Big Oil
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Why I introduced the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act
The tragic oil spill in the Gulf has led me to look at the Oil Pollution Act, which Congress passed in 1990 in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill. It’s apparent that the liability limit set in that legislation, $75 million, is laughably small. With estimates that the oil spill off the Gulf Coast […]
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Disaster contingency plans are ‘fantasy documents’ when it comes to big oil spills
Lee Clarke.Am I the only one mystified — and, OK, horrified — by British Petroleum’s apparent failure to have a contingency plan in place for just the kind of worst-case scenario that happened in the Gulf on April 20? Thankfully not. “Fantasy documents” is how author and sociologist Lee Clarke describes most corporate contingency plans […]
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Oil spill update: The ‘junk shot’ solution, BP’s poor safety record, right-wingers discredited
“Eww.” A toxic-smelling trail of “dispersed” oil in the Gulf.Photo: National Wildlife FederationDown $350 million so far and its much-hyped containment dome done in by clumps of icy slush, BP is mulling other options to shut off the gushing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It might try again with a smaller dome. Or […]
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Accident expert weighs in on Gulf oil spill
Charles PerrowRegulation, regulation, regulation. Until the U.S. can make the switch to renewables, insists professor and author Charles Perrow, regulation is the best way to prevent disasters like the Gulf oil spill. Perrow is an organizational theorist, emeritus professor at Yale University, and author of Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. He studies accidents. […]
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With Gulf-spill facts in short supply, spin takes center stage
You spin me right round …Photo: Pip WilsonFor all the fire-hose coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, it’s a story with startlingly few known facts. We don’t know how much oil has actually spilled out. We don’t know where or when it will hit land. We don’t know exactly what’s in the chemical […]
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Oil spill update: Interior Dept. negligence, Obama’s BP cash, & greenwashing
The time has come to start peeling the onion on the big, oily Gulf Coast mess. The Washington Post goes at one juicy layer with a story by Juliet Eilperin revealing that the Interior Department gave BP a pass on doing a detailed environmental impact analysis last year because a massive oil spill seemed unlikely. […]
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Waterkeepers question use of dispersant chemicals at oil-spewing wellhead
The chief executive of BP says crews have been able to reduce the amount of oil reaching the Gulf’s surface from a massive underwater leak by using chemicals at the gusher’s source — but environmental advocates are raising questions about the plan’s safety. “We are adamantly opposed to dispersants being used at the well-head as […]
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Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance
President Barack Obama so far has said nothing about the screamingly obvious connection between the spoils of fossil-fuel dependency and the vision of a clean-energy economy that he’s been sporadically promoting. Instead he had this tepid statement on the Gulf oil spill Friday morning: “I continue to believe that domestic oil production is an important […]
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Big Oil continues to see big profits, pollution while Americans get robbed at the pump
This post was co-authored by Susan Lyon. I was out driving/just a taking it slowLooked at my tank/ it was reading lowPulled in a Exxon station/out on Highway OneHeld up without a gunHeld up without a gun – Bruce Springsteen Springsteen’s song could not be more true today. Big Oil is once again riding high […]
