Gas Prices & Record Profits

Here are a few fun facts about oil from the Sierra Club. Has Bush used the word "conserve" yet?

GAS PRICES

$2.92.....Average retail price for regular gasoline, up 69 cents from a year ago.

$2,873...Amount average family of four spent on gasoline in 2005

$73.75...Price per barrel of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange


RECORD PROFITS

$8.4 billion...ExxonMobil's first-quarter profits in 2006

$4 billion......ChevronTexaco's first-quarter profits in 2006, up 49% from 2005

$3.29............ConocoPhillip's first-quarter profits in 2006

$15.7 billion..Combined first-quarter profits of ExxonMobil, ChevroTexaco and ConocoPhillips

$63.8 billion...Combined 2005 profits of ExxonMobil ($36.1 billion), Chevron ($14.1 billion)and ConnocoPhillips ($13.5 billion)


HANDOUTS TO AMERICANS VERSUS BIG OIL

$30 million...Amount the top 10 oil companies spent on lobbying in 2005

$80 billion...in subsidies and tax loopholes to the oil and gas and other polluting energy industries in the energy law signed in 2005.

$100...Amount some in Congress proposed giving to Americans in the form of a tax rebate


OIL DEPENDENCE

25% ...Percentage of world oil production consumed by the United States

3% .....Percentage of world's oil reserves located in the United States


ARCTIC REFUGE AND AMERICA'S COASTS

1 cent...Amount of savings for consumers at the pump if we drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge

20 years..When consumers would see the penny savings

47 days..Amount of oil from opening up parts of Lease Sale 181 in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling


REAL SOLUTIONS

4 million...The number of barrels of oil per day that the United States would save if fuel economy standards were raised to 40 miles per gallon within 20 years

$2,200...Amount that the average driver would save at the gas pump over the lifetime of a vehicle if fuel economy standards were raised to 40 miles per gallon over the next 10 years, a conservative estimate based on lower gas prices