Citizenship at ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corp is one of the world’s biggest energy companies, involved in virtually every segment of the energy sector from coal mining and electricity to the production, exploration and marketing of oil and gas. We have long enjoyed a close relationship with Congress, successfully lobbying to gain commercial access to federal lands as well as the rollback of several Environmental Protection Agency initiatives deemed unfriendly to our oil interests. Perhaps our biggest success, however, was winning federal support for ExxonMobil's very creation. In 1999, lawmakers were initially hesitant to allow Exxon to purchase Mobil. But thanks to effective political maneuvering, superhuman lobbying efforts, not to mention the support of President Clinton, the merger was approved, even amidst viccous attacks from the antitrust establishment, and the nation’s No. 1 supplier of gasoline was created.
Over the last six years ExxonMobil has reaped the rewards rightly due to any committed financial supporter of the political process. With former oilmen in the White House and Republican majorities in Congress, we have enjoyed an era of ideal corporate - government cooperation. To our delight, one of the Bush admistration's central agenda items has been to reverse Clinton-era restrictions on commercial uses of federal lands – including nature preserves, national forests, and national monuments. We got one step closer in March 2005 when Senate Republicans passed a budget resolution containing a filibuster-proof provision to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other items on ExonMobil's corprorate - government agenda include repealing (or reducing) the 4.3 cent federal gasoline tax, doing away with bans on offshore oil drilling and making current programs to curb industrial pollution voluntary rather than compulsory.