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Oil Drilling Liability Cap Led To The Gulf Spill
From The Daily Capitalist
I never ever thought I would agree with Nancy Pelosi on anything, yet here it is:
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress should consider eliminating any cap on the damages a company such as BP Plc might have to pay for harm caused by oil spills.
“There is a movement afoot in Congress for that. Why have a cap?” Pelosi said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” to air this weekend.
Pelosi had previously voiced support for a proposal under consideration to raise the existing $75 million cap to $10 billion for economic damages caused by each environmental disaster. After being thwarted March 13 in the Senate, backers of that legislation have vowed to renew efforts to win passage.
“You would hope that there would not be more than $10 billion of damage, but understand it is for each episode,” she said. Asked about eliminating the cap altogether, Pelosi said: “I think it’s worthy of looking at.”
I'm not against Big Oil, Little Oil, or anyone in the Oil Patch, but the liability cap is just another example of how industry uses the government to gain market advantages at the expense of someone else. In this case it is the Gulf Coast inhabitants and those that live off of that huge resource.
As I understand the law, BP is responsible to pay 100% of the cost of the clean-up. What the liability cap does is to cap economic damages to $75 million. What that means is if anyone suffers a loss of income or property as a result of a spill, BP is only obligated to pay $75 million even though the losses may be in the billions. That is not right.
Businesses seeking advantages from legislators is not news. While lobbying is often a proper and necessary response of business to legislation that would be harmful to them, it is a two-edged sword when they try to gain economic or competitive advantage. Our history is full of examples, most recently, tire import tariffs. While it is right to condemn business for this we should blame legislators who have the primary duty to act in the best interests of all the people. At least one could say that we understand that business is motivated by self-interest, but Congress is held to a higher ideal. While politicians preach this principle they rarely live up to it.
In free market capitalism, no one has a legal or a coercive advantage over anyone else. If I commit a civil wrong, in this case the tort of property damage and the resulting economic loss, I should be fully liable for it. That is, I should pay the cost. If I go broke, so be it. If I do something with willful, wanton disregard for safety I may be grossly negligent which may allow a court to impose punitive damages.
In my view, the liability cap was a major cause of this environmental disaster.
Assume for a minute that there was no liability cap in place. BP was engaged in very risky drilling activity that posed potentially huge losses if they acted negligently. Drilling at 5,000', I am informed, is not like drilling at 500'. Like all businesses, BP must weigh the potential risks against the potential gain of any enterprise. Like most businesses, they lay off as much risk as they can by buying insurance. If they didn't buy insurance then they weighed the risk against their assets and net worth.
I am going to guess here that the economic loss of the BP spill will be far more than the cost of the clean-up. I assume that is always the case or otherwise oil companies would not have sought a liability cap. When they evaluate the risk of such risky activity, then they know that whatever damage they cause, their liability will not exceed $75 million. That is a drop in the bucket for a company whose after-tax earnings were $6.1 billion in Q1.
Thus I believe that liability is a significant deterrent to companies involved in risky activities. Their response to such liability could be:
1. Determination to not undertake a risky project because of the potential liability.
This happens all the time in industry. Projects such as chemical plants, nuclear research, nuclear energy, may be too risky in light of the potential reward. It may be beyond the company's ability to respond in damages, thus risking the company's future. It may be impossible or prohibitively expensive to get insurance.
2. Determination to engage in the project but with added safety protocols.
This is certainly possible with a large company such as BP. They may evaluate the risk and decide they can safely undertake the project. Obviously this was BP's choice here. But they were negligent and they should pay all damages they cause. If they go broke, they understood the risks going in.
3. Determination to engage in the project but with additional insurance to cover potential losses.
If the project is undertaken because it is risky but determined to be within their ability to manage the risk but not to withstand damages, they could obtain insurance. If the insurance company determined that the risk was too high and refused coverage, the company would most likely decide to not undertake the project.
Insurance companies have a lot at stake because they bear much of the risk involved in such projects. They exercise great care by investigating their underwriting risk and require companies to satisfy many conditions related to safety. The breach of any policy safety condition may invalidate the insurance. Thus there are market forces that try to eliminate risky projects.
