BP's CEO Tony Hayward is testifying before Congress today, and his company's egregious record of putting workers' lives at risk and imperiling ecosystems in pursuit of steeper profits is sure to be a centerpiece of the hearing. Rightly so.
BP's bucking of safety protections and disregard for the consequences of its actions have culminated in 11 deaths and a deluge of crude that's devastating the Gulf Coast environment and the people who depend on it.
But there's more than one irresponsible company and its apparently callous CEO behind the disaster in the Gulf.
There's the Mineral Management Service's repeated rubber stamping of dangerous drilling projects without ensuring proper environmental safeguards were in place. And behind that the agency's infestation with oil industry cash and cronies, which continued to fester under the leadership of President Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
There's the drive to exploit less accessible, riskier sources of oil. And behind that the failure to reduce our nation's oil dependence with investments in clean energy and a smarter transportation system.
There are the billions in taxpayer handouts that Big Oil and the fossil fuel industry receive each year. And behind that there are the swarms of industry lobbyists choking the halls of Congress and the stacks of polluter cash filling too many politicians' campaign accounts.
Behind all of this, there's one deep-rooted problem: increasing corporate infiltration and control of our government.
Fossil fuel industry influence in Washington has perpetuated the dirty energy status quo that led to the oil spill in the Gulf. It's time for a fumigation.
Here's what needs to happen:
Today the organization I lead, Friends of the Earth, is launching a campaign to advance the first step: separating oil money from politics.
In just the 2008 and 2010 campaign cycles, the oil and gas industry has poured $48,401,891 into campaigns and political action committees.
We're calling on members of Congress and President Obama to donate the contaminated contributions they've accumulated in these cycles to the Gulf Coast Fund, an organization that's helping community groups across the Gulf region respond to and recover from the economic, environmental and health impacts of the oil spill as well as Hurricane Katrina. And we're inviting our more than 100,000 members and supporters -- and citizens across the country -- to join us in pressuring their representatives in Washington to come clean.
The money Big Oil pumps into our political system is not idly spent. It buys more delay in the transition to clean energy and more policies that put the interests of polluters before those of the public. Behind every corporate polluter attempt to hamstring clean energy and climate solutions, there are enabling politicians.
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a member of the group of five House members and five senators who have taken the most money from BP in the last few years (the "BP Ten") is a case in point. She's repeatedly voted to expand dangerous drilling and give tax breaks to Big Oil. Most recently, she colluded with polluter lobbyists to spearhead a narrowly defeated attempt to eliminate the Clean Air Act as a tool to fight global warming.
Many members of the panel grilling Mr. Hayward today have also received big pots of dirty oil money. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), who's spouted off about the "benefits" of climate-disrupting carbon emissions, has alone taken more than $300,000 over the past two campaign cycles. One of his counterparts in the Democratic ranks of the subcommittee, Congressman Gene Green (D-Texas), has reaped a still-not-shabby $128,000 and continues to support more offshore drilling.
The tough questions deservedly piled on Mr. Hayward today will ring hollow if committee members don't also ask this tough question of themselves: Whose interests are they serving? The public's or Big Oil's?
That's a question we'll be asking all members of Congress to answer in the coming weeks and months. If they respond to this step of treatment -- and return their tainted oil money to aid in Gulf recovery efforts -- our work will hardly be finished, but it will send a powerful message. A message that the days of corporate polluters dictating policy in Washington are on their way out. And that the days of implementing serious solutions to protect our environment, our economy, and people's health from potentially catastrophic climate change impacts are finally on their way in.
Follow Erich Pica on Twitter: www.twitter.com/foe_us
Rep. John B. Larson: Senior House Republican Apologizes to BP CEO
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto: This Is Your Society on Oil
Giles Slade: New Decade Defined by New Crisis
Robert Weissman: Five Questions for Tony Hayward
1. DIRTY ENERGY MONEY:
http://dirtyenergymoney.com/
“Dirty Energy Money is an interactive website that tracks the flow of oil, gas, and coal money in U.S. Congress. Find out which energy companies are pumping their dirty money into politics and which politicians are receiving it.”
a) Use the Dirty Energy Money website to find out about how much money your Senators and Representatives have received. Share what you have found out with the media, on blogs, on facebook, on Twitter, etc.
b) Be sure to call and write to your Senators and Representatives and express your OUTRAGE. Confront those who are corrupt. HOLD YOUR LEGISLATORS ACCOUNTABLE. You can find your legislators’ contact information here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
2. OIL CHANGE INTERNATIONAL
http://priceofoil.org/
Clean energy advocates and activists have noted for decades that the barriers to a clean energy transition are political, not technical. Today, this is more apparent than ever. Oil Change International is dedicated to identifying, overcoming, and dismantling these political barriers to clean energy.
