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Suffolk Closeup: Greedy Big Oil

The heading on the press release last week could be called extreme: “Bishop to Blame for Long Island’s Pain at the Pump,” according to the blast at Congressman Tim Bishop put out by Randy Altschuler, a Republican seeking again to run against Mr. Bishop in November. He lost to Mr. Bishop in a squeaker in 2010.

The price of gasoline certainly is high but is that really Mr. Bishop’s fault?

Republican Altschuler scored Democrat Bishop “for repeatedly voting against policies that would increase domestic oil production and lower gas prices.” He also has launched an “online petition drive calling out Representative Bishop” on the gasoline price issue.

Bishop spokesman Oliver Longwell responds: “If more drilling in the United States could magically lower gas prices now, it would already be happening: America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years and we exported more oil in 2011 than we imported.”

Mr. Bishop, he said, is “working to crack down on the excessive speculation that artificially inflates oil prices by $25 to $30 a barrel … He also wants to eliminate the billions in corporate welfare the Big 5 oil companies receive every year from taxpayers and invest some of it in developing clean and renewable domestic energy sources.”

George Demos, the former Shelter Island part-time resident who is competing with Mr. Altschuler for the GOP nomination to run against Mr. Bishop, joined the fray by criticizing them both.

“We’ve reached the day gasoline costs more on Long Island than anywhere else in America,” he said. He charged Mr. Altschuler with being “until recently … a card-carrying member of the Green Party … When Randy joined the Greens in 2000, their platform actually called for punishing owners of vehicles like minivans or trucks and halting energy exploration on the outer continental shelf.” As for Mr. Bishop, his “only idea,” said Mr. Demos, “is cutting subsidies for gas companies.”

One area of the outer continental shelf long eyed by the oil industry is off Long Island. Do we want drilling there? Drilling off Long Island and along the rest of the Mid-Atlantic coast has been blocked for decades — not because of the Green Party but broad opposition in Congress due to worries about oil spills like the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico almost two years ago.

Every few years in recent times, gasoline prices have skyrocketed. The oil industry always has excuses. Last time around, in 2008, the price of gas suddenly rose to $4.50 a gallon with the industry claiming the fault was China and India going car-crazy, problems in the Middle East and insufficient refinery capacity. At the same time, the industry was raking in record profits and angry consumers wondered about industry price-rigging. That prompted Congress to pressure Big Oil and prices went down fast.

The newest spike in prices has the oil industry rolling in money. The New York Times recently reported that ExxonMobil, “the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, reported net income of $9.4 billion for the quarter … It posted revenue of $121.6 billion, up 16 percent. The improved earnings reflected higher oil prices.”

This time, the oil industry claims war clouds over Iran and the rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada are the problems.

Do you think the oil industry is manipulating the market, grabbing our money to make windfall profits whenever it can, and is deep in deception? I’ve thought so for years.

A well-researched book on the subject is “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry—and What We Must To Do Stop It” by Antonia Juhasz. She writes that “the masters of the oil industry, the companies known as ‘Big Oil,’ exercise their influence … through rapidly and ever-increasing oil and gasoline prices.” She details how, in 1911, the federal government broke up Standard Oil, the company that dominated the industry then (what’s now ExxonMobil was a major part of it). With the new price hike, she is renewing her call for another oil industry break-up along with “getting Big Oil’s money out of politics,” eliminating its subsidies, developing more public transportation and “investing in sustainable alternative energy.”

In Congress, meanwhile, six House Democrats led by Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio have introduced the Gas Spike Act of 2012. It would apply a “windfall profit tax” on oil company earnings exceeding “a reasonable profit” and set up a Reasonable Profits Board.

That’s aimed at the crux of the problem: a greedy and powerful industry.