How BP Used Political Muscle To Fend Off Regulators And Influence Corporate Neglect Investigations: Newsweek

Newsweek:

How British oil giant BP used all the political muscle money can buy to fend off regulators and influence investigations into corporate neglect.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[SystemLink]

07:27 PM on 05/10/2010

If anyone thinks this is bad now, just wait until the spill is cleaned up and BP starts denying that they should have to pay for ALL of the cleanup or ALL of the spill

Just wait....they will

[LARadical]

10:21 PM on 05/09/2010

Obama's Interior Dept, under Salazar, exempted BP's project from a required environmental impact study in April of 2009. If the study had been done, as required, the project would not have been approved.


Last Wednesday, on Keith Olbermann, environmentalists called for Int Dept Secy Salazar to step down:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/36976376# 36976376

[uwhusky253]

07:20 PM on 05/09/2010

It is amazing in one year's time an administration is supposed to fix everything wrong in the whole country. Additionally, this is the fault of the American people. Everyone is too busy watching DWTS or American Idol or someother BS so they don't have to pay attention to what is really going on. No one will fix our problems for us if they (government) think we don't care or pay attention. It is obvious we don't care because we don't pay attention until it is too late.

[samknox]

04:26 PM on 05/09/2010

I may have been too cryptic in my last post.

Here's my point:

There are costs associated with regulatory compliance, and those costs are passed along to the end consumer, just like all other costs. In the case of an oil company, mosts of those costs show up in the price of gasoline.

No administration or politician, of either party, will ever oversee regulation that causes the price of gasoline to rise to a point that causes social unrest. "Social unrest" in this case meaning "loss of votes".

I'm sure there are "safeguards" that, in theory, could have prevented this spill, but there isn't any regulatory environment that could actually exist that would have done so.

Even if unlimited resources were available, you couldn't eliminate the possibility of a spill. It's a part of the objective risk of drilling for oil, and we drill for oil because we want cheap gas for our cars.

Again, I don't see the point in excoriating BP. They're in the Gulf for the same reason as all the other oil companies; there's a lot of money to be made. The reason there's a lot of money to be made is that we need oil, and lots of it, to continue to enjoy the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed, and saying that BP is the worst of a bad set of players isn't saying much.

[floodberg]

04:57 PM on 05/09/2010

SAMKNOX, YOU ARE THE BEST SO FAR!!!

The absolutely BEST pro-Obama pro-status quo 'don't vote out the incumbents because they sold out to BP for lobbying and campaign funds' posts I've seen so far. You're much better at the persuasive writing style than the other lawyer/lobbyists I've found on HP.

Too bad the argument doesn't hold water when you actually look at the financial mechanisms of oil lobbying, cleanup, and the taxpayers' 'end,' but of course you never go that far. Good show, SamKnox.

[samknox]

06:36 PM on 05/09/2010

I think if you give it a closer reading, you'll see that I don't think voting out the incumbents would make any difference.

All politicians have one thing in common: They like to win elections, and no one wants to go into a national election with gas a $6/gallons.

The actual mechanisms of influence are irrelevant. Everyone will use them no matter what they are.

Thanks for the compliment on the writing.

[muck-raker]

09:49 AM on 05/09/2010

If she pushed debarment too hard, Pascal was sure the Pentagon would simply invoke a national-security exception that would allow BP to continue to sell it oil. When "a major economic and political giant?.?.?.?tells you it has direct access to the White House, it's very intimidating," says Pascal. After nearly two years of trying, Pascal retired from the EPA in February with the settlement agreement unsigned. "I can't tell you that if my compliance agreement had been signed it would have prevented what happened in the gulf," she says. "We just don't know." Whether that unfortunate history will repeat itself, with the company facing its worst crisis ever, is also unknown. But for BP, finding its way around Washington is terrain far more familiar than the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico....MONEY TALKS

[JoeCorrao]

09:33 AM on 05/09/2010

hand in glove Big Oil and Big Government

[Mr Happyface]

08:53 AM on 05/09/2010

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama’s vow that his administration would launch a “relentless response effort” to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf.

