Professor Andru Volinsky is submitting this letter on behalf of students in the Sociology 450, Law and Public Policy for Change course at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, who drafted the text.
The American people are being hosed at the pump. It’s time to end oil subsidies that benefit shareholders and invest in green energy that benefits America’s young people. Like other low-income Americans, we college students are financially struggling to fill our gas tanks with the recent 55.4% increase in fuel prices reported by the American Automobile Association.
Meanwhile, CNBC reported the price per barrel decreased by 8%. ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Exxon Mobil saw profit increases of 1,400%, 184% and 57%, respectively, last year over pre-COVID profits. Price-gouging at the pump is unacceptable for the most-profitable corporations and the most heavily tax-subsidized industry in the United States.
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at approximately $20 billion per year. Exxon Mobil receives one of the largest tax subsidies ($4 billion a year) and has reported second-quarter earnings of $44.9 billion for this fiscal year. Shareholders of Exxon Mobil are filling their wallets while taxpayers are struggling to fill their gas tanks.
Fuel industry subsidies were created to lower the cost of fossil fuel production and incentivize new domestic energy sources, not increase the profits of shareholders. It’s time we end fuel industry tax subsidies and invest in new green energy sources for the future. Demand an increase in solar tax credits and incentives for mitigating climate change that benefits the American people. It’s time to free the American people from their dependency on oil and invest in our future.
Andru Volinsky
Concord