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BP Enjoys Lobbying Strength, Close Ties to Lawmakers as Federal Investigation Looms
On Thursday, oil giant BP asked for U.S. government assistance in cleaning up massive amounts of crude oil ominously approaching the coast of Louisiana -- the messy results of a recent oil rig explosion 40 miles off-shore.
In response, the Obama administration promised support in both clean up and containment of the environmental crisis. The president also sent clear signals indicating a potential federal investigation to determine cause and responsibility for the accident.
If BP faces heavy federal scrutiny, it's well-positioned to fight back: The London-based company has consistently spent top dollar to influence legislative and regulatory activity in Washington, D.C., the Center for Responsive Politics finds.
During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP -- a Center for Responsive Politics' "heavy hitter" -- contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.
BP regularly lobbies on Capitol Hill, as well. In 2009, the company spent a massive $16 million to influence legislation. During the first quarter of 2010, it spent $3.53 million on federal lobbying efforts, ranking it second (behind ConocoPhillips) among all oil and gas industry interests.
Its registered lobbyists include a number of former federal government and high-ranking political campaign officials, including longtime political operative Tony Podesta, former congressional chief of staff Bob Brooks, former congressional legislative director David Pore and vice presidential aide Michael S. Berman, the Center's research shows.
The oil and
gas industry, of which BP is a member, reported $169 million in 2009
lobbying
expenditures.
Comparatively, the entire environmental industry spent $22 million on lobbying in 2009 -- not much more than BP alone spent for the year. The most active member of the environmental industry, the Nature Conservancy, reported $2.2 million in 2009 expenditures. Last year, BP was active lobbying on the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009, which allows increased oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico, in areas closer to shore than current law allows.
The bill also calls for additional research and inventory of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who has received $14,000 in campaign donations during the past two decades from those associated with BP, the Center finds.
In 2009, BP also lobbied on the Oil Spill Prevention Act of 2009 and the Clean Water Restoration Act.
The oil spill, which has yet to be remedied, was caused by an explosion on a BP-leased oil rig on April 20.
A state of emergency has since been enacted in Louisiana, and the White House has designated it an event of "national significance." The oil well is reportedly leaking between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels a day, and rescue crews are trying to eliminate the oil by setting it on fire, breaking it up with chemicals and skimming it off the surface of the ocean. Already, questions are being asked about cause and responsibility.
Upon hearing the cry for help in the Gulf of Mexico, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Cal.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called for a "full blown investigation."
In 2009, individuals and political action committees associated with BP donated $16,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
In addition, five of the all-time top 10 recipients of BP money in the House of Representatives sit on the House Energy Committee: John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) Joe Barton (R-Tex.), Ralph M. Hall (R-Tex.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Fred Upton, (R-Mich.).
All have received upward of $13,000 from BP-related individuals and political action committees during the past two decades. Dingell, the second most favored recipient of BP money in the House, has received $31,000.
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48 Comments so far
Show AllQuit your griping, folks. It's NOT "lobbying." It's the constitutionally protected free speech of judicially awarded corporate personhood. In fact, since corporations can't be executed, it's just about the only part of the U.S. Constitution that is totally immune to "unitary executive" powers of life and death.
By the Supreme Court of the United States
In Re
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
'The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.”'
Unfortunately, the only way to put an end to this corporate personhood nonsense is a constitutional amendment, which can easily be blocked in the Senate by 33 Senators representing a few small states constituting a tiny minority of the country or, failing that, in the legislatures of the same 13 small states constituting the same tiny minority.
The US constitution is hopelessly out of date. An 18th century document governing life in the 21st century.
We can't change the constitution because the constitution says that we must follow an arcane and practically impossible process to change it--unless and here is the big jump, unless we decide not to follow the constitution"s stipulations about how to change it and set up our own proceedings. Is my statement really that bold? Or do we live in an age where even the ridiculous and irrelevant rules for debate in the Senate cannot be changed because the Senate can't get it together to make even modest reforms to its own rules. I propose that we establish a constitutional convention on our own terms--and that the first order of business be to eliminate the Senate, that should wake them up.
"On Thursday, oil giant BP asked for U.S. government assistance in cleaning up massive amounts of crude oil ominously approaching the coast of Louisiana -- the messy results of a recent oil rig explosion 40 miles off-shore.
In response, the Obama administration promised support in both clean up and containment of the environmental crisis. The president also sent clear signals indicating a potential federal investigation to determine cause and responsibility for the accident"
never the let truth stand i the way of a good story,
actually BP asked for money to help clean up the spill and got a flat no
obama said he would authorize us government to help the clean up since it is an emergency, but BP is responsible for the cost of cleanup
whether this will happen is unknown, but your story left out a few facts so you could make obama look worse
Why should US give BP money to clean up their mess?
BP did NOT tell the full facts from day 1 = intentionally lowballing leak volume. Other stories relating to BP's refusal to admit a potential problem and no recovery plan or equipment attest to the greed of this mega corp.
the author was inaccurate purposefully to make obama sound worse than the reality, this is not good journalism
of course bp is responsible and the government should make them pay
the author was inaccurate purposefully to make obama sound worse than the reality, this is not good journalism
of course bp is responsible and the government should make them pay
So for about ten days of lobbying expense BP could have installed an automatic shutoff valve? Who would invest in this company or buy their products, other than our 'elected' officials?
When capitalists are in charge profit will always
come before people and the environment. And
this is our goal, to effect an attitude adjustment
in people, the desire to be rich in all people, surely
the only way to stop the rich from ruling all people.
Blame it on ... Hubrus?
FREEWILL -- PURSUE HAPPINESS AS WE PRECEIVE IT TO BE
This is our goal, to pursue happiness as each may perceive it to be. For be you a Christian or have blind faith in a religion called evolution, the freedom to pursue happiness in a way that is harmless, to self-actualize and be all you can be and in a way that keeps you out of harm’s way, surely this is what life is all about.
Now to be truly freewill free, we must first accomplish
the BIG THREE and in their proper order:
(1) Freedom to do both harm and good.
(2) Knowledge of the difference between harm and good.
(3) Desire to do only good.
But many will tell you that the desire to do only good must come first,
and every believer in lukewarm Christianity will insist that to be so
harmless as to be sinless, this is not a thing that mortal man can do.
Actually, (3) comes automatic if we accomplish (1) and (2). For the desire
to do only good comes not from any inner good, but from knowing the
difference between harm and good, and that to do harm would be the
sure and permanent end of you.
So, as established by our wars of plunder and Empire USA, we already have
the freedom and ability to do both harm and good. Which means that as
soon as we know the difference between harm and good, for eternity man
will live in peace and goodwill with a desire to do only good free of ill.
For the purpose of this world is to establish a full understanding of darkness.
For darkness is the illusion of good hiding misery, a liars pretense of good
hiding his intent to be enriched upon our misery. A lukewarm mixture of good
and evil such that we cannot tell good from evil. All so that never again will
deceitful liars be able to generate darkness, nor be given the deadly force
needed to enrich themselves upon our misery while holding us captive in
darkness.
"donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000."
This is an old game. We will see with this disaster come requests to those oil companies for political contributions during this election year.
Disaster is an opportunity for the political elite to strong arm their marks for more filthy lucre.
Don't you just love our political ruling elite?
But you are using old light to force old darkness to give way,
a wasting of valuable time for a reader as dead history is
past and of interest to no one.
Better to pick some new darkness fresh from corporate media
and use new light to force such darkness to give way.
The Top Recipient Obama. Please vote Independent. The other 6.5 billion of us would be proud of you. Don't worry about voting strategically and don't worry about what other people vote for, as long as they vote independent. Imagine if everyone thought that way. Maybe change would arrive and it probably wouldn't be a messiah wrapped in a big handsome smile with his pockets full of oil and war money.
