Source: flickr/Jason Holmberg, Richmond, CA
There they go again… with the same lament we always seem to hear from Big Oil lobbyists when it’s time to protect public health:
Don’t put environmental protections on fuels, because that “will hit low-income and middle-income families the hardest.” In other words, if you make us clean up our act, then we’ll be forced to raise gas prices, which hurts vulnerable people… You don’t want to hurt them, do you?
Hmmm. Do oil companies really care about vulnerable populations like low income people and communities of color? Could it be that they are using these families as a smokescreen for killing environmental protections and protecting their profits? Let’s look at the facts and see if we can cut through some of this smoke.
Oil companies are among the most profitable enterprises in the world — last year the “big five” made $93 billion in profits, or $177,000 per minute. Even in my home state of California, which is at the forefront of environmental protections, Chevron is still the largest company by revenue (take that Apple and Facebook!). Many polluters have been claiming for decades that clean air standards will “cause entire industries to collapse,” but those dire predictions have never come true. The idea that we have to choose between environmental protection and economic growth has always been a false choice. Read More
