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Big Oil Posts Massive $41B Profits in Q1 Thanks to High Consumer Gas Prices
Halliburton CEO Confesses Creating “Perpetual Threat” of Gas Shortages Keeps Prices High and Profits Soaring
WASHINGTON
With today's release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, government watchdog Accountable.US shared new analysis showing top oil and gas companies raked in a staggering $41 billion during the first three months of 2022 as consumers continued to face high prices at the pump. On average, the companies made $1.2 billion more with many even doubling their profits when comparing the first quarters of 2022 and 2021.
Accountable.US pointed to comments from Halliburton Co. CEO Jeff Miller who recently confessed it was in their best interest to ensure consumer prices stay high by investing in "short cycle projects" that create "a perpetual threat of undersupply," which is "great" for Big Oil's bottom line. Oil and gas companies including BP, Marathon Oil, and APA Corporation invested more in short cycle projects and boasted favorable market conditions.
"This year is shaping up to be even better than the last for the oil and gas industry. Unfortunately for consumers, good news for Big Oil's bottom line never seems to be good news for them," Jordan Schreiber, director of energy and environment at Accountable.US. "Oil and gas giants like Halliburton admit it's in their best interest to create a perpetual threat of undersupply to keep consumer prices high and their insane profits rolling in. Make no mistake, these oil and gas companies would rather take their billions in profits and pass them on to wealthy industry executives than do anything to stabilize gas prices for consumers."
Read the full Accountable.US report here.
Key Findings:
- Halliburton's Confession: Halliburton's CEO boasted about oil and gas companies creating a "perpetual threat of undersupply that is supportive to commodity prices" while touting profits.
- High Prices, High Profits: Oil and gas companies creating a "perpetual threat of undersupply" to keep prices high and add to their $41b in quarter one profits.
- Playing the Short Cycle: Companies including BP, Marathon Oil, and APA Corporation invested more in short cycle projects and boasted favorable market conditions.
- On Average: On average, these oil and gas companies made $1.2b more in quarter 1 of 2022 than the same period last year.
- Doubled Their Profits: Nearly two dozen Big Oil corporations more than doubled their profits, raking in $25b more over the same quarter last year.
- Using Ukraine and High Prices: Industry executives boasted about their profits thanks to high oil and gas prices and the crisis in Ukraine.
- Making It Rain: Oil and gas companies are prioritizing giving more money to shareholders over all else - giving over $26.b to shareholders in just three months with plans to shower even more on investors if prices stay high.
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
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'The Intent of Genocide': 2,700 Gaza Families Entirely Wiped Out by Israeli Attacks
"This is the result of deliberate policy, pursued with full knowledge of its effects. This is not war. It is genocide."
Jan 27, 2026
An analysis of Gaza's civil registry by Al Jazeera detailed Monday how thousands of US-backed Israeli military's attacks on the exclave become stories not only of individual casualties but of "lineage, heritage, and identity disappearing in an instant"—with 2,700 families entirely wiped out since October 2023.
In 6,000 families, Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City, just "a single sole survivor" has been left behind.
Mahmoud reported on an attack that killed a recent high school graduate, whose family had lived in Khan Younis for generations, as well as his father, sister, and 22 members of his extended family.
"Sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins—so many branches gone," said Mahmoud.
Ismail Al-Thwabta of the Gaza Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that the erasure of more than 2,700 families accounts for more than 8,000 deaths. More than 71,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began attacking the exclave in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, and hundreds have been killed since this past October when a "ceasefire" agreement was reached.
"Forty thousand families were targeted, which means more than four deaths in each family," Al-Thwabta told Al Jazeera.
Lebanese commentator Sarah Abdallah said the death toll of entire families exemplifies "the intent of genocide."
"This is not war," said Abdallah. "This is annihilation."
Irish Palestinian rights advocate Daniel Lambert of the Bohemian Football Club emphasized that thousands of families have been wiped out or left with just one surviving member with the enablement of the European Union, UK, and US.
Al Jazeera's report came days after Trump administration officials unveiled a "master plan" for a "New Gaza"—one including luxury apartments, data centers, and a "New Rafah" built over the rubble of the southern city that was razed by the Israel Defense Forces last year, forcing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh also explained on Al Jazeera Monday how the thousands of babies born in Gaza since October 2023 have not been added to the Population Registry, which is controlled by Israel.
.@nour_odeh explains that if Israel opens the Rafah crossing to allow Palestinians to leave, the risk is they won't be allowed to return. Nour also points out that babies born in Gaza since 2023 haven't been registered so Israel doesn't recognise them & this has consequences too. pic.twitter.com/WPaWuiW8fF
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 26, 2026
"That leaves their legal status unresolved," reported Drop Site News. "Without registration, it is unclear how these children would leave Gaza, under what documents, or whether Israel would allow them to return if they do."
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Largest Federal Workers Union Demands Ouster of Noem, Miller Over Killing of VA Nurse Alex Pretti
"Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a 'domestic terrorist,'" said the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Jan 27, 2026
The largest union of federal workers in the US on Monday demanded the resignation or firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller following the killing of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.
Pretti, who worked at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was a member of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3669. The union's national president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement that "Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a 'domestic terrorist.'"
"Noem was preceded in this false statement by Stephen Miller," Kelley added. "Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately. If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them."
AFGE represents tens of thousands of DHS employees, including Border Patrol agents. In 2022, the union split with its council representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
The union's call for the ouster of Noem and Miller came amid mounting support from Democratic members of Congress for Noem's impeachment.
"I’ve called for the resignation of Kristi Noem, and I will vote for her impeachment," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said late Monday. "She’s obstructing local authorities from investigating two murders committed in Minneapolis by DHS agents."