Hey Cap'n, did ya notice the President was in Venice, La today, in the flesh with boots on the ground....none of the "fly over" bullschitt like G. Wanker.
$13,000 to $14,000 over two decades is peanuts - about $700 a year. Is that all it takes bo but our elected representatives?
Looks like the contractor hands who survived the blowout fire are filing their lawsuits with the owner of the rig, Transocean, and not BP.
Looks like Halliburton was contracted to cement over the well. When the blowout happened, it appears Halliburton just finished cementing over. There's accusations Halliburton screwed up. Apparently a similar event happened off the coast of Australia and East Timor last year resulting in a fire and 10s of thousands of BBL leaking over 10 weeks. The accusation is Halliburton did a poor job cementing over the well in that one too.
Some 39 blowouts have happened in the Gulf over the last 14years, of which 19 are a result of cementing.
Link on Halliburton and cementing over...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214593564769072.html
Further detail on Halliburton's knowledge of cementing over in deep water (with previous experience at failure):
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/44349
Link to the former Deepwater Horizon rig owned by Transocean:
http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17
survivors talk:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6969069.html
http://www.khou.com/news/local/Chilling-details-seconds-after-oil-rig-explosion-92357259.html
ps
I tried to find mention of the East Timor rig fire of 2009 via the Commondreams archives, no such luck. Luckily, original articles from back then are still active. Get it while you can ...(and download for archives if so desired)
Link to rig off Australia and East Timor. Concerns over such procedures expressed well ahead of most recent disaster. Dated, 11/02/2009
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/oil-disaster-off-australia-raises-concerns-about-deepwater-drill/19219751/
Great work compiling those needed connections with Halliburton.
It goes without saying that BP has a lobbying presence, indeed a virtual partnership with "our" government. We're living in times when the CEO of Goldman Sachs can become Secretary of the Treasury - when government and big money are a single entity, a plutocracy as Moyers and Hightower say in their video. Only the trickery of language allows us to speak of the two as separate entities. The fact doesn't need to be established, only repeated slowly and frequently for the dull-witted. In the face of the present environmental disaster it is hard to hold our minds on such vast and intractable issues as the collusion of business titans and their stooges to snarf up our wealth. The damage to the earth has scarcely begun and the root cause in human institutions is not going to change this week.
Our plan of action this week should be simple. Go online and google up "Oil cleanup volunteering." Grab a bar of soap and head for Louisiana and wash BP's filth off the egrets and cormorants. Bring your video cameras. Take pictures of every sad, ugly, horrifying bit of it. Flood the world with them. Make sure BP and our oil-happy President get the credit. The economic meltdown had no visuals - it didn't LOOK like anything. But Abu Ghraib and the unforgivable suffocation of the Gulf wetlands look like something. It's pictures that make people gag, not abstractions like collateralized security schemes.
Offshore drilling needs a robust advertising campaign and this sickening tragedy is our opportunity to give them one. Share the horror.
Volunteer? No way would I ever volunteer to clean up an oil spill.
Make them pay.
Just on a matter of policy, if I became ill from exposure, who's to blame? I can see it unfolding "... Ms/Mr ____ did you not voluntarily enter into the contaminated zone under your own will, without proper notification, nor training, nor proper equipment, minus a bar of soap and a video recorder?...."
The spill is happening and the clean up (cover up?) is going to happen.
I'd rather people get paid to clean up the mess -which Transocean/Halliburton/BP will be forced to do anyway.
The call to volunteer and use your own resources will be exploited by parties who should be paying out their nose to clean up this mess. Think about it.
