The BP I've known too well

[Jamie_B]

[url]http://www.truth-out.org/slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well59178[/url]

[quote]Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well

I've seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was ... British Petroleum (BP).

That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast.

Tankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn't happen, but it does. And when it does, the name of the game is containment. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf last week, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRP), which the company itself drafted and filed with the government.

What's so insane, when I look over that sickening slick moving toward the Delta, is that containing spilled oil is really quite simple and easy. And from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates.

That's because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap.

To contain a spill, the main thing you need is a lot of rubber, long skirts of it called a "boom." Quickly surround a spill, leak or burst, then pump it out into skimmers, or disperse it, sink it or burn it. Simple.

But there's one thing about the rubber skirts: you've got to have lots of them at the ready, with crews on standby in helicopters and on containment barges ready to roll. They have to be in place round the clock, all the time, just like a fire department, even when all is operating A-O.K. Because rapid response is the key. In Alaska, that was BP's job, as principal owner of the pipeline consortium Alyeska. It is, as well, BP's job in the Gulf, as principal lessee of the deepwater oil concession.

Before the Exxon Valdez grounding, BP's Alyeska group claimed it had these full-time, oil spill response crews. Alyeska had hired Alaskan natives, trained them to drop from helicopters into the freezing water and set booms in case of emergency. Alyeska also certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound. Alyeska also told the state and federal government it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island.

But it was all a lie. On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.

As a result, the oil from the Exxon Valdez, which could have and should have been contained around the ship, spread out in a sludge tide that wrecked 1,200 miles of shoreline.

And here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun.

BP's CEO Tony Hayward reportedly asked, "What the hell did we do to deserve this?"

It's what you didn't do, Mr. Hayward. Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP?

Last year, CEO Hayward boasted that, despite increased oil production in exotic deep waters, he had cut BP's costs by an extra one billion dollars a year. Now we know how he did it.

As chance would have it, I was meeting last week with Louisiana lawyer Daniel Becnel Jr. when word came in of the platform explosion. Daniel represents oil workers on those platforms; now, he'll represent their bereaved families. The Coast Guard called him. They had found the emergency evacuation capsule floating in the sea and were afraid to open it and disturb the cooked bodies.

I wonder if BP painted the capsule green, like they paint their gas stations.

Becnel, yesterday by phone from his office from the town of Reserve, Louisiana, said the spill response crews were told they weren't needed because the company had already sealed the well. Like everything else from BP mouthpieces, it was a lie.

In the end, this is bigger than BP and its policy of cheaping out and skiving the rules. This is about the anti-regulatory mania, which has infected the American body politic. While the tea baggers are simply its extreme expression, US politicians of all stripes love to attack "the little bureaucrat with the fat rule book." It began with Ronald Reagan and was promoted, most vociferously, by Bill Clinton and the head of Clinton's deregulation committee, one Al Gore.

Americans want government off our backs ... that is, until a folding crib crushes the skull of our baby, Toyota accelerators speed us to our death, banks blow our savings on gambling sprees and crude oil smothers the Mississippi.

Then, suddenly, it's, "Where was hell was the government? Why didn't the government do something to stop it?"

The answer is because government took you at your word they should get out of the way of business, that business could be trusted to police itself. It was only last month that BP, lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn't needed.

You should meet some of these little bureaucrats with the fat rule books. Like Dan Lawn, the inspector from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, who warned and warned and warned, before the Exxon Valdez grounding, that BP and Alyeska were courting disaster in their arrogant disregard of the rule book. In 2006, I printed his latest warnings about BP's culture of negligence. When the choice is between Lawn's rule book and a bag of tea, Lawn's my man.

This just in: Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews, who, therefore, poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So, it blew.

Why didn't Halliburton check? "Gross negligence on everyone's part," said Becnel. Negligence driven by penny-pinching, bottom-line squeezing. BP says its worker is lying. Someone's lying here, man on the platform or the company that has practiced prevarication from Alaska to Louisiana. [/quote]

[sois]

Oil is part of nature, it belongs in the ocean with the fish, it will give them fuel to go faster to run away from sharks.

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='sois' date='11 June 2010 - 02:18 PM' timestamp='1276280304' post='892716']
Oil is part of nature, it belongs in the ocean with the fish, it will give them fuel to go faster to run away from sharks.
[/quote]

[|Bunghole|]

I think when its all said and done, all of us will look back at this as probably the biggest environmental disaster of our lifetimes. We haven't even begun to feel the true impact of this yet.

