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May 7, 2010 in Opinion
Amy Goodman: Big profits, bigger problems
Less than a week after British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and unleashing what could be the worst industrial environmental disaster in U.S. history, the company announced more than $6 billion in profits for the first quarter of 2010, more than doubling profits from the same period the year before.
Oil-industry analyst Antonia Juhasz notes: “BP is one of the most powerful corporations operating in the United States. Its 2009 revenues of $327 billion are enough to rank BP as the third-largest corporation in the country. It spends aggressively to influence U.S. policy and regulatory oversight.”
The power and wealth that BP and other oil giants wield are almost without parallel in the world, and pose a threat to the lives of workers, to the environment and to our prospects for democracy.
Sixty years ago, BP was called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. A popular, progressive, elected Iranian government had asked the AIOC, a largely British-owned monopoly, to share more of its profits from Iranian oil with the people of Iran. The AIOC refused, so Iran nationalized its oil industry.
That didn’t sit well with the United States, so the CIA organized a coup d’etat against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. After he was deposed, the AIOC, renamed British Petroleum, got a large part of its monopoly back, and the Iranians got the brutal shah of Iran imposed upon them, planting the seeds of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the subsequent hostage crisis and the political turmoil that besets Iran to this day.
In 2000, British Petroleum rebranded itself as “BP,” adopting a flowery green-and-yellow logo, and began besieging the U.S. public with an advertising campaign claiming it was moving “beyond petroleum.” BP’s aggressive growth, outrageous profit and track record of petroleum-related disasters paint a much different picture, however.
In 2005, BP’s Texas City refinery exploded, killing 15 people and injuring 170. In 2006, a BP pipeline in Alaska leaked 200,000 gallons of crude oil, causing what the Environmental Protection Agency calls “the largest spill that ever occurred on the (Alaskan) North Slope.” BP was fined $60 million for the two disasters.
Then, in 2009, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP an additional $87 million for the refinery blast. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said: “BP has allowed hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated. … Workplace safety is more than a slogan. It’s the law.” BP responded by formally contesting all of OSHA’s charges.
President Barack Obama said of the Gulf oil spill, “Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill.”
Riki Ott is not so sure. She is a marine toxicologist and former “fisherma’am” from Alaska, and was one of the first people to respond to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster. Exxon deployed an army of lawyers to delay and defeat the legal claims of the people who were physically and/or financially harmed by the Valdez spill. “What we know is that the industry does everything it can to limit its liability,” she told me.
The (Mobile, Ala.) Press-Register reported that Alabama Attorney General Troy King told BP to “stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians.” Apparently, BP was requiring owners of fishing boats seeking work mitigating the spill to waive any and all rights to sue BP in the future.
Despite a BP spokesperson’s pledge that the waivers would not be enforced, the news report stated, “King said late Sunday that he was still concerned that people would lose their right to sue by accepting settlements from BP of up to $5,000.”
Even if BP doesn’t trick victims into signing away the right to sue, the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, while requiring polluters to pay the actual hard costs of the cleanup, caps the additional financial liability of a spill to just $75 million. Given that millions of people will be impacted by the spill, by the loss of fisheries and tourism, and by the cascade of impacts on related industries, $75 million is small change.
That is why Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., introduced a bill to raise the economic-damages liability cap to $10 billion, calling the bill the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act. Riki Ott is touring New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, educating people about the toxic effects of the spill, and helping them prepare for the long fight ahead to hold BP accountable.
BP will surely continue its dirty practices, fighting accountability in the courts, in the press and on the oil-drenched beaches. BP: Be prepared.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
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mikeln on May 07 at 7:30 a.m.
If we don’t get off our butts and demand that energy be nationalized, we are going to lose our country. As it is now, these oil companies control our millitary because it runs on oil. That means they control our president who is the commander in chief of our millitary. Energy belongs to all of us, not just a chosen few. If we continue the path we are on, we will be the ones who pay for this mess and BP will profit. We the people have given these companies way to much power over us and we the people need to take it away. This is no longer about capitalism it is about national security. The oil companies are the real terrorists. We need to do what we did at the start of WWII and put our people to work to defeat oil’s hold on us. We need to develope new ways to power our cars. We need to put the people that the corporations have thown away back to work getting these cars to the people. It’s time to stop the lie these people are telling us and give the truth back to the people.
