The Muppets vs. Big Oil (?!)

Michael Stickings (@mjwstickings) has shared a Tweet with you:

"thinkprogress: Fox News: The Muppets are 'brainwashing' young people to hate the oil industry"

Conservatives are hilariously stupid, aren't they? (If only they didn't have so many ignorant adherents.)

Thanks for never failing to deliver, Fox News.

**********

Here's the Think Progress post:

Life's a happy song, but not when Fox Business is singing along. The network is upset that the new Muppets movie, The Muppets, features an oil tycoon as a villain, with various contributors complaining last week that the film amounts to "indoctrination" of young people into "hating corporate America" that borders on "Communist[ic]." Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center agreed with host Eric Bolling that "liberal Hollywood is using class warfare to brainwash our kids" and the discussion rambled on from there...

The discussion unraveled into attacks against President Obama, the 99 Percent movement, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). Andrea Tantaros, host of "The Five" over on Fox News, implored that Tex Richman embodies "The American Dream," and Bolling suggested that teaching that wealth is bad amounts to Communism.

Poor Corporate America. Poor Big Oil. Boo-fucking-hoo. This woe-is-us thing they and their surrogates always do is pathetic.

Even if this were the case, which it's not. The movie, which I really enjoyed, is an old-fashioned story (not in 3D, thankfully, and full of charming musical numbers) about love and friendship and community, about being yourself and embracing who you are, about difference and acceptance, about values we all can cherish. It's quite wonderful -- and wonderfully American. And of course it doesn't promote the cruelty and brutality of today's conservatism, hence its rejection by conservatives like these morons. (So, yes, in that sense, the Muppets are against right-wing Corporate America, but not against capitalism -- they get their show on network TV, after all.)

And, seriously, attacking the Muppets? I've just got one thing to say to that:

Photo of the Day: Cleaning up the ExxonMobil oil disaster in Montana

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "A cleanup worker uses oil absorbent materials on the Yellowstone River in Laurel, Montana. An Exxon Mobil pipeline near Laurel, Montana, ruptured and spilled an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone."

With all the attention on Casey Anthony, the debt ceiling, and the Fourth of July long weekend, this story didn't get nearly the attention it deserved.

But it's yet another environmental catastrophe caused by the oil industry, a disaster that hardly registers because there have been so many and because apparently we're used to it by now.

Yes, of course, these things happen.

But isn't that the problem? Even if there isn't negligence or incompetence -- and it's not clear yet what happened here (the rupture may have been caused by the surging river, but the pipeline may not have been entirely secure in the first place, and it looks like ExxonMobil hasn't been entirely honest about the spill) -- this sort of thing can happen. And does happen. And when the pipeline runs just eight feet below the river, well, the consequences can be -- and are -- enormous and devastating.

Meanwhile, the cleanup continues. As does the suffering -- to the environment, to animals, to humans, to the economy.

It seems to me we should care more than we do.

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?

Happy now?

By Capt. Fogg


Is the Gulf of Mexico becoming the cesspool of the Oil business; the repository of all the spills resulting from accidents, neglect, irresponsible drilling and all the other inevitable situations we refuse to listen to while sneering at "enviros" and calling for more oil whatever the cost?

Sure it is, but we may just be beginning to give a damn, now that it's appearing that many of us won't live to see that section of the great mother of life, the World Ocean, and it's shorelines restored to any kind of health.

We have another gusher, apparently. Just off the coast near New Orleans where a barge has reportedly crashed into a well spilling more oil just where we need it least and just where we have our equipment otherwise occupied. It hasn't been the first time, and it won't be the last, but maybe now we're starting to realize that you can't get all the world's oil out of the ground without the nasty consequences we've been ignoring. You can't transport it by ship or by pipeline and you can't pump it without leaks and spills and fires and of course, loss of life.

Yes, that's right, you're paying three bucks a gallon -- much, much less than other countries do and all our efforts to ruin what's left of what's worth keeping in our country aren't going to reduce that price. It's all going to get worse until you start listening to those hippie, treehugging, sandal wearing weirdos and stop listening to the bought and paid for politicians who refuse to do a damned thing that might stop the campaign contributions and free propaganda that keep them in office. The rich TV blowhards, your friends, your neighbors and all their stupid stories about vast reserves of oil ready to pour into your tanks if only the government and those environmental freaks would let our friends at Exxon sell it to China and Japan at a higher price than we want to pay.

