John Hall Questions BP’s Greenwashing Campaign
In yesterday’s Transportation Committee hearing, John Hall hammered BP American President Lamar McKay about something a number of others have, as well: the amount of money BP has spent on greenwashing of late.
The answer? $10-12 million last year and $20 million this year.
So it’s roughly probably about the same or maybe a little more than the cost of a blowout preventer.
Sounds like Hall would like to prevent businesses from deducting such expenses in the future.
After blocking CBS crew, Coast Guard denies ‘BP rules’
As BP withholds information on impact of massive oil spill, Coast Guard says that ’embedded’ media have been allowed to cover response effort
LINK.
“Embedded” media. At last 1984 but then the rich, pampered and privileged pricks and ho’s of the corporate media will all take it with a smile. Oh goody, a boat ride.
I have a big enough problem with the media being prevented from free access to facts in war zones, a practice that started with our invasion of Grenada, but for these pricks to use that shit here, in our country just shows just how far down the path to totalitarianism we’ve travelled.
Corporate apologies are a big bidness. Corporate apologies used to happen after the event was over and relative damage done to the company, to people, to the environment, could be assessed, and hence the appropriately designed policy formulated and implemented. Today they have slithered into lobbying territory and become indistinguishable from it.
Corporate apologies are not real apologies. Those require several things missing from the corporate variety. A real one is an act of contrition, an admission one has done something wrong and caused unintended or regrettable damage that requires atonement and restitution; these are offered with sincerity and backed up with the intent and ability to make good. Their focus is on making the person harmed whole and to preserve a relationship or end it more amicably.
Corporate apologies are a different kettle of snakes. They lack sincerity in the way that person you once dated lacked sincerity, the one who promised never ever to do “that” again, and then proceeded to do it over and over again. More importantly, they lack follow-through. Rarely is what was damaged fixed and rarely is it avoided in future. More often, the company lobbies hard with legislatures and regulators to make what it did have no consequence.
Their sole purpose is to preserve corporate assets at the least cost possible. Because change costs money, especially in large organizations, that means changing as little as possible, which makes repeating the same mistakes a sure thing.
Mistaking a corporate apology for a real one is to mistake the bite of a coral snake for a scarlet king snake. A bite from a docile king snake might require a cold compress and maybe a bandage. One from a coral snake requires a prompt dose of anti-venom – much like a good regulator, working with decent laws – or last rites. It can be helpful to know the difference.
earl –
Your description of a corporate apology reminds me of the Catholic church apologies to the thousands of children it permitted its priests to sexually molest. Repeatedly. While protecting the priests from the full force of the law.
It has been clear for some years that everything is only PR any more. It started with the Powell Memo, and the creation of the myriad of right wing ‘think tanks’ promulgating Chicago School ‘economics’, to the point where even our so-called ‘representatives’ don’t understand that they are supposed to promote our welfare, not protect corporate hegemony [they believe tinkle-down is science]. Naomi Kein’s The Shock Doctrine explains the template that is now being implemented here. Greenwashing corporate plunder is happening all over. And EPA’s request to switch to a kinder, gentler dispersant is also greenwashing.
Here is an excellent article from Newsweek regarding the craven stealth PR counteroffensive BP is running below the radar.
They (congresscritters) should read the article into the record.
It is. That. Simple.
What you describe is ordinarily a contradiction in terms, but will give it a read.
It’s hard to know what to say to any of this CRAP anymore. Bearing witness is all I can seem to manage today.
Ok, I know this may seem like a lame question but, if and when BP suffers costs for this disaster such as cleanup, restitution, related PR pushback, etc., etc., are all or some of these costs tax deductible as the cost of doing business no matter how bad your business practice is even if it is illegal or negligent.?
Absolutely; routine cost of doing business. If BP were ever fined after a finding of more then gross negligence, those costs might not be deductible. After all, BP only made about $6.0 billion in profits its first fiscal quarter.
This just in: NPR is reporting that National Intel Chief Dennis Blair will Resign. I wonder what that’s all about.
Bob in AZ
Yeah, fatster put a link on the next thread.
I have exactly the same reaction — this seems seriously weird.
He doesn’t get along with Leon Paneta at the CIA.
$12,000,000 / 365 = $32,876.72 per day.
Or about the cost of one elementary school teacher’s annual starting salary per day.
Or about 3 years of college.
$20,000,000 this year?
Let’s see… 20,000,000 divided by 365 = $54,794.52 per day.
So more than the cost of a college degree, per day, in P.R.
More than the annual salary of a teacher, per day in P.R.
More than the annual salary of many cops, per day, in P.R.
And so on…
Asteroid!!! Dead Zone Ahead!!!
Finally satellite images are available of the true dimensions of this catastrophe in the Gulf of Halliburton.
