negligence – Oil Watchdog

Press Release

Chevron Counts on Jigsaw Puzzle of Safety Regulation to Escape Oversight, Accountability, Says Consumer Watchdog

7. August 2012

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.

Press Release

Consumer Watchdog Urges Regulator to Shut Down Refiner After Leak That Endangered N. California Community

CONTACT: Judy Dugan

16. July 2012

State Department of toxic Substances Control Must Send “Strong Message” to Evergreen Oil Re-Refiner Over Repeated Safety Lapses, Accidents

Santa Monica, CA — Consumer Watchdog called on the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Debbie Raphael, to indefinitely close the Evergreen Oil waste-oil re-refinery in Newark, Ca. in a letter sent today. On July 6, a pipe leak spewed “superheated oil” and triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility. The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong odors” from the leak.

Blog Post

If Exxon Can’t Deal With the Montana Spill…

Posted by Judy Dugan

12. July 2011

Exxon is still fumbling to deal with a 42,000-gallon oil pipeline spill on the Yellowstone River west of Billings, Montana. Its initial response was pathetic–it was slow to turn off the gushing pipeline, had no…

Blog Post

Chevron Witness Pay: Is It Really Hush Money?

Posted by Judy Dugan

18. April 2011

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.

Blog Post

What BP’s Secrecy on Payout Deals Sacrifices

Posted by Judy Dugan

7. December 2010

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.

News Clipping

Spill Commission Defends Its Top Lawyer

By J.M. Broder , THE NEW YORK TIMES GREEN BLOG

16. November 2010

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

BP Cost-Cutting Was a Culture, Not a Set of Rules

Posted by Judy Dugan

9. November 2010

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.

Blog Post

Did Halliburton Push Its ‘Cost-Cutting’ Cement?

Posted by Judy Dugan

29. October 2010

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…

Press Release

Obama Should Stop BP Fund Administrator Feinberg From Giving Chamber Of Commerce Keynote Or Fire Him, Watchdog Says

CONTACT: Carmen Balber

26. October 2010

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.

Press Release

Consumer Watchdog Exposes Koch Industries on Times Square Superscreen For Pollution, Tea Party Funding, and Climate Change Denial Using Coke Parody

CONTACT: Jamie Court

13. October 2010

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.

Blog Post

BP’s CEO Crisis Lurch (Again)

Posted by Judy Dugan

27. July 2010

“When he abruptly resigned as chief executive of BP PLC [he] left the company in disarray. The giant energy producer was struggling with
a legacy of accidents and spills in the U.S.” Nope, that’s not about the swift booting of Tony Hayward by the BP board on Tuesday. It’s from a 2007 Bloomberg story on the last crisis change in leadership at BP.

Blog Post

Big Oil’s Boondoggle Machine

Posted by Judy Dugan

7. July 2010

Given the fury directed at BP in Congressional hearings on the Gulf oil spill, you’d think the time was ripe to cut the oil industry’s ridiculous subsidies–amounting to at least $40 billion per decade, according…

Blog Post

Beware BP spin on size record

Posted by Judy Dugan

1. July 2010

7-01-2010 by dugan BP’s devastating oil spill may now be the largest accidental spill in modern history, bigger than the estimated 140 million gallons spewed by the 1979-80 Ixtoc spill off the coast of…

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