Oil Industry Denies Climate Change But Demands Taxpayer Money For Climate Change Protection

[babylonsister]

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/09/oil-industry-denies-climate-change-demanding-taxpayer-money-climate-change-protection.html

Oil Industry Denies Climate Change But Demands Taxpayer Money For Climate Change Protection
By: Rmuse
Saturday, August, 9th, 2014, 6:14 pm



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In Louisiana this past week, it was reported that a Halliburton-owned business, Multi-Chem, that mixes carcinogen-laden fracking and oilfield chemicals just received a $1.8 million tax break from the state after the plant blew up in 2011 nearly destroying a nearby town. It was a great deal for war criminal Dick Cheney’s former company that not only got nearly two million dollars from taxpayers, it received an expedited environmental permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to build a new plant that was granted without public notice or hearing. The company did receive a fine from the OSHA ($49,000). Multi-Chem now demands an LDEQ permit to discharge waste water from its facility into local waterways.

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The Sierra Club wrote, “Severe storms are eroding the shoreline and affecting the business of an oil refinery, Delaware City Refining Company, that is threatened by increasing extreme weather. In other words, climate disruption is hitting the doorstep of its source and it is seeking taxpayer-funded shoreline protections due to tidal encroachment – which is one way of saying sea level rise.” But the oil industry is a leading funding mechanism for climate change denial that includes exactly what the Delaware refinery is claiming threatens their profits; rising sea levels.

On its application submitted with the Coastal Zone Management Act for taxpayer protection, the company wrote that “the extent of the shoreline erosion has reached a point where facility infrastructure is at risk. The extent of tidal encroachment is obvious, and a review of historical photography suggests that the rate of shoreline erosion is increasing.” The refinery claims that the only solution is building natural sand dunes and a protective ring of buoys “that has the resilience to deal with Sea Level Rise (SLR) for at least 50 years.” The company’s only interest is taxpayer funding to protect its profits and ignores the simple fact that buoys might dissipate wave energy from tides, boats, and storms, but they will not, in any scenario, do anything to reduce the rising sea levels it admits is accelerating rapidly.

The oil industry is so accustomed to getting free taxpayer money that it expects taxpayers to foot the bill to protect the refinery from climate change damage it is responsible for. Likely, the taxpayers will end up paying to save the tar sand refinery, and its profits, instead of demanding the refinery either pay for its own climate change protection, move its refinery off the waterfront, or take steps to reduce the incredibly-dangerous carbon emissions unique to Canadian tar sand refining.


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The American people have little say in whether the government continues spending their tax dollars to enrich and protect the oil industry, and it is down to Republicans in the employ of the Koch brothers and their oil industry cabal. It has only been four years since BP received a heartfelt apology from Republicans because President Obama demanded they pay for the damages from the Gulf Oil spill. In 2011, a CEO of one of the largest oil companies issued a statement that it was “un-American” to end oil subsidies, and a Republican Senator from Kansas concurred and said “I’d call that un-American.” This is despite a report from the International Monetary Fund that Americans give the oil industry anywhere from $10 to $41 billion annually despite a record $118 billion in profit that year.

Americans pay an inflated price for oil and gas, pay for the effects of global climate change, pay oil companies billions in free subsidies, give tax breaks to oil companies that foul sources of drinking water, and now will likely pay to protect a tar sand refinery from rising sea levels. What is telling, is that even when the people do scream it is not their place to increase oil profits, pay to clean up oil spills, or pay to protect oil refineries from climate change, Republicans keep writing government checks and call the people un-American because that taxpayer money comes back to Republicans in the form of campaign donations to keep taxpayer money flowing to what Republicans consider the real America; the oil industry.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Sigh.

I pity all of the people with young children. The older I get, the more they look headed for a 'Mad Max' sort of future.

[randome]

2. Counter-offer: tax breaks for converting away from an oil-based business plan.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]