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Filling up at the gas tank is like getting bonked twice over the head -- once at the gas station and once as a tax payer in the form of oil subsidies. This week, the political arena focused on those generous and undeserving subsidies. Big Oil executives did their darndest to justify themselves before Congress, scraping all they could from the bottom of the oil barrell of talking points. The ConocoPhillips CEO even went so far as to say that ending subsidies would be "un-American."

Sen. Robert Menendez appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show last night with reaction: "I couldn't understand how those five CEOs could say that going from $125 billion in profits this year collectively among the big five oil companies to $123 billion this year if we take away those subsidies is somehow going to cost jobs, is somehow going to be a catastrophe, is somehow going to cause them to increase the price of gasoline," he says.

There was a time -- not that long ago -- when ending oil subsidies was an idea that appealed to both political parties. Get the quick summary on that here. Some were before it before they were against it. Want to send your elected representative a message? Click here to do it.

Meanwhile, climate zombies have claimed another victim: Jon Huntsman -- former ambassador to China under Obama and a possible presidential hopeful.

While in Salt Lake City, Huntsman took plenty of heat from Utah GOP lawmakers when he partnered with seven other Western states and four Canadian providences to form the Western Climate Initiative, which calls for a 15 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2020.

Huntsman appears to be following a well worn path of other one-time GOP climate champions who are waffling on the issue as they consider running in a primary dominated by conservative voters. Tim Pawlenty has apologized several times for backing cap-and-trade legislation, calling it one of his biggest "clunkers."

-- Brian Foley