This synthetic creation isn't merely a system of individuals performing an economic function but an inhumane entity with the purpose of domination & obfuscating protections to obtain advantages at the expense of everything else such as the health & well-being of people & inhabitants of the environment. They distort justice by enacting a corporate-capitalist ideology that holds their objectives above all other concerns in pursuit of profit & appeasing shareholders while wresting freedoms, reducing opportunity, corrupting legislative representation, & relegating individuals to consumers that are meaningless unless contributing to the bottom-line.
The ideology has subjugated the protections of citizens as it has not just influenced all branches of government but exploited the fundamental philosphy of a Democratic-Republic while even undermining the Constitution & the purpose of the Bill of Rights.
No wonder there is a values crisis that has emanated from dubious & situational ethics while moral hazards are consistently transgressed in the pursuit of material gain. The dilemma has drastically accelarated at an alarming rate since there are core weaknesses & ulterior motives of people receiving bureacratic appointments to guardian positions & representatives elected to government office.
Institutions are altruistic, graciously serve to benefit others, & deserve support to continue their purpose.
Corporate-capitalist entities do not have the purpose or exhibit behavior to bear any likeness to social
Suing them for money when there is negligent homicide involved
only adds to the notion of two Americas. The little people of this
world want real justice here and some hard time for these a-holes.
The CEO of BP has no clue as to how his operations in the field actually work. This is the result of the business school mentality that passes for common wisdom these days: "I don't have to know anything about the process and products in the company I am running."
Sponge Bob will cleanup the Gulf, before we can cleanup our government.
But it's like washing oily birds: won't really work but you have to try.
It is Washington, both parties and it ain't gonna change, there are new agaencies being created everyday and all that they're going to accomplish is eat up more taxpayer money and create more red tape regulations.
WE CAN'T EXIST WITHOUT OIL! 200 years ago, sure, today, no way.
Please read a few books that lay out what it will take to get off oil, it ain't gonna happen.
Every healthcare product is made from petrochemicals...You want to tax healthcare devices to the teeth which ALL use oil and then quit drilling for oil. All the while trying to convince me that healthcare costs are going to go down.
You Envro freaks are nuts! If you want a standard of living like the regular Chinese citizen then your well on your way.
There's shale oil, but that will be too expensive to use as fuel.
When we can't afford it, we'll stop using oil.
You know, people lived very well in the 1890s without using cars or much oil.
The "Envro freaks" just think 100 years ahead, think about their grandchildren.
They will be off oil, one way or another.
The multinationals rule the world.
The plutocracy has purchased most of the world's Democratic Republics,
The first Great Liberal democratic Republic, the USA, has fallen to the conservative monarchies of wealth.
If the world's Democracies, do not seize control of the BP criminal Multinational,
We will give up all pretense of democracy.
The Mob or the mob,
Corporate rule or Democracy.
Choose.
All Candidates must sign a legally binding contract:
To outlaw all political contributions for the Bribery they are,
and public finance elections, with free prime time for all candidates with enough signature to get on the ballot.
Ed Shutlz made campaign finance reform the centerpiece should he run for office.
He could start by getting the Bribery Contract signed by all candidates.
They don't rule BRIC, about half the world and the fastest growing.
They don't rule Castro, Chavez, Norway, socialist Europe.
They don't rule Latin America any more; "Shock Doctrine" is coming undone.
They really only still rule the US.
IMF and global capitalism are losing, a big reason for the oil war in Iraq.
BTW: if you have investments, move them to developing markets.
Castro and Chevez are not the alternatives to plutocracy I am looking for.
But food for thought, thanks.
Omnibus Appropriations, Special Education, Global AIDS Initiative, Job Training, Unemployment Benefits, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, Agriculture Appropriations, U.S.-Singapore Trade, U.S.-Chile Trade, Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan, Prescription Drug Benefit, Child Nutrition Programs, Surface Transportation, Job Training and Worker Services, Agriculture Appropriations, Foreign Aid, Vocational/Technical Training, Supplemental Appropriations, UN “Reforms.” Patriot Act Reauthorization, CAFTA, Katrina Hurricane-relief Appropriations, Head Start Funding, Line-item Rescission, Oman Trade Agreement, Military Tribunals, Electronic Surveillance, Head Start Funding, COPS Funding, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Peru Free Trade Agreement, Economic Stimulus, Farm Bill (Veto Override), Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening.
Marsha Blackburn Voted AGAINST:
Ban on UN Contributions, eliminate Millennium Challenge Account, WTO Withdrawal, UN Dues Decrease, Defunding the NAIS, Iran Military Operations defunding Iraq Troop Withdrawal, congress authorization of Iran Military Operations.
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her unconstitutional votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn-congressman-marsha-blackburn-votes.html
Mickey
we will run out of oil.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil