Protecting the Oil Industry

[kristopher]

Protecting the Oil Industry

— By Kevin Drum
| Fri May. 14, 2010 10:12 AM PDT

If drilling for oil has the potential to cause vast damage, then the drillers of oil need to have the financial wherewithal to repair that damage when it occurs. That's the kind of personal responsibility the Republican Party stands for. So Republicans certainly wouldn't object to raising the liability cap for offshore drilling accidents so that taxpayers aren't the hook for the costs. Right?

You underestimate the Republican party. None other than Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski stood up to object. Yes, the senator from the state that got hammered by the Exxon Valdez spill objected to raising the liability cap.
And what was her argument? If the liability cap is raised, that might exclude small oil companies from being able to get the insurance and financing necessary to drill offshore. After all, only the oil giants could afford $10 billion. That is to say: only the oil giants can afford to clean up after themselves.
You're not dreaming. That's really the argument. Murkowski wants small, independent oil companies to be able to privatize the profits of offshore drilling but offload the financial risks to the public. And she frames it as avoiding a "Big Oil monopoly" on drilling. She's just defending mom-and-pop oil shops! The gall is breathtaking.

That's David Roberts. On a historical note, this is pretty much how the nuclear power industry is treated too. Back in 1957, when no one knew just how dangerous nuclear plants were, insurance companies were unwilling to write open-ended policies for them. Congress, however, didn't want that to get in the way of nuclear development (too cheap to meter, after all!). So they required plant operators to buy the biggest policies they could, and then put taxpayers on the hook for any damages above that.

Oh wait. No they didn't. Actually, they set up a $10 billion insurance pool funded by the industry. Taxpayers were on the hook for anything above that, but at least the industry as a whole was responsible for the first $10 billion. If Murkowski is so worried about all those small oil companies, maybe she should support the same kind of fund for offshore drilling. But I guess that would be socialism. Or something...

Full article at Mother Jones http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/05/protecting-oil-industry

[Nederland]

1. Too Cheap to Meter?

How many times does that quote need to be debunked before it finally goes away?

I guess it will never go away, because anti-nukes don't really give a shit about things being factual or not...

[kristopher]

3. There is nothing false about it.

[NNadir]

2. The dangerous fossil fuel industry OWNS the anti-nuke industry. In fact, it's a wholly owned

subsidiary.

Anti-nukes complaining about the dangerous fossil fuel industry is an obvious fraud.

From Gerhard Schroeder, to Joshka Fischer to the BP funded Amory Lovins EVERY damn anti-nuke on the face of the earth is a dangerous fossil fuel apologist.

It's not hidden.

It's not like Schroeder hides his 300,000 euro salary from Gazprom.

It's not like Fischer hides his similar salary from Nabucco.

And Lovins states outright that he is owned outright by dangerous fossil fuel companies.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

There is long record of our very anti-nukes on this website openly stating their enthusiasm for coal, oil, gas and the car CULTure.

Here's just one example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=246212&mesg_id=246222

I don't know, either, how many times I've heard stupid people - very stupid people - remark that solar energy is "free."

Apparently not: http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarPrices.htm

Have a nice oblivious, fraudulent evening.

[kristopher]

4. It must be painful for you...

Amory Lovins, a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist, is among the world’s leading innovators in energy and its links with resources, security, development and the environment. He has advised energy and many other industries for more than three decades, as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. A former Oxford don, Amory Lovins advises major firms and governments worldwide and has briefed 19 heads of state.

Lovins’ work focuses on transforming hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and several other sectors toward advanced resource productivity. Amory Lovins co-founded and is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank, that creates abundance by design. RMI has served or been invited by more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, redesigning more than $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors, with much of its path-finding work involving advanced resource productivity (typically with expanding returns to investment) and innovative business strategies.

Amory has held several visiting academic chairs, most recently as MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford’s School of Engineering, offering the university’s first course on advanced energy efficiency. He has also authored or co-authored hundreds of papers and twenty-nine books including: Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size - an Economist “book of the year” blending financial economics with electrical engineering, and the Pentagon co-sponsored Winning the Oil Endgame, a roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, led by business for profit.

His work in over 50 countries has been recognized by the “Alternative Nobel,” Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Goff Smith, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, ten honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, Time International Hero of the Environment, Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership, and World Technology Awards.

The Wall Street Journal named Amory Lovins one of thirty-nine people worldwide "most likely to change the course of business.” Newsweek has praised him as "one of the Western world's most influential energy thinkers" and Car magazine ranked him the “twenty-second most powerful person in the global automotive industry.”