Cobb Rules

This is one of the basic facts of modern life. You should never believe what oilmen tell you. I realize that publicly stating this on a blog is bit risky. Who knows when someone might be checking out my background—maybe as part of a hiring or employment process—and come across this post. But hey, if you can't get to say what you believe when you're pushing 60, then when?

I'm not just talking about all the lying BP executives have been doing in the last 40 days (and before that when they said they could do deep water drilling without screwing up life as we know it for millions of people). I worked with oilmen for three years back in the 1980s. I was Chief Oil and Gas Tax Auditor for what is now the tenth largest oil-producing state in the Union.

I approached that job as I do most things, with a passion for the past as a path to the future. I read the history of the oil business. And I went on Petroleum Accounting courses. I did a week-long petroleum auditing boot camp out in Texas Hill Country, courtesy of the Texas Comptroller's office. I did a lot of research for the politicians who were pushing an increase in the state petroleum tax that I was charged with collecting.

And I clearly remember the oil industry spokesman telling lawmakers that the oil industry would leave the state if the tax was increased. Well, the tax was doubled and the state steadily rose from 17th to 10th in the production rankings.That oilman was lying. He also lied when he said, in about 1983, that oil would soon be $60 a barrel. At that time, oil was about $30 a barrel. His claim was that the state would soon see a doubling of oil tax revenues without changing the tax rate. Oil did not reach $60 a barrel until about 2006.

A great way to gauge the honesty of oilmen over the years is to read these four books:

1. The Seven Sisters by Anthony Sampson.
2. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin.
3. Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash by Harry Hurt III.
4. Oil! by Upton Sinclair 

Among the interesting things you will learn from these books is the way oilmen lied to Arabs in order to cheat them out of a fair price for their oil. And the fact that controls on the price of oil in America were put in place at the request of the oil industry. This may come as a shock if you grew up with the huge propaganda campaign oilmen mounted in the 1970s to get domestic oil prices deregulated. Yep, a whole lot of lying went on.

BTW, the last of those four books, Oil! may have the shortest title but it is one of the richest reads in twentieth century American literature. Forget the movie for which this book was butchered (There Will Be Blood). This long-neglected novel reveals a lot about American history that they just don't teach in (American) schools. Like the rule I'm laying down here: Oilmen lie!