Archive | Tag: catastrophes

Press Release

Santa Monica, CA — Monday night’s explosion and hours-long fire at Chevron’s large oil refinery in Richmond, Ca., released toxic chemicals including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in unknown amounts, sending hundreds of local residents to local hospitals with breathing and eye complaints. Yet the state agency with the most expertise in regulating such toxins, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, claims it has little to no oversight of dangerous substances produced in refinery accidents, said Consumer Watchdog.

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Blog Post

Chevron’s army of lawyers isn’t its only weapon in staving off the demand of Ecuadoran peasants that the company clean up its toxic drilling mess in the Amazon. Chevron is also happy to use deception, secret video and dirty tricksters. The problem with tricksters, however, is that it can be hard to keep them in the fold, and they can be so darned greedy. Consider the tale of secret videotaper Diego Borja, and the “expense money”of at least $169,000 that Chevron has heaped on him since August 2009.

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Blog Post

We’ve reported about what’s wrong in the secrecy around BP’s payments to Kenneth Feinberg and his law firm, which is doling out compensation for BP’s devastating oil spill in the Gulf. Monday, though, the Center for Justice and Democracy got deep into the guts of the matter.

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Blog Post

Late last week, as the presidential oil spill commission’s co-chair and staff blamed BP’s cost-cutting and “failure of management” for the devastating spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP managers claimed that the government estimate…

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News Clipping

The panel named by President Obama to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on Tuesday rejected a call by a consumer activist group for the resignation of its chief counsel, Fred H. Bartlit Jr. The group, Consumer Watchdog, said that the panel should dismiss Mr. Bartlit because his law firm, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, once represented Halliburton, one of the companies involved in drilling the BP well.

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Blog Post

Monday’s statement by a White House commission was a head-snapper. BP cost-cutting not at fault for the Gulf spill? Say what? But a closer look at the words of the commission’s general counsel says something else: That the commission’s investigation is so constricted it will never point to BP’s ferocious cost-cutting.

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Blog Post

The Texas oil money behind Proposition 23 is widely known by now. But there’s been less publicity about Big Oil–specifically Chevron–putting $4 million into passing Propostion 26, according to a nifty interactive chart just released by OilChange International.

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Blog Post

Anyone who thinks BP’s big new promise to put safety before profit should read or watch the ProPublica/Frontline investigation of BP’s wretched safety history. (The Frontline documentary airs Tuesday). It’s the story of a corporation that for years cut costs to fuel growth above all, viewed safety as a waste of money and baldly lied to regulators.

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Blog Post

The charitable interpretation of Kenneth Feinberg’s keynote speech Wednesday for the Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform is that the BP compensations fund administrator is deaf to the implications. When Feinberg opens his mouth, he’ll be validating a powerful and viciously anti-consumer organization whose parent, the Chamber, is deeply involved in pro-corporate politics.

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