Look to the Exxon Valdez oil clean up. In 1989, the average worker was paid $16.69/hr for 7, 12hr days ($1769 week). The local vessels contracted to clean up the spill stuffed their freezers with food paid for by Exxon via Veco. Every chance a local fisher had to stick it to Exxon, they did, and good for us. And what animals that could be saved were still focused on, but Exxon paid everybody to be out there. And frankly, the only people who got the romantic and idealistic jobs of "saving the animals" as opposed to sopping up the tarballs and shoveling sand and generally being covered in shit, were the privileged few.
Instead, if you want to volunteer your time, do it calling for the President to send down teams of biologists and science technicians (paid, mind you) to monitor the activities, collecting data and reporting on the events. There are plenty of people who normally would be employed by state agencies around the country who are out of work because of budget shortfalls. Employ clean up workers from this highly educated class --those among us qualified to take field samples and write reports that can pass peer review.
And ...even after all of this, we can stick it to them!
The animals are the only thing worth saving. The soul of BP is beyond redemption and the last time I checked the President didn't much care what I want or don't want. I want this to cost a fortune. I want Obama's offshore drilling idea to go up in flames. I want BP in bankruptcy and fucking heads to roll. But I don't know how to make any of that happen. I don't even think the cleanup will begin to rectify the horrific damage.
All I want is to exorcize this feeling of absolute helplessness, and if at this moment I had a seagull and a bar of soap I could really be doing one small positive thing.
Peace.
.
Reading this, I am reminded of that anecdote involving Roosevelt's response to social activists pressuring him to do the right thing. He told them, "Go Ahead, Make Me. I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
They responded, in turn, with massive civil protests across the country.
Perhaps that, combined with the lived consequences of the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, will bear heavy weight on all of our political leaders to do the right thing, as you describe.
At the same time, folks in my field, are doing our part in amending, and "cleaning up" with some good-clean earthy dirt, the "oily revisions" those same Texas oil/gas/mining interests mandated in our school textbooks (over the last decade through the Texas Board of Ed). They only "approved" textbooks that would suggest that none of this was ever possible or even happening at all, thus influencing a new generation to "think" in those ways - and to protect the oil/gas/mining interests for them.
BP better damn well pay for every last atom of damage caused, even if it forces the company into bankrupcy. And every top executive of the company should be givng up their salaries as a contribution to said clean-up effort. It is about time the rich start paying for their bulls***. Next, come the Banksters.
Pay up and start contributing to the common good all you rich worthless parasites!
They Better WATERBOARD those BP execs. I have nothing to say except I am sick of these Oil Barrons pissing in natures swimming pool with its Texas Pee. Screw everyone of those BP paper hanging sons' bitches.
FRENCH REVOLUTION -- HERE WE GO AGAIN
In our famous year of 1776, Ben Franklin got off the boat from France to announce that a genocide of the rich nobility had begun in France, whereupon our capitalist dictatorship was born. Surely a Republic best designed to protect the heads and excessive wealth of our white European nobility.
So does not bad history look like its about to do a repeat? Surely for a strong desire is there for another ethnic cleansing of the white European rich nobility. For they have deadly force control of all western governments, their working full speed and nonstop to destroy all of the environment, and World War Three has just been announced by their bravado broadcast that nuke and invade they shall the oil rich nations of Iran and Venezuela.
For wealth inflates the pride of the rich, blinds the mind to any
concept of reality by the rich and inevitably is a public revolt
calling for such stupidity to be put out of its misery.
wait a minute. when a piece of legislation is going through congress, corporate lobbyists will be all over the place trying to have their way, and getting it.
but this cannot be more of the same. this is an oil spill for which bp is criminally responsible. please don't say they can lobby their way out of it. it can't be that bad.
can it?
"In response, the Obama administration promised support in both clean up and containment of the environmental crisis."
Notice the difference between the Demoks aiding the gargantuan corporation in cleaning up its gargantuan mess and the Demoks preventing the mess in the first place by promoting energy conservation, and zero-carbon, renewable sources.