I'd like to blame it all on Republicans, like the ones in Florida who refuse to take any steps whatever to keep the oil off our shores ( or the industrial and agricultural waste that poison our inland waters) but even the President we elected in our naivete, thinking that he could be immune, has been tainted.

Oil corrupts. Big oil corrupts big time, whether it's in Nigeria, Venezuela or Iraq. It's corrupted us and has corrupted presidents since the Harding administration. But before you think I'm going into another partisan rant, think again. It's us - it's you who elect these people. It's the American people, the snickering snarky states of America looking for scapegoats while we support the Palins and the McCains and the Cheneys and the Bush's who tell us we need more oil and that we need only to disregard all prudence to get and use more of it and faster.

Yes, they either bought or bamboozled Obama into thinking it was all so safe despite the shaky safety record and now they want you to forget that we all cooperated in eliminating all traces of safety standards -- you know, the things we've been dumb enough to see as "Communism.." It's us, the soccer moms, the commuters, the SUV fashionistas who don't think past our daily concerns and laugh at the concept of giving a damn about the future. You wanted oil and you've got oil. Are you happy now?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

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.

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.

Deepwater Horizon, the blind shear ram, and regulatory failure

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The New York Times: "Regulators Failed to Address Risks in Oil Rig Fail-Safe Device." The authors try to piece together just what happened on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The so-called "blind shear ram" failed to seal the well, and the rest is ongoing environmental catastrophe. And the failure goes straight back to Washington:

An examination by The New York Times highlights the chasm between the oil industry's assertions about the reliability of its blowout preventers and a more complex reality. It reveals that the federal agency charged with regulating offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, repeatedly declined to act on advice from its own experts on how it could minimize the risk of a blind shear ram failure.

It also shows that the Obama administration failed to grapple with either the well-known weaknesses of blowout preventers or the sufficiency of the nation's drilling regulations even as it made plans this spring to expand offshore oil exploration. 

It's an extremely interesting piece, worth reading in full. And hopefully the lessons have been learned. Letting the oil industry have its way without rigorous rules and oversight is, quite clearly, a recipe for disaster.

BP to set aside $20 billion for Gulf Coast damage claims, Republicans go berserk

By Michael J.W. Stickings

NYT:

Four days of intense negotiations between the White House and BP lawyers allowed President Obama to announce Wednesday that the oil giant would create a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims to thousands of fishermen and others along the Gulf Coast.

This is certainly a positive development. As Steve Benen notes, "the escrow account will make it less likely American taxpayers will be asked to pick up the tab for BP's disaster. It's not a substitute for an effective response to the crisis -- BP still has an incredible amount of work to do -- but it's a big step in the right direction."

That's right. It doesn't let BP off the hook, but it suggests that, with a big push from Obama (who deserves a lot of credit for making this happen), the oil giant is finally beginning to take genuine responsibility not just for the oil leak itself but for the long-term damage it has caused along the Gulf Coast.

As you might expect, though conservatives are not amused. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, for example, is worried that the fund will slash BP's profits, which, presumably, are more important than the environment and economy of the region, not to mention the way of life of and very welfare of those who depend on the Gulf, a clean Gulf, for their livelihood, many of whom of Barbour's own constituents.

And Michele Bachmann, finding conspiracy at every turn, thinks that the escrow account amounts to a huge "redistribution-of-wealth fund," as if the massive wealth of BP and its larger shareholders matters more than those in the fishing and tourism industries, among others, who are suffering immensely as a result of the spill, and who may never recover.

Of course, BP can afford to shell out billions of dollars, and the redistribution of wealth is hardly what this is all about. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg may have put it condescendingly when he said his company cares about "the small people," but the point the escrow account isn't socialism, as Bachmann suggests, it's about helping people who have been, or who will be, virtually destroyed by this disaster. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that BP is acting compassionately in creating the account -- it is just bowing to political and public relations pressure, trying to look compassionate even if it really isn't -- but I think it's pretty clear that this is about providing much-needed help to those who need it. How utterly despicable a person do you have to be to be against that?

