Write a commentKing Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia asked in 1938, "Do you know what they will find when they reach Mars? They will find Americans out there in the desert hunting for oil."
Anthony Sampson wrote in "The Seven Sisters" that "The First World War made all Western governments painfully aware of the importance of oil for survival." After the Second World War, Lord Curzon said, "The Allies floated to victory on a wave of oil."
President George W. Bush said, "America is addicted to oil." The US Energy Information Association (EIA) reported for 2023 that, "The United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time." The US also consumed the same amount of oil as India and China combined. The US consumed the same amount of oil as two billion people.
This was under the Biden administration. Biden's tough rhetoric against the fossil fuel industry was a lie. The Washington Post reported, "The Biden administration has approved slightly more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands than the Trump administration had." The New York Times wrote, "Under Mr. Biden's administration, the United States... [is] the world's largest producer of gas, and its leading exporter." The U.S. dominates the global gas market.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The trouble with this country is that you can't win an election without the oil bloc." This was evident in the 2024 election. The New York Times wrote, "The fossil fuel industry donated more than $75 million to Mr. Trump's presidential campaign."
Trump signed a Faustian bargain to slash any regulations against the industry. In total, Open Secrets revealed the oil and gas companies funneled $248 million into the 2024 election.
In 2008, Senator John Edwards deplored the effort to hand the "keys to the corridors of government over to the lobbyists for the big oil companies." It was reminiscent of the plea by Senator William P. Frye to the Senate. "The great Standard Oil Company, the greatest monopoly today in the United States of America... a power which controls business, railroads, men and things, shall also control here."
John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company. Sampson wrote, "Rockefeller controlled a corporation unique in the world's history. It was almost untouchable by the state governments... or by the federal government in Washington." In May 1911, the US Supreme Court declared Standard Oil a monopoly and ordered it to dissolve.
Instead, Standard Oil turned into Exxon, Mobil, and Chevron. It joined four other companies to create an oil cartel called "The Seven Sisters". Antonia Juhasz wrote, "These seven companies owned the vast majority of the world's oil and controlled the economic fate of entire nations."
The Seven Sisters merged to create some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world.
It was President Grover Cleveland who warned, "Corporations, which should be carefully restrained creatures of the law and servants of the people, are fast becoming the peoples' masters."
