While Congressional lawmakers confronted the five largest publicly traded oil companies on their record-high profits and sky-high prices, youth climate activists reminded the oil executives and Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that they too have a stake in creating an oil-independent future.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 1, 2008
CONTACT
Ragini Kapadia, Energy Action Coalition, (202) 286-0122
Yochi Zakai, Co-op America, (202) 276-0330
Youth and Lawmakers Challenge Outrageous Oil Profits
Washington, DC- While Congressional lawmakers confronted the five largest publicly traded oil companies on their record-high profits and sky-high prices, youth climate activists reminded the oil executives and Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that they too have a stake in creating an oil-independent future.
“We’ve been fooled! Americans are paying high gasoline prices at the pump while also subsidizing record profits for big oil,” said Claire Roby, a student with the DC Youth Environmental Alliance. “We’re here to tell Congress and the oil companies know that an 18 billion dollar tax break is unacceptable and we demand an immediate reinvestment of oil subsidies to fuel America’s clean, just and sustainable energy future.”
Students and citizens from the Energy Action Coalition, Sierra Student Coalition, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, Co-op America, DC Youth Environmental Alliance, Oil Change International, Americans for Informed Democracy among other organizations, spilled onto the steps of Congress’s Cannon Office Building to parody and protest record high oil prices and undeserved corporate relief.
“The only green future I want to invest in is the one in my pocket,” laughed Andrew Nazdin, a suited young person identifying himself with the satirical group, “Billionaires for Big Oil.”
Executives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, awash in record-breaking profits, had a difficult job persuading both the Select Committee and the youth activists that the green in their pockets should not be reinvested in renewable energy.
Today’s theatrical demonstrations at the oil hearing was only one of over one hundred actions that occurred concurrently around the world to challenge dirty energy industries and promote clean, just energy alternatives. To learn more, please visit www.FossilFools08.org.
