Oil Spill News: It’s About Money
[Guest post by DRJ]
BP announced it is confident its latest engineering attempt will capture some production and reduce the size of the leak:
“BP believes it can hook up its mile-long tube to suck oil from a blown-out well, despite an earlier snag with connecting two pieces of equipment. If successful, it would be the first time the company has captured any of the oil since a rig sank April 22 and millions of gallons of crude started spewing into the ocean.”
So far, BP’s efforts have concentrated on capturing production rather than capping or shutting in the well. Maybe that’s because the well looks like a good producer and BP needs the income.
The Obama Administration is also concerned about BP’s money:
“In a letter to Dr. Anthony Hayward, the group chief executive of BP, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar note the many public statements from BP officials dismissing the $75 million-per-incident statutory liability cap, and ask for a formal clarification as to whether those dismissals are company policy.
“The public has a right to a clear understanding of BP’s commitment to redress all of the damage that has occurred or that will occur in the future as a result of the oil spill,” the administration officials write. “Therefore, in the event that our understanding is inaccurate, we request immediate public clarification of BP’s true intentions.”
This follows last week’s announcement that the White House would ask Congress to amend the law retroactively to increase BP’s liability. When the White House talks, Senator Menendez responds:
“Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, is co-sponsoring legislation to raise the limit on damages awards from a spill to $10 billion from $75 million under the current law, which was passed in 1990. The cost to BP of cleaning up the spill isn’t affected by the cap.
***
Menendez’s legislation would apply the higher limit retroactively to the BP spill.”
So much for ex post facto laws.
This is the Obama Administration’s modus operandi: Pressuring individuals and companies to do what Obama wants, regardless of the law. Thus, they pressured banks to lend more money. They pressured GM’s CEO to resign. They pressured health insurance companies to extend coverage to children with pre-existing conditions that was omitted from the health care reform legislation.
Why worry with the legalities when you can make an offer they can’t refuse?
— DRJ
The O’Dumbo regime is a criminal enterprise that will catch up with them. Sooner or later they will meet a judge and the hangman.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 5/15/2010 @ 4:27 pmWhere the HELL is the Republican party on this ex post facto issue? If anything is unconstitutional, this is. Draw the line, Republicans.
Must we conclude that they only think in terms of power politics, and are wisely nodding to one another that ‘this is how the big boys do it in Chicago’?
You Republicans are on trial. Either you’re for the Constitution, and must blister this preposterous law – or you’re not, and we’ve got to find a party that is for it.
Enough.
Insufficiently Sensitive (8906ed) — 5/15/2010 @ 4:47 pmThe prohibition on ex post facto laws has been held to only apply to criminal sanction, not civil liability and that has been the case for decades at least, if not a century or more. And I am pretty sure DRJ would be well aware of that fact, so bringing it up just looks like a cheap (though deserved) political shot.
Soronel Haetir (f21d6f) — 5/15/2010 @ 5:35 pmObama is better at twisting arms than Jesse Jackson is for the Rainbow Coalition.
PatAZ (9d1bb3) — 5/15/2010 @ 8:15 pmI wish he would take this kind of tone with Major Hassan and the Times Square bomber. I guess he just likes to act like an ass to police officers just doing their jobs and to BP who has been really conciliatory.
I guess you just can’t the thug out of the boy.
JHE (9284aa) — 5/15/2010 @ 8:22 pm“And I am pretty sure DRJ would be well aware of that fact, so bringing it up just looks like a cheap (though deserved) political shot.”
Soronel Haetir – It is not a cheap shot and as you point out it is deserved. It’s an issue of fairness, which Obama loves to trot out. If he faces situations he doesn’t like and then retroactively changes the law to change them to the way he would like them to be, we would have chaos. It’s a simple point.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/15/2010 @ 8:38 pmSoronel Haetir,
That is an excellent point. However, I’m not convinced the criminal limitation would prevail in a modern case. Alternatively, it could be raised as a claim under the Contracts Clause or Due Process Clause.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 8:58 pmI think that if the money judgments were compensatory and not punitive, it would pass ex post facto test under any standard. There would also be a question, of the same seriousness, of Congress’s power to limit a victim’s compensation to less than what he deserved in the first place.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:09 pmAs a BP stock holder, if BP agrees to pay more than they are legally obligated to pay, I am willing to be the plaintiff in a class action suit against the corporate officers. I am sure I can find an attorney to represent me and other stock holders.
The attorney will get rich, the stockholders will get some and BP will no longer exist as a corporate entity.
Jim (582155) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:12 pmGaah!
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:13 pmLet’s see. 250,000 barrels of oil are being dumped into the sea per day. For about a month now. The Gulf of Mexico is looking to look like the Persian Gulf. A dead sea. The Mississippi Delta fisheries might become a memory. And we should worry how much the world’s richest multinational might have to pay in compensation?
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:22 pmAs I read it, this isn’t about whether BP can be sued for legitimate claims. This is about blanket indemnity.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:25 pmOk. Blanket indemnity. Congress has the power to say that anyone nk runs over and kills while driving drunk his family gets $1.00.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:29 pmAnd I’m not sure why you say it will be a dead sea. Immense quantities of oil seep naturally into the Gulf of Mexico every year, and it’s probably been this way for a long time.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:30 pm“Let’s see. 250,000 barrels of oil are being dumped into the sea per day.”
nk – Sounds like npr’s number. Does anybody actually know how much is being spilled daily? I think not, but carry on.
