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- Tags: BP oil spill, Exxon Valdez, history repeats, Oil spill lessons not learned
The Valdez’s unheeded lessons
The story of the last cataclysmic American oil spill has evolved over time into a straightforward tale of cause and effect: In 1989, a hard-drinking skipper ran his tanker aground in Alaska, and Exxon was unable to prevent crude from spreading along hundreds of miles of pristine shoreline.
(By Joe Stephens, The Washington Post)
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By Paul Kane
Washington Post
Members of the congressional committees that oversee the oil and gas industry held more than $11 million in personal financial assets in that sector late last year, including at least $400,000 in the two companies at the heart of the Gulf of Mexico oil-drilling disaster.
From the nearly $100,000 in BP stock held by Rep. Frederick Upton (R-Mich.) to the nearly $650,000 in ConocoPhillips shares held by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), lawmakers on five key panels with oversight of the oil industry held more than 110 assets in firms from that sector.
All told, the members of the five House and Senate committees had a minimum of $11.4 million in stock holdings in the oil and gas industry, with a maximum value that could have exceed $16.8 million, according to an analysis of financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.
Before the Gulf disaster, some lawmakers sold off shares in the companies at the center of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill for personal financial reasons. Among them was Kerry, whose wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold off the last remaining shares she held in Transocean, the company that owned the drilling rig.
At the end of 2009, however, Heinz family trusts still held between $350,000 and $750,000 in BP stock, coming in purchases last year.
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By Karen Tumulty
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 28, 2010
A defensive President Obama sought Thursday to quell doubts about his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, insisting that his administration has been “in charge” from the moment it began and bristling that critics who accuse it of being sluggish to react “don’t know the facts.”
But at times during a 63-minute news conference in the East Room of the White House, the president seemed to undercut his own argument. He enumerated a litany of fumbles and lapses: that the government lacks resources and “superior technology” to respond to the disaster; that he personally had assumed oil companies “had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios”; that his administration “fell short” with its acceptance of BP’s inaccurate estimate of the size of the gusher; that reforms of the corruption-plagued government agency that oversees offshore drilling “weren’t happening fast enough.”
At one point, Obama said he did not know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum — the director of the Minerals Management Service he blamed for allowing the oil industry to overrule environmental and safety concerns — had resigned or been fired hours before.
Read more and view video……………..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701172.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
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Obama said “Get the dam hole plugged”………….I agree, its time BP was held more accountable for their inefficiency in this disaster.
There is talk from some of the environmental groups that the government contracts that BP have should be taken away from them as “punishment”. We all know that is
not going to happen.
However, the government should of course make BP pay for the cleanup operations and damage to wildlife and businesses affected by the spill, but also fined a Billion dollars, hurt them where it will hurt and not let them write it off as losses on their income tax returns.
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Our flagship, Steve Irwin, is currently in Cannes, France, making final preparations for Operation Blue Rage.
On another front, because of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we have just announced our plans for a campaign to help with the animal rescue efforts there. This is called our Gulf Rescue Campaign.
While British Petroleum (BP) may be morally and legally responsible for causing the deep-sea oil breach in the Gulf of Mexico that is turning into the largest and most destructive oil spill in history, it is impractical and unwise to leave the rescue of all marine life in the Gulf to a private corporation.
We have initiated plans for a Gulf Rescue Campaign and are calling upon all able organizations to join us in sending vessels with trained crew to support large-scale efforts to rescue oiled sea birds, turtles, and other marine species.
Together we have the resources, skills, experience, and passion to make a huge difference in the number of lives and species that can be saved from this disastrous oil spill. Learn more about how you can help and please donate today to support our efforts in the Gulf!
ADMIN NOTE: For more information on all the Sea Shepherd projects or if you can help by donating click on the whale emblem on the right hand side of this page and it will take you to the Sea Shepherd newsletter.
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The ongoing offshore oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening to become the worst in U.S. history – topping the 11-million gallons spilt by Exxon Valdez. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time an oil company’s drive for profits has had devastating consequences.
Also, after nearly 40 years, Chevron still hasn’t cleaned up its mess in the Ecuadorian Amazon – one of the most delicate ecosystems in the world. The harmful effects continue to plague wildlife and human life alike.
Defenders of Wildlife………
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A sea turtle surfaces to feed on Portuguese Man-O-War, contaminated with oil due to the spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig.
PHOTO:Carol Guzy-The Washington Post
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2010
What do you call a gigantic man-made disaster that is threatening to despoil the ecosystems and wreck the economies of the Gulf Coast? The answer is important, if you happen to be one of the companies responsible for it.
The massive slick spreading toward Louisiana has gone by several names since crude oil began gushing from a damaged drilling rig on April 20. Media accounts have referred to it as “the Gulf oil spill,” “the Deepwater Horizon spill” and the “Gulf Coast disaster.”
President Obama, leaving little doubt about whom he considers responsible for the epic mess, put a brand name on it in remarks in Louisiana on Sunday. The president dubbed it “the BP oil spill,” after the company (formerly British Petroleum) that leased the now-damaged drilling platform. The Environmental Protection Agency refers to it the same way in its official pronouncements.
The name of a disaster can be critical, both as a historic matter and the more immediate matters of image, public relations and legal liability. BP has said it will honor “legitimate” claims from people and businesses seeking compensation from disruption caused by the spill. But since there are likely to be many disputed claims (“This is America — come on,” BP chief executive Tony Hayward told the Times of London on Wednesday), having your company’s name inextricably linked to a disaster can’t help when a jury begins assigning damages.
BP could face the same fate as another oil giant, Exxon, whose name is forever stamped on the 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. That spill was named for the Exxon Valdez, the tanker that hit a reef and ruptured. Other calamities — plane crashes, the Tylenol poisonings — have been shorthanded by a corporate or product name, too.
But companies don’t always get top billing, even when they acknowledge responsibility. The leak of poisonous chemicals at a plant in Bhopal, India — which killed as many as 12,000 people — came to be known more by its place of origin than by the company that owned the plant, Union Carbide. Similarly, the partial meltdown of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant in 1979 was named after the facility where the incident occurred, Three Mile Island. Few people remember the name of the company that operated the plant and was responsible for its safety, General Public Utilities.
BP has been careful not to invoke its name in regard to the spill. “We refer to it as Gulf of Mexico response,” said Andrew Gowers, the company’s spokesman. BP’s Web site (http://bp.com) avoids any linkage, calling it “the spill” or “Gulf of Mexico response” or “BP’s MC252 response,” a reference to the rig known formally as Mississippi Canyon 252.
For the rest of the article and photographs go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/05/AR2010050505022.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
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