“If you want to see what the cutting edge of next-gen clean energy innovation looks like, it’d be hard to find a place better than Texas. Amazing companies are breaking ground not just here in Southeast Texas but across the state. Each one represents a huge boon for the local economy,” - Bill Gates
It also doesn’t help that oil companies pay average people gobs of money just to look for oil on their land, not to mention drilling. Families can essentially get UBI for the rest of their lives, courtesy of Big Oil.
Voting for politicians that will curtail oil production is effectively voting to cut off your own UBI. I was recently a prospective jurist in a court case between two oil companies, and I can’t tell you how many people in a sample of ≈75 had some kind of history with oil companies regarding mineral or drilling rights.
It’s absurd the amount of influence they have been allowed to accrue.
You’re exactly right there. My exes parents get something like $60K/yr for the oil underneath their land. All they had to do is sign it away and the equipment is about a mile away so they don’t see it and it’s free money for them.