Restoring a bit of faith in genuine goodness

By Edward Copeland 

With the amount of mischief, malfeasance and worse that goes on in the world, such as that conducted by the companies, our government and regulatory agencies which led to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico one year ago today, it's hard not to be cynical. Then you watch the documentary short Saving Pelican 895, which debuts on HBO tonight, and see all the people devoted to cleaning, rehabilitating and saving the birds coated by oil by the spill, and your hardened heart reminds your brain that there still are good people in the world. As one of the workers at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Louisiana says in the film, "How can people question that we shouldn't care for these animals?"

Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, who was nominated for the 2008 Oscar for documentary short subject for The Final Inch, Saving Pelican 895 focuses on the plight of the brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird, whose history in the state has been one hard struggle. What makes the brown pelican unique among pelicans is that it's the only pelican that dives from the air for its fish. When there began to be a massive use of pesticides along the Mississippi River, it began to kill off the birds, placing them on the endangered species list for 45 years until 1963, when there were none left in the state.

A massive immigration effort imported brown pelicans from Florida to Louisiana and the program proved so successful at repopulating the bird in the state that it was removed from the endangered list in November 2009. Five months later, BP's Deepwater Horizon exploded. Some species just can't catch a break, but this old bird proved sturdier than others. Conservationists, government agencies and activists joined forces to rescue the oil-soaked pelicans and take them to the Fort Jackson facility to be cleaned and rehabilitated before their release to a new pelican colony far removed from the spill site.

In the first three months after the spill, this effort rescued 894 brown pelicans. The film specifically focuses on the pelican given the moniker LA 895. As one of the staff veterinarians explains, an absolute rule they must follow is to never name any of the birds they are treating to prevent becoming too attached should a bad outcome happen.

One of the main interview subjects is the man who leads most of the rescue efforts along the coast itself, state biologist Michael Carloss, who admits that at the beginning of the operation his "dreams are almost nightly of oiled pelicans." LA 895 was thought to be about 10 weeks old, meaning he didn't even know how to fly yet. It was assumed his parents were rescued separately and wondered where he was since in the early weeks of a brown pelican's life, both sexes keep close watch over the fledglings, or that they may have died. The rig explosion happened right in the middle of the species' breeding season, so many of the rescued pelicans were much younger than the birds the rehabilitation center usually sees, meaning the workers and volunteers had to be much more involved than usual. They try to hand-feed the birds only when absolutely necessary because part of the program is to ensure that by the time the pelicans get released, they still fear humans and retain their wildness and won't approach people outside expecting to be fed.

Watching the entire process that these birds go through and how dedicated these people are to saving them truly is moving. The film also has nice original music by Joel Goodman. The documentary makes the point that the U.S. is the only country that requires oil companies to foot the bill for saving wildlife they've inadvertently harmed, a law passed after the Exxon Valdez wreck in Alaska. I do have to ask if that's accurate considering that with the record profits the oil companies make, they still get subsidies from our corrupt Congress, so doesn't that mean it's ultimately taxpayers who are paying? Not that I mind since it's more than a worthy cause, but seeing the reports of how BP has skirted much of its financial responsibilities for the environmental and economic disaster it created along the Gulf Coast, I hated hearing it sound as if they were being forced into good corporate citizenship. (Just this morning, there were more tales of how BP is STILL dragging its feet to avoid paying people's individual claims and, just to make you angrier, even though former BP CEO Tony "I want my life back" Hayward is no longer an active executive, he will retire next year at age 55 with an annual pension of nearly $1 million.)

The heroes in Saving Pelican 895 are the men and women who devote themselves to saving these creatures. It restores part of my faith in humanity. It also shows the strength of these birds, who had to be evacuated during part of the rehab process when a hurricane threatened. As Carloss says near the end, "With all they've been through, they really are survivors. These pelicans are tough."

Saving Pelican 895 airs tonight on HBO at 9 p.m. EDT/PDT and 8 p.m. CDT.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

BP wants to drill again

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to the Times, "BP has asked United States regulators for permission to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico."

It's like nothing ever happened.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, huh?

Well done, BP -- you guys are the best!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Guardian:

Striking resemblances between BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm 18 months beforehand have emerged from leaked US embassy cables.

The cables reveal that some of BP's partners in the gas field were upset that the company was so secretive about the incident that it even allegedly withheld information from them. They also say that BP was lucky that it was able to evacuate its 212 workers safely after the incident, which resulted in two fields being shut and output being cut by at least 500,000 barrels a day with production disrupted for months.

Other cables leaked tonight claim that the president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing $10bn of oil from his country and using "mild blackmail" to secure the rights to develop vast gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region.

And how do we know this? Because WikiLeaks leaked the cables.

