US Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021406D.shtml
"Washington - The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years."
"New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government."
..."We need to remember the primary reason that incentives are given," said Johnnie M. Burton, director of the federal Minerals Management Service. "It's not to make more money, necessarily. It's to make more oil, more gas, because production of fuel for our nation is essential to our economy and essential to our people."

What BS. With all their record-breaking profits, do you think these oil companies would give something back?
Wonder why you don't hear about Hugo Chavez and Venzuela's giving oil assistance to certain US communities? Because it would cause people to start questioning things, like: Why are these US-based oil company's profits so high? Is that profit built into the cost of oil? If this wacko Socialist Hugo Chavez can sell oil at lower cost to the consumer, why can't "our own" oil companies do the same?

- Vox