Once more, we see clearly just what the Republicans' priorities are. When faced with a catastrophe in human, economic, and environmental terms, all they really care about is protecting the interests of the rich, corporate, and powerful.

BP cut safety to cut costs

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the AP:

BP took measures to cut costs in the weeks before the catastrophic blowout in the Gulf of Mexico as it dealt with one problem after another, prompting a BP engineer to describe the doomed rig as a "nightmare well," according to internal documents released Monday.

Generally, BP rejected options that would have enhanced safety and instead chose to do everything on the cheap. For example:

BP apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure the casing ran down the centre of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.

In an email on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

You know you're not doing well when you make Halliburton, of all companies, look good by comparison.

And that line from the BP official has to be the worst prediction of the year. As of right now, everyone cares, it's far from done, there's no end in sight to the story, and, far from fine, BP has justifiably become one of the world's most hated corporate villains while the worst environmental disaster in American history continues to wreak havoc on the entire region.

And all to save a few million and a few hours.

Oops.

Reflections on Obama's Oval Office speech on energy and the Gulf oil spill

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Like Creature, I found Obama's Oval Office speech tonight adequate but not nearly enough -- adequate in the sense that it got the message across to a broad audience that the president will be tough on BP and will pursue some sort of energy agenda, much needed in these troubling times, not nearly enough in the sense that it didn't contain nearly enough of a commitment from the president that he will actually pursue meaningful energy/climate legislation. I would have found it disappointing except that I wasn't expecting much and pretty much got what I expected.

At times, Obama was, as unfortunately he so often is, Bush-like. As The Atlantic's Joshua Green put it, "The no-nonsense tone, martial imagery ('battle plan'), the three-part plan, the identification of a bad guy (BP's CEO) who is going to be dealt with sternly, who was scolded for 'recklessness,' and whose company will be paying for the cleanup and damage -- not asked, but told to pay, evidently -- all of this was good theatrics, and moderately reassuring." Yes, moderately, to the generally uninformed, but hardly to those who get that what is needed is comprehensive, transformative reform.

And that just wasn't there. Green again: "What stood out was that for all his praise of the House climate bill and talk about the 'consequences of inaction' and so forth, not once did he utter the phrase, 'It's time to put a price on carbon.' And that suggests to me that this speech was primarily about containing the damage to his administration, and was not the pivot point in the energy debate that many people were hoping for." Anyone hoping for more, or seriously believing that more was coming, hasn't been paying attention. I have no doubt that Obama understands the need for address climate change and America's energy problems with a robust plan, but he has proven thus far to be anything but the bringer of meaningful change he claimed he was way back in the heady days of the '08 campaign.

Health-care reform was significant, true, but he pulled back from demanding a genuinely transformative bill, one with a robust public option, and ultimately championed Republican-style reform, a package that closely resembled what the Republicans had been pushing as an alternative to Hillarycare in the '90s. He is doing the same with on energy and climate change. The rhetoric has been lofty, the possibilities promising, but what he will end up supporting is something far less than what is so desperately needed, something that goes some of the way but that essentially protects his political self-interest first and foremost. Am I too cynical? How can I not be? I was a huge Obama supporter, and I've been paying attention.

The connection here between energy/climate and health care was certainly not lost on Ezra Klein:

Obama did not make any specific promises about the bill he would support, or even that he wanted. He did not say he would price carbon, or that we should get a certain percentage of our energy from renewables by a certain date.

But his language was a close echo of the language he used in the health-care fight. "There are costs associated with this transition," he said, using a formulation many will remember from health care. "And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy." Similarly familiar was his reminder that "I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party – as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels," and his promise that "the one approach I will not accept is inaction."

The optimistic take, at least for environmentalists, is that this is the language and approach Obama uses when he really means to legislate. The pessimistic take is that Obama shied away from clearly describing the problem, did not endorse specific legislation, did not set benchmarks, and chose poll-tested language rather than a sharper case that might persuade skeptics.

