Today, the House passed the Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act of 2010, a bill designed to improve the safety of offshore drilling rigs by allowing employees to alert superiors and safety inspectors of dangerous working conditions without fear of retaliation or discrimination. The bill will also protect employees who refuse to work in unsafe conditions.
Archive for July, 2010
July30
Where has all the oil gone?
On Monday ABC News reported that scientists believe there is less oil in the gulf, and some believe the oil is disappearing. According to the report
ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found no oil, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen. How can this possibly be?
Oil skimmers seem to picking up less oil each day but that does not mean that all the oil could magically disappear and is gone.
Now today incoming CEO of BP said its time Robert Dudley announced it is time that BP
“starts to scale back the massive clean up efforts on the gulf.”
Suggestions are even starting to arise that the environmental effects of the spill have been overblown. However after saying he was going to scaleback cleanup efforts, Dudley rejected people who think the spill has been overblown claiming
“Anyone who thinks this wasn’t a catastrophe must be far away from it.”
Surely this is not the light at the end of the tunnel, now the investigation is on to where all the oil has gone? Is it too soon to scale back clean up efforts?
Today, the House Financial Services Committee approved the Shareholder Protection Act (H.R. 4790), sponsored by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) and 49 co-sponsors, clearing the way to send the measure to the House floor. Chairman Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) strong support for the bill was instrumental in moving it forward. Public Citizen applauds the leadership of Reps. Capuano and Frank on this measure and strongly encourages the full chamber to take up the measure as soon as practical and ratify this desperately needed legislation.
Following the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision earlier this year, corporations may now spend unlimited amounts on elections. This new spending in politics allows corporations to tap directly into corporate treasury funds without any accounting to shareholders on how the spending decisions are made.
On her show last month, Rachel Maddow covered a story on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The judge who overturned the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has a financial portfolio. Ok, you say, what is wrong with that? He, like everyone else, wants to retire in comfort. Well, the only problem is that his portfolio contains a substantial number of shares in companies that might be affected by the oil spill. Judge Martin Feldman sold his shares of ExxonMobil on the day he issued his ruling that overturned the moratorium. His office claims that he did not know he owned the stock while he was conducting hearings related to the case. And, MSNBC researchers found, Judge Feldman is heavily invested in Blackrock, which in turn owns a huge number of shares in, you guessed it, BP. Watch the video here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU_EIJ7apeY&feature=player_embedded]
As Maddow notes, the problem is not that Judge Feldman owns the shares. He should be allowed to own whatever shares he wants. And just because he owns the shares does not mean that his decision was unjust. The question that must be asked is why was the case assigned to this particular judge? A month after the decision, drilling is now set to resume. Should not the case have at least been given another look?
As you probably know, we think the decision to overturn the ban on deepwater drilling was misguided. A plethora of evidence has proven the negligence of oil companies and drilling companies. We cannot trust them to continue drilling just yet. The potential for disaster remains too great.
Now we recognize there is a legitimate argument to continue drilling. People are losing their jobs and incomes because of the ban. Economically, the Gulf Coast suffers because of the ban. The question is, do the benefits of continuing drilling outweigh the potential risks?
[polldaddy poll=3542841]
*Video courtesy of MSNBC via Firedoglake.
