Public outrage at the tragedy in the Gulf may finally break the fossil fuel industry's special interest stranglehold on Washington. The most far reaching punishment to BP and the other culprits would be an economy-wide shift to clean energy that prevents polluters like BP from profiting from the new price on carbon by returning the windfall back to the American people.
Six months ago, I attended a conference for organizers working on national climate legislation in DC. We were jaded by the giveaways and offsets in the Waxman-Markey climate legislation, and were worried by President Obama's embrace of "clean coal" and offshore drilling. Despite the national security risks of dependence on foreign oil, despite the costs of military activities related to Middle East oil, despite the alarming science and costs of climate change, Americans were still too complacent to support the real carbon price it would take to spur the transition to a clean economy.
Some felt it would take an unexpected tragedy -- a "black swan event" -- to focus the otherwise distracted President Obama long enough to motivate Congress' swing votes and vote counters to pass a strong climate bill that is more than just a few empty slogans about green jobs buried beneath mountains of subsidies for so-called "clean coal."
These were environmentalists, so when they said "black swan," they didn't mean it so literally. They were referring to a 2007 book by author Nassim Taleb. Taleb criticizes statisticians, economists, and the finance industry for ignoring important but unusual occurrences. For Taleb, a "black swan event" is something totally unexpected that changes people's conventional wisdom. Taleb writes about how the discovery of black swans in Australia upended the theory that all swans must be white. For centuries, Europeans considered a non-white swan to be as improbable as a flying pig.
In this case, our government's failure to stop the BP oil spill is troubling because it calls into question the American subconscious metaphor of government as competent parent. The surprising amount of destruction in the Gulf is alerting the public consciousness to the danger of a fossil-based energy system. Thomas Friedman has been pleading with Obama to seize the moment.
As the catastrophe drags on, thoughts are beginning turn to the appropriate punishment for BP. Slate offers some options including public humiliation such as "tar and feathering" BP executives.
Other ideas include nationalizing BP, banning them from doing business with the U.S. or at least placing them on probation, forcing BP to fund a green (black?) jobs program to hire displaced workers to clean the wetlands and beaches. Slate commenters suggested shutting down all drilling and production in the Gulf until the spill is contained to provide an incentive for other oil companies to contribute to the clean up effort. Criminal penalties for BP executives and directors could include jail time. Another interesting approach would be to require on-camera apologies to the American people.
Another Slate commenter would have BP pay the cost of redeploying 50,000 US military and earth moving equipment from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf Coast. The troops are welcomed home, and America saves face and money. On a related note, the BP spill could be a good excuse for Obama to declare war on oil. In a reversal of "what's good for GM is good for America," the national guard could be sent out to auto dealerships to deter the American public from buying inefficient vehicles that would increase their fuel consumption. Hey, it's a national security issue. Robert Reich is more practical: put BP in a temporary receivership so the government can take over.
The executives could be forced to forfeit compensation. But the best punishment to BP would be the creation of an economy-wide carbon price that forces the entire fossil fuel industry to forfeit the resulting windfall profits and return them to the American people. One of the two bills currently on the table in the U.S. Senate, the Cantwell-Collins (C-C) bill, would do this. But it must overcome a rival bill from Senators Kerry and Lieberman.
The Kerry-Lieberman (K-L) climate bill is known as The American Power Act, but a more appropriate name might be The American Power (Brokers) Act. It is loaded with giveaways to utilities and "clean coal" orchestrated by "the smooth-talking King of Coal" Jim Rogers of Duke Energy and others. Indefensibly, K-L promotes offshore oil drilling, while also providing some limitations on the promotion. Really? Promoting offshore oil drilling? Now? This is so politically tone-deaf that it is only a matter of time until Senator Kerry is interviewed proclaiming that he supports his own bill but plans to vote against it.
Cantwell-Collins, aka The CLEAR Act, is the only bipartisan climate bill in the U.S. Senate with Republican support. But because it is not loaded down with 987 pages of special interest handouts, it is dismissed by Beltway insiders as a runner-up to K-L. The CLEAR Act would auction emissions permits to fossil fuel companies like BP, return 75% of the revenues back to Americans as a dividend check, and invest the rest in renewable energy and other causes. This is a climate bill that does not promote offshore oil drilling. It would create a carbon price and benefit Americans, not polluters. It could be BP's worst nightmare.