The photo I see at that link is labeled “Katrina”.
Ohh! “Green-washing”…I get it….ooops. sorry about that…humor meter is not working today…:-}
Environmental impacts of this underwater catastrophe will dwarf Katrina because there won’t be a functioning Gulf of Mexico ecosystem left when BP’s finished lying their way out of liability and into a massive U.S. taxpayer funded bailout.
This will be Obama’s Katrina.
I agree.
It’s more than that.
We’ve not had a constitutional form of government since the Patriot Act passed. The nation has been run at the whims of the executive branch since then, and that means both major political parties are complicit in undermining the constitution.
It’s easy to imagine BP treating the spill area, the Gulf of Mexico, as if it were a war zone, as if they owned it, as if there were no American governmental entities capable of acting against BP, Haliburton, Transocean and now Schlumberger, multinational corporations one and all.
Our government is ignorant, impotent, corrupt and utterly illegitimate. On the plus side, the trains run on time.
One if by land, two hundred billion if by sea
Apparently, there’s no political advantage to be gained from scapegoating this man-made catastrophe as an assault on America’s coast by terrorists bent on our destruction.
The Ride of Paul Revereware on QVC.
NPR on the news at the top of the hour reported that the EPA was ordering BP to stop the use of a chemical dispersant that was “moderately toxic to humans” with no mention of it’s toxicity to other life forms. National Propaganda Radio doing their bit to preserve the status quo.
BP claims they are recovering 210,000 gallons per day with the 4″ straw inside the 21″ pipe. The total output of the well, per day, is over 5,500,000 gallons. And that’s 21″ ID, and I’m assuming it’s 4″ ID, which, if it’s OD, would make it even worse.
(3.14*2*2)/(3.14*10.5*10.5) = 0.036281179 Ergo, 3.6% of the total is the max. rate they can draw down the stream coming out of the pipe. They claim that is 210,000 gallons.
It’s the equivalent an EXXON Valdez spill every other day.
I agree with your essential point that the multiplier is large.
That said, the math you show seems to assume both pipes have the same rate of flow per unit of cross-section area. I’m not sure we know that, do we? For example, if the soda straw is actually sucking up ten times as hard as the riser pipe is blowing out, then it’d be 36% rather than the 3.6% that the simple area ratio gives.
Just something to keep in mind. As we continue to contemplate how unprecedentedly horrible this is.
Yes, and additionally, I’m neglecting the pipe wall of the straw. Note, however, the contents of the 21″ pipe is also under pressure sufficient to counteract water pressure at 5000′, suggesting the reinforced pipe is already full of content. Additionally, I neglect any sea water drawn up the straw. Both are contaminated with natural gas, so the actual flow, and recovery, of oil is necessarily less than 100% in either pipe. And unless they’ve connected 50 miles of pipe to the vessel siphoning this, the vessel needs to be emptied periodically, leading to some downtime on the straw.
On second thought, I suppose they could employ a flotilla of ships to constantly siphon from the siphoning ship. Not an expert in oil disaster profiteering or recovery businesses.
Regardless, the 210,000 gallon flow from the 4″ straw, oddly identical to what BP claimed the 21″ pipe’s entire flow was in the first place, has to be significantly less than the outflow of the 21″ pipe, despite the suction applied. I used 5,500,000 gallons as a conservative estimate. Let’s see if BP ever lets independent scientists evaluate what’s really happening (and WHY does BRITISH PETROLEUM have ANY RIGHT to tell AMERICANS or ANYONE ELSE NOT TO VIEW THEIR ACTIVITIES IN THE WATERS OF THE GULF OF MEXICO???????). Until then, I’m not about to believe any claims from this penny-wise, pound-foolish, fact-challenged, disaster-minimizing politically connected multinational behemoth.
Let independent scientists evaluate the actual flow so idiots like me aren’t left to crunch the fabricated numbers.
The animations I’ve seen of the little pipe that they put in the big pipe shows a collar on the little pipe that would partially obstruct the flow of gas & oil. So it may be that you can’t just compare the volume of the two pipes. But I’ve never heard anyone discuss that collar, or if it is anything but the animator’s dream.
Bob in AZ
All kabuki. The worst is yet to come because BP apparently has free reign and no worries per our government.
Fmr. EPA Investigator Scott West: US Has Told BP “It Can Do Whatever It Wants and Won’t Be Held Accountable”
One month after the BP oil spill, we speak to Scott West, a former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency who led an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra. Before West finished his investigation, the Bush Justice Department reached a settlement with BP, and the oil company agreed to pay $20 million. At the same time, BP managed to avoid prosecution for the Texas City refinery explosion that killed fifteen workers by paying a $50 million settlement.
The full transcript of the interview is on Democracy Now.