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Bunghole' date='11 June 2010 - 02:54 PM' timestamp='1276282455' post='892722']
I think when its all said and done, all of us will look back at this as probably the biggest environmental disaster of our lifetimes. We haven't even begun to feel the true impact of this yet.
[/quote]


We're still feeling if from the Valdez I cant imagine how long we will feel it from this.

[Vol_Bengal]

Drop the hammer on em...

Get Obama his report as to the "cause" which essentially is negligence / lying about drilling depths...

And, lift the moratorium on drilling. If BP is allowed to continue then they get the Saddam treatment - they no longer get the benefit of the doubt. They've earned the right to random checks by whatever agencies are necessary and stiff penalties / fines if they're found non-compliant.


Seems relatively simple. But, we're talking about oil companies so... it'll be "much more complex" than us simple folk can possibly fathom as the campaign contributions are deposited...

[Jamie_B]

before we go lifting any moratorium on drilling we need to re-institute some regulations that were lifted during the bush years...

http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d2-500K-device-may-have-prevented-oil-spill

[quote]$500K device may have prevented oil spill

Yes, that's correct...a device that costs one half million dollars may have prevented what is on track to become the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The device is called an acoustic trigger (aka. acoustic switch, actuator). It is a remote-controlled device deployed off oil rigs that sends acoustic impulses through the water, triggering an underwater valve or explosives to shut down the well even if the rig is catastrophically damaged or abandoned.

All offshore rigs have one main switch to shut off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. There is also supposed to be a backup called a “dead man,” that will shut down the well in the event of a catastrophe on the rig.

Apparently neither of these devices worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by British Petroleum (BP). The crew members who would have been closest to the shutoff switch are among those missing and presumed dead. If the rig was equipped with an acoustic trigger, it would have been a last resort option and could have been activated from a remote location.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Norway and Brazil require these devices in all offshore drilling operations. While they are not required with rigs offshore the U.K., BP elects to deploy them there. BP chose not to equip oil rigs off the coast of the U.S. with acoustic triggers because U.S. regulations enacted in 2003 do not require companies to do so.

CBS reported that Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) sent President Obama a letter Thursday reminding him that in 2000 the Interior Department insisted "oil companies have 'reliable backup systems' in the event of a rig blowout." By 2003, the plan was scrapped after a closed-door meeting with energy company executives conducted by then-Vice President Dick Cheney. "This could be one of the world's greatest nightmare scenarios of an oil gusher," Nelson said.

A Pensacola attorney, Mike Papantonio, whose firm filed a class-action lawsuit three days ago against BP on behalf of Gulf fishermen had this to say on MSNBC's The Ed show:

BP didn't want to spend the money for a system - a fail safe system, used all over the world...[that could have prevented this]. We're talking about a company that makes forty billion a year that wouldn't invest five hundred thousand dollars...It is the most unreported part of this story...

View the full interview here: (Papantonio appears about 3 minutes into the video clip).

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMlbhI5JMxU&feature=player_embedded[/media]

While the environmental, economic, social and political consequences of this catastrophe are certainly significant, and certain to impact the state of Florida, the story here is the story behind the story. One can get the news about the extent of the spill, cleanup efforts, the impact on wildlife, industries, etc. from any news outlet. What you won't hear, the story behind the story, is the fact that deregulation of the oil industry in 2003 enabled BP, which posts about $40 billion a year in profits, to cut costs and maximize profit by failing to utilize a $500,000 device that may have prevented this disaster.

Now that you've lost a $560,000 oil rig, are spending $6 million a day in cleanup efforts, have lost billions in the drop of your stock on the NYSE, have infuriated the citizens of four gulf coast states...how's that business model working out for you, BP?[/quote]

[Vol_Bengal]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='11 June 2010 - 03:16 PM' timestamp='1276283785' post='892730']
before we go lifting any moratorium on drilling we need to re-institute some regulations that were lifted during the bush years...

http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d2-500K-device-may-have-prevented-oil-spill
[/quote]

Get er done then Jamie!!!

You're in the beltway...

Put the regulation back that requires this "device" that basically "keeps em honest"... because obviously BP can't be taken at their word...