The more WikiLeaks leaks, the better. Otherwise, we are all just kept in the dark by an authoritarian system that remains in power, and exerts its power, by sustaining mass ignorance

It is the truth, and only the truth, that can bring down such a system. And the reason governments are for the most part opposed to what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are doing is that the truth can bring them down -- and they know it.

Whether it's what BP is doing, or Goldman Sachs is doing, or the U.S. government is doing.

Because if the truth gets out, we might just fight back. Yes, we might just say we're as mad as hell and aren't taking it anymore.

And we can't have that, can we?

Deepwater Horizon: clusterfuck of irresponsibility

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As we learn more and more about Deepwater Horizon, the rig that blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, unleashing economic and environmental disaster, it's becoming clearer and clearer that it was one massive clusterfuck of irresponsibility. To wit:

Long before an eruption of gas turned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig into a fireball, an alarm system designed to alert the crew and prevent combustible gases from reaching potential sources of ignition had been deliberately disabled, the former chief electronics technician on the rig testified Friday.

Michael Williams, an ex-Marine who survived the April 20 inferno by jumping from the burning rig, told a federal panel probing the disaster that the alarm system was one of an array of critical systems that had been functioning unreliably in the run-up to the blowout.

Williams told the panel that he understood that the rig had been operating with the gas alarm system in "inhibited" mode for a year to prevent false alarms from disturbing the crew.

He said the explanation he got was that the leadership of the rig did not want crew members needlessly awakened in the middle of the night. 

But wait -- there's more:

If the safety system was disabled, it would not have been a unique event. Records of federal enforcement actions reviewed by The Washington Post show that, in case after case, rig operators paid fines for allegedly bypassing safety systems that could impede routine operations.

Computers used to monitor and control drilling operations intermittently froze, to the point that the problem became known as "the blue screen of death," Williams said. Despite attempted repairs, the issue remained unresolved at the time of the blowout, Williams said.

Earlier in the drilling operation, one of the panels that controlled the blowout preventer -- the last line of defense against a gusher -- had been placed in bypass mode to work around a malfunction, Williams said.


Williams said a colleague told him that an inspection of the rig in the spring, shortly before the disaster, found extensive maintenance problems.

It is all BP's fault? Well, maybe not all -- there's a lot of blame to go around, and some of it ought to be directed at others, including Transocean, the rig's owner (and Williams's employer) -- but the takeaway here, I think, as with the disaster generally, is this: The oil industry, including its enablers in government, is simply not to be trusted. It is all about profit, obviously, but it is apparently willing to cut whatever corners it can to make as much money as possible. And, to the extent that it is trusted, we do so at enormous risk to our environment and economy, not to mention to the livelihood and well-being of all those who suffer directly or indirectly as a result of its persistent irresponsibility. The disaster in the Gulf is the most prominent example we have yet seen, irresponsibility on a huge scale prompting wide media attention, but it is hardly an isolated event.

BP stops Gulf oil leak, but the disaster continues

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So BP has apparently stopped the oil leak -- for now.

And not a dead sea turtle too soon. (Seriously, click on this link to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which is posting "daily wildlife collection reports" as part of its oil spill response. It's sad and depressing and terrifying.)

Thanks BP! You're the best!

**********

No, not really. You're not the best. And the catastrophe isn't over. Brad Plumer:

[T]he Macondo site won't be fully and permanently plugged until BP finishes drilling a relief well. Kate Sheppard has a great piece today about some of the challenges involved there, including this useful warning: "A relief well drilled to quell last year's Montara blowout off the coast of Australia took five tries before it succeeded -- with an average of one week between them." Now, BP claims it can bottle up the well once and for all by July 29, though do note that just happens to be the date of BP's second-quarter shareholder meeting.

And this doesn't mean the oil-spill disaster is over. There's a lot of crude bobbing along in the Gulf right now: Scientists estimate that between 92 million and 182 million gallons have gushed out into the ocean since the Deepwater Horizon platform first blew up back in April. BP is still using dispersants to break up the oil and send it down to the sea floor, even though no one quite knows how the chemicals might affect marine life in the area. And note that oil's still washing ashore, and Bobby Jindal's artificial "barrier islands," which were supposed to protect Louisiana, are now crumbling.

There may be reason for "cautious optimism," as Steve Benen puts it, but I'm afraid my anger is still -- and I think rightly -- getting the better of me. I want this to work, of course I do, but BP and its enablers must pay for the damage they have done, the full extent of which we cannot yet grasp.

British PM rushes to defend BP

By Michael J.W. Stickings

New British Prime Minister David Cameron is apparently worried about the possible "destruction" of BP. In Toronto to attend the G20 Summit, he will press President Obama to back off a bit:

I think it is also in all our long-term interests that there is some clarity, some finality, to all of this, so that we don't at the same time see the destruction of a company that is important for all our interests...

