SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
REPORT: Big Oil Companies See 235% Increase In Profits Thanks to Months Of Sky-High Gas Prices
WASHINGTON
Today, Accountable.US released a striking new analysis showing that 8 of the largest oil companies in the country made a record-breaking $51 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2022. This marks a 235% increase over the same quarter in 2021. At the same time, American consumers saw gas prices rise at a rapid rate peaking at an average of over $5 a gallon. While they are now declining, Industry has been slow to lower costs for consumers even well after the price of crude oil has fallen.
In private oil executives boast their "strong" earnings, and Halliburton's CEO went so far as to brag that customers will "expect and accept" high gas prices.
"Not surprisingly, after spending the past three months price gouging consumers by raising gas prices to unprecedentedly high levels, eight of the largest oil companies saw their profits increase by an eye-popping and record-breaking 235%," said Jordan Schreiber, Director of Energy and Environment at Accountable.US. "Make no mistake; these profits mark a large transfer of wealth from working and middle-class people to wealthy oil executives and shareholders. While many consumers were feeling the heavy burden of a life necessity suddenly doubling in price, oil executives were keeping prices high to maximize their profits"
Highlights of the Analysis:
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.
LATEST NEWS
Will Climate-Driven Heatwave Help Make the Case Against Big Tech Data Centers?
As power grids become strained amid the latest US heatwave, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
Jul 02, 2026
The rise of global temperatures has made oppressive summer heatwaves an annual occurrence, and for many Americans, air conditioning is no longer optional.
But as scorching temperatures bear down on the US once again this week, affecting more than 250 million people across the country, some are suddenly being forced to share the precious cool air with data centers that have popped up in their towns to power the breakneck build-out of artificial intelligence technology.
To keep their massive arrays of computer servers cool, these complexes require large amounts of energy even in normal times. But during a heatwave, the demand becomes even greater.
As power grids become strained, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
In Henrico County, Virginia, which has 37 data centers, thousands of county employees received an email last week from County Manager John Vithoulkas warning them that beginning on July 1, the rate paid by "government and school facilities will increase dramatically—by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year."
"To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces,” he said in the email, which was obtained by 404 Media. “Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day,” he continued. “Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight.”
He also informed them of the high cost of running "space heaters," which Frank Landymore of Futurism.com suggested was a thinly veiled way of telling residents to turn down the AC, since nobody would be using space heaters in 100-degree heat.
It was a signifier of what's happened across the entire mid-Atlantic grid, whose largest operator, PJM Interconnection, is experiencing record energy demand.
According to Reuters, the grid that supplies power to 67 million people has seen a roughly 1,000% increase in capacity prices since 2024 as a result of the AI boom, which is already being passed onto consumers in the form of higher bills.
To reduce the risk of outages caused by an overburdened grid, the US Department of Energy granted PJM the authority to require data centers to operate backup diesel generators.
Under the emergency order, Politico reported, data centers are allowed to produce enough diesel emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would categorize it as a "possible human carcinogen."
The result has been what Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, told The Associated Press could be “a disaster for the local air quality" in communities with data centers.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, where a Markley Group data center sits in the working-class Sacred Heart neighborhood, residents told the AP that they were staying inside to avoid smelling the diesel fumes being belched up near their homes.
Public backlash led the Lowell City Council to vote unanimously for a moratorium on data center building in February. But many residents feel the damage has already been done, with the Markley center gobbling up their town's electric and water resources.
One resident told The Harvard Crimson in May that since the center came to town, his winter electric bill has shot up from $40 to $177.
As temperatures spiked this week, more than 200 protesters flooded a local zoning meeting to voice their anger about the noise, pollution, and surveillance equipment bearing down on their homes. One 14-year-old girl was dragged out of the meeting by police officers.
"I'm not hurting anyone," she shouted as cops escorted her through the exit. "We just don't want data centers!"
Within roughly three years, data centers have come to consume about 4.5% of all electricity in the US, a number that is expected to keep ballooning in the coming years.
Even before the data center boom began, scientists had long warned that the climate crisis caused by human carbon emissions would make US heatwaves more frequent, longer, and more intense.
Heatwaves in major US cities are already three times as common as they were in the 1960s, according to an EPA report from 2024, and the average heatwave season is now 46 days longer.
The number of heat-related deaths in the US more than doubled from 1,069 in 1999 to 2,325 in 2023, according to a JAMA Network study analyzing mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With more than 1,500 data center projects currently underway across the US, a vicious cycle appears poised to accelerate.
The rapid buildout of data centers has already culminated in massive emission spikes. Amazon, which once pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, saw its carbon output increase by 16% in 2025 in large part due to its multi-billion dollar data center buildout.
According to a report out Wednesday from the Environmental Integrity Project, at least 74 natural gas-fired power plants are being planned to power the industry's expansion, which are expected to release 662 million tons of greenhouse gas—equivalent to the entire nation of Australia—per year.
Many of the plants are being built in low-income areas that already have poorer health outcomes and could produce nearly 160,000 tons of health-damaging pollutants that can cause lung damage, asthma, and heart attacks.
