NYT's article on Big Oil and the subsidies for the industry:

<snip>

"There is no cost," declared Representative Joe L. Barton, a Texas Republican who was presiding over Congressional negotiations on the sprawling energy bill last July. An obscure provision on new drilling incentives was "so noncontroversial," he added, that senior House and Senate negotiators had not even discussed it.

Mr. Barton's claim had a long history. For more than a decade, lawmakers and administration officials, both Republicans and Democrats, have promised there would be no cost to taxpayers for a program allowing companies to avoid paying the government royalties on oil and gas produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf.

But last month, the Bush administration confirmed that it expected the government to waive about $7 billion in royalties over the next five years, even though the industry incentive was expressly conceived of for times when energy prices were low. And that number could quadruple to more than $28 billion if a lawsuit filed last week challenging one of the program's remaining restrictions proves successful.

"The big lie about this whole program is that it doesn't cost anything," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who tried to block its expansion last July. "Taxpayers are being asked to provide huge subsidies to oil companies to produce oil — it's like subsidizing a fish to swim."

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/business/27royalties.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print

as the ever compliant American Taxpayer?

staggering. It is the taxpayer who pays for roads for loggers, roads for mining, oil exploration, the recent fiasco that opened ANWR under the Senate vote, has a provision for taxpayer dollars to provide access to the area. of course, if there is a disaster, the taxpayer will foot the bill, not the oil companies.

All this from the "compassionate conservatives" of smaller gov't and less spending...:puke:

If business can't survive on it's own, tough luck. We should not be supporting it to the tune of billions. What happened tot he "it's your money" situation?

I have yet to get to hear a conservative explain how this advances the PUBLIC good.