Stop Taxpayer Subsidies for War and Climate Catastrophe:
No on Federal Gas Rebate Act of 2022 and California Gas Subsidy
How to write your California and United States representatives to stop taxpayer subsidy for war and climate catastrophe.
On this page
Background-why this matters
Western countries are funding Putin's war by buying around a billion dollars a day of fossil fuels; fully 40% of Russia's federal budget. If we conserve, that reduced demand wil lower the price of oil, so he gets less money for each gallon, and it will free up supply so countries can buy from non-russian suppliers and defund Putin.
Conserving fossil fuels and developing alternate supplies also helps mitigate climate catastrophe.
More reading:
Stop Federal Gas Rebate of 2022
Contact all your federal reps for Santa Barbara:
Not in Santa Barbara? Find your senators and representative
Suggested letter:
Worst idea ever: “Gas Rebate Act of 2022”, aka “taxpayer $ to subsidize Putin's war and climate catastrophe act of 2022”
Stimulating gas use during a war with a petro-dictatorship, while Antarctica is 70° warmer and the Arctic 50° warmer than usual? Sounds like a Governor Abbot idea, or an Onion article; shortsighted political maneuvering when we need visionary leadership.
We need less fossil fuel use, to:
+avert climate catastrophe
+defund warmongering autocrats
+better air quality/ health
+slow the monster-truck driven spike in pedestrian/ cyclist deaths
Better leadership would be to take this teachable moment to instead appeal to Americans higher natures, to:
*Adopt a wartime footing for energy conservation and production*
IMMEDIATE, DEEP CONSERVATION would substantively advance a sustainable climate future and immediately lower prices and free up supply globally to help Europe cut off Russian fossil fuel imports; the surest way to stop war in Ukraine.
INCREASED RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION would be great medium and long term, increased production of fossil fuels is an appropriate sacrifice of the future for this wartime footing, and a nod towards political expedience.
INCREASED OIL PRODUCTION from existing leases is the opposite of what we need for climate, but would make this bipartisan, and is defensible short-term for the immediate need to defund aggression in Ukraine.
Instead of gas money for Putin, how about $ to anyone who sells their car and buys an electric bike, $ to anyone who sells their gas car and gets an electric car, public transport vouchers, more carpool and bike lanes, weatherstripping, kits to take your washing machine off hot water...
This is an opportunity for leadership; don't undermine Zelensky by doing the cravenly political wrong thing; follow Ukraine's inspiring example to lead us away from funding war and climate catastrophe.
Thank you
Stop Subsidy for Buying Gas in California
How to contact your state reps for Santa Barbara
- Governor Gavin Newsom
- Monique Limon, Senator for District 19
- Steve Bennet, Assemblymember for district 37
Not in Santa Barbara? Look up your ca state reps
Suggested letter:
Worst idea ever: Newsom Proposes distributing California taxpayer $ to subsidize Putin's war and climate catastrophe
Handing out publicly funded gasoline cards during a war with a petro-dictatorship, while Antarctica is 70° warmer and the artic 50° warmer than usual? Sounds like a Governor Abbot idea, or an Onion article; shortsighted political maneuvering when we need visionary leadership.
We need less fossil fuel use, to:
+avert climate catastrophe
+defund warmongering autocrats
+better air quality/ health
+slow the monster-truck driven spike in pedestrian/ cyclist deaths
Better leadership would be to take this teachable moment to instead appeal to Californian's higher natures, to:
*Ask Californians to adopt a wartime footing for energy conservation and production*
IMMEDIATE, DEEP CONSERVATION in the world’s sixth biggest economy would substantively advance a sustainable climate future and immediately lower prices and free up supply globally to help Europe cut off Russian fossil fuel imports; the surest way to stop war in Ukraine.
INCREASED RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION would be great medium and long term, increased production of fossil fuels is an appropriate sacrifice of the future for this wartime footing, and a nod towards political expedience.
INCREASED OIL PRODUCTION from existing leases is the opposite of what we need for climate, but would make this bipartisan, and is defensible short-term for the immediate need to defund aggression in Ukraine.
Instead of gas money for Putin, how about $800 to anyone who sells their car and buys an electric bike, $400 to anyone who sells their gas car and gets an electric car, $400 of public transport vouchers, more carpool and bike lanes, weatherstripping, kits to take your washing machine off hot water...
This is an opportunity for leadership; don't undermine Zelensky by doing the cravenly political wrong thing; follow Ukraine's inspiring example to lead us away from funding war and climate catastrophe.
Conserve to defund putin's war
Defund Putin's war by reducing your own use of fossil fuels as much as you can. For perspective, consider that any discomfort this may cause is a lot less of a hardship that manning a trench in the snow or getting bombed, or the efforts Americans made when on a wartime footing in WWII—
- Eat less meat
- Drive less, carpool, bike, use public transport, Sell your car and get an electric bike or electric car, don't start your car then get lost in your phone
- Use less heating and a/c
- Use less hot water; consider shutting off the hot water taps for washing machine, bathroom sink, kitchen sink
- Shut off lights when not in use—
More reading
- Carbon footprint fact sheet, carbon footprint—includes suggested actions
- Greenpeace Follows Russian Oil Tankers Funding Putin's War—"The huge number of tankers criss-crossing our seas loaded with Russian oil and gas is a tangible sign of our dependence on fossil fuels and proof that it is the biggest contribution to Putin's war chest."
- A Tanker’s Giant U-Turn Reveals Strains in the Market for Russian Oil—"Whoever is buying this oil is financing war crimes,”
- Russia doubles fossil fuel revenues since invasion of Ukraine began—Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from selling fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, benefiting from soaring prices even as volumes have been reduced.
- Europe would love to end its dependence on Russian oil. Why isn’t the U.S. coming to the rescue?—
- The west can cut its energy dependency on Russia and be greener—The Ukraine war has focused minds on win-win policies from ending coal and oil subsidies to raising petrol taxes on petrol
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The Rigidity of Russian Oil Holds the Key to Smart Sanctions—The limits of Russia’s infrastructure provide a way to slash Putin’s oil revenue, avert a price shock for the West and fund Ukraine reparations.
...If the West imposes a full, coordinated embargo on Russian exports, including sanctions on third parties enabling the trade, most ships in the flotilla would never set sail. The sanctions risk would be too great. Instead, the volumes previously flowing West would end up “stranded” on Russian shores.
Which begs the question: What would Russia do with all that stranded oil? The answer highlights Russian oil’s second strategic vulnerability. Russia lacks large-scale storage capacity, so the only option would be to leave all this oil in the ground — that is, not to produce it in the first place. Known as “shutting in production,” this scenario would be severely damaging to Moscow for several reasons, some self-evident others less so.
Most obvious would be the loss of vital export revenues. Less evident, however, is the extensive damage a prolonged, large-scale shut-in could do to Russia’s upstream production capacity. Russia is not like Saudi Arabia, where advantageous geology and advanced infrastructure create immense swing capacity — the ability to vary production levels quickly and efficiently. Most Russian oil wells have meager flow rates and poor economics. A prolonged, large-scale shut-in would mean laboriously closing tens of thousands of these marginal wells, many of which could never return to profit. It could also compromise complex pressure maintenance programs critical to field profitability.
Restoring lost production capacity at marginal fields after a long shut-in would be a very slow and costly process — if it is possible at all. When Russia suffered a major drop in production in the early 1990s, it took over a decade, along with large amounts of Western capital and technology, to restore production to its previous levels.