Bill Meadows: A Clear Idea on Oil and Gas Reform
Now that the BP oil gusher in the Gulf is finally capped, it is time for America to examine and repair the broken system of drilling and fossil fuel dependence that landed us in this mess in the first place.
Alinsky Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.
And what better villain that BP and what better opportunity than the Gulf Oil Spill to push through the stalled Cap and Trade 19th Century "Global Climate Change" Energy program.
Should be a hell of a Campaign Speech.
Hell for us, the American people, that is.
All on the back of totally junk science, but under the pretext of the Oil Spill.
Also, prohibiting new off shore drilling in the US does not reduce our demand for oil one bit, it only moves the supply point to countries that would like to see us fail and adds billions to our trade deficit.
How about some effective legislation that specifically requires all cars and light trucks to utilize hybrid or all electric technology. Give the auto industry 3-5 years to comply.
John Harri's "Polluted by Profit" is a great piece about how the anti-global warming NGO's like Greenpeace receive tens of millions from Big Oil for greenwashing.
From the article:
"Christine MacDonald, an idealistic young environmentalist, discovered how deeply this cash had transformed these institutions when she started to work for CI in 2006. She told me: "About a week or two after I started, I went to the big planning meeting of all the organisation's media teams, and they started talking about this supposedly great new project they were running with BP. But I had read in the newspaper the day before that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had condemned BP for running the most polluting plant in the whole country... But nobody in that meeting, or anywhere else in the organisation, wanted to talk about it. It was a taboo. You weren't supposed to ask if BP was really green. They were 'helping' us, and that was it."
by Todd M. Ackley
BP, the Big Pig must Be Punished
for the failure to put human life and habitat
Before Profit
It's Bad People need to Be Put
Behind Prison Bars Permanently
We must set a Big Precedent
that will make other Business People
Become Prudent and Beware Polluting
our Beautiful Planet
I think that the reckless destruction of so much human habitat is a crime against humanity. I think the conduct of BP and its decision makers is every bit as much a crime against humanity as war crimes and genocide. A climate bill would be a good step forward, but if you want to curb this kind of recklessness in the pursuit of profit, you need the potential for personal criminal prosecution.
See Moving Beyond Oil, Running on Water, and other short articles at http://www.aesopinstitute.org
The science is new and difficult to believe, but the National and independent laboratories are increasingly involved.
A barrel of ordinary water, when utilized as fractional Hydrogen, can replace 200 barrels of oil.
Hybrid engines that run on water might travel 1,000 miles on a gallon.
BlackLight Power has an extensive website describing fractional Hydrogen.
Our own work is based on a very different theoretical understanding but supports the claim regarding a barrel of water.
It began with research at a distinguished National Laboratory 30 years ago, that broke all records for engine efficiency. We believe they produced fractional Hydrogen unknowingly.
Wise government and private support can help to supersede oil faster than might be imagined.
This can sharply boost the economy, once validated by independent and National labs.
Demonstration devices will help to discourage disbelief. Every university and technical school will want several.
Round the clock development and production is characteristic of wartime. The potential of the Gulf cataclysm to produce a Global Warming tipping point requires that kind of all out approach.
If the facts indicate humanity faces life threatening danger, President Obama should lead the nation with a program that maximizes the potential for survival and abundance.
The White House should move Congress, with this better legislation, into a future free of dangerous fossil fuels. That needs truly gutsy leadership!
“At minimum, this is in extremely poor taste in the midst of such a disaster,” says Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. But more important, she says, “it’s highly likely” that the average Internet user doing a search on any of the key terms associated with this spill would mistake the paid link for a genuine source of real information
It now appears the U.S.government now wish to Bash B.P. formely British petroleum for there own political advantage. The anti british stance, is not very clever,this is the same country that stood with the U.S. in iraq and Afghanistan losing over 500 soldiers so far.
I hope our new Government do not follow Tony Blair the poodle, and put the British national interests first and you may find the U.S. is very isolated and not so arrogant!!