Rep. Chellie Pingree

It's crazy that the Constitution has to be amended to clarify what for the majority of Americans is a clear and true statement: corporations are not people. But that's where we find ourselves today.

It's only been two years since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, but...

The long-awaited day of Osama bin Laden's death brings with it a number of emotions that many of us have shared in the past few days.

It brings us all a measure of relief in knowing that he no longer threatens to strike again and that we have undermined the...

You're driving down Main Street when you get a craving for chicken. But when you try to pull off to your favorite restaurant, concrete barricades block your way. You drive on, willing to try a burger joint your friend told you about. The restaurant pops into view, but this time...

As I write this, the motivation behind the shooting of my friend Gabby Giffords and eleven others isn't clear. We don't know what prompted the shooter to show up at Gabby's Congress on Your Corner at a Tucson grocery store with a semiautomatic pistol and the motivation to...

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been one of my good friends in the House of Representatives. When she was brutally shot, Gabby was out doing what she loved to do -- meeting with her constituents in a local setting, allowing people to speak to her directly about the issues that concerned...

Seeing the picture spreading on the Internet of a sign at a BP gas station with the company policy “you are responsible for all spills” made me think of something.

Let’s say you are filling your car at a BP gas station, the numbers on the pump steadily ticking. But when you pull out the pump you give it an extra squeeze, spilling oil on the ground. The meter on the pump just keeps rolling. In other words, you spill it, you buy it.

Unfortunately, we aren’t holding oil companies accountable to the same policy they hold their patrons. I’ve introduced legislation to change that and have set up a tool on my web site to remind oil companies that the meter’s running.

My legislation would force BP—and any other oil company in the future—to pay royalties on all the oil it spills.  It’s not enough to have them pay for the environmental damage; they need to be held responsible for the very limited, very valuable natural resource they are wasting. BP has leased the right to drill oil belonging to the American people, and I think that whether they refine it or spill it, they still owe us for it.

The tool on my website uses an estimate of the gallons of oil being spilled each day along with royalties of about $13 a barrel to track just how large that amount is becoming.  It’s easy to share on Facebook, Twitter or by email, and embed on your own website or blog, too.

Why do we need this royalties legislation? The current law holds oil companies responsible for spilled oil only when they are found to be negligent.  Unfortunately, this may happen only after a lengthy legal process.  It leaves a lot of room for these companies to find loopholes and a lot of time before the American people receive payment, if any, for their lost property.

The process should be automatic and timely.  The numbers on my web ticker show just how much we could be using on pressing priorities, including developing clean energy sources like offshore wind and tidal power.  

What’s more, we need to send oil companies a message that after years of relaxed regulation we are going to start holding them accountable and watching them closely.  For example, getting clear numbers from BP on how much oil they have spilled has ended in nothing but frustration—this legislation would give us legal leverage to force them to provide hard, accurate numbers.    

Every day that we wake up to headlines of the worsening spill is another reminder that we need to change our energy system.  Not only does our dependence on oil make us take terrible risks with our environment, but we don’t have enough tools to hold responsible the companies we trust with this dangerous gamble.  Only an oil company would be allowed to waste billions of dollars’ worth of a resource they don’t own—causing untold devastation—and then make a case for why they shouldn’t pay for it.

This legislation takes a small step in the right direction, and this ticker shows an ever-rising number that the American people shouldn’t pick up the tab for any longer.   
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Make BP pay royalties on spilled oil and invest them in clean energy

When explosion and fire ripped through the Deepwater Horizon, the first priority was saving the lives of the crew. Sadly, for eleven workers, it was too late.

Then came the challenge of sealing the well with...

Democrats have been at the forefront of using new media in politics for more than a decade and we intend to stay on the cutting edge. That's why we've created the Democratic Caucus New Media Working Group to give all of our colleagues the tools they need to reach out...

Tomorrow, Maine voters decide whether to repeal Maine's 4-month-old same-sex marriage law. Don't be mistaken: this is an historic election. Tomorrow Maine can become the first state in the country to support marriage equality in a statewide vote.

Two summers ago I proudly watched as my daughter, Hannah Pingree, was...

Last month -- on one of the most beautiful days of our all-too-short-summer here in Maine, I was proud to have America's newest Member of Congress, Donna Edwards, come to Maine to support my campaign for Congress.

Congresswoman Donna Edwards (MD-04) is a good friend -- I've known her since...

A new study from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund confirmed what I hear on the campaign trail every day: Americans are deeply unhappy with our healthcare system, and they believe we need nothing short of a complete overhaul.

In the study, "Public Views on U.S. Health Care System Organization: A...

Last week, Exxon Mobil announced they made more money last quarter than any company in the history of the United States -- $11.7 billion in profit in twelve weeks. $90,000 every 60 seconds. As American families struggle to figure out how to pay for $4 a gallon gas and...

I'm watching with interest the struggle over whether Karl Rove and other White House advisors have to testify before Congress. Just yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that there's no legal basis for the administration's argument that White House aides are immune from congressional subpoenas and that Bush's former...

Great news this week from the FCC (and I haven't had the chance to say that many times of the last seven years). By a vote of 3-to-2 the Commission has confirmed what many of us have known for sometime -- that it's wrong for Internet providers to discriminate...

Today Maine Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud voted against the FISA bill that the House Leadership endorsed -- a bill that not only gives retroactive immunity to the telecom corporations Verizon, AT&T and others for illegal wiretapping, but makes it unlikely we will ever even know who were the...

An important bill that would create a cap and trade system for greenhouse gases died in the Senate. The Lieberman-Warner bill fell a few vote shorts of what was needed to move it along. Republicans did everything they could to derail the bill, including a parliamentary maneuver that caused the...

Major General Paul Eaton, now retired, oversaw training the Iraqi army in 2003-2004. He helped craft A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq and joined with me in writing this piece about the plan.

Last month, a half-dozen Democratic congressional candidates from around the country gathered in...

The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq is beginning to shift the debate with some national commentators. Yesterday morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the Plan came up as a subject, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, clearly got it: "There are no military...

I was excited to find an email from the Public Campaign Action Fund in my inbox this afternoon. It contained the 2008 Voters First Pledge -- a promise to support a system of public financing for federal elections -- like the one I'm a candidate in now.

Two years ago,...

In the five years since the United States invaded Iraq, nearly 4,000 American troops have lost their lives, 27,000 more have been injured and maybe as many as a million Iraqis have died. And we learned last week the cost of the war might exceed $3 trillion....