4. Determine to engage in the project but with no insurance or other risk-related safety protocols.
This would be foolish business behavior by any company. Assume rational players in the industry, the project would not be undertaken. Most oil companies have risk-reward protocols to minimize risk because, as public companies, no one would invest in them since risky projects would jeopardize investors' capital much less the future of their company.
I think it will be shown that BP was not only negligent, but perhaps grossly negligent and there is no way to punish them for their behavior. I understand that they may voluntarily agree to compensate people with economic losses. To not do so would effectively end any future drilling in U.S. waters or perhaps worldwide. But that was not a sufficient deterrent to prevent them from entering into such projects.
Let the lawyers have at them.
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Thanks. We are all pissed off.
Good News Obama gets in 18 holes of golf today!
Bad News Obama and BP still in charge of the worlds greatest environmental disaster! Ugh
Where is cheney and biggins palin ?????????? they have all the answers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol
It's time for Obama to get his thumb and his head out of his ass, and step up and be a man and a president for once in his life.
Little speeches and photo-ops aren't gonna cut it in this situation.
This is a national disaster at this point, and it needs to be treated as such.
It is a grave mistake to let BP keep the reins on this one. Sure, work *with* BP -- and the rest of the oil industry, as well as other nations if they offer and can bring something to the table. But unfortunately, the Fed govt and the military need to take control. Deal the repercussions to BP *after* this thing is plugged up and cleaned up... there will be plenty of time to deal with that later on.
5 weeks in, and they're still just dicking around.
Unbelievable.
Keeping this non-partisan, as it should be because both parties are the same, what would you have anyone do to plug the hole right now? I feel your anger and trust me, I am as pissed as you are. But don't you think Obama wants it done as well? And that BP wants it to be over? Supposedly, the smartest guys on the planet are all working on this. Are you suggesting there is a real solution that isn't being acted on? Because I hope you are right. I want you to be right. Everyone does.
Just tell us the answer. I have called for military action for weeks. I've envisioned the Navy Seals coming to the rescue with some kind of Superman solution with great big hunks of cement (500 ft X 500 ft X 100 ft deep) and sinking them right on the hole from a supertanker that could hold that fucker and lower it straight down. It's a fantasy. Is it a solution? Would it work? Hell if I know.
The truth is, I don't even care about the Eurozone and their problems or the ZH posts about them anymore. I don't care about the fucking stock market, either. I care about the Gulf and my country and the repercussions of this disaster.
So what is the answer? A nuke? Fine. Do it. It might not work and has never been done down 18000 feet in the sea. I think everything should be tried and I agree that BP and that asshole NA Ceo should get out from in front of the camera because I want him roasted on a spit. And Obama said he takes full responsibility--good for him--now do something! But what?
We were never prepared for a disaster like this. The oil companies said they had solutions if a disaster like this happened, while they were buying Congress. They said they had solutions. End of story.
I have one solution and it is so silly you can all get a good laugh. Kill everyone involved from the MMS, to BP, to RIG, to Halliburton, to the congressmen that voted to limit environmental impact studies to 30 days so every permit got issued. It's just my rage coming through, and I have plenty to spare.
There is no solution as far as I can tell other than the two relief wells being drilled. It's armageddon for the Gulf. It's a nightmare beyond belief. It's Obama's 9/11. Only he can't attack Afghanistan a month later to show he was doing something. I am an independent. I don't care about political parties since they are all the same.
But saying he should step up and be a man...I just know I wouldn't want his job if my life depended on it. North and South Korea, the economy, a divided nation. It's a clusterfuck and if McCain had been elected, I sure wish he would speak up now and say what he would do.
What is the answer other than anger? Must we go through the 5 stages of death on this one? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Because I am now at Depression. I don't think acceptance is on the way.
Whew....I feel better now and am going to sleep so I can wake up furious again.
Nice post!