Count me optimistic in that Obama can get something done. Count me pessimistic in that it'll be too little too late.

But of course it's not all his fault -- just like he alone can't clean up BP's mess -- and Jonathan Chait is right that he can only do so much:

Basically, he's saying he just wants some kind of bill. His standards are very low. I can't necessarily blame him -- the votes aren't there in the Senate and he can't conjure them up. He needs something that at least begins the process of transitioning to a clean energy economy. But with the public uninterested in climate change, interest groups mostly advocating for the status quo, and moderate Democrats unwilling to take another tough vote, he's not going to get much.

The thing is, that shouldn't stop him from pushing for more than he can ultimately achieve. Instead of conceding to political reality, he should be leading from a position of strength, using his pulpit and his office to sway minds and, as necessary, twist arms. We saw some toughness on BP and the oil spill tonight, but on the larger questions of how to transition America away from oil dependency to clean, alternative energy and how to address climate change in a meaningful way, we saw the same old President Obama, and, alas, that's just not good enough anymore.

Cleanup in aisle 4

By Capt. Fogg

You're going to see more pictures of oily turtles and birds and it will break your heart if you're not one of those religious types who think this "world" isn't worth anything, is ours to destroy and is about to disappear anyway. You'll see pictures of oil soaked wetlands and poisoned mangroves, but if you're not familiar with the part such things and places play in the health of our food chain and in filtering out our foul effluents, producing oxygen and protecting the shoreline, you may really not care, since you live in Ohio or Missouri; but it will affect you and it will affect your children more. Their children will inherit a bleak, dirty, toxic world of privation and perhaps worse.

If you're like most Americans, not really concerned with much more than immediate things; this months mortgage and credit card payments, putting gas in the trucks and getting your offspring to school and the various extra curricular things they have to do to keep them from any consciousness of life in general, you won't care too much and you won't let it occupy your mind for much longer. They'll just clean it up, right? They'll wash the seagulls and loggerheads and bring in new sand beaches for the resorts and rake out the tar balls. The birds and turtles and fish and seals and dolphins and sponges and squid? If they have no food, then let them eat at McDonalds. No, it will all be cleaned up and BP will pay for it.

No they won't. As the Lords of Oil did in Alaska and California, they'll spend a few tens of millions lobbying to have their liability capped and the payments postponed long enough that most of us will forget or be distracted by some other urgent contingency or new witch hunt or celebrity scandal or charismatic leader who will do as he's told. With a tiny fraction of their 50 or 60 billion dollar annual profits, they'll buy a huge publicity campaign, maybe rough up and discredit a few investigative reporters. We'll listen to some Limbaugh on some corporate network telling you oil is natural, that the ocean won't be harmed and only beach huggers and Communists care about such elitist things anyway -- and if there was any problem, it's all because of regulation.

I dare not use terms like "environment" or "ecology" lest I sound like the cooks and nuts and extremists who have already been marginalized in the United Corporations of America. The effects on the huge fishing industry? Well your Fillet-O-Fish came from some concrete tank in Vietnam anyway and we all like Burgers better. Burgers are American. Frenchmen eat fish.

Do you care that the entire food chain has been poisoned at the roots and that the poison is spreading perhaps ten times faster than the corporate owned media admits to? Nah, that's too "enviro" sounding and too reminiscent of radicals with long hair. Maybe you'll notice that the job chain that proceeds from fishing, the boat building, the towns with economies based on it, the people who process, distribute and retail it -- it all spreads out into a wide territory, like the oil slick approaching the Florida coast, soaking the Northern Gulf coast and soon to muck up the Keys and Cuba and all the reefs and shoals where the food chain begins. Maybe you won't notice until shrimp and shellfish cost more than lobster or caviar and another ten thousand miles of coastline are mucked up beyond redemption. Oil is natural! The dispersants will disperse it and never mind they're more toxic than oil - you can't see them and that's what counts.

