134 thoughts on “BP Protest at Belvidere and Grace Streets Noon Tomorrow”

  2. Yes. BP has said it will help local owners offset any loss of business, and we know we can trust BP, right?

    People do realize we consume too much oil, right?

    Besides the environmental damages that are still being discovered, BP is planning to use tax provisions to force taxpayers to pay for about $10 billion of the cleanup effort (despite President Obama’s assertion that BP would pay for all of it). BP made much more in profits last year.

  3. Scott- How does BP’s plan to use its tax provision force taxpayers to pay for the clean up? Please provide a reference. Thanks.

  4. Wall Street Journal:

    http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/07/27/the-next-bp-blow-up-a-99-billion-tax-credit/

    excerpt:

    “President Obama has insisted BP would bear the entire cost of cleaning up the spill and making the injured business and wildlife whole again. And yet BP said today it plans to cut $9.9 billion off its tax bill based on the $32.2 billion charge it is expecting to take from the costs of the Gulf oil spill. That means that $9.9 billion that might have been going into the federal government’s general fund will be used to cut BP’s spill costs by a third.

    At issue are tax-code provisions that allow companies to take refunds for losses. A company can’t pay taxes if it doesn’t have any income. “We have followed the IRS regulations as they’re currently written,’’ outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward told investors on a conference call this morning.

    To the White House, that must sound like fingernails scratching a blackboard. Don’t be surprised if this becomes the latest political hot potato in the BP spill.

    We have seen this movie before. This year, J.P. Morgan Chase dropped its plan to claim a $1.4 billion tax credit that was owed to Washington Mutual, which the New York bank acquired at a firesale during the financial crisis. At the time, the tax credit didn’t seem like great public relations for a bank that had taken (and repaid) $25 billion in federal bailout money to be seeking a tax break.”

  5. BP still has to cough up its own cash to pay for clean up efforts. When BP becomes profitable again, they will be paying taxes again. This cash that BP has to pay out for cleaning cannot be used for other capital expenditures (like equipment, R&D, etc), which hampers its ability to grow.

    These tax provisions are available and allowed to any company here in the U.S. BP should be allowed to use it. Companies and individuals are allowed to minimize their taxes. Tax evasion is illegal.

  6. Why should taxpayers be concerned about BP’s growth?

    I stand by my comments.

    The corporations and media will spin this all sorts of ways, but citizens and the environment deserve better.

    Scientists: BP dispersants have made spill more toxic

    http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38415786/

  7. Taxpayers should be concerned about having a healthy, growing company here because a healthy company pays taxes.

    Also keep in mind that this tax provision benefits green, eco friendly that continue to have financial losses because they are not, ironically, sustainable, even after ridiculous government subsidies.

  8. Do all the protesters drive electric cars?? I will be dissapointed if they don’t :-(

  9. I am not going to be losing sleep about the well-being of multi-national corporations, which function for one thing and one thing only- provide a return for shareholders.

    The subsidies to clean energy are no more ridiculous than the subsidies going to the fossil fuel industry, which have been in place for decades. Wind is now replacing natural gas and coal electrical production in Texas. New study in North Carolina says it makes more sense to invest in solar than new nuclear.

    Electric cars, while offering some environmental advantages, have yet to be proven economically viable. The battery technology is not there yet. Bicycles, including electric bicycles, are more efficient.

    Btw, experts say that about 175 million gallons of oil-based pollution is still in the Gulf. It’s there in tiny droplets below the surface, but those will continue to come up as slicks in weeks and months to come.

    I am thankful for the protests. BP is responsible for a disaster that fouled the Gulf of Mexico with tens of millions of gallons of crude oil. I don’t think they deserve to exist and Delaware should dissolve their incorporation. Its too bad that the corporations own the government these days.

  11. The Gulf oil spill is confirmed as the world’s largest accidental oil leak, with gov’t scientists estimating 4.9M barrels of oil, or 62,000 barrels/day, were released. This is higher than previous estimates.

    (However, if you look at the accounting, the impact on BP’s cash flow and bottom line is not as unfavorable as the lamestream media wants it to appear. Look closer and remember who was the number one oil company backing the current administration.)

    BP gas station owners in the U.S. are pushing to change the brand on their gas stations to “Amoco,” hoping to avoid backlash from the spill and raising the question of whether the BP brand really matters.

  12. Just in case anybody is looking for a bit of good news. The Obama EPA released a finding that dispersant + oil is no more toxic than the oil itself.