Or, notice the difference between the Demoks aiding the gargantuan corporation in cleaning up its gargantuan mess and the Demoks providing an equivalent amount of aid to the people for difficulties imposed on them by gargantuan corporations.
In fact, the Demoks have little, if any, interest in social/environmental concerns, except as means to an end: Power.
Gulf oil spill: The Halliburton connection 30 Apr 2010 Investigators delving into the possible cause of the massive gulf oil spill are focusing on the role of Houston-based Halliburton Co., the giant energy services company, which was responsible for cementing the drill into place below the water. The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week. [legitgov]
'Upon hearing the cry for help in the Gulf of Mexico, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Cal.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called for a "full blown investigation."'
Chairman Waxman is doing his part to perpetuate business as usual. A full-blown investigation will go great lengths to rebuild the political position of USan corpo-fascist polluters/plunderers. The oil is needed to fuel the imperial steamroller.
Ladies and Gentleman boys and girls, gather round.
What if, God forbid, the cannot cap this oil well a thousand of feet below the sea?
Say goodbye to the Gulf of Mexico, the fishing industries GONE! Thousands of jobs GONE! These rapacious bastards created a catastrophe, which is ruining life on Earth. They have the technology to harness the Suns power and refuse to the oil lobbyists won't have it any other way. All in the name of GREED!
Earth, the only known planet which sustains human life, and we're F'n it up for future generations.
God help us!
I just read that it is a MILE under water--it seems to me they have no way of getting to it, no way of stopping it. One person said that he feared the pipe leading into the ground will collapse, at which point it will just be a gusher that is absolutely impossible to stop. BP is not saying how much oil is in the reserve.
13 days after the disaster and no solution in sight! Yup ... they're getting right on it as soon as they figure it out.
If anyone, in this case BP and Halliburton, can't guarantee appropriate response to an emergency then they should be put out of business and put in jail. Just as the war-making corporations should be put out of business and put in jail. Just as the slime-bag bankers should be put out of business and put in jail. Just as the tricksters on Wall Street should be put out of business and put in jail. Every greedy meely mouthed politician and all their corporate lacky appointees should be put out of business as well and jailed if for nothing else at least for being the brainless cowards they are.
Let the chips fall where they may ... enough is enough already. They're destroying everything they put their greedy little fingers on and we the people are always paying ... over and over and over ... and it's not just the monetary hit we the people take.
An inept government and another perverted corporation are raping our natural resources and destroying our environment.
All we have to look forward to are investigations and lawsuits. Neither of those are going to repair the damage done.
How is it that the normal, ethical, moral, compassionate human being with the understanding that we humans are mere temporary guests of Mother Earth and we should treat her kindly, gently and with reverance.
We have shit where we eat. We have abused the hospitality. We've insulted our host and have run roughshod wherever we have set foot.
Perhaps we have long since overstayed our welcome. And guess what ... Mother Earth will not miss us one bit.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE NOW!
ECONOMIC JUSTICE NOW!
SOCIAL JUSTICE NOW!
Did Obama tell any jokes about the oil spill at the correspondents' dinner last night? He really should have skipped it. It should have been canceled. He just served up a Bush playing the guitar while New Orleans was flooding type photo op, not that he or anybody else can do anything about this. If there is something in this world that can be done to stop this well from spewing oil, please, do whatever it takes to make it happen. This is now 100% the responsibility of the US federal government. So, compel whoever you have to to send whatever equipment is necessary to stop that well, if it exists. If it doesn't exist, then we are truly @#!$ed and those little booms will never hold back the oil.
Reading the reports, it seems there is no way of stopping this, and BP is not announcing how much oil is in the reserve. It is also bound to head up the East Coast via the Gulf Stream. We are witnessing an irreversible disaster that will change life on earth for thousands of years (just a guess). Black beaches up and down the east coast, an oil gusher that might flow for years. A man-made environmental disaster perhaps like none that has ever been seen. Blame will be cast, lawsuits filed, hearings held, but at the end of the day, ecosystems and livelihoods will have been destroyed all the same.