Good rant...at this point, I do agree that little beyond a relief well (many many months away) is the only known proven solution. Most of the mistakes are of the past. Of course, a current issue I feel that is fairly heavily on current admin is the handling of the spilt oil. The dispersant must stop, they are for show, make it harder to collect oil, spread, not contain contamination, and add more toxic chemicals. Why is our govt allowing the use of chemical that Britain has banned? And want of properly booming the shores. Of course, we are ill-prepared to make good decisions because of past lack attention to these details, something that pre-dates Obama
The other current issue that could be dealt with here and now is better transparency. Do you think there is anything to be gained by covering up the extent of this? It is colossal disaster, at least do something with our tax dollars and have the Coast Guard, Navy check up on BP's activities. Why don't we have Navy Seals install their own cameras to see if BP is lying, isn't that what we have a govt for? Why doesn't the navy have subs reporting extent of plumes. We have a few scientists and environmentalist out there on their own dime finding out more than govt or BP can tell us. Why aren't we hiring every ocean/marine/environmental scientist in the globe to try to define the problem and placing a disaster tax on BP to pay for this? There are oil spill expert around the globe offering their help, why are we not flying them in and putting them in small groups to game plan out different scenarios.
I think any current politicians should feel some freaking heat on this, even if they didn't have responsibility going in, they should be fearing for their lives in trying to find a solution...all hands on deck because there is a mob of people coming for you if you don't do everything you can to fix it.
Also, I'm very suspicious that all BP efforts up til now have been ones oriented towards keeping this drillhole alive for future use. Why wasn't the top kill tried in second week, why did they try funnel top hat first? On this front, I think Obam Admin has not been sufficiently skeptical or second guessing of BP. Again, a function our govt should perform.
And I agree with the idea of dropping big chunks on well head, as I posted previously on GW oil stuff. How about operation Big Chunks. There are these huge concrete jack shaped things harbors use to protect shores against hurricanes. Why not pile these or similar huge things on leak (chunks of concrete, jersey barriers, what ever heavy, inert, non-corrodible chunks of things we can find across the globe that can be placed at depth and not fly away under the current pressure of leak spew). This pile of interlocked chunks would disperse energy of high pressure leak out to edges of pile...then once you have big pile that has oil seeping out everywhere, but at lower energy, start pumping concrete and bury the well head under huge weight of relatively impermeable to oil, concrete. It would have to be a lot of concrete, lost of ships to pump but hey, we pour dams right?...just do it. No real engineering design beyond making a very heavy pile of concrete.
This could take weeks, not months. Put out a call to all DOTs, precasters, governments around the world, send us your big chunks of concrete, meanwhile, start staging appropriate ships from around the world, and start stockpiling cement and aggregate to make concrete, and when pile is ready, pressures are lessened, pump pump pump
All great points MM. I'm with you all the way.
british petroleum should be banned from ever drilling in the gulf or any waters ever again, its ceo should be electrocuted for crimes against humanity, and that evil vampire squid company should be destroyed.
I'd rather let citizen groups sue them out of existence. Otherwise if it's from a government level it would have to come from some world-level government- BP isn't a US corporation, and it isn't operating in US waters (it's international waters).
But... the electrocution idea has merit :-)
And people wonder why lawyers are so important. The only representation the peasants have is lawyers.
I love it when people bitch about lawyers without realizing that in a society of assholes run by the smartest amoral assholes being able to hire your own asshole is the representation you'll ever get.
But... the law is stacked against the small guy/gal: and, there really are two sets of laws.
There Will Be Blood...
Unfortunately, it will be our own.
I'd rather let citizen groups beat the living shit out of them on live TV.
Yeah, that's the ticket!
Their effort was thwarted by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a key oil industry ally who said that the bill would end up empowering only the "biggest of the big oil" companies to drill for American's offshore resources.
The push to raise the liability cap came as BP considered various methods to stem the uncontrolled well, which the Coast Guard and BP estimate is gushing at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the waters about 50 miles off Louisiana.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/14/nation/la-na-oil-spill-new-20100514
Top Industries
Lisa Murkowski
Leadership PACs
$494,500
Electric Utilities
$473,563
Oil & Gas
$433,989
Lobbyists
$338,618
Lawyers/Law Firms
$331,225
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00026050&type=I
A Democratic bid to pass a bill raising liability to $10 billion from $75 million was blocked yesterday by Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe said a higher limit would make it impossible for independent producers to drill in the Gulf, where they account for 63 percent of natural-gas production and 36 percent of oil pumped from wells.
“Big Oil would love to have these caps there so they can shut out all the independents,” Inhofe said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-19/republicans-put-taxpayers-on-hook-for-oil-damage-obama-says.html
Top Industries James M InhofeOil & Gas
$1,228,223
Retired
$606,596
Leadership PACs
$526,776
Health Professionals
$456,650
Electric Utilities
$439,467
Insurance
$366,866
Lawyers/Law Firms
$331,741
Lobbyists
$323,717
Misc Finance
$315,899
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00005582&type=I
So, 2 Republican Whores Block the push to raise the Cap for Damages? Shouldn’t the insurance coverage carried be equal to the potential Damage the Coverage is affording protection for?
If a little Company is drilling a BIG Hole! Shouldn’t the insurance protection be equal with the potential amount of damage possible?
$433,989 and $1,228,223 of Bribes / Lobby monies bought Protection for the Oil Companies… $1.6(ish) Million dollars bought $65 Billion dollars worth of Protection. All to save the Little Oil Companies? How about Mandatory Insurance Protection equal to the amount of potential damage? With deductibles or participation of damages paid of 25% or more to be paid by the Company Responsible.
Why are Companies not compelled to provide coverage to the scope and scale of the potential damages? Why does it take 12 months to inspect these rigs? Instead of every 30 days?
Someone shared this site… I will now do the same in hopes that those of us who want to know more, may find the information… a lil easier.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493
http://www.livestream.com/wkrg_oil_spill/share?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=ui-share&utm_campaign=wkrg_oil_spill&utm_content=wkrg_oil_spill
All of you Conservative Republicans should be lined up and shot for treason and if the lights go out, make sure you leave those “is it 2012?” stickers on your car… make it easier to find you so as to thin the herd of the ignorant that much more quickly. Pro Life works just as well.
Not junk, good stuff.
Most of what you say is true, however your comments about the conservative republicans is misplaced. First of all, you should realize that Inhofe's comments are misleading. Independants may account for 63% of gas production and 29% of oil production, but you will never see an independant drilling these deep wells. Most of the production by independants are producing wells that were bought by the independants, not drilled by them. The only drilling an independant would do is in shallow water.
Your angst against conservative republicans is misplaced. The true conservatives, such as Ron Paul, have been out of power in the republican party since 1988. You are referring to "corporatist" republicans, who constitute the majority in the republican party.
the complaint is about the actual republicans and their actual behavior, not the exception to the rule. Ron Paul has been completely marginalized by Repub party, so when commentor complains about Repubs being business whores, he is complaining about Republicans in control and in charge, not the guy they've been calling a kook for years.
Not that Dems can't be total sell-out corporate whores also, they are, especially in regards to Wall Street. They actively competed with Repubs for Wall Street money and favor, to the point it has become obvious that our Congress represents Wall Street only, not the people as a whole.
By they way, Ron Paul is very anti-regulation and govt power. What to do greedy, poorly behaved businesses rail against the most, regulation? Could it be that regulation and enforcement is one of the best tools to provide checks and balances for general society's concerns compared to businesses' sole focus on profits? How do you stop monopolies, fraud, trusts, cartels...with govt enforcement.
And govt regulation does not have to be anti-business....actually fair, transparent, well-refereed markets with lots of competition are good for businesses generally and the economy, but may be hurtful for an insider, crony business. I have often seen right-behaving, long-sighted, wisely run businesses ask for better regulation, because they see badly behaved competitors are ruining their industry or taking all the business based on fraud. I bet other oil companies wish BP had been controlled better because this is going to screw everything up for them going forward. Part of the reason previously conservative bankers start doing nutty risky things and got Congress to let them is because the unregulated non-banks, such a Countywide were taking all their business, making big short-term profits on big long-term risks etc.
How do you check big strong, wealthy businesses?...Not a novel idea, but I say you do it by putting people in charge (democratic control) and let them decide what works for the people as a whole, not just what works for an insider, crony, big business. People want businesses to thrive and compete, they want a dynamic and innovating economy, but people also know that what one or two big businesses or an entrenched industry wants is not necessarily in the whole commonwealth's interest. There must be checks and balances, and that requires strong power, in the hands of the people, not weak people and strong businesses.
How do you check big strong, wealthy businesses?
If there are no regulations, rather enforcement of, then perhaps there can also be no laws or enforcement there of, for people revolting against corporations? (you can provide whatever mental image you wish- the US, the "peaceful nation," the one which has the only "true democracy," sanctions extra-judicial killings; maybe its citizens will follow this lead, because, after all, it's all about "national security")
The paradigm that we've been operating in, the one in which these huge corporations rule, is coming to an end. Localization (less energy) will be the norm/reversion. And this is why we've got to stop dividing ourselves, we want cohesiveness withing our communities (with real democracy- based on real stakes in the community).
I found this Sunday morning--well worth the read from the guardian.uk:
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades.
We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.
The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.
Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. "We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots," said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. "This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months."
That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.
In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.
That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.
On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.
Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.
This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."
With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.
"If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention," said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. "This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta."
"The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different."
"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US," said Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International. "But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
"This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the president of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper," he said.
It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.
One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.
According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.
Last month Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of oil in 2009. The majority, said the company, was lost through two incidents – one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.
Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98% of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure. "We had 132 spills last year, as against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised; one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us access to clean up the pollution because they can make more money from compensation," said a spokesman.
"We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year we replaced 197 miles of pipeline and are using every known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as possible as soon as and for whatever reason they occur."
These claims are hotly disputed by communities and environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.
The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's national oil spill detection and response agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment. "Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime," said a spokesman for Nosdra.
The sense of outrage is widespread. "There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year," said Bassey. "It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm."
A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in Lagos, which works to empower those in communities affected by the oil companies' activities, said: "The response to the spill in the United States should serve as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in Nigeria has drifted from standards across the world."
Other voices of protest point out that the world has overlooked the scale of the environmental impact. Activist Ben Amunwa, of the London-based oil watch group Platform, said: "Deepwater Horizon may have exceed Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret."
Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond."
Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: "Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care."
There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: "What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.
"It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice."
Full Link with pic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
Nice Grab Howard_Beale, Thanks for the reading material... Again!
Be well, JW
Read matt Taibbi's lastest to see what utter BS the GOP spouts as they suck big corporate cock. (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/;kw=[36899,157778]?RS_show_page=0)
The small operators wouldn't have anything to fear unless they fuck up! Besides, most are so small that they'd fall under the existing cap.
My mind would be more at ease if I was a religious type who believed that such folks would burn in hell, but alas...
Thanks to NAFTA FOREIGN corporations (from Canada or Mexico) can sue should their profits be impeded by environmental actions: a Canadian corporation sued for lost profits after some Californians shut them down for polluting their water.
Although this isn't under the perview of NAFTA, it will, I believe, present a severe challenge to NAFTA. This isn't just a small group of Californian's, it's an entire nation.nation.
So here we have the perfect example of why globalization, and with it, any one-world government, is going to die.
I cannot fathom that they get off with a 75 million economic damages cap. What about evironmental cap?
They are supposedly responsible for that. Right. Until they are nationalized and every bit of capital is dedicated to what will probably be a 10 year problem (that is a low estimate according to Cousteau), I don't believe a word they say.
We will pay, guaranteed. Tack on another trillion to the deficit because this mess is going to destroy everything from Louisiana to Florida and beyond. Oh, and one decent hurricane could push the oil into the land above the Gulf used for farming.
Forget shipping grains out of Louisianna this fall. My family has 500 acres of Illinois farmland and the locals are already trying to figure out how the grains will be shipped for exportation in the small towns in the midwest. Sure isn't going to go the way of the past. That fucker Buffet was right in buying BN. Trains with grains. What a joke...all the way to LA in little bitty train cars. Eat that, China. Warren just fucked you too.
Nothing in transport will be able to function by harvest according to my stepfather who is not only a physicist but bought farmland in 1976 to enjoy the country life and play with his combines.
It's over. He told me today that ships will not be able to get through the muck if we have to wait for a relief well. Well, that's what we are going to have to do unless something incredibly brilliant happens pronto. Or will they choose: ecosystem vs. shipping. Keep on spraying the hell out of it with dispersment chemicals in hopes that ships will be able to use the port, meanwhile, killing everything alive in the water. Is that what it will come to?
But there is a small problem--the 22 mile long/6 mile deep tube of oil that has been found. And there are more of them. GW has been reporting on them. What if there really is a monster 6 miles away from the Deepwater Horizon camera gushing like mad that is getting no press as he says?