Guaranteed... we'll still be talking about this shit a year from now. Moratorium will still be in place and Washington still will not have decided anything definitively regarding the regulations that were lifted during Bush, part deux...

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Vol_Bengal' date='11 June 2010 - 03:45 PM' timestamp='1276285512' post='892734']
[color="#FF0000"]Get er done then Jamie!!![/color]

You're in the beltway...

Put the regulation back that requires this "device" that basically "keeps em honest"... because obviously BP can't be taken at their word...

Guaranteed... we'll still be talking about this shit a year from now. Moratorium will still be in place and Washington still will not have decided anything definitively regarding the regulations that were lifted during Bush, part deux...
[/quote]


"If it were a dictatorship it'd be a heck of alot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

[Vol_Bengal]

[quote]According to the Wall Street Journal, Norway and Brazil require these devices in all offshore drilling operations. While they are not required with rigs offshore the U.K., BP elects to deploy them there. BP chose not to equip oil rigs off the coast of the U.S. with acoustic triggers because U.S. regulations enacted in 2003 do not require companies to do so.[/quote]

So... they're not required in the UK but BP elects to use them anyway...

they're not required in the US but BP elects to NOT use them... hmmmm.

British held company, in Britain, takes the extra precaution. In the US... they say piss on you.

Just flat bring the hammer down on them.

[BengalBacker]

http://www.allproudamericans.com/how-would-BP-handle-a-coffee-spill.html

[Quaker]

This whole situation is quite a mess.

First of all, there are some folks out there (RWers) who just want to go on endlessly about Obama and BP holding hands and skipping down the street while Americas gulf coast gets washed in oil. RWers want to make this big deal about how much money BP contributed to the campaign of Obama. RWers want to rant and rave about the connections between LWers and BP in general.

Ya' see, the RW accusations are quite far from the other side of the ball.

BP gives a lot more money to congressmen, republican congressmen.

[url="http://www.good.is/post/bp-s-donations-to-congress-more-worrying-than-its-donations-to-obama/"]http://www.good.is/p...tions-to-obama/[/url]
[i]The Sunlight Foundation reports on the slick of BP money that's already spread far and wide through the American political system. The oil and gas giant is a major campaign contributor, giving more than $6 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years.

President Obama has received the most—$77,051—which might seem surprising at first blush. But presidential candidates receive a lot more than everybody else, and most major donors, including energy companies, spread their donations between Republicans and Democrats. So it's not shocking that Obama's among the very top recipients, although I would've expected McCain or Bush to have received more.[/i]

[i][b]But more oil money goes to Congress as a whole than to presidential candidates. Sunlight, an advocate for government transparency, lists the 10 biggest recipients of BP cash who are currently serving in Congress:[/b][/i]
[i][b]Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)—$73,300[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)—$44,899[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio)—$41,400[/b][/i][i]
Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan)—$31,000
[/i][i]Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana)—$28,200[/i][i][b]
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)—$27,350[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)—$22,300[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)—$22,000[/b][/i][i][b]
Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas)—$20,950
[/b][/i][i][b]Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)—$19,500[/b][/i] [i]

Few surprises here. Quick review: Inhofe is the Senate's lead climate-change denier; Barton is his counterpart in the House; McConnell is the Senate GOP leader; McCain has abandoned his former interest in climate legislation; Young is the sole rep from an oil-intensive state; Dingell is a chief protector of the Detroit auto industry, and Landrieu hearts the Gulf oil and gas industries.[/i] [i]Point being, if you want to fault Obama for taking Big Oil money, go for it. If you think it may have influenced his decision to expand offshore drilling, fine. But he wants to sign a decent clean-energy bill, according to everything we've seen him do and heard him say.[/i] [i]The Senate is where the bill is stalled out. [/i][i][b]That's where oil money is doing the most damage

[/b][/i]I also found these numbers: BP contributions broken down.

[i]2010
Total Spent - $173,781
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $75,550 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)

2008
Total Spent - $619,255
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $198,500 (41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans)

2006
Total Spent - $601,696
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $219,500 (34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans)

2004
Total Spent - $678,337
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $220,499 (38% to Democrats, 62% to Republicans)
[/i]
It's incredibly annoying to watch some RWers go on another hate rant about Obama, BP and $$ while their guys are sitting in the piles of shit, just ridiculious. It makes you look retarded, STFU.

Now that we've covered that topic, lets modve on to Alaska.