Nemesis is certainly using her powers to 'collect' for all the hubristic arrogance of the human race, most particularly the 'elite' part.
*******************
""NEMESIS was, still is(my insertion), the goddess of indignation against, and retribution for, evil deeds and undeserved good fortune. She was a personification of the resentment aroused in men by those who commited crimes with apparent impunity, or who had inordinate good fortune.""
""Nemesis directed human affairs in such a way as to maintain equilibrium. Her name means she who distributes or deals out. Happiness and unhappiness were measured out by her, care being taken that happiness was not too frequent or too excessive. If this happened, Nemesis could bring about losses and suffering. As one who checked extravagant favours by Tykhe (Fortune), Nemesis was regarded as an avenging or punishing divinity.""
From Chalmers Johnson's 'Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic':
She's new to the neighborhood, her family just moved in
From Greece or somewhere, she's a great, tall, gawky girl
With braces and earrings and uneven skin:
Hormones and acne, her change is coming in,
And today, she's playing hooky. January fog.
Orange lights on the school zone sign beat out their tattoo
And caution the Homeland's socked-in morning rush
With their strobe-light samba: Condition Amber,
As she sits invisible, swinging her legs to the beat,
Perched up high on aluminum over
The uncanny Day-Glo of the key-lime fluorescence
That says: School at the top of this composition.
I see her and she lets me. I'm an old family friend:
Sometimes I play poker with her Aunt Erato.
Her name is Nemesis and she's just moved in,
She's new to the neighborhood, she's checking it out.
******************************
I normally would not call for some hostile and violent action against anything, but this has gone too far and as the title of the post predicts, 'bp ENJOYS lobbying strength, CLOSE ties to lawmakers as federal investigation(S){my insertion}' the inevitable meaning is that bp, a foreign company, will enjoy the same conditions the exxon valdez has in its fight to keep from owning and paying up for their responsibility.
While I consider the request for american help, meaning the taxpayer pays the bills, abhorrent, as likely necessary but not without the premise that bp will PAY and PAY big time even if it brings a insidious corporate down and it goes the way of the dinosaurs.
As I have said else where, this is as a major disaster that will create the largest toxic waste site called the Gulf of Toxins. And yes, there is a potential for this to be carried out into the atlantic and to parts unknown which is just as unknown as how a major corporation would and did bring about the conditions to produce such a disaster and though I am not thoroughly convinced that this is wholly accidental( couldn't be with the shoddy and criminally irresponsible preparations to maintain this venture) it really does have to be taken as just another 'corporate terrorist attack' against the world.
And the insufferable idea that these mega rich criminals have the U.S. congress at their finger tips defies decency and logic which indicates they will 'walk' and WITH THEIR RICHES INTACT!!!
Instead of leading into the criminal corruption investigation of how 'player C' corporations pay their hooligans, the lobbyists to criminally bribe the 'player E', those people elected to office and the people they appoint to quaint positions of power, who then become criminal for taking such bribes, all under the umbrella of 'INFLUENCE PEDDLING'. Surely it is time to enforce or re-create the laws that make this the crime it is instead of leaving it as the 'way to do business'.
bp, british petroleum, has NO BUSINESS being IN BUSINESS.
Are you familiar with that old yet timely and prophetic '80s song:
"Nemesis" by Shreikback (from OIL And GOLDman, 1985) Well, it wasn't Goldman, but...there is a strange resemblance - yet moreover, it IS about Empire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMM61Y5CEU
"...We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans
Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us
We drink elixirs that we refine
from the juices of the dying
We are no monsters, we're moral people
and yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendour of our achievement
Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss...
