06-02-09 by dugan
Chevron is spending a little now to save a lot later, at the expense of California children’s health, state parks, poor people, you name it. The oil giant just threw another $250,000 in donations to Gov. Schwarzenegger, reports the LA Times. Given the timing of the contribution, after the Gov’s failed election package, Chevron’s intention has to be protection from an oil production tax, something every other oil-drilling state collects. From the LA Times blog by Eric Bailey:
Just days after the package of ballot measures that Schwarzenegger
supported flopped in the May 19 special election, Chevron donated
$250,000 to the governor’s California Dream Team political account. The
big check came on top of $500,000 the oil company had already
contributed to the push for the ballot measures.All that loot prompted Doug Heller, executive director of Consumer
Watchdog, to dispatch a letter today to the Legislature’s top
Democrats, saying Chevron is “seeking protection” from a potential oil
extraction tax that could help California with its cash troubles.Heller noted that California is the only oil-producing state in the
nation without an extraction tax, and he asked why lawmakers aren’t
putting the idea back on the table. A 10% extraction tax on every
barrel of crude pumped from California soil, he said, could raise up to
$1 billion – money that would go a long way toward offsetting
Schwarzenegger’s proposed deep spending cuts.“The idea that we might shut down summer school, close state parks
and decimate health and welfare services, but we won’t require big oil
companies to pay what’s required in every other oil-producing state, is
absurd,” Heller wrote. “Chevron’s political contributions cannot be
allowed to overrule a logical response to the budget crisis.”
The governor himself proposed a 9.9% oil extraction tax last year, for about a millisecond. The idea fell off the table faster than a doughnut in front of a golden retriever. Chevron’s $750,000 to the governor’s account is pennies in comparison to the billion dollars or so such a tax would collect each year from Chevron and its brethren. The other big oil states that collect such taxes, some in double digits, include Alaska, Texas, Louisiana and the new guy, North Dakota. All of them red as can be, and happy to take the money.
If the Legislature doesn’t have the guts to revive the extraction tax proposal, Chevron can congratulate itself on helping kill health insurance for children of the working class–along with all the other unlivable cuts that Schwarzenegger and the deeply unpopular state Legislature are keeping on the table.