Obama's Weekly Address: Amid Oil Company Profits, Taxpayer Subsidies 'Not Right'

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Noting that oil companies announced a 30 percent increase in profits this year while Americans are struggling with $4 a gallon gas prices, President Obama calls on Congress, yet again, in his weekly address to end taxpayer subsidies for oil companies.
 
“While rising gas prices mean real pain for our families at the pump, they also mean bigger profits for oil companies,” Obama said, “This week, the largest oil companies announced that they’d made more than $25 billion in the first few months of 2011 -- up about 30 percent from last year.”
 
The president said he does not have a problem with any company being rewarded for their successes, “But I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies -- to the tune of $4 billion a year.”
 
The president says this is just not right or smart.
 
“When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right. They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.”

Earlier this week, the president called on Congress to allowing subsidies for oil and gas companies.  He says that while he is not opposed to producing oil, he believes in pursuing a "broad range of energy policies," including the resources America has to offer.  The president also indicates his future plans for clean energy.

"But I also believe that instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, we should invest in tomorrow's -- and that's what we've been doing," he says in this week's address. "Already, we've seen how the investments we're making in clean energy can lead to new jobs and new businesses."

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