Blog Post
The wee island nation of Fiji managed Wednesday to back down a California-owned company and extract a fee of 8 US cents per liter on Fiji Water. The state of California can’t even manage to back down Big Oil and charge a few cents a gallon on oil pumped out of its public lands. Jerry Brown, are you listening?
Press Release
Consumer Watchdog NEWS RELEASE Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 Contact: Judy Dugan, 213-280-0175; or Jamie Court, 310-392-0075 Washington, D.C. — Consumer Watchdog today called on President Obama to remove the general counsel to the national Oil…
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.
Blog Post
Halliburton is the sloppy contractor with no license, bad B.O. and helpers off the street who use gravel to stretch the cement and pour your driveway without the rebar. Except writ large. And deadly. As…
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.
Blog Post
I had lunch in the Chamber of Commerce’s AIG-sponsored “Hall of Flags” today, where BP compensation fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg told the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform that the legal system is working just fine.
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.
Press Release
Washington, DC — Consumer Watchdog asked President Obama to force BP Fund Administrator Kenneth Feinberg to withdraw from a keynote address Wednesday at a Chamber of Commerce group dedicated to eviscerating spill victims’ legal rights, and to fire Feinberg if he refuses.
The Koch brothers, with their $55 billion net worth backing a politics of destruction and greed, are bad enough alone. But they’re also coordinators of a web of corporate and media powers on the far…
Blog Post
Chevron seemed to act fast–too fast–to shoot down a spoof Monday of the oil company’s “We Agree” faux-caring ad campaign. The spoof was by the Yes Men group, whose “Chamber of Commerce” news conference last…
Press Release
Consumer Group Calls On Pension Funds to Divest From Prop 23 Backers Tesoro, Valero
Santa Monica, CA – Consumer advocates revealed an investor slide presentation by Texas-based oil company Tesoro explaining that oil refiners keep gasoline supplies especially tight on the West Coast to keep profits high through higher pump prices. The slides were included in a letter from Consumer Watchdog to California’s large public pension funds, known as CalPERS and CalSTRS, calling on the funds to divest from Tesoro and another refiner, Valero, which are the chief sponsors of Proposition 23 on the November ballot. The Investment Committee of CalPERS is meeting in Long Beach today.
Press Release
New York, NY — A national consumer group is running a 30 second commercial on a Times Square Superscreen that challenges Koch Industries, “the largest oil company you’ve never heard of,” for its record of environmental degradation, political influence, Tea Party funding and climate change denial.
Press Release
Top Prop 23 Funder Doesn’t Want Greentech Competition To Get in Way of Profiteering
Santa Monica, CA – A new report by Consumer Watchdog’s OilWatchdog.org project finds that Valero Energy reaped over $4.5 billion in refining profit while gouging California motorists since it bought its second California refinery in 2002. The oil refining giant, which is also the largest funder of Proposition 23, averaged 37% higher margins on each barrel of oil it refined in California than at refineries it owns elsewhere in the country, according to data published in company financial reports.