    Then there’s this from the “NY Times.

    Reporters flying over the area Sunday spotted only a few patches of sheen and an occasional streak of thicker oil, and radar images taken since then suggest that these few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.

    John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental advocacy group that sharply criticized the early, low estimates of the size of the BP leak, noted that no oil had gushed from the well for nearly two weeks.

    “Oil has a finite life span at the surface,” Mr. Amos said Tuesday, after examining fresh radar images of the slick. “At this point, that oil slick is really starting to dissipate pretty rapidly.”

    We are not out of the woods yets, but things have changed dramatically since the well has been capped, better than we might have hoped. I wonder if the media will report that 99% of Gulf beaches are clean or never were fouled and let some of those communities go back to making a living? It’s just possible, given the size and biology of the Gulf, that it will largely cleanse itself.

  14. Separately, Transocean (RIG), which owns the exploded drilling rig, said BP may seek to avoid its full contractual responsibility for the disaster.

    Also, related:

    The IRS said Wednesday it will overhaul its large business and international division, a shift that underscores its growing focus on international tax evasion. The move will give examiners the authority to decide whether to pursue or settle contentious tax cases involving multinational corporations. Studies show large corporations are increasingly using gray areas of the tax code to minimize or illegally evade billions of dollars in taxes every year through complex international structures.

  15. Reuters reports

    Nearly three-fourths of oil from the BP spill is gone from the Gulf of Mexico,… The rest of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude spilled into the Gulf after the April 20 rig explosion that triggered the leak is either on or just beneath the water’s surface as “light sheen or weathered tarballs,” has washed ashore where it may have been collected, or is buried in sand and sediments at the sea bottom…

    The good news is that the vast majority of the oil appears to be gone,” Carol Browner, energy and climate change adviser to President Barack Obama, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

    From Politico

    “I think it is fairly safe to say that because of the environmental effects of Mother Nature, the warmer waters of the Gulf and the federal response, that many of the doomsday scenarios that we talked about and repeated a lot have not and will not come to fruition,” said White House Press Secretary Gibbs,

    The one thing the the Gulf economy may never recover from are the daily broadcasts of worst case scenarios. Now that there is no blood (oil) gushing live into the water, the networks will find something sexier to report on.

  18. http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=220&num=317366

    Gulf Fishermen: Oil Tainted Our Waters, Our Trust

    Many fear they have still not been told the full truth about the toxic effects on sea life of the oil and millions of gallons of chemical dispersants that were sprayed or pumped onto and into Gulf waters to disperse the crude.

    “It looks like all of the sea life is trying to get out of the water,” said Alabama fisherman Stan Fournier. “In the 40 years I have been on these waters I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  19. Per NPR’S Science Friday, the Gulf of Mexico weeps two Exxon Valdezs per year. Deep water microbes have developed to thrive in cold water and break down the oil. In addition, the dispersants, by pulverizing the oil into small droplets have made the oild easier for the microbes to consume. Without the dispersants we would probably be looking at massive oil soaked beaches and marshland. In this case I believe we have dodged a very large bullet.

    Anonymous: Reporting only bad news and fears exacerbates the economic damage that people whose lives depend on the Gulf have suffered.

  20. Paul, I question the mainstream media on this.

    http://www.truth-out.org/mississippi-sound-tests-positive-oil62735

    Despite “All Clear,” Mississippi Sound Tests Positive for Oil

    excerpt:

    “The State of Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida about the presence of oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.

    On August 19, Truthout accompanied two commercial fishermen from Mississippi on a trip into the Mississippi Sound in order to test for the presence of submerged oil. Laboratory test results from samples taken on that trip show extremely high concentrations of oil in the Mississippi Sound.

    James “Catfish” Miller and Mark Stewart, both lifelong fishermen, have refused to trawl for shrimp because they believe the Mississippi Sound contains submerged oil.”

  21. BP’s (BP) safety standards have come under increased scrutiny since the Gulf spill, and the results have been less than satisfactory. According to documents obtained by the Financial Times, all but one of BP’s five North Sea installations inspected in 2009 were cited for failure to comply with emergency regulations on oil spills, including failure to provide offshore operators with adequate regular training or information on how to respond to an incident. The reports raise additional questions about BP’s ability to manage a disaster in the area, and lend weight to calls for a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the North Sea.

