Tell, obviously. He has just now passed away, and under their constitution the costs for them to hold elections within 30 days because he never stood for an and until we see the outcome of that election and in particular we see how organized the opposition parties may be able to get themselves together for the election. Its going to be hard to tell what the immediate affect will be. And whether his successor chooses to carry on his programs and in particular the focus of his programs and the alliances that he established, or whether they choose to broaden out their perspectives. And i think at this stage it is very difficult to tell what the successor may choose to do. He nationalized the oil industry in venezuela. Well, he, they always had a national oil company. When he took over he did narrow the scope of the holdings of International Oil companies, changed the contracts. And invited us to either accept the new contracts or to leave the country. And i accepted his invitation to leave the country. And will you go back now if the government has a different policy . Well, again, i think its a little bit early to tell. Certainly a number of things would need to change to make the Investment Climate there much more attractive for us and i think for others as well and to gain the security around those investments that we would want to return. We have been in and out of venezuela before. We were in venezuela. We left venezuela, we went back and we left again. So its certainly something that we will keep our eye on as to what policy choices they may make. There is also the oil prices today, they have risen dramatically recently at the pump. Whats causing it. Well this runup recently of gasoline prices in stick is fairly predictable seasonably in the United States. The oil price has been pretty stable for the last 12 months. Its kind of hovering in the 100 to 110, 115 dollar barrel range. And so it has volatility but the gas prices really occurred for a couple of reasons. One, we always have refinery maintenance early in the year as we are preparing to change the gasoline blend from winter grade gasoline to summer grade glass lean to comply with environmental regulations. This year was an extraordinarily heavier year in refinery maintenance and theres no particular reason for that other than refineries have certain units that must be maintained. They have to take them completely out of Service Every two to three years to do that and a number of those just happened to line up on the schedule this year across the industry. So refinery utilization rates dropped into the low 80s for a period while that was going on. And they are now gradually returning those units to service so we would expect that the gasoline prices have moderated. I think you are beginning to see a little bit of a drop. Rose so going into the summer it will be lower. Depending what the oil price does. Because the fact of the matter is a gallon of gasoline, 88 of that price is determined by the oil price, and state and federal taxes. So whats the oil price, watch the oil price because it will directline fluence where gasoline prices will go. Rose when you look at this administerin administering administration and Energy Policy, one of the key things is the Keystone Pipeline. You now have the state department saying that they think it should go ahead effectively. Theyre saying it again. Rose yeah. That it should go ahead. You know, this is a project thats been four years in the regulatory process, over a hundred public meetings, town Hall Meetings were conducted around the process for this pipeline permit. A supplement environmental impact. A second has been prepared with now two findings by the state department that there will be no measurable harm to the environment by allowing the project to go forward. So its an extremely important project, i think, to the United States of america, certainly an important project to canada. And we would hope that sufficient work has now been done that people would allow the project to proceed. I think it is an poornt important example of part of the regulatory struggles that we have in this country. The processes are extremely lengthy, theyre subject to reopening. Theyre subject to challenge and oftentimes when one gets to what you believe you have followed all the steps of the process and satisfied, you still cannot get the permit that youre seeking. Why do you think environmental groups made such a priority of the Keystone Pipeline . Well, i would not want to speak for all environmental groups. Because there are a number of different interested parties out there. I think broadly speaking, there is a segment of the environmental groups who are very concerned about the burning of fossil fuels, theyre very concerned about the development of fossil fuels and new sources. And i think in a sort of obtuse way they took a view that if they could prevent the transport of the crude oil from canada to the United States, then that would throw an obstacle in the way of future developments. I think they have probably misjudged canadas resolve to see its Natural Resources developed. When you look at gas, a carbon tax, you are in favor . Well,. Youre not opposed here is the way i would characterize it, at some point when policymakers get around to wanting to deal with additional policies around a climate and in particular around ways in which policies can incentivized certain behavior in consumers and investors, there are a lot of different models that people have discussed. One of which is cap and trade which europe has been trying now for some time to not a lot of great success. Partly because of the economic depression, recession that europe has been suffering now