One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/08

NYAAH!

[floodberg]

05:09 PM on 05/09/2010

Sorry, Mr. Happyface, time for you (like the rest of us former Obama voters) to wake up and smell the 'crude' odor of greed coming from our WH and the unified 'bipartisan' Congress, who are gleefully and blatantly following a rich path to personal financial freedom.

There are a few intelligent, ambitious, and hopefully less greedy rising political stars that may offer us a third, more 'society-friendly' road to the WH. Other EU countries have multiple parties, and survived just fine.

Keep posting, and keep looking for alternatives. You have lots of company on HP.

[jcaunter]

06:40 AM on 05/09/2010

BP has a long and inglorius history of scrapping safety rules to save a few pennies:

"This just in: Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews, who, therefore, poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So, it blew.

Why didn't Halliburton check? "Gross negligence on everyone's part," said Becnel. Negligence driven by penny-pinching, bottom-line squeezing. BP says its worker is lying. Someone's lying here, man on the platform or the company that has practiced prevarication from Alaska to Louisiana."

http://www.truthout.org/slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well59178

[samknox]

04:29 PM on 05/09/2010

The idea that BP, or any other company, would risk a blowout in order to save the cost of a couple of yards of well slurry is just absurd.

[floodberg]

05:38 PM on 05/09/2010

SAMKNOX, You know as an insider that when you look at the entire BP lobbying/safety/insurance/liability/media scenario, BP's behavior makes great economic sense. BP's 'green' namechange ('Beyond Petroleum') is now just funny. (Sorry they lost that environmental award last week. That must hurt.) Massive profits were due in no small part to their ability to keep their liability insurance and capitalization requirements ridiculously low. Their smashingly effective purchase of the President's and Congress' cooperation will reap huge benefits now and in the future, saving them billions in cleanup which will be squarely laid on the taxpayers and, as EV shows decades later, isn't really 'cleaned up' at all.

Son, it's time to fess up and go home.

If you prefer to really play this 'win their hearts and minds' game, I'll post the real stats on BP's largesse to our President and legislators, and you can explain....

1. how your industry isn't buying ridiculously low capitalization or liability/spill insurance legislation and financial protection against spill lawsuits...

2. how they will cleanup this entire spill and the wildlife TOTALLY for $75 million (including the leftover sludge per EV that's still around).

3. You can also tell us BP's humanitarian and politically correct reason for donating millions to our President and Congress.

I'll love to play if you will. I'll be waiting, and watching, with bated breath. Other HP commenters will as well.

Let's dance, SAMKNOX.

[David Rozgonyi]

01:45 AM on 05/09/2010

I have to say, the recent disgusting SCOTUS ruling allowing corporations unlimited access to our political funding process will make this soooo much easier in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if BP is strategizing along these lines right now....

[ReedYoung]

01:09 AM on 05/09/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzx_4pMX7WU

[Pleroma]

08:44 AM on 05/09/2010

Great You Tube!

TY

[ReedYoung]

11:24 AM on 05/09/2010

It's Lawrence Lessig, re: corporate lobbying, political financing, etc.

[albatrossse]

12:01 AM on 05/09/2010

"At times BP has enlisted powerful Washington types like Leon Panetta (now CIA director), George Mitchell (now Obama's Middle East envoy), Christine Todd Whitman (the former EPA administrator), and Tom Daschle (the former majority leader) to serve on its various boards of advisers and "independent" panels. In his rounds on Capitol Hill last week, Hayward was escorted by a former aide to Ted Kennedy who now works for the Brunswick Group, a powerhouse public-relations firm recently hired by BP to help it deal with the oil-spill crisis."

These people should be ashamed of themselves.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237651?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newsweek%2FTopNews+(UPDATED+-+Newsweek+Top+Stories)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/demons-and-demonization/

[DocStrangelove]

12:15 AM on 05/09/2010

You feel that any of that even come CLOSE to DIRECT CAUSATION?