  23. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703554304575595281579195018.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news#articleTabs%3Dcomments

    Christopher Bischof had this remark in the comment section:

    “Too true. It seems that after any disaster strikes it is followed by pseudo-analysis built on deeply flawed logic. Meanwhile, vast, long-practiced efforts aimed at protecting or expanding much of Nature’s bounty are ignored.

    Anyway, coral lives and coral dies. Is it crucial to the future of coral if a small patch died due to an oil leak a mile down in the Gulf? In my view — No.

    Meanwhile, how will environmentalists react when the government forces Americans to use more and more solar energy, which will require the solar industry to cover vast tracts of desert land — gila-monster, snake and scorprion habitats — with solar panels?

    Which is easier? Creating new environments for desert life? Or sea life? A lot of old New York City
    subway cars have been dumped in the Atlantic to create new marine life habitats. All reports indicate the strategy has worked remarkably well. No doubt the growth of coral on the legs of offshore oil platforms was a sweet bonus for the oil industry. Too bad there was no coverage of that aspect of oil drilling in the Gulf.

    Lastly, the Gulf Oil Leak disappeared from the news as soon as credible experts admitted the spill caused little long-lasting damage.”

  24. “insufficient consideration of risk” and “a lack of operating discipline” contributed to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to an interim report scheduled for release today by a team of technical experts. The report from the National Academy of Engineering stresses that further investigation is needed, but takes a sharply critical view of the companies involved with the Macondo well, especially BP. It also criticizes regulators for lacking “sufficient in-house expertise and technical capabilities” to evaluate industry safety practices.

  26. Stimulus freed big polluters from following key environmental law

    http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/12/stimulus-freed-big-polluters-from-following-key-environmental-law.html

    Some of the companies that won exemptions from NEPA under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have histories of serious environmental violations. In all, CPI found that the Energy Department granted NEPA exemptions for stimulus-funded projects to about three dozen companies with past environmental problems.

    For example, BP secured a waiver for a preliminary phase of a carbon capture experiment at its Texas City, Tex. refinery, which was the site of a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others. Earlier this year the same refinery — which has the industry’s worst safety record — also experienced a leak of benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer.

  27. FINALLY the government takes action (I am still of the opinion that Obama should have just nationalized BP America and sold it off in order to kill it):

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019780202183482.html

    The Justice Department is expected to join today civil lawsuits against BP (BP) and its contractors related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The government’s civil complaint is only the first salvo of what promises to be a long legal fight in assigning blame for the spill, and joining the private litigation could help the government build a civil and possibly a criminal case against the companies involved.

  28. I wonder how much of this will be relayed in the Times DIspatch.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/40695308

    BP Had Gas Blowout in 2008: Paper Quotes Wikileaks

    “The cables reveal, the Guardian said, that some of BP’s partners in the gas field were upset the company was so secretive about the incident that it even allegedly withheld information from them.”

    And just so people don’t get the idea that I am picking on just BP:

    “According to other cables, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claimed that Chevron negotiated with Tehran about developing an Iraq-Iran cross-border oilfield in spite of tight U.S. sanctions, according to the Guardian.”

  30. It seems pretty clear that large corporations and capitalists do NOT give a shit about anything but their bottomline.
    We need to build local alternatives that go beyond greenwashing.
    And we need to hold them accountable for their actions.
    I am not of the opinion that peaceful protest gets the job done in terms of accountability, but getting people mobilized and aware of the situation is definitely a foundational step.
    Hope things go well tomorrow.

  32. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70J5GK20110120

    “I believe that there is clearly sufficient evidence that this deal may pose an unacceptable threat to U.S. national security,” he said in asking Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conduct the probe.

    Markey’s letter to Geithner follows a request he made last week introducing the idea of a U.S. government look into the BP-Rosneft deal if national security concerns were established.

    In his letter, Markey noted that BP is the largest producer of oil and natural gas, and the fourth largest oil refiner, in the United States. He also noted that BP is the largest supplier of fuel to the U.S. military.”

    …

    “Markey was one of Congress’ harshest critics of BP last year following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that claimed the lives of 11 workers and caused millions of dollars in damages to the southern coastline of the United States.

    Markey, of Massachusetts, was also a strong backer of legislation which passed the House of Representatives that would have toughened liability of companies responsible for oil spills. That legislation died in the Senate, however.”

  33. http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/bps-spilled-oil-is-washing-up-in-people.html

    Earlier this month, residents from across the Gulf called on members of the President’s oil spill commission — which recently released its final report on the disaster — to address the region’s growing health crisis. One of them was Cherri Foytlin, co-founder of the grassroots group Gulf Change, who recently learned her own blood has alarming levels of ethylbenzene.

