Revealed: US fossil fuel companies handed at least $50m in coronavirus aid

[dajoki]

Revealed: US fossil fuel companies handed at least $50m in coronavirus aid
Oil and mining firms – some with ties to Trump officials – taking advantage of funding meant for small businesses, review shows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/01/fossil-fuel-firms-coronavirus-package-aid

US fossil fuel companies have taken at least $50m in taxpayer money they likely won’t have to pay back, according to a review of coronavirus aid meant for struggling small businesses by the investigative research group Documented and the Guardian.

A total of $28m is going to three coal mining companies, including two with ties to Trump officials, bolstering a dying American industry and a fuel that scientists insist world leaders must shift away from to avoid the worst of the climate crisis.

The other $22m is being paid out to oil and gas services and equipment providers and other firms that work with drillers and coal miners.

Melinda Pierce, the legislative director for the Sierra Club, said: “The federal money Congress appropriated should be going to help small businesses and frontline workers struggling as a result of the pandemic, not the corporate polluters whose struggles are a result of failing business practices and existed long before Covid-19 entered the public lexicon.”

<<snip>>

[crickets]

1. K&R for visibility.

[Igel]

2. Pierce confuses a number of things.

Oil and gas services and equipment providers aren't all huge multibillion-dollar enterprises.

Look at the list here and see how many names you recognize: https://www.rrc.state.tx.us/media/50413/top32producers2018.pdf


They're the 32 *largest* oil and gas producers in the state of Texas in 2018. Most of them are unknown to most people. They sell to companies like Mobil and Shell. There are a few bigger names in the list--Marathon, for instance. Most are unknowns.

And while they're the 32 largest, take Murphy Oil (down in the 20s on the list). In 2019 it had under 900 employees. It also contracted out to smaller companies for a lot of things. Most people don't know how the energy industry is structured--I know enough to know that I know more than most, but not nearly as much as would be wise for somebody living in Texas. And those are the *producers*, by the way.

I don't know how many engineers and others I've known who work for companies that provide services to production companies. One guy's project was undersea wellhead fittings that had to handle a huge temperature and pressure range--that project paid his mortgage for over 18 months. Another worked for a company that provided equipment for horizontal drilling. A third was into control panels and such. One PhD chemist who worked for a company with maybe 30 employees was fine-tuning an alloy to be used in temperature sensors that could work at regular atmospheric pressure to over 25k psi. The supply chain works in interesting ways. One local report was on a family whose breadwinner had been laid off and who either would have to find a different kind of work or move--his job was basically digging up sand, because oil/gas producers needed sand for something, and when production was stopped in that area the sand quarry stopped having its largest customers.

It helps if you dehumanize people first.



(I can't help but be amused that Pierce is channeling McConnell: "Federal money Congress appropriated should be going to help ... as a result of the pandemic, not (those) whose struggles are a result of failing ... practices (that) existed long before Covid-19 entered the public lexicon." However, many of the oil/gas produces are small businesses and while they're not in hospitals and Walmart they provide the natural gas I used for making my breakfast and producing the electricity that keeps the ventilators at hospitals working.)

[Bettie]

3. So, this virus is simply a golden opportunity

to empty the treasury into the pockets of the already-very-wealthy.