Menendez Urges Biden To Fight Big Oil Subsidies

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is urging Vice President Joe Biden make sure that deficit negotiations result in an agreement to end subsidies for oil companies.

“Over the last decade, the Big 5 oil companies have raked in nearly $1 trillion in profits and tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies,” Menendez said in a letter he and 19 other Senate Democrats sent Tuesday.

Menendez recently led efforts in the Senate to close the tax loopholes that would immediately recoup an estimated $21 billion over the net decade through the “Closing Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act”. The act failed to make it through a Republican filibuster.

Menendez argues that ending the subsidies could offset the sacrifices being made by the American public in areas such as Medicare and education.

“We all need to make sacrifices to lower the defect, including the most wealthy and powerful among us,” Menendez wrote.