Author Topic: Lawsuit: BP’s ‘manipulation’ of Bush administration led to spill  (Read 1039 times)

Mons Venus

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AP June 15th, 2010
Lawsuit seeks damages under organized crime laws


Oil firm BP "manipulated" the Bush administration into softening regulation of oil drilling, leading to the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, a lawsuit filed in a Florida courtroom alleges.

The suit, which describes the Gulf spill as "an ecological Armageddon that could literally destroy the marine and coastal environment and way of life for generation of Americans," was filed on behalf of a Pensacola Beach property developer who says he and countless other property owners along the Gulf coast will lose large sums of money as the spill devalues their properties, reports the Pensacola News-Journal.

Lawyer Mike Papantonio is leading the lawsuit, makes no bones about the fact his client sees the Bush administration as being primarily responsible for the spill.

"The only way that happened was because there was a concerted effort to take all of the teeth out of regulations," he said, as quoted at the News-Journal.

In an unusual twist, the civil suit is being pressed under the US's RICO Act, a federal law passed in 1970 designed to deal with organized crime. In effect, the lawsuit alleges that BP and the Bush administration acted as a crime syndicate.
The suit refers to "a 2000 retreat for government officials hosted by former Vice President Dick Cheney with the goal of drafting a national energy policy," reports the News-Journal. As reported in April, Anne Womack Kolton, a former press secretary for Cheney who once defended the secretive energy policy meetings, has been hired by BP for its public relations effort on the oil spill.



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All correct.  But Obama had 15 months to change it.  If there was time to attend a college basketball game, that time should have been used considering greater requirements for safety on things such as digging holes in the earth that nobody can stop.

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Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
June 9, 2010
 
In this May 30, 2010 file photo, BP PLC CEO Tony Hayward talks to reporters as he visits a Coast Guard command center in Venice, La. BP's inability to contain the worst oil spill in U.S. history has focused attention on CEO Tony Hayward's words and deeds over the past six weeks - and the scrutiny has not yielded a flattering image. (AP file photo)

 
As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post.

Kerry never got to have his photo op with BP chief executive Tony Hayward and other regulation-friendly corporate chieftains. Within days, Republican co-sponsor Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., repudiated the bill following a spat about immigration, and Democrats went back to the drawing board.

But the Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.


Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

As Democrats fight to advance climate change policies, they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance efforts: posing as the scourges of the special interests and tarring “reform” opponents as the stooges of big business.

Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate.

There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.

In February, BP quit USCAP without giving much of a reason beyond saying the company could lobby more effectively on its own than in a coalition that is increasingly dominated by power companies. Theymade out particularly well in the House’s climate bill, while natural gas producers suffered.

But two months later, BP signed off on Kerry’s Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.

Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.

Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey—again, profiting BP.

Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.

BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. It employs the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director and confidant. Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton’s Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic congressman. Former Republican staffers, such as Reagan alumnus Ken Duberstein, also lobby for BP, but there’s no truth to Democratic portrayals of the oil company as
an arm of the GOP.

Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.

Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.


Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's lobbying editor. His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-a-government-pet-BP-now-a-capitalist-tool-95942659.html





          The BP lobbyist whose brother has Obama’s ear
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
06/14/10 12:04 PM EDT
________________________ ____________________

John Podesta of the Center for American Progress is nearly scripting the White House’s BP response, according to Jonathan Weisman at the Wall Street Journal in a blog post picked up by Drudge. But Weisman leaves out a key detail:

Podesta’s brother is a BP lobbyist.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    TALK ABOUT CRIME!!!!!


down with hussein

Soul Crusher

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Not one liberal obama cock sucking shill will even go remotely close to those stories. 

I posted them yesterday and they are like kryptonite to this admnistration. 

Mons Venus

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All correct.  But Obama had 15 months to change it.  If there was time to attend a college basketball game, that time should have been used considering greater requirements for safety on things such as digging holes in the earth that nobody can stop.

With all the SHIT Bush/Cheney left behind (2 Wars, Collasping Banking system, Great Recession) I'm sure changing Bush/Cheney offshore oil deregulations was near the top of Obama's to do list.  ::)

George Whorewell

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Mons, do you blame the Bush administration for your homosexuality and stupidity as well?

I hear a rumor that GW Bush also started the Vietnam war and the Tsunami that hit South East Asia a few years back.  ::)


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With all the SHIT Bush/Cheney left behind (2 Wars, Collasping Banking system, Great Recession) I'm sure changing Bush/Cheney offshore oil deregulations was near the top of Obama's to do list.  ::)

It might have been 700th on the list of things to do.  And yes, Cheney did let it get as bad as it did.

