MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Interview
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Gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight.
SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Thank you, Ed.
SCHULTZ: Senator Wyden, you first.
Back in 2005, you questioned this group. It was six years ago. You asked the oil executives if they needed subsidies for oil exploration. I want to play that tape. Here it is.
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WYDEN: Is the president wrong when he says we don"t need incentives for oil and gas exploration? If I could just have a yes or no answer and go right down the row beginning with you, Mr. Raymond. Is the president wrong?
LEE RAYMOND, EXXONMOBIL: No. I don"t think our company has asked for any incentives for exploration.
WYDEN: Sir?
DAVID J. O"REILLY, CHEVRONTEXACO: Agreed.
JAMES J. MULVA, CONOCOPHILLIPS: In my oral comments, I said we do not need. But what we do need though is access--
WYDEN: Just a yes or no.
MULVA: Yes.
WYDEN: Sir? The president is correct?
ROSS PILLARI, BP AMERICA: He is correct.
WYDEN: Sir?
JOHN HOFMEISTER, SHELL OIL: Yes, he is.
WYDEN: All right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Senator Wyden, how did they respond to that question today, years later?
WYDEN: Today, of course, they are doing a dramatic about face with a straight face, even though in 2005 their company said they didn"t need subsidies when the price of oil was $55 a barrel. Now they"re saying we"ll have all kinds of calamities in our economy if they don"t get subsidies with $100 a barrel.
I just think it defies common sense, Ed. The fact is they had an incredibly profitable quarter. The reality now is we"re going to have to show, and this is hopefully going to be bipartisan--we got Senator Susan Collins, for example, on our anti-speculation letter this week. We"re going to have to show on the floor that if we continue these energy policies, that"s what"s going to damage the economy. You look at a trucking firm, a restaurant--they"re the kind of people that are going to get clobbered if these prices continue.
SCHULTZ: Mr. Greenberger, what is your response to the CEO, Mr. Tillerson, when he actually admitted that speculation is throwing money on to the costs and really hitting the consumer?
MICHAEL GREENBERGER, PROF., UNIV. OF MARYLAND: Well, as you said, that"s a killer quote--because where speculators are brought under control and, by the way, Congress, when they passed Dodd-Frank, gave the Obama administration all the power to put speculators under control, the price of gasoline would go down to a price that is affordable for the middle class in the United States.
These tax subsidies amount to nothing more than welfare for the most profitable corporations in the history of the world. While the elderly are expected to give up Medicare, these world record profit makers who don"t need incentives are taking handouts from the same people who are suffering from the great recession.
SCHULTZ: Senator Wyden, would you refer to it as welfare--a corporate welfare?
WYDEN: I certainly would say that if they told us five years ago they didn"t need the subsidies--and again, we"re just talking about the majors and you look at the reality today, where even if you adjust for inflation they"re doing better than in 2005 when they said they didn"t need the subsidies. Their arguments don"t pass the smell test.
For example, Ed, today, we were told that they didn"t have any opportunities for exploration. You"re from North Dakota. You"re seeing what they"re doing in North Dakota. What they"re doing in Texas. Shale is showing tremendous potential.
So, their arguments just don"t stand up.
SCHULTZ: Well--
WYDEN: I hope that next week, we"re going to get some bipartisan support like we"re starting to with our anti-speculation drive.
SCHULTZ: What they"re trying to do in North Dakota is reduce the taxes on the oil companies that are functioning there right now, yanking oil out of the ground like they"ve never done before, and the economic expansion in that part of the country is unbelievable.
Look, they"re never going to give up and the right wing is never going to give up. Listen to Michele Bachmann today on a Minnesota radio station. This is how the right wing is spinning all this.
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REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: If we pull those subsidies, what that will mean is the cost of energy will actually transfer to the consumer. So, at the pump, our gas won"t go down if we take away the subsidies. The price of gas will actually go up.
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SCHULTZ: Mr. Greenberger, can you believe that?
GREENBERGER: No, I can"t believe that. I mean, the fact of the matter is that reports we"re getting out is our supply of oil is shooting up because the American people can"t afford to pay gas. I don"t see how the oil companies paying 1 percent more in taxes will have anything to do with an increased price of gas.
I do see, however, and the villain in the piece that wasn"t there today is Wall Street, the speculative bubble people, if the speculators are put in their place and limited as the 18 senators, including Susan Collins, a Republican, asked for yesterday, and if these oil companies will pay the extra 1 percent, we will balance, come closer to balancing the budget and we will reduce oil down to $2.50 to $3 a gallon.
SCHULTZ: Senator Wyden, why can"t the oil companies give up 1 percent of their profits? With the economy the way it is, the way the middle class is getting hammered, why can"t they do that?
WYDEN: I"m only going to ask them that they give up these subsidies the way they said they could in 2005. I mean, the fact is if we can just get back to supply and demand, we will see, in my view, substantial progress on this issue for the consumer in the days ahead.
SCHULTZ: All right. And the CFTC--can the president put pressure on the CFTC? The nominee is there, but they can put in position limits.
Senator, what about that?
WYDEN: Certainly, the Congress can. The fact of the matter is, this agency is stuck in a regulatory swamp. They were supposed to have acted on this quite sometime ago, and what we have said as United States senators, 17 of us, we"ve got to get this done by May 23rd. That"s a Memorial Day weekend. Certainly, people are going to be driving a lot.
We"re going to try to put a real edge behind this and get it done by May 23rd.
SCHULTZ: But Mr. Greenberger, position limits would fix it.
GREENBERGER: Position limits would fix this. I think Senator Wyden is right. In 2008, the Senate Democratic leadership presented a bill to the Senate, it got 53 votes, to take this out of the hands of the regulators and have Congress directly stop the speculation.
SCHULTZ: It is just a political winner for the Democrats and for the White House. They can"t put enough pressure on Wall Street and these oil barons to turn it around.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, and, also, Michael Greenberger--great to have you with us tonight.
WYDEN: Thank you.
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