What the fuck is happening up there?

#1. Did you know that on 5.25.10 there was an Alaskan OIl Spill?
([url="http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3238"]http://blog.buzzflas...ntributors/3238[/url])
[size="4"][size="2"]#2 BP owns the controlling stake in the Alaskan Pipe Line?
#3 The Alaskan congressman is #1 on the BP congressional pay-roll. McCain is #2.
#4 Todd Palin, an employee of BP for 18 years, his wife was only the 2008 VP ticket.
#5 GWB was a proponent of drilling in ANWR. [/size][/size]From the buzzflash link: (Regarding BP) [i]The company is deeply involved in our democracy. Bob Malone, until last year the Chairman of BP America, was also Alaska State Co-Chairman of the Bush re-election campaign. Mr. Bush, in turn, was so impressed with BP's care of Alaska's environment that he pushed again to open the state's arctic wildlife refuge (ANWR) to drilling by the BP consortium.
[/i]#6. Little scary to think if McCain had won in 2008. Country would literally be run by BP. McCain, the Palins, The Alaskan congressman.

Seems like their some folks who want to completely rape and pillage Alaska.

The world is seemingly run based on control of the worlds oil supplies.

Pathetic.

[BengalBacker]

[quote name='BengalBacker' date='12 June 2010 - 09:16 PM' timestamp='1276391788' post='892813']
[url="http://www.allproudamericans.com/how-would-BP-handle-a-coffee-spill.html"]http://www.allprouda...ffee-spill.html[/url]
[/quote]

Damn, nobody thought this was funny?

[oldschooler]

[quote name='BengalBacker' date='13 June 2010 - 03:34 PM' timestamp='1276461250' post='892856']
Damn, nobody thought this was funny?
[/quote]




Too soon?




No but really, I thought it was funny. But I had already seen it on MSNBC the other night.

[Jamie_B]

yeah i thought it was funny but had seen it as well

[|Tigers Johnson|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='11 June 2010 - 02:55 PM' timestamp='1276282531' post='892723']
We're still feeling if from the Valdez I cant imagine how long we will feel it from this.
[/quote]

I was wondering if we were....

Do you know what the affects are still?

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Tigers Johnson' date='13 June 2010 - 08:28 PM' timestamp='1276475300' post='892881']
I was wondering if we were....

Do you know what the affects are still?
[/quote]


Granted this is a few years old.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=environmental-effects-of

[quote]On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in northern Prince William Sound, spilling 42 million liters of crude oil and contaminating 1,990 kilometers of shoreline. Some 2,000 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and about 250,000 seabirds died in the days immediately following the spill. Now researchers writing in the journal Science caution that more than a decade later, a significant amount of oil still persists and the long-term impacts of oil spills may be more devastating than previously thought.

Charles H. Peterson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his colleagues compiled and analyzed the findings of dozens of previous studies. The results, Peterson says, "showed that oil has persisted in surprisingly large quantities for years after the Exxon Valdez spill in subsurface reservoirs under coarse intertidal sediments. This oil was sequestered in conditions where weathering by wave action, light and bacteria was inhibited, and toxicity remained for a decade or more." Exposure to this oil, in turn, caused additional animal deaths. Salmon, for example, had increased mortality for four years after the spill because incubating eggs had come into contact with it. Larger marine mammals and ducks, meanwhile, suffered ill effects because their prey was contaminated. The team estimates that shoreline habitats such as mussel beds affected by the spill will take up to 30 years to recover fully.

The findings should inform the development of better ways to assess the ecological risks of large-scale oil spills, the scientists say. In addition, the work applies to other areas of environmental remediation. "Recognition that chronic exposures of fish eggs to oil concentrations as low as a few parts per billion lead indirectly to higher mortality shows the critical need to better control stormwater runoff of petroleum hydrocarbons and other toxins," Peterson remarks. "In a developed country like the U.S., an amount of petroleum equal to the Exxon Valdez oil spill is spilled annually for every 50 million people."[/quote]

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='13 June 2010 - 06:46 PM' timestamp='1276480006' post='892888']
Granted this is a few years old.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=environmental-effects-of
[/quote]


It won't be the same in our lifetime...

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Elflocko' date='13 June 2010 - 09:52 PM' timestamp='1276480358' post='892890']
It won't be the same in our lifetime...
[/quote]


I saw something that said this spill is equal to the valdez spill every 8 days, meaning that every 8 days that this has gone on is equal to ONE valdez spill.