I want blood. I am Howard Beale and I AM MAD AS FUCKING HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!
Shipping grains all over the place, how sustainable is That?
Should you really be surprised that the system that's supported such activity is collapsing?
We are the largest exporter of grains in the world. The New Orleans port is where all the ships line up, from the trucks to the ships that take it down the Mississippi. This has been the way for 50 years.
Howard Beale got nothing. You'll get nothing. The peasants are fat dumb and happy as clams (that aren't in the Gulf of Mexico).
The system is working perfectly. The mean people vote fascist (because they're mean) the nice people vote socialist (because the gullible). The system is the way it must be: the Anthropic Principle as applied to government.
That only works as long as we can breathe. I have seen numbers as high as 80% of our oxygen comes from the ocean. With the oil and additives in the waters now the oxygen is actually being destroyed, eaten rather than produced.
To which you might say its a big ocean, true. But we are poisoning the waters around the globe by and by. At what point is it too late? We may have reached that point already and chemtrails arent helping.
Bugs have eaten half my garden and theres been a great lack of sunshine.
Have seen few bees so far this year. So is money important? I dont think so.
Agreed, it is the same reason the limited partnerships of old wall street would never have engaged in such risky bullshit asset and derviative creation as they realized they PERSONALLY WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE.
This message is lost on so many folks when you guarantee something like student loans and housing (fannie and freddie) as well as you limit liability on risky behavior bc of too big to fail or too big to suffer proper capitalistic consequences then the entire market, housing, student loans, finance and big oil and big industry takes excessive risks only to burden the taxpayer when they fail. Incentive and risk allocation are improperly accounted for.
Lemon socialism and corporatism/fascism - all upside accrues to private entities and all downside accrues to sucker taxpayers. What a rigged game with asymmetric risk parceling.
it is the same reason the limited partnerships of old wall street would never have engaged in such risky bullshit asset and derviative creation as they realized they PERSONALLY WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE.
Ah, I think that you're thinking of a time that never really existed. Robber Barons, defense contractors selling aboslute crap (going back to the civil war). No, things have never been on the up and up... As long as power is concentrated we're assured of outright corruption. The only difference is that today we have the Internet to get out facts: in the past the corporate media was the ONLY channel, and it was, as it is today, run by the wealthy elites (yes, here and there there was a smattering of folks like Murrow and Sevaried, but they could not compete with the volume of disinformation).
All that is required is to make a list of all participants and then shun them until they pay for what they did. Justice back in the right hands, no violence.
BP
Coast Guard
Government
Halliburton
Etc.
You have forgotten Transocean and direct blame at MMS.
There is plenty of blame to go around. It is just so painful to watch this unfold. So in the name of distraction with anger management intent, a friend of mine and I have started the new bumper sticker campaign for BP. Please help us make this list better. Some are good...some not.
Here it is, prefixed with BP:
Beyond Pathological
Beyond Pathetic
Bloodsucking Parasites
Best Polluters
Buttfucking Piledrivers (that was redundant)
Bum Plumbers (more succinct than above)
Beyond Psychopaths
Bodacious Psychopaths
Blonde Phucknuts
Broken Plungers
Bunk Pirates
Busted Peckers
Buying Politicians
Balderdash Providers
Blundering Petards
Bastard Parasites
Bleedin' Pathetic
Boring Pricks
Bottom-line Pimps
Brutal Perfidy
Bampot Peckerheads
Blood-sucking Perverts
go for it...ZH'ers. Get your acronyms on.
BP = BiPolar: Corporate Bipolar disorder is a condition in which a firm experiences abnormally elevated (manic or hypomanic) and abnormally depressed states for periods of time in a way that interferes with functioning...
The mania, characterized by reckless behavior and an inability to foresee and prepare for potential consequences of said behavior, ended 41 days ago. Entering a depressed state for a period of time in a way that interferes with functioning. May be a terminal case.
It's difficult to 'shun' those who get you to work on a daily basis or are paid contractors to those who don't feel beholden to you.