While the White House is still publicly backing Noem, Pretti's killing by as-yet unidentified federal agents has reportedly heightened internal scrutiny of her leadership at DHS. On Monday evening, according to the New York Times, President Donald Trump held a two-hour meeting with Noem in the Oval Office—but he reportedly did not suggest during the meeting that Noem's job is at risk.
Politico noted that it was Noem who elevated Greg Bovino, Border Patrol's commander, to the head of operations in Minneapolis, where federal agents have killed two people this month—Pretti and Renee Good, both US citizens.
The Trump administration has reportedly removed Bovino from Minneapolis. The Atlantic reported late Monday that Bovino has lost his job as Border Patrol's "commander at large"; a DHS spokesperson wrote on social media that Bovino "has NOT been relieved of his duties" and is a "key part of the president's team."
Miller, for his part, "has continued to push for aggressive immigration enforcement, arguing the administration shouldn’t back down in Minneapolis" in the wake of Pretti's killing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Miller smeared Pretti as a "would-be assassin" who "tried to murder federal law enforcement," a lie that the White House press secretary repeatedly declined to endorse when pressed by reporters on Monday.
AFGE Local 3669 said in a statement that Pretti "was dedicated to caring for veterans and treated them with decency and respect, sometimes in their final moments—which is the exact opposite of how he was treated during his."
"AFGE Local 3669 is disgusted by the abhorrent rhetoric of Trump administration officials following his killing. Alex was a son, a colleague, and a fellow union brother, not an ‘assassin’ or a ‘domestic terrorist,'" the union said. "Alex was the best of us and he will be dearly missed. Rest in power, brother."
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31,000 Kaiser Nurses Strike as Their Union Says Employer Puts 'Profit Over Patients'
The head of the striking nurses' union says Kaiser Permanente would "rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
Jan 26, 2026
More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other healthcare professionals walked off the job Monday in two western states, accusing their employer of caring more about profits than patients and highlighting what they say are KP's unfair labor practices.
United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP)—a member of the Alliance of Healthcare Unions (AHCU)—said that 31,000 frontline registered nurses and other medical workers at more than two dozen KP hospitals and hundreds of clinics in California and Hawaii went on an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike that would continue indefinitely until they get a fair contract.
"On the picket lines, healthcare workers will call attention to what’s at stake in settling a fair contract: the growing crisis caused by Kaiser’s failure to invest in safe staffing levels, timely access to quality care, and fair wages for frontline caregivers," UNAC/UHCP said in a statement Monday.
Registered nurse and UNAC/UHCP president Charmaine Morales said: “We’re not going on strike to make noise. We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury, and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long."
“Striking is the lawful power of working people, and we are prepared to use it on behalf of our profession and patients," Morales added.
ON STRIKE: The UNAC/UHCP Unfair Labor Practice strike starts TODAY! 31,000+ Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care workers in CA and Hawai'i are holding the line for quality patient care and a fair contract! #TogetherWeWin #SafeStaffingSavesLives #PatientsOverProfits
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— AFSCME (@afscme.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 9:57 AM
The new strike follows last October's walk-off by over 75,000 nurses and allied healthcare workers at KP facilities in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii over stalled contract negotiations and other issues including pay, staffing levels, and working conditions.
UNAC/UHCP had been negotiating with KP since last May. After KP management left the bargaining table last month, the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which has cited KP for numerous violations in recent years.
KP is the nation's largest integrated managed care consortium of nonprofit and for-profit entities. According to a 2025 investigation by Matthew Cunningham-Cook for the Center for Media and Democracy in conjunction with the American Prospect, KP "is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
Kaiser collected $12.9 billion in net income in 2024 and $7.9 billion through the third quarter of 2025.
A new UNAC/UHCP report, "Profits Over Patients," details how KP "has strayed from its founding mission and moved towards profit, expansion, and Wall Street-style asset accumulation that has created real consequences for patient care and caregiver well-being."
Morales said that “when Kaiser says it doesn’t have resources to fix staffing, what we hear is that a nonprofit health care organization would rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
UFW in solidarity with the 31,000 nurses and health care workers who are on strike in California and Hawaii.#UnionStrong #1U
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— United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Zach Pritchett, an emergency room nurse at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles, told LA Progressive, “I see the end result of the poor staffing every single day."
“What I’m seeing in the ER are Kaiser members who can’t get appointments for months at a time with their own primary care physicians—so they wind up here," he added.
Some strikers drew attention to the killing by Trump administration immigration enforcers of intensive care registered nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
"He is one of us." "He was trying to help a woman stand up and he was assassinated. He did what nurses do, take care of others." "There's so many people here that will do the same."
Kaiser nurses on strike in California speak against ICE murder of nurse Alex Pretti pic.twitter.com/2k54Ojuqn9
— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) January 26, 2026
KP responded to the new strike in a statement declaring, "Our focus remains on reaching agreements that recognize the vital contributions of our employees while ensuring high-quality, affordable care."
"We have proposed 21.5% wage increases—our strongest national bargaining offer ever—and we are prepared to close agreements at local tables now," it addded. "Employees deserve their raises, and patients deserve our full attention, not prolonged disputes."
On a picket line outside KP's Oakland Medical Center, San Francisco nurse anesthetist Jessica Servin told KQED that “we’re fighting for our livelihoods, we’re fighting for patient care."
“I believed their values and their mission statement,” Servin said of KP, where she's worked for 20 years. “It feels like they’re deviating from the foundation of why Kaiser was built. It feels kind of sad to be here and realize that Kaiser is choosing profit over patients.”
National figures supporting the strike include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who posted on Bluesky, "I stand in solidarity with the more than 31,000 Kaiser nurses and healthcare workers on strike in California and Hawaii."
"It’s well past time for Kaiser to return to the table with a fair offer for their workers that includes safer staffing ratios and higher wages," he added.
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