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='13 June 2010 - 06:55 PM' timestamp='1276480514' post='892891']
I saw something that said this spill is equal to the valdez spill every 8 days, meaning that every 8 days that this has gone on is equal to ONE valdez spill.
[/quote]

I'm going to believe that it's the worst case scenario until proven otherwise.

Fucking disgusting...

[Vol_Bengal]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='13 June 2010 - 09:55 PM' timestamp='1276480514' post='892891']
I saw something that said this spill is equal to the valdez spill every 8 days, meaning that every 8 days that this has gone on is equal to ONE valdez spill.
[/quote]

I could buy that, easily...

[Vol_Bengal]

[quote name='Quaker' date='13 June 2010 - 05:35 AM' timestamp='1276421733' post='892821']
This whole situation is quite a mess.

First of all, there are some folks out there (RWers) who just want to go on endlessly about Obama and BP holding hands and skipping down the street while Americas gulf coast gets washed in oil. RWers want to make this big deal about how much money BP contributed to the campaign of Obama. RWers want to rant and rave about the connections between LWers and BP in general.

Ya' see, the RW accusations are quite far from the other side of the ball.

BP gives a lot more money to congressmen, republican congressmen.

[url="http://www.good.is/post/bp-s-donations-to-congress-more-worrying-than-its-donations-to-obama/"]http://www.good.is/p...tions-to-obama/[/url]
[i]The Sunlight Foundation reports on the slick of BP money that's already spread far and wide through the American political system. The oil and gas giant is a major campaign contributor, giving more than $6 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years.

President Obama has received the most—$77,051—which might seem surprising at first blush. But presidential candidates receive a lot more than everybody else, and most major donors, including energy companies, spread their donations between Republicans and Democrats. So it's not shocking that Obama's among the very top recipients, although I would've expected McCain or Bush to have received more.[/i]

[i][b]But more oil money goes to Congress as a whole than to presidential candidates. Sunlight, an advocate for government transparency, lists the 10 biggest recipients of BP cash who are currently serving in Congress:[/b][/i]
[i][b]Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)—$73,300[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)—$44,899[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio)—$41,400[/b][/i][i]
Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan)—$31,000
[/i][i]Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana)—$28,200[/i][i][b]
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)—$27,350[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)—$22,300[/b][/i][i][b]
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)—$22,000[/b][/i][i][b]
Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas)—$20,950
[/b][/i][i][b]Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)—$19,500[/b][/i] [i]

Few surprises here. Quick review: Inhofe is the Senate's lead climate-change denier; Barton is his counterpart in the House; McConnell is the Senate GOP leader; McCain has abandoned his former interest in climate legislation; Young is the sole rep from an oil-intensive state; Dingell is a chief protector of the Detroit auto industry, and Landrieu hearts the Gulf oil and gas industries.[/i] [i]Point being, if you want to fault Obama for taking Big Oil money, go for it. If you think it may have influenced his decision to expand offshore drilling, fine. But he wants to sign a decent clean-energy bill, according to everything we've seen him do and heard him say.[/i] [i]The Senate is where the bill is stalled out. [/i][i][b]That's where oil money is doing the most damage

[/b][/i]I also found these numbers: BP contributions broken down.

[i]2010
Total Spent - $173,781
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $75,550 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)

2008
Total Spent - $619,255
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $198,500 (41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans)

2006
Total Spent - $601,696
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $219,500 (34% to Democrats, 65% to Republicans)

2004
Total Spent - $678,337
Contributions to Federal Candidates - $220,499 (38% to Democrats, 62% to Republicans)
[/i]
It's incredibly annoying to watch some RWers go on another hate rant about Obama, BP and $$ while their guys are sitting in the piles of shit, just ridiculious. It makes you look retarded, STFU.

Now that we've covered that topic, lets modve on to Alaska.

What the fuck is happening up there?

