Oil companies fought stricter regulations - USA Today

[JohnWxy]

I guess everybody knows this but at least here it is in print:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2010-05-09-drilling_N.htm


The company that owns the offshore well spewing crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico and other major oil companies spearheaded a campaign to thwart a government plan to impose tighter regulations aimed at preventing similar disasters, according to government records.

Tighter regulations would have required that drillers perform independent audits and hazard assessments designed to reduce accidents caused by human errors, but the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) has so far not imposed the rules in the face of near unanimous opposition from oil companies.

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[polichick]

1. Please contact the WH about gov't oversight:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

[JohnWxy]

3. THEY can't help. NOT enough votes to overcome Corporate Lobbyist party filibuster "DRILL BABY DRILL"

[polichick]

7. They still need to be called on their lax oversight and willingness to risk...

...the environment.

[JohnWxy]

10. Dems have been fighting Corporate Lobbyist Party about their belief Government should by handed over

to the Corporations for decades. The last eight years have been a pretty good test case of what happens when you do that. Whether or not enough people will take action on this at the polls is an open question. THere are those who seem to like being corporate serfs.

[Celebration]

8. Thanks, I just wrote the following

Please immediately implement stringent safety regulations for deep water drilling. Failure of a deep water well shouldn't be rare, it has to be never, or no deep water drilling!

Please require all cars to be built to be able to use alcohol, as Brazil does. This costs about one hundred bucks per vehicle. Brazil went from an oil importer to being self sustaining for energy. Why don't we take this simple measure? Please check into the Brazil experience.

[polichick]

9. Great! It can't hurt for voters to remind the WH that we're keeping track...

It's so sad that all around the world people are moving toward green energy - while the so-called Democratic President of the United States hawks offshore drilling, "clean" coal and nuclear energy. Here, special interests trump the good of the people, the country and the planet.

[JohnWxy]

11. Climate bill includes support for off-shore drilling and nuclear added to gain GOP support . the

Corporate Lobbyist party has made it clear that they will fight any Climate Change - Energy bill (so what else is new) especially if it has a "cap & trade" provision in it. "Cap & Trade" is to make more polluting energy sources reflect their true costs and to help pay for the subsidies for cleaner technologies.

Many Dems are upset with addition of off-shore drilling and funding for a few nuclear plants (I thought this was supposed to be a mature technology???..(i.e. which should not need Government help)__JW)... But everybody knows Obama thinks this is the price we have to pay to "buy-off" the Corporate Lobbyists (GOP) in order to get SOME Clean Energy - Climate legislation passed.


Here is a short summary of what's in the bill passed by the House(note the subsidies for cleaner energy): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Clean_Energy_and_Security_Act

> Requires electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.

> Subsidizes new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including renewable energy ($90 billion in new subsidies by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).

> Protects consumers from energy price increases. According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the reductions in carbon pollution required by the legislation will cost American families less than a postage stamp per day.
... The bill requires a 17-percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2020; ... Both plans would reduce United States' emissions by about 80 percent by 2050. Complementary measures in the legislation, such as efforts to prevent tropical deforestation, will achieve significant additional reductions in carbon emissions.

> It includes a renewable electricity standard (almost identical to a renewable portfolio standard, but narrowly tailored to electrical energy) requiring each electricity provider who supplies over 4 million MWh to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (such as wind, solar, and geothermal) by 2020. There is a provision whereby 5% of this standard can be met through energy efficiency savings, as well as an additional 3% with certification of the Governor of the state in which the provider operates.

>> It provides for modernization of the electrical grid

>> It provides for expanded production of electric vehicles

>> It mandates significant increases in energy efficiency in buildings, home appliances, and electricity generation.
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However, with the unfolding environmental disaster in the Gulf, which will make the EXXON-Valdez look like a tea-party (no pun intended) there will now be greater resistance to off-shore drilling experiments.

..... So, if you are concerned about the offshore drilling, email - call your Congressmen and Senators. Tell them you are opposed to it. BUT, if your Senators and Representatives are Corporate Lobbyist partiers telling them of your opposition will be a waste of time. They represent the Corporations. Any talk about their concern for people is just compaign rhetoric. Only Tea-Baggers believe that crap. LOL....oh, it's not that funny.

WE all have to live with the consequences of GOP facilitated Corporate Feudalism.

[jody]

2. We would need fewer laws if corporations did not have limited liability and juries were allowed to

punish corporations and their owners for their crimes.

[JohnWxy]

4. You'll have a fun time getting that idea to fly. Corporations are now people. ha-ha-Ha..John Roberts

You should address them as "Lord" since you are their vassal. Welcome to Corporate Feudalism.

[jody]

6. I wrote the Pledge to the Corporate State about 1999, see below.

[JohnWxy]

12. Government by Corporations = Corporate Feudalism... facilitated by the Corporate Lobbyist Party: GOP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=470621">REPUBLICAN tactic: "I CAN HIRE HALF THE WORKING CLASS TO KILL THE OTHER HALF"



Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers


For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households. But since 2000, the story is starkly different.

The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth.

~~
~~

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.
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Yeah, it's great being a serf in our system of Corporate Feudalism. thank you GOP and all the suckers who voted for you!!!

[jody]

13. I wish it were just GOP but IMO there are Dem politicians who are also guilty n/t

[JohnWxy]

16. unfortunately, there are Democrats who act too much like Republicans. IT's quite sickening,

It's because it costs so much to run campaigns. But overall, the Democrats do have souls. The members of the Corporate Lobbyist party have largely gone into politics to cash in by selling the Government to the highest bidder. To keep doing this they have to convince suckers that they have the people's interest at heart. It's the biggest con going down. THey make Bernie Madoff look like a choir boy by comparison.


http://sites.google.com/site/republicandystopia/republican_dystopia">Republican Dystopia

[Doctor_J]

15. A person who caused this much destruction would be executed

BP should be dissolved.

[Uncle Joe]

5. I wonder what they think the cost of the Gulf Oil Gusher aka; GOG

will be?

Large companies such as BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil said they generally supported such programs but preferred that they be voluntary and more flexible. Some oil companies also said the measure would be more costly to the industry than the MMS estimated.

Thanks for the thread, JohnWxy.

[Doctor_J]

14. THey fought the law, and, unlike Sonny Curtis,

they won.

[Gregin Orlando]

17. Republicans Reps are to blame as well

Check out this open letter to a Rep in FL:

http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d12-Open-letter-to-Rep-Ginny-BrownWaite-and-any-other-advocate-of-more-off-shore-drilling

In particular read what she is sending out to her constituents!