WillyPeter on May 07 at 9:31 a.m.
It’s fun expressing opinions, so here’s mine.
If we now nationalized the energy industry, with our frequently naive 2010 mindset, future generations of Americans will live in a nation reminiscent of the 1930’s and 40’s, or worse. There would be no coal mined, none of that feared nuclear stuff, and drilling for oil anywhere but Texas and Oklahoma - you gotta be kiddin’.
Only private, competitive, capitalistic industry will allow us to achieve clean energy independence. It would be nice if our government could do it, but they can’t. Government does little to create or encourage freedoms, and does a lot to crimp the ones we have. Ideological musings are fine and have a place at the table. But sometimes - and this is one of those times - results are more important than day-dreaming.
And, no, I have no affiliation with the energy industry. Other than I drive a car, heat my home, etc. (total disclosure - there might be energy companies represented in some of the hundreds of entities my mutual funds invest in, but I leave that up to the fund managers)
mikeln on May 07 at 9:58 a.m.
The government of the people would be better run by the people. The big lie is that a government run by the people just can’t get things right, is just that, a big lie told to us by the wealthy, who screw things up to make it appear that way. While we might have to make some sacrifices to make things right, it is the right thing to do for our children, who will at some time have to put their lives on the line for big oil profits if we keep going down this path. As for believing that the oil and coal would not be produced is just a part of the lie. At this point, we are not allowed to vote for people that could bring about this change, only people that are already on the wealthy peoples payroll are offered up for our votes.
Megan_B on May 07 at 12:04 p.m.
PRICE IS KING. Tax oil, and directly funnel that money into subsidizing alternative “green” energies like solar and wind. Research how to efficiently store and use these sources to their best capability. The capitalist system could work IF there is a proper correlation of supply and demand. More demand for the less expensive alternative energies, more supply. Increased demand also makes the prices decrease until they reach a plateau. (Econ 101) The good ‘ol U.S. of A. could once again be the leading industrial power in the world if we became the experts and exporters of the best green energy technology.
I have an MP3 player the size of my pinky-finger and it can play high definition videos and stream live news broadcasts. Don’t tell me we don’t have the technology. We just need the people to express the will.
mikeln on May 07 at 12:29 p.m.
That tax will be added to the price of gas, the oil companies will never pay a cent in taxes, like they do now, and will still stiffle alterative energy. We need to take this power away from them. These people have used their wealth to become above the law entities. They are guilty of causing warfare for their benifit and should be prosecuted for their crimes. Look at Iraq, a country with very little going for them militarilly yet we attacked them for no good reason. The oil is now being sold in china and a million or more dead. If anyone thinks this is capitalism, or a free market, they need to take a closer look at what’s really going on.
gmorton on May 07 at 8:00 p.m.
mikeln worte,
“If we don’t get off our butts and demand that energy be nationalized, we are going to lose our country.”
Er, didn’t the Soviets try that? Did it work?
Goodman says,
“A popular, progressive, elected Iranian government had asked the AIOC, a largely British-owned monopoly, to share more of its profits from Iranian oil with the people of Iran. The AIOC refused, so Iran nationalized its oil industry.
“That didn’t sit well with the United States, so the CIA organized a coup d’etat against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.”
Good for them. If some “progressive, populist” pol nationalized my property I’d depose him too, and then hang him from a lamppost.
JBlim on May 08 at 9:22 a.m.
mikeln says:
“..That tax will be added to the price of gas, the oil companies will never pay a cent in taxes, like they do now, and will still stiffle alterative energy…”
Oil companies don’t really pay any taxes anyway, they just past what they pay in taxes on to the consumer in the price of the product.