#1. Did you know that on 5.25.10 there was an Alaskan OIl Spill?
([url="http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3238"]http://blog.buzzflas...ntributors/3238[/url])
[size="4"][size="2"]#2 BP owns the controlling stake in the Alaskan Pipe Line?
#3 The Alaskan congressman is #1 on the BP congressional pay-roll. McCain is #2.
#4 Todd Palin, an employee of BP for 18 years, his wife was only the 2008 VP ticket.
#5 GWB was a proponent of drilling in ANWR. [/size][/size]From the buzzflash link: (Regarding BP) [i]The company is deeply involved in our democracy. Bob Malone, until last year the Chairman of BP America, was also Alaska State Co-Chairman of the Bush re-election campaign. Mr. Bush, in turn, was so impressed with BP's care of Alaska's environment that he pushed again to open the state's arctic wildlife refuge (ANWR) to drilling by the BP consortium.
[/i]#6. Little scary to think if McCain had won in 2008. Country would literally be run by BP. McCain, the Palins, The Alaskan congressman.

Seems like their some folks who want to completely rape and pillage Alaska.

The world is seemingly run based on control of the worlds oil supplies.

Pathetic.
[/quote]

really???

Because BP has a 58 to 42% split in donations repubs vs. dems you're placing 100% of the blame on repubs? or RW'ers as you call them... I mean really?

Honestly, the percentages are actually closer than I would have anticipated... 58 to 42% is close enough such that ALL politicians (any that have accepted these donations) should share any blame. That is the bottom line. It appears though that a majority of it rests with BP...

But, when almost half of their donations go to each party... there is enough self-preservation interest that they'll get a slap on the wrist. Gawd, I hate (most) politicians...

Based on the article that Jamie posted last week the first question I'd have for BP would be the special sensor that is optional now in the US is also optional in the UK...

yet, BP elects to use them in the UK and not the US... Why?

If you boiled it down to a financial audit for instance... and an auditor comes to me and asks why I deemed it necessary to do X in a particular instance and then the next time that particular instance came up I didn't do X again... there would be negative ramifications on me and my financial institution. I want BP to answer for the lack of consistency in the application of their trade.

[Homer_Rice]

[url="http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Gulf%20Oil%20Spill.pdf"]A grim scenario--article:[/url]

[quote]That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the en-
tire coastline of the United States.”[/quote]

[Jamie_B]

good lord...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65G42D20100617?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

[quote]Some Republicans consider BP deal a U.S. "shakedown"

(Reuters) - The first apology that rang out in a congressional hearing about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Thursday was not from BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward.

Politics

It was from Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton, who apologized to Hayward for BP's having to agree to a deal with President Barack Obama to set up a $20 billion fund for Gulf damage claims.

"I'm speaking totally for myself, I'm not speaking for the Republican party ... but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said.

He called it "a tragedy of the first proportion, that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, a $20 billion shakedown."

Barton's point was that BP should pay for damage claims but should be allowed to follow the "due process and fairness" of the American legal system.

As Republicans are seeking to pick up seats from majority Democrats in November's congressional elections, it is a politically risky stance that is bound to be unpopular in the Gulf region, where out-of-work fishermen are desperate for claims payments to survive economically.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs quickly denounced Barton and called on members of both parties to repudiate his comments.

"What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction," said Gibbs.

BARTON NOT ALONE

Barton is not alone among Republicans holding this view.

Georgia Republican Representative Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House members, issued a statement on Wednesday arguing the same point.

He said the White House does not have the legal authority to compel a private company to set up and fund an escrow account. The White House has dismissed such criticism.

Price said BP's willingness to go along with the White House's new fund suggests that the Obama administration is "hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics."

"These actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been borne out of this administration's drive for greater power and control," Price said.

And former Texas Republican Representative Dick Armey, a leading voice in the conservative Tea Party movement, told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this week that Obama lacks the constitutional authority to set up such a fund.

"The Constitution doesn't give that authority to the executive branch.... There are courts for this purpose," Armey said, according to the Dallas Morning News.

In addition, conservative Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was quoted as telling the Heritage Foundation think tank on Tuesday that the escrow account was a "redistribution-of-wealth fund."

"And now it appears like we'll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government," she said, according to the Minnesota Independent.

Barton is the biggest recipient of oil and gas industry campaign contributions in the House of Representatives, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Its data showed that Barton has collected $1,447,880 from political action committees and individuals connected with the oil and gas industry since 1989.[/quote]

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' date='17 June 2010 - 11:18 AM' timestamp='1276798713' post='893547']
good lord...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65G42D20100617?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
[/quote]

Yeah, wonder how much in campaign contributions [b]he's [/b]received over the years.


Shitbag...