The plankton, the larvae that make so much of our oxygen, that feed everything from sea anemones to blue whales or grow up to be thousands of species without which life will change forever -- how many years, decades, centuries will it take to recover from this one spill? Who cares? We don't care about the forests that produce the rest of our dwindling oxygen either. We need beef. We need lumber. We need oil. We need to expand to fill every space and use up everything faster and faster. After all, the planet that dies with the fewest resources wins!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Big Oil, the GOP, and the screwing of the American taxpayer (and the environment)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From our friends at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee:

Whose Side Are They On: Republican Inaction Protects Big Oil at the Expense of the American Taxpayer

Senate Republicans are once again putting special interests ahead of the American people by protecting Big Oil polluters. Attempts to block the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act send a clear message: Senate Republicans are on the side of Big Oil companies.

As the oil spill continues, the Gulf Coast’s fishermen, tourist industries, and small businesses are incurring millions of dollars worth of damage every day. Cleanup costs have already reached $450 million and will continue to climb. Unfortunately, the total economic impact will dwarf the initial cleanup cost – Louisiana’s fishing industry could lose over $2 billion and the Florida tourism industry another $3 billion.

Despite the billion-dollar costs associated with the spill, Big Oil companies enjoy the protection of a $75 million dollar cap on liability. Unless the cap is increased, these companies, earning profits in excess of $24 billion in the first quarter of 2010, will only have to pay for a fraction of the overall economic impact of this preventable disaster. That is why Senate Democrats have brought forward legislation that would ensure Big Oil companies pay for their own mistakes by raising the liability cap for offshore oil well spills from $75 million to $10 billion.

Blindly trusting Big Oil to take full responsibility, Senate Republicans have blocked this legislation and left hard-working American families at risk of paying for the economic damage caused by oil spills. Have Republicans forgotten about Big Oil’s miserable track record in similar disasters?

ExxonMobil used antiquated maritime law to stall and eventually reduce the damages (from $5 billion to $500 million) paid to Alaska’s fishermen, Native Alaskans, and landowners from the 53 million gallon Valdez oil spill. Not surprisingly, history is repeating itself. BP’s partner, Transocean, is trying to use obscure maritime laws from the 1850s to abdicate liability for the spill.

Senate Republicans should stop trusting Big Oil and allow this important legislation to pass.

Big Oil is a lot like Big Tobacco. If you trust it to do the right thing, you're a moron.

Don't cry for BP

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Poor BP. They caused the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, even if Cheney and his pals deserve much of the blame, and they've already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to clean it up (not that it's going all that well, mind you). Makes you wonder... can it afford it? Of course it can. It's a freakin' oil giant:

On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant's profits averaged $93 million a day.

The amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated at 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. In the first quarter, BP produced 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day worldwide -- and it received $71.86 for every barrel. 

Via Think Progress.

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.

Veterans push back against Big Oil

Guest post by Frankie Sturm

Frankie Sturm is communications director at the Truman National Security Project and a free-lance journalist.

Ed. note: As part of our ongoing relationship with the Truman National Security Project, I'm pleased to announce that we'll be cross-posting some pieces from Operation FREE, a new initiative that seeks to raise awareness about the links between climate change, energy, and national security -- an extemely worthwhile endeavour, to be sure. Operation Free's coalition includes the Truman Project, the National Security Network, VoteVets.org, and VetPAC. I encourage you to check out Operation FREE, including its blog. The first post, below, is from my friend Frankie Sturm.

**********

No one is surprised that the American Petroleum Institute (API) is pulling out all the stops to prevent meaningful climate and energy legislation. By fronting a so-called "grassroots" organization called Energy Citizen, API is trying create the impression that the public is opposed to taking action to curb climate change and lessen our dependence on oil. But by busing in API employees, handing our hamburgers and hot dogs at rallies, and denying entrance to Energy Citizen events to actual citizens, few are buying API's Potemkin publicity. And there's one group in particular that isn't having any of it: veterans.

On August 20, veterans pushed back against Big Oil in a conference call with reporters. Drew Sloan, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and former employee of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, referred to climate change as "death by a thousand cuts." Iraq veteran Scott Holcomb reminded those on the call how military personnel know that "tomorrow isn't promised," arguing that tomorrow is too late to begin taking action against climate change. All the veterans on the call expressed dismay that oil companies would be standing in the way of legislation to curb climate change and reduce our dependence on oil. They pointed out that a changing climate will destabilize volatile regions of the world, put U.S. military installations at risk, and force the U.S. to respond to natural disasters and humanitarian catastrophes.