“In their wholehearted embrace of dirty and outdated gas power, data center developers are announcing to the public that they don’t care about us," said Alex Bomstein, the executive director at Clean Air Council. "We deserve better than decades of toxic pollution, parched streambeds, and climate chaos.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Olympic Athlete Indicted for Touching Trump's Infamously Botched Reflecting Pool Renovation
"These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American. This indictment reflects the administration's efforts to shift blame from their own failures," said attorney Norm Eisen.
Jul 02, 2026
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Thursday announced that her office had secured a felony indictment against former US Olympic athlete David Hearn for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a press conference announcing the charges, Pirro accused the 67-year-old Hearn of "forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner" of the Reflecting Pool last month.
“We will not allow our sacred monuments to be roped off or diminished or in any way impacted by disgruntled individuals who think that they and not the rest of the nation have the right to decide what should happen,” Pirro said. “These landmarks and monuments belong to all of us, and they must be protected for generations to come."
"He reached down into the pool and violently removed the liner" -- Judge Jeanine's press conference about charges she's bringing against a reflecting pool "vandal" was like a deleted scene from Idiocracy. Just when you think things can't get dumber, they find a way.
Here's a… pic.twitter.com/zMaXnJ2RVy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 2, 2026
If convicted, Hearn faces up to 10 years in prison.
The Olympian was first arrested last month after he was seen reaching into the pool, which had been undergoing renovations ordered by President Donald Trump.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Hearn said that he simply put his hand in the water and touched a piece of lining in the pool that was already peeling off.
“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told the paper. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
Norm Eisen, an attorney who is representing Hearn, accused the Trump administration of using his client as a scapegoat for the botched pool renovation, which has been plagued by intense algae blooms, peeled lining, and dead ducks.
"These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American," said Eisen. "This indictment reflects the administration's efforts to shift blame from their own failures."
"On the eve of our nation's Independence Day," Eisen continued, "Americans should be deeply concerned by the misuse of government power against an ordinary system based on a concocted narrative."
During her tenure as US attorney, Pirro has overseen multiple failed prosecutions.
Earlier this year, Pirro's office attempted to bring charges against several Democratic elected officials for creating a video reminding US military personnel that they should not follow any illegal orders given by the president. The case collapsed when a grand jury refused to sign off on an indictment, however.
Pirro's office last year also tried to convict Sean Dunn, a former US Department of Justice employee who hurled a sandwich at Customs and Border Protection officers, on misdemeanor assault charges. Dunn was ultimately acquitted by a jury in November.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'July 4th BBQ Burn’: Reports Pin Blame for Sky-High Cookout Prices on Trump Policies
"Thanks to Trump’s tariffs and foreign wars, Americans won’t find any independence from inflation this Fourth of July.”
Jul 02, 2026
Having a July 4 barbecue will be significantly more expensive this year than it was a year ago, and two reports say President Donald Trump's policies are at least partly to blame.
In an analysis published Wednesday, the American Economic Liberties Project faulted Trump for not taking on the corporate concentration in the meatpacking industry, which the group argued was the single biggest contributor to a "July 4th BBQ burn" that will see Americans pay record prices for ground beef.
The report finds that even though Trump has tried to cut prices by lowering his tariffs to increase the supply of imported beef, they have not fallen due to the meatpacking oligopoly's power to keep prices high regardless of input costs.
In fact, the report says that prices have gone up by an additional 2% since Trump exempted beef imports from his tariffs last November.
The real problem, the report contends, is that just four companies process 85% of US beef, giving them enormous leverage over what consumers pay for the final product.
Even though three of these four firms have paid out tens of millions of dollars to settle price-fixing allegations, the report adds, none of them have been broken up.
Lori Wallach, director of the American Economic Liberties Project's Rethink Trade program, said the president's unwillingness to take on corporate power was hurting both consumers and cattle ranchers.
"Responding to a corporate-monopoly-driven price crisis with trade tools has caused a double whammy," said Wallach. "No relief for American consumers, and record floods of imported beef threatening the livelihoods of the ranchers who supported Trump."
"To bring prices down," Wallach added, "the administration must break up the big four beef packers that dictate terms to consumers and ranchers alike."
Katie Hettinga, policy analyst at Rethink Trade and lead author of the report, said that until Trump "breaks the power of dominant meat packers and grocery chains to keep prices high, American consumers will suffer."
A separate analysis published Tuesday by Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation spotlighted the high price of not just beef, but other July 4 staples as well.
In addition to the price of beef, which has gone up by over 20% in the last year, the report finds the prices of prepared potato salad (23% year-over-year increase), ice pops (22% increase), and strawberries (20% increase) have all seen substantial rises.
And it's not just food items, as the prices of disposable forks (20% year-over-year increase) and aluminum foil (18% increase) have gone up dramatically as well.
Lindsay Owens, executive director at Groundwork Collaborative, said that Trump's tariffs on foreign goods and his illegal war with Iran, which caused the price of fertilizer to spike, both contributed to the price spikes.
"As Americans fire up the grill this Fourth of July, they’ll feel the heat of summer price hikes," said Owens. "As popsicle prices spike and air conditioning bills skyrocket, working families will be forced to sweat in the face of high price tags. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs and foreign wars, Americans won’t find any independence from inflation this Fourth of July.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular