Let me start with the mostly good news first: The House approved a bill this past Friday heightening safety standards for offshore drilling, imposing new fees on oil and gas production and removing the federal $75 million cap on economic damages to be paid by oil companies after major spills, increasing it to $300 million. It would also create new "conservation" fees on oil and natural gas extracted from land or water controlled by the federal government. Another quasi-plus: companies with significant workplace safety or environmental violations over the past 7 years would be banned from new offshore drilling permits. As usual, there was the left/right banter about killing jobs, big government, save the whales, no drilling, yada yada yada. The bill now moves on to the Senate where they'll probably sit on it till it's nice and thinned out and ready to do jack squat...pardon my cynicism. The bill is a move in the right direction, although I wonder how many more catastrophes it will take before we say to ourselves, "you know what, maybe we should just leave that the fuck alone?" History repeats itself - especially if you do the dumb shit over and over again.
On to the other news: The Senate (previously mentioned as 1/3 of our government that does fuck all for us) has blocked the Disclose Act, an act that would require corporate political advertisers to reveal their funding sources. Now, some on the right suggest that it's not just about that - it's a ploy to gain votes in November by putting more restrictions on corporate activity than on unions. Ummmm...ok.
A corporation is by definition an entity whose sole responsibility is to make money - the bottom line. Unions are by definition there to protect the rights of the worker. Now, I admit there is a gray area where unions can be assholes and corporations can be menches but overall, let's be honest here. I'd rather kick a corporation in the nuts than hang a union out to dry. But that's just me.
Furthermore, this bill wouldn't even bar corporations from making contributions, it would only require that they own up to it. Only the naive will say that our government isn't for sale, but at least we could take a first step and know who the hell is buying. But, of course, since we're not naive, we also realize that the who's who in the guilded chairs aren't gonna let any "first steps" be taken that might put their bottom line in jeopardy. I mean, what are they supposed to do, govern? Please...
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The commission on why shit happens
Forgive my cynicism when it comes to government formed commissions but in the past, I've been less than impressed with what these supposed detectives have come up with. The 9/11 commission may as well have been a commission on why we hate terrorists.
So, now there's The National Oil Commission whose job is to 1) determine why the oil rig exploded, 2) make preventative recommendations for similar disasters, and 3) decide whether or not offshore oil and gas drilling should be allowed to continue.
Drumroll please...the shit show: Republicans including but not limited to senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Robert Bennett of Utah, are bitching and complaining that there are too few oil and gas experts and too many environmentalists on the commission who will make leftist, opinionated suggestions on the second two points while ignoring the cause. Democrats complain that the co-chairman, William Reilly (former head of the EPA under Bush I might add), a Republican, has ties to big oil having sat on the board of Conoco-Phillips. Meanwhile, Obama tries to calm the left and right winds of this shit storm by assuring both sides that the commission is made up of "well-qualified and unbiased scientists and experts."
The commission will have six months before delivering the report whereafter Obama and friends will decide what plan of action to take against BP and the big oil elephant in the room.
Some say that they have higher hopes for this commission, mostly because the disaster in question is still on-going and is certainly fresh in the minds of the Gulf Coast residents if not the entire nation. Others are skeptical and say that the commission will run up against the same problems as the 9/11 commission and in the end will be a mere figurehead for solutions as opposed to tangible change.
I'd have to go with the skeptics on this one. Unless Reilly uses his big oil clout to get some answers (which again, I skeptically doubt), this commission will accomplish about as much as the average hippie cleaning oil off of a seagul and asking himself why. BP is a corporation. Corporations run the government. This disaster is still ongoing. What answers does the commission hope to get from a corporation deep in public opinion shit, losing money everyday? They're gonna try to hide as much as possible! I can almost hear the familiar sound of paper shredders over the hum of gushing oil. BP recently bought up all the google search options for oil spill in an interest to save face. They have also refused to publish any non-corporate sponsored testing of the waterways affected by the spill.
So, again, unless Reilly intends on taking on BP and their corporate bag of tricks, I don't see this commission coming up with much. Even if the so-called hippies on the commission decide that the best way to prevent future oil spills is to not allow off shore drilling (holy shit, what a concept), the chances of that recommendation springing to action are about as slim as Sarah Palin showing up in Playboy sporting a pentagram tattoo.
Good luck commission, you're gonna need it.
So, now there's The National Oil Commission whose job is to 1) determine why the oil rig exploded, 2) make preventative recommendations for similar disasters, and 3) decide whether or not offshore oil and gas drilling should be allowed to continue.
Drumroll please...the shit show: Republicans including but not limited to senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Robert Bennett of Utah, are bitching and complaining that there are too few oil and gas experts and too many environmentalists on the commission who will make leftist, opinionated suggestions on the second two points while ignoring the cause. Democrats complain that the co-chairman, William Reilly (former head of the EPA under Bush I might add), a Republican, has ties to big oil having sat on the board of Conoco-Phillips. Meanwhile, Obama tries to calm the left and right winds of this shit storm by assuring both sides that the commission is made up of "well-qualified and unbiased scientists and experts."
The commission will have six months before delivering the report whereafter Obama and friends will decide what plan of action to take against BP and the big oil elephant in the room.
Some say that they have higher hopes for this commission, mostly because the disaster in question is still on-going and is certainly fresh in the minds of the Gulf Coast residents if not the entire nation. Others are skeptical and say that the commission will run up against the same problems as the 9/11 commission and in the end will be a mere figurehead for solutions as opposed to tangible change.
I'd have to go with the skeptics on this one. Unless Reilly uses his big oil clout to get some answers (which again, I skeptically doubt), this commission will accomplish about as much as the average hippie cleaning oil off of a seagul and asking himself why. BP is a corporation. Corporations run the government. This disaster is still ongoing. What answers does the commission hope to get from a corporation deep in public opinion shit, losing money everyday? They're gonna try to hide as much as possible! I can almost hear the familiar sound of paper shredders over the hum of gushing oil. BP recently bought up all the google search options for oil spill in an interest to save face. They have also refused to publish any non-corporate sponsored testing of the waterways affected by the spill.
So, again, unless Reilly intends on taking on BP and their corporate bag of tricks, I don't see this commission coming up with much. Even if the so-called hippies on the commission decide that the best way to prevent future oil spills is to not allow off shore drilling (holy shit, what a concept), the chances of that recommendation springing to action are about as slim as Sarah Palin showing up in Playboy sporting a pentagram tattoo.
Good luck commission, you're gonna need it.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Black gold
The greatest environmental catastrophe in US history continues to unfold while our cars keep guzzling and we, seemingly immune to the irony, continue watching in our oil fueled plastic worlds as the earth goes down the shitter. Ah, isn't it just great to be American?
Well, I'm sure Nigerians would agree.
The Niger Delta is one of the most oil polluted places on the planet (barring of course our tremendous un-ability to plug the gusher in the gulf with more hair). Somewhere in the range of 11 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Delta over the course of 50 years, since the oil companies first noticed the glittering potential in this coastal country. The US currently gets about 10% of it's oil from Nigeria, and many activist groups fear that with the current situation in the Gulf, that figure will rise, leading to more problems in the already plagued region. A Nigerian spokesman for Shell oil complained that many militant groups in the area have been busting open pipelines to steal oil, and keeping crews from trying to rectify those break ins and other spills that have occurred, leading to the five decade old catastrophe. So there you go guys, not their fault. And this rager in the gulf isn't BP's fault either. Some dolphin or something probably bumped into the line and sent the whole thing into may-day mode.
I can't really decide which is more disgusting: the fact that Nigeria has lived with an ongoing spill many times the size of ours and yet we couldn't give two shits about them as long as they give us oil, OR that we continue to guzzle as the gulf gushes, immune to the catastrophes in both places...
Well, I'm sure Nigerians would agree.
The Niger Delta is one of the most oil polluted places on the planet (barring of course our tremendous un-ability to plug the gusher in the gulf with more hair). Somewhere in the range of 11 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Delta over the course of 50 years, since the oil companies first noticed the glittering potential in this coastal country. The US currently gets about 10% of it's oil from Nigeria, and many activist groups fear that with the current situation in the Gulf, that figure will rise, leading to more problems in the already plagued region. A Nigerian spokesman for Shell oil complained that many militant groups in the area have been busting open pipelines to steal oil, and keeping crews from trying to rectify those break ins and other spills that have occurred, leading to the five decade old catastrophe. So there you go guys, not their fault. And this rager in the gulf isn't BP's fault either. Some dolphin or something probably bumped into the line and sent the whole thing into may-day mode.
I can't really decide which is more disgusting: the fact that Nigeria has lived with an ongoing spill many times the size of ours and yet we couldn't give two shits about them as long as they give us oil, OR that we continue to guzzle as the gulf gushes, immune to the catastrophes in both places...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)