For Immediate Release
March 24, 2020
Contact: Jeff Tittel, NJ Sierra Club, 609-558-9100
Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recommended that President Trump ask Congress for $20 billion to go toward purchasing millions of gallons of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The announcement was prompted by a major drop in oil prices amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Crude oil fell by almost a third to $31 a barrel on Monday, March 9, the biggest one-day fall since the Gulf War. Today, the price of crude oil is $30.69.
“President Trump is siding with Big Oil over public health, the environment, and our economy. He wants to use our money to buy oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so that the price of gas and oil go up and we end up paying more. He wants to spend $20 billion to line the pockets of the oil industry instead of trying to help build hospitals or help small businesses and the unemployed deal with this crisis. This is a one-two punch to our wallets. Trump wants to use taxpayer money to buy oil for the Reserve, which will raise prices so that we end up paying more for gas in the middle of an economic recession,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.“The federal government is already giving fossil fuel industries billions of dollars of corporate subsidies a year. Using the changes to the economy brought on by the coronavirus outbreak as an excuse for more giveaways is dangerous and unheard of.”
The American Petroleum Institute (API) has requested the White House to waive certain regulations, including greenhouse gas reporting, sampling and analysis required for drinking water permits, and pollution monitoring.
“This outrageous giveaway to Big Oil is an attack on public health and the environment. The API is trying to get Trump to roll back even more environmental regulations, like waiving air pollution requirements. This is the worst thing to do in the middle of a respiratory disease public health emergency. This will mean more air pollution, which will directly impact people with lung problems. People with asthma and other respiratory problems are at risk for the coronavirus. More air pollution will impact people who have respiratory diseases and illnesses and will lead to more cases of asthma and lung disease.The oil industry is trying to use the public health crisis to make our climate crisis worse and make people sicker,” said Tittel.“These dirty industries cannot compete with cheaper and cleaner renewable energy, so they are looking for a massive bailout at our expense.”
On March 11 of this year, the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader McCarthy, Majority Leader McConnell, and Minority Leader Schumer opposing any bailout to the fossil fuel industry in the coronavirus relief package.
“This will hurt renewable energy and green jobs at a time when we need them the most. We are in a climate emergency, and New Jersey is one of the most vulnerable states to sea level rise and climate impacts. We also have some of the worst air quality in the nation, and we get a third of our air pollution from out of state. The more we subsidize fossil fuels, the more we are poisoning our environment and our communities. We need to be moving aggressively forward with renewable energy and green jobs to mitigate climate impacts. Offshore wind and other renewable energy technologies are getting cheaper and more effective every year,” said Tittel.“The Sierra Club and others wrote a letter to Congress opposing any bailout to the fracking industry, but Trump cares more about his friends in the industry than our health or environment.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report last year that estimates fossil fuel subsidies for 191 countries. Global subsidies were found to be $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of the global GDP). The U.S. at $649 billion is the second largest subsidizer after China at $1.4 trillion.
“This should be a time when we are moving with renewable energy and building offshore wind. We need to move forward with a Green New Deal instead of using the public health crisis as a reason to bailout the fossil fuel industry. President Trump wants to rip off the environment and taxpayers to raise oil prices, which will increase air pollution and climate impacts like flooding and sea level rise across the country. It will undermine New Jersey’s clean energy goals, and will prevent us from reaching 100% renewable by 2035 and zero carbon by 2050. The Fossil Fool in the White House is already spending billions of dollars every year on fossil fuel subsidies, and now he wants to sell out our lungs and environment even more,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.“We need to stop subsidizing dirty fossil fuels that impact our environment and our health. We need to move forward with clean, renewable energy and green jobs.”