[Chazmania]

11:03 PM on 05/08/2010

The only real way we are going to stop corporate control of our government is to band together as a people. republicans, democrats, independent, liberals, progressives, conservatives all for honest change! The division is working against us! We are splintered and angry at each other for perceived ills of what really is a corporate take over of government! not by once side of the party system or of either side! that is just the rouse, the con, We can find common ground as Americans! as concerned citizens! i see the infighting and read comments that basically have the same angst and issues! we can agree government has been usurped by corporate cartels and mafia banking gangs! they will win if we do not band together!

[ReedYoung]

01:11 AM on 05/09/2010

I'd like to start with something a little bit more modest: Liberal activist groups (environment, health care, labor, for example) working together against the corporate menace.

[jan4insight]

02:02 AM on 05/09/2010

x2!

[dems08]

11:00 PM on 05/08/2010

this is what the beautiful bird above is supposed to look like...

http://www.naturfoto-cz.de/photos/auer/northern-gannet-xxx2z8h0009mw.jpg

[SweetJudith]

11:42 PM on 05/08/2010

Horrific, just plain horrific!!! These crooks should be taken out and shot, for what they are doing to Sea life and Wildlife alone!

[quantumspin]

10:37 PM on 05/08/2010

Obama got more BP money than any U.S. politician in history. Stands to reason that his White House would look the other way in regulating BP's drilling in the U.S. This president is far more dishonest than Bush/Cheney. The reason: Obama says one thing on his teleprompter and does exactly the opposite. Bush at least told us what he was up to and so did Cheney. Obama will go down in history as the most dishonest president we've had. And worse, he's clearly, in his lies and duplicity, disrespectful of those who voted for him. We have to get this guy out of office in 2012. Vote for honesty and integrity in 2010 and 2012.

[NWRICK]

10:44 PM on 05/08/2010

"Vote for honesty and integrity in 2010 and 2012. "

LOL
This is politics.
If you want honesty and integrity, sadly, you must look elsewhere.

[spandautoseattle]

10:52 PM on 05/08/2010

Even in Washington state there is something possible. Voters have to be reached, people told about the "unregulated markets"-folly of the former GOP. The less Republicans will be sent into the House of Representatives this year, the better.
The big 'but' of course lies in the necessity to have a close eye on even the Dem-candidates. And that's a nationwide duty, nowhere anymore we can take honest behavior of pols in service of the People for granted. Thanks to the campaign finance laws it's now: stay alert and informed. But yes, it's tiring.

[Chazmania]

10:56 PM on 05/08/2010

It really is not about republican democrat any more. At least as far as the people of this country go!
this division is being perpetuated by politicians and media propaganda stars as a way to keep us at each others throats so we don't start really organizing as one and topple there corruption and oligarchy!

[Ken Maddox]

10:26 PM on 05/08/2010

Free Enterprise left unfettered, unregulated, and unchallenged will naturally evolve to a single entity that owns all means of production, manufacture, marketing, and banking. We are perilously close to seeing this happen in our nation. Had it not been for the missteps taken by Wall Street and Detroit during the past decade, it would be an almost done deal by now. The plan obviously was for the bankers to control the entire US economy, and I'm sure new plans have now been put into place.

[BigFootJesus]

10:36 PM on 05/08/2010

How correct you are, Fanned and faved.

[SteveSFM]

12:43 AM on 05/09/2010

Ditto on the fanning and faving, because you get it. The spill is a direct result of unadulterated capitalism and its control over our government.

[tonyinstpete]

08:27 PM on 05/18/2010

Capitalism--specifically large corporate entitities we can now clearly see control our government. However, it is not "unadulterated" pure capitalism in the Adam Smith or even Tea Party sense of entrepreneuralism. It is huge corporate global enterprise who have bought our politicians and who really exist in a kind of "crony" state-backed capitalism.