$19.3 billion profit is a 57% drop for Exxon Mobil

The profit report on Monday coincided with the release of President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal, which would rescind tax breaks for the oil and gas industry worth $36.5 billion over 10 years.

"This is an industry that does more than its fair share," Exxon Mobil's vice president for public and government affairs, Kenneth Cohen, said in a conference call with reporters Monday. He said that the industry employs more than 9 million Americans and accounts for 7.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

But the administration said in its budget proposal that "oil and gas subsidies are costly to the American taxpayer and do little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices." It added that "removing these subsidies would reduce greenhouse gas emissions" and the money at stake "represents only a small percentage of domestic oil and gas revenues -- about one percent over the coming decade."

Exxon Mobil also reported a $6.1 billion profit in the fourth quarter, down 23 percent from the previous year, as it suffered a $287 million loss on its U.S. refining and marketing activities in the final three months of the year. But it was Exxon Mobil's best quarter of 2009 as crude oil prices rebounded, chemical earnings jumped and the company's foreign natural gas production grew.