Still, it's the most important job on the planet, and the bucks stops here.  if I was president, I'd work for 14 straight hours each day, stopping only for an hour-long orgy at lunchtime each day.  I'd probably work 7 days a week too.

You only have the job for 4 or 8 years, and the health/vitality of a nation depends on you.   Honestly, I don't think any president should be taking more vacations than everyday americans get.  And Dubya spend something like 1/4 of his time in office on vacation, and it seems like Obama isn't that much different.

Even if it was 700th on his 'to do' list, he had almost 500 days in office to address it.  That means every NCAA basketball game, every trip to Five Guys burgers with Biden, was another thing higher on that priority than reversing dangerous energy policies.  plus, him saying "congress would have never let me do it" shows it wasn't on the last at all...

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Honestly, I don't think any president should be taking more vacations than everyday americans get.  And Dubya spend something like 1/4 of his time in office on vacation, and it seems like Obama isn't that much different.

Even if it was 700th on his 'to do' list, he had almost 500 days in office to address it.  That means every NCAA basketball game, every trip to Five Guys burgers with Biden, was another thing higher on that priority than reversing dangerous energy policies.  plus, him saying "congress would have never let me do it" shows it wasn't on the last at all...

Good call on both counts.


if I was president, I'd work for 14 straight hours each day, stopping only for an hour-long orgy at lunchtime each day.

That's why Clinton got shit done.
 ;D

Mons Venus

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It might have been 700th on the list of things to do.  And yes, Cheney did let it get as bad as it did.

Still, it's the most important job on the planet, and the bucks stops here.  if I was president, I'd work for 14 straight hours each day, stopping only for an hour-long orgy at lunchtime each day.   I'd probably work 7 days a week too.

You only have the job for 4 or 8 years, and the health/vitality of a nation depends on you.   Honestly, I don't think any president should be taking more vacations than everyday americans get.  And Dubya spend something like 1/4 of his time in office on vacation, and it seems like Obama isn't that much different.

Even if it was 700th on his 'to do' list, he had almost 500 days in office to address it.  That means every NCAA basketball game, every trip to Five Guys burgers with Biden, was another thing higher on that priority than reversing dangerous energy policies.  plus, him saying "congress would have never let me do it" shows it wasn't on the last at all...

 ;D

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It might have been 700th on the list of things to do.  And yes, Cheney did let it get as bad as it did.

Still, it's the most important job on the planet, and the bucks stops here.  if I was president, I'd work for 14 straight hours each day, stopping only for an hour-long orgy at lunchtime each day.  I'd probably work 7 days a week too.

You only have the job for 4 or 8 years, and the health/vitality of a nation depends on you.   Honestly, I don't think any president should be taking more vacations than everyday americans get.  And Dubya spend something like 1/4 of his time in office on vacation, and it seems like Obama isn't that much different.

Even if it was 700th on his 'to do' list, he had almost 500 days in office to address it.  That means every NCAA basketball game, every trip to Five Guys burgers with Biden, was another thing higher on that priority than reversing dangerous energy policies.  plus, him saying "congress would have never let me do it" shows it wasn't on the last at all...


Mons Venus

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With all the SHIT Bush/Cheney left behind (2 Wars, Collasping Banking system, Great Recession) I'm sure changing Bush/Cheney offshore oil deregulations was near the top of Obama's to do list.  ::)


QFT  >:(

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Obama sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon rig from regulatory requirement
By Tom Eley
6 May 2010



http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/gulf-m06.shtml

________________________ ________________________ ___________________



Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post reveals.

Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

The exemption came less than one month after BP had requested it in a March 10 "exploration plan" submitted to the MMS. The plan said that because a spill was "unlikely," no additional "mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources." BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post that the Obama administration's exemption effectively "put BP entirely in control," adding, "The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans."

In fact, BP's self-assessment of the potential for a disaster reproduced that of federal regulators. In 2007, under the Bush administration, the MMS carried out three studies of the potential environmental impact of deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including one that pertained specifically to the area where Deepwater Horizon was ultimately deployed, known as "Lease 206." The MMS determined that a "deepwater spill" would not reach the coast and would not exceed 4,600 barrels.

The most conservative estimates now put the Deepwater Horizon spill at about 72,000 barrels and counting. The real figure could already be as high as 350,000 barrels, about 75 times the MMS's worst-case-scenario prediction. In closed-door congressional hearings on Tuesday, BP executives admitted that the well could begin to emit as many as 60,000 barrels, or 2.5 million gallons, a day. At such a pace it would eclipse the size of the Exxon Valdez spill every five days.

The Obama administration's delivery of a special exemption for Deepwater Horizon in April 2009 is the latest in a litany of examples that reveal the close collaboration between the MMS and BP.

Only 11 days before the explosion, BP requested a broadening of the April exemption, and in a separate letter dated September 14, 2009, a BP vice president for operations in the Gulf, Richard Morrison, requested that the Obama administration not put in place new guidelines that would have required audits of its rigs every three years. "We are not supportive of the extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," Morrison wrote. BP favored voluntary self-regulations, which, Morrison said, "have been and continue to be very successful."

As late as March 2010, the MMS approved new deep sea oil drilling operations for another Gulf lease, referred to as "215." The approval cited the safety of other drilling operations, including Deepwater Horizon's Lease 206. (http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PDFs/2010/2010-003.pdf.)

At the end of March, Obama announced a dramatic expansion of offshore drilling in Florida's Gulf waters, the Atlantic seaboard, and the northern waters of Alaska—basing himself largely on MMS claims that new drilling poses no major risks to the environment.

The MMS is, even by the standards of Washington, openly in the embrace of the oil industry. A September 2008, Inspector General's report revealed that MMS regulators had for years accepted gifts and money—and even drugs and sex—from the same oil industry executives they were ostensibly tasked with monitoring. The Obama administration's rubber-stamping of "self-regulation" for the oil industry makes clear that while the top political appointees at MMS have changed since the Bush years, the policies have not.

As more details emerge, it is becoming increasingly clear that federal regulators under both the Bush and Obama administrations ceded enforcement of legally-mandated safety and environmental regulation to the oil industry, while providing governmental approval for unproven methods. It is these policies that led directly to the deaths of eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon and the environmental catastrophe overtaking the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama administration's and BP's protestations that the Deepwater Horizon disaster was unforeseeable are lies. In fact, not only had scientists and environmentalists warned for years that an uncontrollable spill from a deep water oil rig was likely, sources in the Bush and Obama administrations had made similar warnings.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sharply criticized the very MMS studies that Obama used to approve the Deepwater Horizon site, it has been revealed. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which supports whistleblowers among federal employees, published a memo sent by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco in October 2009 to the Department of the Interior ridiculing MMS assessments of drilling operations.

Among other comments, Lubchenco called the MMS studies "understated and generally not supported or referenced, using vague terms and phrases such as 'no substantive degradation is expected' and 'some marine mammals could be harmed.' This is particularly problematic for expanding oil and gas production."

The internal warnings go back as far as 2004. The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported the contents of a study, commissioned and reviewed by the MMS that year, which raised serious doubts as to whether blowout protector mechanisms—the equipment that failed to seal the Deepwater Horizon well after its piping ruptured—could even function in the deep sea. The devices were simply untested under such oceanic pressures. The study warned that “this grim snapshot illustrates the lack of preparedness in the industry to shear and seal a well with the last line of defense against a blowout” in deep water.

Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class interests.

According to a report from the Center for Responsive Politics, BP gave more campaign donations to the Obama campaign in the 2008 election cycle than to any other politician—$71,000 in all—though in total it gave slightly more to Republican candidates. BP also took the step of hiring the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm headed up by Obama confidant John Podesta and his brother Tony, paying the firm $720,000 since 2008. All told, BP has spent just shy of $20 million on federal lobbying over the last two years.

The close working relationship between BP and the Obama administration has continued even in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The administration’s first reaction to the explosion was to reiterate its support for lifting moratoriums that currently block thousands of miles of US coastline from drilling. “The president still continues to believe the great majority of that can be done safely, securely and without any harm to the environment,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on April 23, three days after the explosion. “I don’t honestly think [the disaster] opens up a whole new series of questions, because, you know, in all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last."

Obama has since ordered a "30 day review" before new permits are issued, but this is a patently hollow gesture since no new permits are up for consideration in the coming month. In a bid to lessen mounting popular outrage, administration officials have combined this meaningless review with tough talk about holding BP financially liable for the spill's damages.

In fact, a law passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Oil Pollution Act, caps at $75 million oil firms' total liability for economic and environmental damages to private parties. This reactionary piece of legislation, disguised as an effort to protect the environment, passed the US House by a vote of 375-5 and the Senate by acclamation before being signed into law by President George H. W. Bush, a former oilman.

The markets on Wednesday signaled their confidence that a deal will be worked out to protect BP, with its share values increasing by 1.5 percent and a London financial analysis firm upgrading its stocks to "buy."



________________________ ___________________

MONS, BLACKEN, DANNY = FAIL

240 is Back

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It might have been 700th on the list of things to do.  And yes, Cheney did let it get as bad as it did.

Still, it's the most important job on the planet, and the bucks stops here.  if I was president, I'd work for 14 straight hours each day, stopping only for an hour-long orgy at lunchtime each day.  I'd probably work 7 days a week too.

You only have the job for 4 or 8 years, and the health/vitality of a nation depends on you.   Honestly, I don't think any president should be taking more vacations than everyday americans get.  And Dubya spend something like 1/4 of his time in office on vacation, and it seems like Obama isn't that much different.

Even if it was 700th on his 'to do' list, he had almost 500 days in office to address it.  That means every NCAA basketball game, every trip to Five Guys burgers with Biden, was another thing higher on that priority than reversing dangerous energy policies.  plus, him saying "congress would have never let me do it" shows it wasn't on the last at all...

cue tony to chime in saying i'm kneepadding for obama

tonymctones

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cue tony to chime in saying i'm kneepadding for obama
LMAO nope seems like you hit the nail on the head for once... ;)

if ppl like mons want to hold bush responsible for 9/11 or others want to say that bush planned 9/11. Then also blame bush for something that obama had more than ample time to correct and as 333 has shown was actually approved on obamas watch they are ignorant and biased.

I am suprised though that youre not in the catergory i described as that is your general M.O.  ;)

240 is Back

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LMAO nope seems like you hit the nail on the head for once... ;)

if ppl like mons want to hold bush responsible for 9/11 or others want to say that bush planned 9/11. Then also blame bush for something that obama had more than ample time to correct and as 333 has shown was actually approved on obamas watch they are ignorant and biased.

I am suprised though that youre not in the catergory i described as that is your general M.O.  ;)

 ;D

I started another thread where I kneepad Pelosi for spending a shitload of $ on her office as well!

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;D

I started another thread where I kneepad Pelosi for spending a shitload of $ on her office as well!

240 - did you ready my thread on the BP Lobbying for Cap & Trade, the Stim Bill, hired Podesta and his brother etc etc? 


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240 - did you ready my thread on the BP Lobbying for Cap & Trade, the Stim Bill, hired Podesta and his brother etc etc? 

i htink i skimmed it.  of course it's true.

tonymctones

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;D

I started another thread where I kneepad Pelosi for spending a shitload of $ on her office as well!
LOL I saw nothing suprises me about that woman these days, whats scary is that loon keeps getting relected.

I love san fran but I could never live there....

Danny

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With all the SHIT Bush/Cheney left behind (2 Wars, Collasping Banking system, Great Recession) I'm sure changing Bush/Cheney offshore oil deregulations was near the top of Obama's to do list.  ::)

hey, HEY HEY!....this is a board where things that MAKE sense DO NOT MATTER!!  ;D How dare you??????  ;D
"What we do in life ECHOES in eternity "

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hey, HEY HEY!....this is a board where things that MAKE sense DO NOT MATTER!!  ;D How dare you??????  ;D

You and that fake soldier are such a pathetic joke. This is on Obama.

He had FIFTEEN MONTHS to change the policies Cheney spearheaded. He didn't. This is on him. Like 240 said, if he has time to throw parties, go to basketball games, take vacations, go golfing and do a host of other things that have nothing to do with his job, then he has had more than enough time to fix the policy changes Cheney pushed through.

People hang 9/11 around Bush's head and that was 9 months into his term. This spill happened 15 months into Obama's term. He is 100% responsible for this.

There, there, I know it stings. Perhaps...if....you....t ype....like....this....s ome.....more....you....c an....continue.....to... .deny....it.  ::)

Danny

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You and that fake soldier are such a pathetic joke. This is on Obama.

He had FIFTEEN MONTHS to change the policies Cheney spearheaded. He didn't. This is on him. Like 240 said, if he has time to throw parties, go to basketball games, take vacations, go golfing and do a host of other things that have nothing to do with his job, then he has had more than enough time to fix the policy changes Cheney pushed through.

People hang 9/11 around Bush's head and that was 9 months into his term. This spill happened 15 months into Obama's term. He is 100% responsible for this.

There, there, I know it stings. Perhaps...if....you....type....like....this....some.....more....you....can....continue.....to....deny....it.  ::)


that...actually...looks pretty goo..d.  ;)

ps what fake soldier? what the hell are you talkin about?
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