Why vote for Big Oil?
Big and small oil interests are so arrogant that they figure they can get us to vote against Proposition 87 by their few simple lies. What surprises me is how the major media is buying into the big fear tactic of “this is a new tax on Californians,” which reinforces the need for small-town newspapers, such as this one, that isn”t dependent on the advertising revenue like television and radio, to get the real lowdown out to the people.
All the oil-producing countries and states in the USA pay a royalty (not a tax as the oil interests like to call it to scare people from voting for Proposition 87). Texas, which is basically controlled by Big Oil, presently charges only a 4.6-percent royalty for extracting the oil wealth which belongs to all the people, and it is the lowest in the world except California, which doesn”t get any royalty payments for extracting and selling the oil resources.
The hundreds of oil companies, under Proposition 87, would pay a maximum of $400 million per how many years, and at present prices of $46. For heavy crude oil they would not pay any royalty. One executive of Chevron Oil Co. last year received a paycheck of $400 million! It is estimated that the rate would be 4.5-percent or less, which is lower than Texas”. Do y”all trust the oil companies” radio and TV ads?
British Petroleum, for the last couple of years, cornered the market for propane (which is illegal) by buying up commodities futures and actual physical supplies of propane and holding propane back from the market until the price this year (on the commodities exchange) went over $1.15 per gallon. This, my friends, is why y”all have been paying more than $3 per gallon for your propane.
Propane shouldn”t go up in price when crude oil does; it is a byproduct of the natural gas and oil refining business. Oil refiners use either propane or natural gas to fire up their refinery business, whichever is cheaper. They”re using natural gas now but propane is still at 94 cents a gallon on the commodities exchange and BP to my knowledge has not been punished.
Their propaganda states Californians will pay more for gasoline if Proposition 87 is passed. Both sides agree there will be very little increase, if any at all. My guess is gasoline will go down in price. How? Most of the crude oil Californians use comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. If the oil companies feel that 4.5-percent royalty is too much for them to pay they”ll avoid the royalty payment and import more from overseas. Meanwhile, the royalty money will go toward making it cheaper to drive our cars and provide new technology, such as horizontal drilling in old oil wells which is 50-percent less costly than drilling new wells.
With all this unsavory experience with oil interests, why would anyone vote with the oil companies and against Proposition 87?
Robert A. Brown
Middletown
