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N.J. Senator Menendez Launches Big Oil Subsidy Tracker

As we head into the Memorial Day holiday, and move from one congressional recess to another [PDF], Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has given us something to do with our extra free time: Watch taxpayer subsidies to big oil climb higher and higher.

By Tanya Snyder

10:12 AM PDT on May 25, 2012

The clock, dubbed a STOP watch (for “Stop Taxpayer Oil Payouts”), tracks the amount of money that has flowed through a tax loophole for oil companies since the spring of 2010, when the Senate failed to close it even as the Deepwater Horizon wreck spewed crude into the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the senator’s website, “The Big 5 oil companies are raking in more than $76.00 a second” thanks to the tax loophole. That means that over $24 million will have been added to the tally after the long weekend.

You can read Menendez’s press release here.

Tanya Snyder

Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.

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