|
ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the US, reported a record $56 billion in profits in 2022, blowing past its previous record of $45 billion in profits in 2008. The news follows Chevron's announcement last week of nearly $36 billion in profits, also a record. And now Shell is the subject of a complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that accuses the company of "greenwashing" by categorizing its investments in natural gas as "Renewables and Energy Solutions" in its own reports to the SEC.
After a year that saw sharp increases in gas prices consumers paid at the pump, Republican lawmakers are attempting to use gas prices as an excuse to open and lease more public lands for oil and gas drilling. The Strategic Production Response Act, for example, which passed the House last week but has little chance of passing the Senate, would require the Secretary of Energy to make a plan to increase oil leasing as a condition of future releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry is enjoying record profits and shows no interest in increasing production. As of September 2022, the Bureau of Land Management reported oil and gas companies have 8,663 approved but unused permits to drill on public land. In its November 2021 report outlining deficiencies in the oil and gas leasing program, the Interior department reported that companies held over 37,000 oil and gas leases covering 26.6 million acres. Of that land, 13.9 million acres, or 53 percent, were not producing oil and gas.
"CEOs have made it clear their shareholders expect them to keep production down and gas prices high so they can maximize profits over people," Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby said in a statement following last week's passage in the House of the Strategic Production Response Act. The past week's oil industry profit announcements provide evidence of the industry's self-interested priorities.
General Motors invests $650 million to help develop controversial lithium mine
GM announced that it is investing $650 million in Lithium Americas Corp. to jointly develop the Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada. The mine, which would extract lithium from what is currently the largest known deposit in the country, could produce enough lithium to enable production of up to one million electric vehicles per year. The controversial project is the subject of an ongoing legal challenge; opponents of the mine argue that the environmental analysis the Trump administration relied on when it allowed the project to move forward was flawed. The area is also significant to several Tribes. The first part of GM's two-part investment is contingent on Lithium Americas prevailing in the case, with a decision expected in the next few months.
|
[The Colorado River] is a living spirit as far as the tribe is concerned. It gives life. It really needs to be treated differently.”