    “Today I’m talking to you about my life,” she told the commission. “My ethylbenzene levels are 2.5 times the [NHANES] 95th percentile, and there’s a very good chance now that I won’t get to see my grandbabies.”

    Foytlin reported seeing children from the region with lesions all over their bodies. “We are very, very ill,” she said. Meanwhile, doctors in the region are treating patients with high levels of toxic petrochemicals in their bodies — even in people who do not live right on the coast and were not involved in the cleanup.

  34. Pingback: Oregon Hill » Meanwhile In The General Assembly…McEachin Powers on - Richmond, Virginia

  35. As the co-chairs of the national commission on the BP disaster took their case for industry reform to Congress, they testified before two committees whose members have received over $3.6 million from the oil and gas industry in the last election cycle alone.

    Also, a study discovered that chemical compounds from the oil dispersant applied to the BP spill didn’t break down as expected, contradicting EPA assertions.

  36. I wish the government would stop subsidizing all energy companies. But that probably wouldn’t happen anytime soon. However we could start with the companies that are subsidized the most.
    The Energy Information Administration reports that solar power is subsidized at a rate of $24.34 a megawatt hour, $23.37 for wind, $0.44 for coal, $0.25 for natural gas and $1.59 for nuclear power.

  37. Denny, In response to your numbers, I would suggest that the hidden costs of fossil fuels make all the difference.

    http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/guest-post-fossil-fuels-secret-welfare-problem/

    This is a timely discussion because bill SB794 is being debated this coming week in committee by the members of the Virginia General Assembly.

    “Provides that an electric utility’s integrated resource plan should take into consideration environmental impacts, externalities, and price stability. Externalities are defined as including the costs, benefits, and other effects on societal welfare, health, and the environment that result from the production of energy, delivery of energy, or reduction in the use of energy through efficiency improvements, and that are external to a transaction between the supplier of energy or efficiency improvements and the wholesale or retail customer of the energy.”

    http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?111+sum+SB794

  38. I would like to pause for a moment from the years long Denny vs. Scott debate over electricity generation to state the following: I am neither for nor against “green” power sources, nor I am for or against fossil fuel or nuclear generated power sources. I am for weighing the costs and benefits of our world’s power sources. When solar power and wind power become cost competitive with coal, oil, and nuclear power, I am about the lowest cost. The end consumer has much to benefit from paying the lowest cost for the end product instead of paying a higher cost for something that everyone may not be able to afford.

  43. I’ve been thinking about the last two winters and how much snow we have gotten….and then today I saw this Confederate bumper sticker that said “South’s gonna rise again!”…I think all the environmentalist should put a bumper sticker on their car that says “Temperature’s gonna rise again!”.

  44. BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Manslaughter Charges Review

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-29/bp-managers-said-to-face-u-s-review-for-manslaughter-charges.html

    also,

    Massey Energy cited for safety violations

    http://www2.timesdispatch.com/business/2011/mar/29/TDBIZ03-massey-energy-cited-for-safety-violations-ar-934242/

    I suspect we will be hearing even more about violations at the Japanese nuclear reactors.

    World calamities hamstring McDonnell’s energy vision

    http://hamptonroads.com/2011/03/world-calamities-hamstring-mcdonnells-energy-vision

    Maybe Governor McDonnell should check his vision, figure out his ass from his elbow, and start pushing for more safe, renewable energy in Virginia.

  45. Psssst… Want to hear a secret? Don’t like the increasing price of food? The government is heavily subsidizing farmers to grow corn for ethanol fuel production instead of food. The government needs to get out of ethanol business, especially since gasoline is far more efficient than ethanol.

  46. http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2011/02/marriage_of_oil_and_fisheries.html

    A reporter is invited on a state-funded fishing trip by the Louisiana Charter Boat Association. One caveat: His story must inform readers the oil industry lives in harmony with recreational fishing and, in fact, is beneficial to that sector.

    ….

    There are several things wrong with this program, starting with the most obvious: It’s not true. In fact, the opposite is true.

    Government studies show energy development caused at least 38 percent of the 2,100 square miles of coastal wetlands Louisiana has lost over the past 70 years — and the erosion continues at the rate of 25 square miles a year. Most of that loss has been in estuaries scientists say are responsible for 80 percent of all the fish in the Gulf.

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