Exxonmobil is not happy with president Joe Biden for politely asking that they,
slow down with exporting fossil fuels outside of the country.
When clearly we need those resources here, domestically.
Now, in response to the administration's latest criticism,
Exxon has demanded that they be allowed to export oil for cheap.
Because they wanna make as much money as they can by selling those resources to
the highest bidder.
And sometimes the highest bidder is abroad,
not a domestic business or people here in the United States.
So here's what provoked Exxon, okay?
This all started in August, when Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm wrote
a letter to oil companies asking them to reduce foreign exports of fuel.
And instead, send that oil to the East Coast, which needs inventory
to get through things like, hurricane season, for instance.
And, for oil companies, that is a big no, no.
Because that means that they're not gonna be able to,
make the tremendous profits that they're making.
Now, they'd still be making profits,
significant profits, but not as much so, they did not wanna comply.
And so Grand Home wrote that the Biden administration would consider, quote.
Additional federal requirements or emergency measures,
which would likely be a limit on oil exports.
And reportedly, Grand Home has discussed export limits in private
conversations with big oil executives.
But fact of the matter is, so far it's just talk,
they haven't implemented anything.
They haven't introduced any type of legislation that would curb oil exports.
And a fun fact that I've mentioned on this show and
repeated on the show multiple times.
While the right wing,
which of course is in the pocket of these big oil companies would have you believe.
That we have really curved drilling for these resources.
The fact of the matter is, we are the top producer and
top exporter of oil, top producer, top exporter.
They don't tell you that because they want you to believe that the reason why we're
having energy issues.
Is all these crazy environmentalists have really restricted our ability to drill
for oil.
It's all nonsense, again, look it up.
We are the top driller, top exporter.
Now, Darren Woods,
who's the CEO of Exxon responded in a letter to the Biden administration.
Essentially crying, he says this, continuing current Gulf Coast
exports is essential to efficiently rebalance markets.
Particularly with diverted Russian supplies,
reducing global supply by limiting US exports to build region specific
inventory will only aggravate the global supply shortfall.
Yeah, that's a fancy way of just saying what he actually meant to say,
which is this next graphic.
Free market incentives remain the most efficient way for
the industry to address these problems.
Free market means we want to maximize our profits.
And so, we will engage in the free market ideology of selling these
natural resources, the oil in this case to the highest bidder.
Even if it screws over the people living in the country where we
have leased land, public land to drill for oil.
That's really what's happening here and it's infuriating and
there's a reason why this is taking place.
It absolutely does have to do with a policy change that took place in 2015
under the Obama administration.
I'll get to that in just a moment,
John I'm sure you've got a lot to say about this.
>> Yeah, I wish that he just skip to the second graphic.
We would prefer to sell it where we can make more money which is fine.
If you're going to allow things like oil to be a thing that it isn't owned by
the government.
It's owned by these corporations and can be sold and then you can do that.
I don't think that you should,
I think that we should have that it should be nationalized the threat to all of us.
But just skip to that then, don't lead with the, well,
I'm just worried about unbalanced markets.
I don't like to look and see a market and it's unbalanced.
It's like, CEO, OCD thing about me and I just wanna see them balanced,
I want the karmic balanced.
No, just you wanna make money that's what you wanna do,
you wanna make money and why?
But again, why wouldn't he obscure things when there is such a glaring
lack of information about this amongst regular people.
You pointed out how much oil we produce and export.
I don't know what percent of the American public we think would accurately be able
to identify that as a position that we hold internationally.
But I'm assuming it's very small.
But that is such a high level version of the information for most people.
You've seen this in the past.
A lot of Americans seem to think that the oil that's drilled here is sold here.
They seem to think that if we drill more our prices will go down and not just
as a measure of the overall global average price going down a tiny little bit.
They think it's like you drill it in Montana and
then it's sold in Montana, right?
Most people think that and honestly it's complex, these markets are super calm.
But I don't know why they wouldn't think that, but
that is very much not what is going on.
And politicians and the industry know that people don't get how any of this works.
And that's why they tell so many lies about regulation, about new drilling.
And all of that is playing to a massive amount of ignorance
amongst the American people.
>> Well, we are in the information business.
So, let me inform you guys, give you the context on what has
actually transpired policy wise, that has allowed for
major oil companies like Exxon to essentially export, these resources.
So, back in 1975,
there's actually an important bill that was signed by President Ford.
He signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975.
The law increased the domestic oil supply
by banning crude oil exports unless approved by the US Department of Commerce.
No exports to countries outside of North America ever received authorization.
Okay, so that's what was transpiring back then, with that.
Again, that law that passed in 1975.
Now, at the end of his second term, Obama repeal the legislation.
Okay, so overall crude oil and
petroleum product exports have increased by 80% since 2015.
A 2019 analysis by the government accountability office found
that the 2016 repeal allowed domestic producers to
charge higher prices relative to foreign oil.
And so, going back to what John said about balancing the markets.
This is what balancing the markets looks like for Exxon.
Let's go to graphic three here, in the last 12 months,
Exxon generated nearly $39 billion in profits, not revenue, in profits.
Pure profits while consumers face surging costs at the pump,
thanks primarily to high gas prices.
The company has paid out over $21 billion to investors
through dividends and stock repurchases.
Because this is how the system is supposed to work.
This is Exxon's what, what's my favorite word, John?
Fiduciary responsibility.
>> Okay, I thought you were gonna say feckless.
It's the other F one.
>> I love the F words, but
fiduciary is one of my favorites because that is literally what the system entails.
It is what the system expects of them to return on investment.
And that is again, their fiduciary responsibility maximize profits.
This is how the system is supposed to work.
That's why if you genuinely are concerned about the greed and
the exports and all of that associated with this story.
You would wanna nationalize those natural resources.
But I mean, both democrats and
republicans have a literal financial interest to tell you otherwise.
>> Yeah, if you say the word nationalized,
they're probably gonna take down this channel.
So, I mentioned earlier some of the ignorance.
I have to admit that I'm feeling a little bit ignorant right now because you just,
you cited that number about the payouts and stuff.
And I honestly, don't understand how it works because they made all this money but
they only made that money.
Because of supply chain issues and everything cost more, so
they had to pay more to produce it.
So where did all of that extra money to go to their shareholders, I don't understand.
They were just naturally responding to increased prices and
difficulties in logistics.
So, where did the extra money come?
That's so weird.
Someone should definitely not look into that ever.
No one should ever in government look into that and
why it is that they suddenly have billions and billions of extra dollars.
That didn't need to cover increased cost of oil extraction or transport.
>> Yeah, I mean, the price gouging that has transpired just simply by
exploiting the corporate media's narrative of inflation.
Has just been so destructive for ordinary Americans,
it has been crushing us while they're making record corporate profits and
pretending they're justified in doing so.
Pretending they themselves are victims of what has happened as a result of
the Covid pandemic.
Now, you guys are doing for fine, your investors are doing fine.
Your board is doing fine.
The people who get screwed are the American people who effectively have no
real representation in Congress.
We have very few people who are actually looking out for us.
And even this Biden, Grand Home, what is this?
We're thinking about maybe doing something.
Do it, just do it, do it, okay?
No more thinking about doing it, they're price gouging ordinary Americans,
do something about it.
I'm tired of hearing the nice cities and
we're talking about it in private, not interested in that.
I'm interested in knowing whether you're actually going to do something and
right now it doesn't really seem like there's much.