In a scene most evocative of the infamous Big Tobacco hearing in 1994 when tobacco executives lined up and testified under oath that nicotine was not addictive, the oil executives have responded disappointingly to a…
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Smoking Gun
LiveBlog: Oh Tillerson…
Rex Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil, has had the most revealing testimony thus far. In response to probing questions by Rep. Dingell concerning, once again, why the contingency plans are virtually identical to each other,…
Smoking Gun
LiveBlog: Shoulda Coulda Woulda
Shoulda Coulda Woulda by Khan "What would you have done to prevent the spill?" seems to be a prevalent theme in the questions from committee members thus far. Rep. Waxman probes enough to produce…
Smoking Gun
Liveblog: BP’s ‘Dead’ Phone Numbers
Why do you have phone numbers for dead people in your contingency plan? …asks Chairman Markey. Markey questions each of the five executives whether it is appropriate to have phone numbers listed for "long-dead" experts…
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LiveBlog: Big Oil Hearing
LiveBlogging the Energy & Commerce Hearing with Oil Executives This morning executives from five of the largest oil companies in the U.S. – ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP America, and Shell – are testifying before the…
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Will BP’s CEO Take the Fifth?
06-08-10 by dugan Can BP tell the truth about the causes of the catastrophe it caused in the Gulf of Mexico? A hearing June 17 (date corrected) in the House Energy and Commerce Committee may…
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Drilling Dereg: Darth Did It
6-2-10 by dugan It was Dick Cheney’s secretive, dour demeanor that earned him the nickname "Darth Vader" when he was vice president. But he also had Darth’s slash-and-burn tendencies. Cheney, we now learn, stacked…
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BP: Big Bucks for Kings Tix
06-01-10 by dugan Many of us recall stories early in BP’s Gulf spill about how catastrophe would probably have been prevented if PB had shelled out $500,000 for an acoustic cutoff switch that would…
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Which Is Worse, BP or MMS?
05-26-10 by dugan Big day today in learning about ways to demean and devalue safety. 1. A BP internal document (see it on Daily Beast) used a dismissive "Three Little Pigs" analogy in deciding…
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Silence of Big Oil in Gulf
5-25-10 by dugan Here’s the "bingo" quote from a Tuesday Washington Post story by Karen Tumulty, explaining why the rest of the Big Oil companies are pretty much hiding in a hole as BP…
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Culture of Safety-Be-Damned
5-18-10 by dugan We know that federal regulators excused BP from filing a legally required detailed disaster plan on its ill-fated Gulf of Mexico oil rig. We know that BP’s assertions that it had…
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BP’s Butt-Covering Ignorance
5-17-10 by dugan So how much oil is really spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s exploded and sunk oil platform? 5,000 barrels a day (210,000 gallons) is the mainstream figure, issued by…
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Dread on the Gulf Coast
5-6-10 by dugan (Fort Walton Beach, Florida)–In the northern Gulf of Mexico, along a sparkling coast from Louisana to Florida, everyone is used to hurricanes. You can prepare, and afterward repair, no matter how…