How bad it gets, you can't imagine
the burning wax, the breath of reptiles
god is not mocked, he knows our business
Karma could take us at any moment
Cover him up.....I think we're finished
You know it's never been so exotic
but I don't know, my dreams are visions
We could still end up with the great big fishes
Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No-one move a muscle as the dead come home"
This version opens with a voice-over of Brando's "Kurtz" (from Conrad's Heart of Darkness reprised in Coppola's Apocalypse Now):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiOh84bLrmc
And all of that, somehow, leads us back to:
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater...
It Was Oil, All Along
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
"...At a congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen, who the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.
Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded for life, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in THERE WILL BE BLOOD. His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2008/06/bill_moyers_michael_winship_it.html
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, anyone?
Afghanistan Oil Pipeline?
Got OIL?
We need an aggressive citizen pounding on all House members and Senators to say specifically what each is contributing to fix responsibility for BP on the envronmental disaster. The print, electronic and blog media should be all over BP. This calls for in your face journalism
Let's know who received money from BP, and the whole oil industry, since the 2004 election. Ask each legislator was her/his office (including staff) visited by BP--when and where.
Do a content analysis of BP's written, audio and video materials. Expose lies and what misleads.
That's the only way to fight back against the BP money machine.
David Cohen,
Washington DC
Why that is what the corporations fear the most, transparency, total transparency and the accountability that goes with it. And does that ever need to happen!
"Why that is what the corporations fear the most, transparency, total transparency and the accountability that goes with it. And does that ever need to happen!"
Light the fatal blow
Vampires wake to join the night!
Come Dawn sleep or die
If the president had any experience he would declare war as this scandal is a threat to our very existence.
The liberal press like Huff Post ant the NYT, should stop protecting Obama, as the welfare of the country is at stake.
I just pray to God that the CEO of BP will come out and reassure the stock holders that despite this temporary setback the bottom line will not be affected.
peacekeepertwo: This would be a good for Democrats to think about passing 100% Public Campaign financing. If Democrats don't Pass Campaign Finance Reform, they will probably loose control of the House, and Senate. Private money controls Washington DC,and that must change.
It would make a lot of sense to have all of the oil corporations involved in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico collectively form together for a catastrophe response plan that would maintain all the equipment necessary for capping off blown well heads. Everyone contributes to the fund for the industry supporting itself in such an event.
I would much prefer seeing BP money go to this type of prepared emergency response instead of millions of their dollars going to legislators through lobbyists.
Government under Bush deregulated everything and the regulators that were still left were asleep at the wheel. "Brownie" was a political hack left in charge of FEMA despite being grossly under qualified for the job. We need strong reform and regulation of Oil Street in the same manner as we need strong reform and regulation of Wall Street.
This is the same BP that had a disaster along the Alaskan pipeline. As i recall, they didn't even know how long it was leaking. Nice ...in the tundra of Alaska. This is also the company that's fracking for natural gas in appalachias.
cabot oil..ya know T Boone Pickins outfit? Do we still have laws against monopolies? We sure need to REPOWER THE RULES OF THE GAME TO MR. PICKENS.You sure are right about making Bp pay up front for this mess, the oil co's still haven't paid for the disaster in prince william sound. The shores are still bleeding oil. These oil and filthy coal companys never clean up their messes. there just has to be a way to hold them up to their responsibilites, and a definate time frame for payback. No screwing payment plan, all the money at once...Q
HOW ABOUT AN EMAIL BLITZ TO AS MANY CORRUPT POLITITIONS AS WE CAN FOR AS LONG AS WE CAN. LIKE EVERYBODY SEND FIVE A DAY
FOR ABOUT A WEEK. STARTING NEXT MONDAY FOR ABOUT A WEEK. BLITZ BOMB CONGRESS Q
Sadly, BP will not pay. American citizens will, as BP will simply pass on the cost to the consumer. Kinda like the moronic idea of taxing companies, all you are really doing is taxing the consumer.
Watch, gasoline and heating oil prices will go up because of this.