and finds themselves in. My view on it has been if you ares going to undertake a policy that has those characteristics, my view is, a carbon tax is much more straightforward. Its much simpler to administration and it does not leave itself open to add much az much gaming of the system as a Trading Platform does. A Trading Platform is going to impose a certain transactional cost. But you prefer that to more regulation. Well, it depends on the regulation, quite frankly. And how that regulation is structured. I would say this, i think as you look at the success the United States has already achieved in addressing co2 emissions, Greenhouse Gas emotions. Those successes you are in favor of in terms of what theyve done on emission standards within i think clearly they have been beneficial. To country. To the country. Now Climate Change, imagine greenhousegas emissions is not a single country issue, we all know that the u. S. Could cut its emissions to zero and perhaps still never influence the outcome. But if you look at where we find ourselves today compared to 1992, our greenhousegas emissions today are as low as they have been since 1992. Thats why while were assume consume being 15 more energy and we have an economy that is 60 larger. So clearly, a lot of policies around energy efficiency, some regulatory driven, but some simply driven by businesses seeing this as an opportunity to capture products an services that the public wants because the public wants to lower their own emissions. And so its a combination, i think, of a number of things. Some regulatory driven. Some education driven, some marketing driven to the public that has produced the result were seeing today. And we see more of that ahead of us in the future. Some facilitated and incentivized by regulation. Regulation which we think is sensible. And some simply driven by the publics desire to continue to improve in this area. Speak of Global Warming, how are you different than lee raymond, your pred seser who had outspoken views about Global Warming . Well, i think in terms of my view of where we find ourselves on our understanding of Global Warming, we have continued to study this issue for decades. I think we probably as a corporation were one of the First Companies to identify this as a potential issue because we are a fossil fuels based company. And lee and others before him had undertaken studies. They had funded studies at mit and other universities to inform our understanding of the issue. As time has gone by those studies have continued, more data has been gathered, more sophistication in our ability and scientists ability to create models that are better, more competent in their analysis. With all of that, though, the facts remain there are uncertainties around the climate, Climate Change, why its changing, what the principal drivers of Climate Change are. And i think the issue that i think is unfortunate in the Public Discourse is that the loudest voices are what we call the absolutest, the people who are absolutely certain that it is entirely manmade and you can attribute all of the Climate Change to nothing but manmades burning of fossil fuels. And on the other end of the debate i would say the absolutests who say there is no relationship. And the truth of the matter based on our investigation is its somewhere in between. Climate science is probably one of the most extraordinarily complex areas of Scientific Study that anyone can undertake. The variables are numerous. Many of the variables are measurable and we can replicate models. Many of the variables we cannot measure them. We cannot model them but we know theyre part of the climate system. So the models are extra extraordinarily complicated. And so therefore how certain dow feel about the competent sense competency of the model and its ability to predict the future. And its my view that the models have become increasingly more competent because of high speed computing capabilities and just more sophisticated mathematical modelling, and more data to inform the model. But at the end of it there are still a range of uncertain outcomes around these models. And every scientist i know agrees theres a range of uncertainty. And if you read that pc they talk about these ranges of uncertainty. But there is no no great difference of opinion on the impact of co2 emission into the atmosphere . There is, in terms of the impact of co2 there is a difference i think, a range in that model as to what the impact of 600 ppm versus 400 pph or 300 ppm would be. There are some ranges around those numbers, even, because its not clear when we introduce that into the climate model how some of the other elements were not able to model so well may act to, in a different way. Its clear that there is an impact. Right. Wass not clear is our ability to measure with a great degree of accuracy or certainty exactly how large that impact will be. And thats why most of the impact studies you see have ranges around them. And weve had a series of weather incidents, and some people believes theres a link between those weather incidents, Hurricane Sandy and others, and whats happening in terms of Global Warming. Do you believe there is some link there . I have seen no scientific studies to confirm. Not a specific storm but nothing. In terms of those kinds of direct outcomes, you see no link . There has been nothing to confirm that there is a link. And we look at the studies, most of the most of the concerns people have that there is a link t is a hypothesis at this point. And so in science you have a high both hypothesis, now you must go and conclude and confirm the hypothesis. Here is what i understand about your position on this. That this world has been able