became the latest Democratic lawmaker to demand that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas resign in the wake of new revelations that his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, pushed at least one Trump administration official to try to overturn the 2020 election.

If Thomas does not step down, said the New York Democrat, his conduct "could serve as grounds for impeachment."

Ocasio-Cortez's call came days after the Washington Post reported that Ginni Thomas exchanged more than two dozen text messages with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after the election, urging him to "Help This Great President stand firm" while former President Donald Trump was claiming the election results were fraudulent.

Government watchdogs and a growing number of Democratic lawmakers have argued that Thomas' actions constituted a clear conflict of interest in cases her husband has heard since the election.

As Ocasio-Cortez noted on Twitter Tuesday, Justice Thomas dissented in a ruling regarding Trump's attempt to block the congressional committee examining the January 6, 2021 insurrection from viewing White House records.

The justice has not recused himself from hearing at least 10 cases related to the 2020 election which his wife worked to overturn, according to The Hill.

Ocasio-Cortez joined lawmakers including Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) in calling on Thomas to step down. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was the first Democrat to call for Thomas' impeachment, while Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have demanded that the judge recuse himself from all cases involving the January 6 attack on the Capitol building.

Supreme Court justices are free to decide when it is appropriate to recuse themselves from hearing and ruling in cases; Jayapal called Thomas' decision not to recuse "stunning" and "outrageous."

"Clearly the Supreme Court is in need of ethics reforms," she told Politico Tuesday.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees impeachment powers and proceedings, told Politico Tuesday that he is "very concerned" about the reports of Ginni Thomas' communications with Meadows, but said, "It's much too early to talk about" impeachment or the possibility that Congress could censure Justice Thomas.

Ocasio-Cortez, however, said inaction by Congress would send "a loud, dangerous signal to the full court."

"This is a tipping point," the congresswoman added.

Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/29/tipping-point-justice-thomas-must-resign-aoc-says