How to Cripple an Economy: Gas Hike's for Dummies, by Nancy Pelosi
Anyone who suggests this kind of nonsense while being driven around in an SUV is so far out of touch as to make Terry Schiavo look hip and with it.
I detest Pelosi, but comments such as yours conflates the message with the messenger. It sounds just like party hackery to me...
No, I'm registered as a Dem, I just loathe hypocrites who don't consider the unintended consequences and/or efficacy of their actions.
My deepest 'hope' is that we can do better than 'not as bad as Palin' with our fem/dem leaders.
You didn't really think things through before you posted this did you?
Well, I'm sorry that you're a "registered Dem" :-)
But yes, facts and the truth should trump politics.
Read Matt Taibbi's lastest on financial "reform" (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/;kw=[36899,157778]?RS_show_page=0) to see just how well the Dems have done by us small folk. It'll make you puke...
The result is always best summed up by this line/quote from Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist:
Do people demand a really just system? Well, we'll arrange it so that they'll be satisfied with one that's a little less unjust ... They want a revolution, and we'll give them reforms -- lots of reforms; we'll drown them in reforms. Or rather, we'll drown them in promises of reforms, because we'll never give them real ones either!!
I'm sorry you are sorry that people are registered Dems. I'm a registered Pittbull. I suggest you read my posts below on partisanship. Get your head out of the sand, Seer. You have been captured.
Captured by what?
I'm well aware of the failings, especially within our 'august' upper house...just wanted to point out that my attack wasn't based in being a Republican or rider of the TeaPotDomeExpress.
I'd gladly vote off-ticket, if a suitable candidate appeared, but, for now, I settle for voting against.
My personal politics drifts towards a progressive libertarianism...fiscally conservative (as in lower govt spending by downsizing the welfare state AND military), socially liberal (as in don't attempt to lefislate morality), but pragmatic about the actual distribution of talent, motivation, and ethics within society.
A lot of my Dem friends say the same thing you just said. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they are Dems. If that's what you and they believe, then surely the lesser of 2 evils would be a Repub.
But, I'm with you, I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and I could never ever see myself voting for a Barry Obama or a Nancy Pelosi.
Voting off ticket is great and all, but all it ends up doing is putting the candidate you're most against into office.
So, I have to refrain and vote Repub, even if (gasp) it ends up being Palin.
But, I'm with you.
Peasants vote.
But who the peasants vote for is based on their psychology. If they worship authority - as most should - they'll vote for one of the two wings of the Republicrat Nobility Party. Which wing is based on if they are (generally) accepting of "those people" (outsiders).
The few malcontent peasants that don't accept authority are generally stuck voting Libertarians (mean survival of the fittest fantasy party) or Green (gullible nice-people fantasy party).
As long as the peasants think voting matters the nobility is safe.
I thought we were progressing to keeping partisanship off this blog. But here we go again.
Politicians are all from the same ilk. There is no two party system--it's all the same party except no one is having a good time and one is pro-life and the other isn't. There are a few good people and a plethora of idiots. But to make a stand and say you would vote for Palin? She is a blight on the Republican party and not someone I would ever consider trusting with global military issues, let alone this country. Anyone that has any intelligent rebuttal on her intelligence, sanity, or true motivations, bring it on. She is a parasite and John McCain, who I once respected, is responsible for this tart even having a voice in the media.
Her words today: Plug the damn hole! I say the same to you Palin--plug your own fucking holes.
STFU on this partisan crap. It's what is keeping everyone from seeing the truth. The game is rigged, the corporations have captured the government and the taxpayers, there is no free market.
We taxpayers ended up paying for the banks, the Eurozone, and yes, we will pay for the cleanup, and more. Because that is the real track we are on.
Keep on thinking it is a partisan issue and you are captured too--they have done their job at keeping you distracted from the truth.
+10
Howard has it. somebody should start a movement called "the Party's Over" whose sole purpose is dismantle both> I'm not sure parties are a good idea at all. Why should your representative be loyal and limited to something else
thanks, totally agree about the partisan thing....if you think Repubs are solution, look what their complete control from 2000-2006 (Pres, Congress, and SCOTUS and people rallying around 9/11,war) did for country. If you think Dems are solution, then look what Dem control in 2009 gets you, same Sec of Def, same financial policy,.... fake, weak reforms from congress...