This is a vital company for all of our interests. The view I take is that BP itself wants to cap the well and clean up the spill and compensate those who have had damages.

It wants to do these things, it will do these things. I want to work with everyone concerned to try to make sure that out of all this there will still be a strong and stable BP, because it is an important company for all of us.

That's true. BP is an extremely important company in the U.K., not just to the government but to a broad range of shareholders, many of whom have BP as a core component of their retirement savings plans. And Cameron is right, to an extent, to come to the company's defence. What if, say, a major American company like GE were involved with, or had caused, a major environmental disaster overseas? Would the American government not seek to protect it, and its shareholders, from collapse? Of course. Cameron knows who his constituents are, and they don't live on the Gulf Coast. He has every interesting in seeing BP remain strong.

But while it's hardly the fault of those British shareholders that BP did what it did, the unassailable fact is that the company caused, mostly if not entirely, the worst environmental disaster in American history, one that threatens not just the environment and economy of the Gulf Coast but the entire way of life of so many in the region. I don't necessarily want to see BP destroyed, but it nonetheless must be held to account for what it did, and forced to pay for what it did. That may mean a dip in its share price, but so be it. Responsibility comes at a price.

Obama can sympathize all he wants, but there's no way he should back down.

Sometimes you just gotta love Shep Smith

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In this case, for putting conservative Andrew Napolitano in his place for defending BP and blaming the Gulf oil spill on the government. (If the government is to be blamed for anything, it is for lax, or non-existent, regulatory oversight -- that is, there was too little government, not too much. But it is ridiculous to be defending BP, much as Rep. Joe Barton did.) Here's HuffPo:

"I'm getting kinda grossed out, Judge," Smith shot back. "You're blaming the government for this?"

"I'm blaming the government for this," Napolitano affirmed.

Smith then went off on BP's record of safety violations and mistakes, asking Napolitano, "And now you're going to turn around and blame the government for these bumbling, fumbling, crazy people?"

"How does it feel to be standing up for BP?" he asked.

It probably feels pretty normal. Conservatives like Napolitano, which is how most of them are, are all about promoting the anti-government corporatocracy that lies at the core of their right-wing ideology. And that, of course, means defending BP in the wake of the worst environmental disaster in American history.

Watch:

The next BP disaster?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One pretty much knows what to expect from the oil industry. Regardless of the disastrous situation in the Gulf of Mexico, it will ignore the obvious lessons stemming from that ongoing catastrophe and continue to push for drilling and more drilling. Perhaps one also pretty much knows what to expect from government, namely, that it will continue to hand the oil industry what it wants and look the other way when it matters, failing to provide the necessary regulatory oversight, but one expects, or should expect, better. Government, after all, exists not to, or should not exist to, help private industry maximize its profits but to advance the broader public interest. Such optimism is clearly unwarranted. The Times reports:

The future of BP's offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium.

But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.

All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil's plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.

But BP's project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an "onshore" project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP.

The project has already received its state and federal environmental permits, but BP has yet to file its final application to federal regulators to begin drilling, which it expects to start in the fall.

As bad as that is, it gets worse:

Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling.

The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency's unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled.

"The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre," one of the federal scientists said. 

Well, that's one word for it, but, when you think about it, it's not really all that bizarre. This is government not doing what it should be doing, and therefore what it so often does, not just looking away but encouraging the irresponsible activities of the oil industry -- responsible to shareholders, perhaps, despite the obvious risk, but irresponsible to the broader public, which, as along the Gulf Coast, will suffer the consequences should there be another environmental disaster, and irresponsible in terms of environmental stewardship.

Otherwise, to put it more bluntly, this is just insane. BP gets to do this because it built an artificial island and claims that it's actually onshore drilling (when it clearly isn't)? And the government just lets BP write its own environmental review and consultation documents?

Makes you wonder who really runs the country. Until you realize that we already know who does.

Coffee spill disaster

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This has been making the rounds recently, but, if you've missed it, check out this rather amusing video of BP execs dealing with, or failing to deal with, a potentially disastrous coffee spill. What it misses, I suppose, is the abject arrogance of BP, including the deception and dishonesty. Otherwise, it's excellent satire.

(h/t: Greg Prince)

Brilliant BP bashing

By Creature

An arm of BP?

By Creature

While I'm not sure what more the administration can do with respect to the slow motion oil catastrophe in the Gulf, I am sure that any hint of collusion with BP in the effort to obscure the spills extent and damage is not the way to go. Throw in what appears to be the Coast Guard acting like BP's private police force and I think the administration may well have some answering and distancing to do.

Hubris

By Creature

BP CEO Tony Hayward:

BP “will honour all legitimate claims for business interruption”. Asked for examples of illegitimate claims, he said: “I could give you lots of examples. This is America — come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

The disdain from our corporate overlords is unending.