Gaia is weeping!
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:51 pm“Immense quantities of oil seep naturally into the Gulf of Mexico every year, and it’s probably been this way for a long time.”
DRJ – That’s different, but the same thing occurs off the coast of California and that’s also different.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:52 pmWell, ok, how much is it?
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:53 pmIf BP employees were in the UAW, Obama would force the company into bankruptcy and give the union majority control.
But maybe the plan is to nationalize the oil companies like Maxine Waters said. They could roll the takeover into a new health care reform bill and use the oil profits to have the CBO score a lower cost.
MU789 (8034a8) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:54 pmAnd you do know that you will pay for it, right? With your gas going from $2.999 per gallon to $3.999 per gallon. As long as you drive a car, BP wins and you lose.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 9:57 pmFor people who don’t like government, it strikes me kind of strange that they like the three internationals that control America’s oil supply.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:01 pmAmerica’s oil comes from the world’s producers, and BP is a little fish in that world.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:06 pmnk:
I’m not going to argue that the oil spill is bad. It is bad and I hope it is controlled as soon as possible.
I also hope that the people responsible, although it was an accident, are held accountable.
But I will also note that the area of the spill is a “dead zone” and has been for quite some time.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618124956.htm.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090727_deadzone.html
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-to-grow-dramatically-due-to
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/06/12/gulf-dead-zone-likely-to-set-record.html
Of course the problem is — as the oil continues to leak — it will indeed affect areas of the Gulf that are quite vibrant and doing everything possible to mitigate this catastrophe must be tried.
However, my questions are:
If you’re so concerned about the ecology of the Gulf now, where were you before? Does it take dramatic television shots of oil-covered birds to recognize a problem that existed long before an oil-rig accident?
Gulf fishers and shrimpers have been having to go far for a long time now to make their catches through no fault of oil companies. The oil spill is compounding a problem, but it’s not the only problem.
The hunt for bad guys is easy when it’s obvious. But delving into the depths of the Department of Agriculture may be more difficult than plugging a pipe at the bottom of an ocean.
Just saying.
Ag80 (f67beb) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:07 pmThe lowest estimates I’ve seen for the leak are 5,000 barrels per day and the highest are 84,000-100,000 barrels per day, although it’s not all oil but a combination of methane and oil.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:15 pm“Well, ok, how much is it?”
nk – As I said, I doubt anybody knows, but feel free to get your knickers in a wad. The Ixtoc blowout in 1979 took nine months to cap and is generally considered the second largest accidental oil spill ever. I believe the Gulf recovered just fine, although many crunchy earth moonbat granola types would probably disagree.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:15 pmDRJ – NPR put out a number like nk threw out there I believe. When you don’t have any data, you gotta gin up the fear!
How many illegal immigrants were working on that rig when it blew out?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:22 pmnk:
OPEC controls the world of oil and gas and it’s been that way since the early 1970s. Who are the 3 internationals (ExxonMobil, BP and ?), and how do they match up against OPEC and the U.S. government?
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:25 pmWhere I am, every Amoco (Exxon) that was is now BP.
But that’s not the answer to your question. I need to check on Phillips and Shell and maybe change my challenge to two.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:32 pmOr maybe one, playing a corporate shell game. Mr. Rockefeller did not get to own 3% of America’s GDP by being a not smart enough man.
nk (db4a41) — 5/15/2010 @ 10:38 pmAnd if not for NPR, I would not have known that you can tie a chicken drumstick on a string, dip it into one of New Orleans’s canals, and pull it out with six crabs attached to it. 😉
nk (db4a41) — 5/16/2010 @ 3:47 amBTW, daleyrocks, I’m having a drunk-in this coming Friday. Guys only (might be a kid or three playing in the basement). Feel like driving to the vicinity of Brookfield Zoo?
nk (db4a41) — 5/16/2010 @ 3:51 amnk – Thanks for the invite. I am otherwise engaged taking a bunch a scouts on an outing for the weekend. We will be packing gear Friday night.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/16/2010 @ 6:00 amI mostly like the Red River part of Louisiana. But kind of like I have for my cousin, who used a match to see how much blackpowder he had in his flask (true, my mother saved his eye with a “bandage” of beaten egg whites), I have a fondness for the Delta.
nk (db4a41) — 5/16/2010 @ 11:33 amnk:
That brings back memories! Our family spent several summers at Rockport and it was great. All day swimming, surfing, crabbing, and going barefoot in the sand. Then falling asleep with the Gulf breeze across my face and the sound of the water.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/16/2010 @ 12:29 pmwe used to live at the Sandollar over the summers and dad would come down on weekends and there was a seawall sort of protecting the marina and we would walk out there and the porpoises would swim right up to us…
we didn’t know then they were probably just wanting to rape us
happyfeet (c8caab) — 5/16/2010 @ 1:21 pmoil spills should be controlled as soon as possible to prevent environmental damage~;:
Adam Moore (4f788f) — 10/5/2010 @ 7:35 am