The Financial Times and Grist magazine covered the veterans' push against big oil, while Jim Morin of Operation Free and Lee Gunn of the American Security Project -- both veterans -- took to the pages of The New York Times to explain the links between climate change and national security.

[Ed. note: You can read Mr. Morin's and Admiral Gunn's letters to the editor here. Morin: "Put quite simply, if we refuse to fight climate change, we're choosing to put more American military men and women in harm's way." Gunn: "The writing is on the wall. The question is not whether we act or not, but whether we do so now or later, and deal with much more dire -- and expensive -- consequences." -- MJWS]

Fun for oil

By Carl

You might recall that, during the Bush administration, much was made about the invasion of Iraq (and to an extent, Afghanistan) and the connection to the oil reserves, how secret plans had been drawn up by Cheney's energy task force before the war to divvy up the fields, and how the oil fields would pay for the war.

What we hadn't considered was that a free and independent Iraq, sans Saddam Hussein, might feel a little differently about it's main natural resource:

Only one of the bidders for the eight contracts to run oil and gas fields in Iraq has accepted oil ministry terms.

Six oil fields and two gas fields were available in a televised auction that was the first big oil tender in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.

Iraq has asked the rest of the companies to consider resubmitting bids for the other seven contracts.

How this worked was, Iraq set a minimum output for each of the fields (current production levels, which are minimal, were generally used). Output up to that level was free. After all, the government could do that now without help.

Beyond that level, companies were free to submit bids per barrel based on the amount of oil they predicted they could extract and sell to Iraq. Iraq would then sell to the lowest bidder.

But...

The catch was, Iraq also had a secret ceiling figure in mind of what it would pay for each field, effectively putting a cap on how much oil each contract could produce.

If the bid exceeded that figure, either due to too high a per barrel price or too many barrels predicted, Iraq would then offer it to other bidders.

As you can imagine, this knocked out of the pack any of the more rapacious... pardon me... *koffkoffkapitalistkoffkoff*... sorry, the more rapacious oil companies.

In lieu of this, what you now have is a few oil companies who would treat the Iraq fields as a hedge. Since the per barrel fee is fixed and not subject to the vagaries of the market, oil companies have both a guaranteed income stream from it, and can ramp up or reduce production as they see fit, to ameliorate their corporate income flows.

Making them a little less subject to the crazy pricing that we saw in 2007-2008, when oil was all over the map. The Iraq government is the one picking up all the risk on the commodity exchanges.

But note that the oil people of the Bush administration can still make out on the deal. After all, Iraq owes America a big debt of gratitude and so would not be in a position to march lockstep with OPEC on price increases and could even sell to us at a discount.

The greedy oil barons will still be greedy, but their greed will now be at the mercy of the Iraqi parliament.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Greed is god

By Carl

This week seems to be my week to explore humanity and the emotional states underlying our current national crises of the economy and the political atmosphere.

So let's take this from a different perspective and try to tie them together.

Fortuitously, I was reading an article in National Geographic magazine about the burgeoning oil sand industry in Canada.

Lest you think that natural resource exploitation and the ravaging of native lands only happens in tropical climes, you need to read that article. However, it's this quote that caught my eye and got me thinking:

"It's my belief that when government attempts to manipulate the free market, bad things happen," Premier Stelmach told a gathering of oil industry executives that year. "The free-market system will solve this."

But the free market does not consider the effects of the mines on the river or the forest, or on the people who live there, unless it is forced to. Nor, left to itself, will it consider the effects of the oil sands on climate. Jim Boucher has collaborated with the oil sands industry in order to build a new economy for his people, to replace the one they lost, to provide a new future for kids who no longer hunt ptarmigan in the moonlight. But he is aware of the trade-offs. "It's a struggle to balance the needs of today and tomorrow when you look at the environment we're going to live in," he says. In northern Alberta the question of how to strike that balance has been left to the free market, and its answer has been to forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow is not its job. 

Today v. tomorrow. The now v. the then. Hmmmm... sounds familiar...

And this is the struggle that President Obama as well as every other world leader faces today, the juggling of the efficiencies of the free market against the need to protect the environment and the people, to state the general case.

There are no simple answers to be had here, as much as the conservatives would like you to believe. They want you to believe that because in an environment (pun intended) that is bereft of ideas, we cling to the past, to ideas that work sometimes if at all. The simple answer is to let the market sort it out.

I've said before that the power of the market, the real strength of it, is to weed out weakness, to promote a sort of economic evolution.

When it works well, it's extremely good at this. I don't think the market has worked well since the Reagan administration, and I'm not completely sure why.

Certainly, with Reagan, we saw the fledgling crony capitalist markets. The amount of money suddenly available in the junk bond market, the extraction of mythical valuations of "goodwill" and the raping of pension plans for the cash they contained, all combined to create barriers to entry in industries as diverse as banking and retail.

If you're wondering why Wal-Mart is ubiquitous, but you can't find an Alexander's or a Gimbel's (sorry, I'm Noo Yawk oriented), this is why: they were swept up in junk bond mania.

At first, this was an efficiency exercise. Truly there were companies that were wasting resources, paying, you know, salaries and pensions, among other things. The wave of mergers and acquisitions probably, at first, cut a lot of fat out of the marketplace, setting the stage for the enormous growth of the 1990s.

However, all good things become bad in due time, and the wolves howling at the door stopped wanting just fat and wanted the real meat.

The market, rather than be efficient, became cannibalistic.

We've seen this time and time again in America: they call it a "bubble" but in truth, it's the self-feeding cycle of cannibalism, developed through what Greenspan called "irrational exuberance".

Another Reagan-era monstrosity is the flow of corporate money into politics. A nonsensical and absurd ruling (1978 Boston v Bellotti) by the SCOTUS allowed that corporations, which are basically money magnets, have the same free speech rights as persons, and so should be allowed to contribute to politicians and to have a say in the running of the country.

All that money that had been paid out in dividends and re-invested in making the company more efficient and more responsive to their customers now became a cudgel to force legislators to bend the rules of commerce in their favor.

And now we have what we have: a Congress beholden to special interest groups, because the rewards of all that contributed money is more money to spend on advertising, which means the price of campaigning skyrockets, which means the only way a person can afford to run (even Obama) is to suckle at the teat of corporate America.

The Chinese have a saying: all feasts must have an end.

As well, governmental regulation has its good points, and its absurdities. Too much regulation can stifle creativity. Too little regulation, and you get salmonella in your peanut butter. The tendency in this swing of the pendulum is to enforce "just right sized" rules, but eventually, there will be too many and they will be too burdensome.

So which becomes the bigger burden? Too much regulation or too much money floating around?

Neither. Both. And there's the problem.

We'll continue this whipsaw back and forth until someone has the gumption to stand up and say "enough". No more corporate political contributions, get that stupid decision overturned and finally work for the people, the individuals, and not the aggolmerations of capital and political power that have worked to effectively disenfranchise the entire nation.

This is not a Republican issue (altho it tends to affect Republican administrations more than Democratic) or a Democratic issue, but a national issue.

Greed is god in this country, and it's time to tear down the idols and expose the feets of clay.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Palin's gas pains

By Mustang Bobby

One of Sarah Palin's big talking points has been that she's a reformer who knows how to get things done. Case in point has been the gas pipeline deal she says she's crafted for Alaska. But it turns out that not only has the pipeline not even been started yet, there were some sketchy dealings going on.

Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence.

"We're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America's largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets," Palin said during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.

Despite Palin's boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.

And contrary to the ballyhoo, there's no guarantee the pipeline will ever be built; at a minimum, any project is years away, as TransCanada must first overcome major financial and regulatory hurdles.

In interviews and a review of records, the AP found:

-- Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group - the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas.

-- Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.

-- The leader of Palin's pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman's former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada's lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin's pipeline team.

-- Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.

What was that she was saying about being such a reformer?