Jerri-Lynn here. Alas, our Congress critters didn’t neglect the interests of their true constituents – including Big Oil and other fossil fuel companies – in its CARES Act tax breaks.Those subsidies were intended to help bail out small businesses pummelled by the pandemic and allow them to keep workers employed. Instead, $1.9 billion of it is instead being funnelled upstairs, to fossil fuel executives. Surprise, surprise.

Hats off to the Trump administration, which continues to pursue its pro-fossil fuel agenda as the pandemic unfolds, as it has done with other policy priorities: immigration, judicial nominations, corporate legal immunity.

Yet subsidy legislation has been a bipartisan achievement.Senator Sanders has called out this fossil fuel travesty. Rage On, Bernie! Where are your Democratic colleagues? (And Republicans too, for that matter.)

I’ve been a keen student and observer of the role of money in politics since  the presidency  of the peanut farmer from Georgia. And I think I am fairly clear-eyed – cynical even – when I examine who wins – and who loses – from tax and spending decisions. Yet even I am stunned to see the extent to which the hogs are feeding at the trough – and this at a time when so much of America – not least, its economy – is collapsing before our eyes. Oink, oink.

By Eoin Higgins, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

Sen. Bernie Sanders was among critics outraged that the fossil fuel industry is using tax breaks in the CARES Act meant to help businesses keep workers employed to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes—and then delivering that money to executives.

“Good thing President Trump is looking out for the real victims of the coronavirus: fossil fuel executives,” Sanders tweeted sarcastically Friday.

Coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 people. Some 36 million workers have lost their jobs. Good thing President Trump is looking out for the real victims of the coronavirus: fossil fuel executives. https://t.co/4sj6gT53f9

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 15, 2020

Reporting Friday from Bloomberg News showed that “$1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms, and contractors”—what watchdog group Documented senior researcher  Jesse Coleman described as a “stealth bailout” of the climate-killing industry.

“In the name of ‘small business,’ we’re shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys,”  Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg used the example of how Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. manipulated the bailout to explain the tax scheme:

As it headed toward bankruptcy, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill Congress passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it asked a bankruptcy judge to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.

According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Diamond’s refund pales in comparison to some of its larger competitors, “including $55 million for Denver-based Antero Midstream Corp., $41.2 million for supplier Oil States International Inc. and $96 million for Oklahoma-based producer Devon Energy Corp.”

OIL CAPITALISM — Diamond Offshore takes $9.7m from American taxpayers, then earmarks the same amount to execs as bankruptcy bonuses. @jendlouhyhc
– Marathon gets $411m
– Oxy $195m
– Valero $110m
– Devon $96mhttps://t.co/dUyCp9uEpT

— Kevin Crowley (@CrowleyKev) May 15, 2020

The fossil fuel industry was already in financial trouble before the outbreak, which has effectively crippled Big Oil’s ability to make money—even with the generous subsidies given by the federal government. Access to bailout tax break funding is helping fossil fuel companies prosper, along with other climate-destroying industries like mining companies, which have also reaped millions from coronavirus relief legislation.

“The Trump administration’s favor factory hasn’t stopped with a global pandemic,” Accountable.US spokesperson Jayson O’Neill said in a statement Friday. “As millions of jobs disappear week after week, the Trump administration is prioritizing aid for wealthy, well-connected corporations before small businesses.”