to adapt to many things. And that it is a manageable problem. That we can deal with Global Warming if we focus on it, if we understand it, and if the models are accurate. Well, i view Global Warming and Climate Change as a serious risk. And im in the Risk Management business. Thats basically what our company does is manage all kinds of risk. And were very comfortable managing risks that have a wide array of uncertainty around them. So as a look at Climate Change and Global Warming as a Risk Management challenge for policymakers, then i think you undertake it like we manage all risks. You take sensible steps that can mitigate the risk by controlling the rate of growth of greenhousegas emissions through a lot of the things we talked about. But you also have to contemplate the alternative outcomes that could say even if i do everything that i can possibly do, and even if i hold greenhousegas emissions to some concentration level, what if, what if it turns out theres more to it than that, and we still have these consequences that everyone worries about, rising sea levels. Storm activity. Meaning coming from some other source . Meaning that the climate system, that there are other elements of the climate system that may obviate this one single variable that we are concentrating on. Because were concentrating on a single variable and a climate system that has more than 30 variables. Were only working on one. And so thats that uncertainty issue, charlie, that im very comfortable dealing with the fact that i dont know. But what i do know is its serious and i need to managed risks. So take mitigation steps. But i need to be thinking about so what i do want to do in the event that i cant control the outcome or the outcome occurs in spite of what ive done. And thats where my engineering thinking come into the equation. Because as i have been quoted as saying, there are Engineering Solutions to these events. Im not talking about geo engineering to im talking about where we build, where we locate people, how we mitigate the effects of storms. And those are sensible things to me to do because even if the storms are unrelate food Climate Change, they still have the same devastating impact on individuals and property. Why arent we doing some things policy wise to deal with that, whether it has to do with Climate Change or not . Do we have a National Energy policy . No. And whoses failure is that . Ive said many times, weve had a National Energy policy for years and our policy has been to incentivize other countries to develop their oil and natural gas and sell it to us in a price we really like. Rose and incentivize it by what . By being a big consumer, by being a reliable consumer. And in return, there are trade relations established and other Foreign Relations established. But i think you know the fault lies ultimately with our leaders and our policymakers. I understand. Rose republican or democrat. Both. This is a nonpartisan issue. And i think it lies in large measure a result of our system of governing where we change our leaders. Every sometimes four years, every two years, every eight years. An Energy Policy requires you to think in terms of very long time frames. It requires to you put steps in place and stay with those, stay with those steps through a lot of ups and downs but be consistent with it. There are just, its energy is such a huge part of our question and life and world that there are a lot of people interested in it and there are always a lot of other people who have something they would like to say about what should be done. Rose as you know there are many people who suspect that oil companies, those like exxon have huge amounts of influence in washington. And if you wanted a National Energy policy you could get one. I wish that were true. Weve you know, ive participated, others of my counterparts have participated in a wide array of discussions, directly through the National Petroleum council which is produced some, i think, truly important reports and works. Yet the results of those reports seem to never translate themselves into policy. I cant really explain why. Because these are very thoughtful, very far reaching undertakings. You are a giant company, highest market cap in the world. A huge company even though a number of employees has declined a bit because of efficiencies or whatever the reason might be. There are those who ask this question about exxon. Are you an American Company or are you Something Else . Were an American Company. There should be no mistake about that. We have a long history and heritage of our roots are here in america. The fact that we are also a global, an international company, is a part of, you know, is also a part of who we are. And we have been as well internationally global for most of that more than 125 year history. If you look at the makeup of our employees, 60 plus percent of our employees are nonu. S. Citizens. But thats just reflective of the fact that we operate, have significant operations in over 44 countries around the world. So as one might expect were going to populate ourselves with people who work in those countries. Does that mean when exxon makes a decision it is also a thing about what is in the National Interests in terms of energy especially . I think anything that promotes Global Energy security is in u. S. National interest. And so any steps we take to develop new resources, to promote trading relationships, to promote stability in countries from a socioeconomic and geo political perspective, that is all in u. S. National interest. We do not represent the u. S. Government as we travel around the worldment we never pretend to do that. And we never ask the u. S. Government to do anything on