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Oil Spills--Do'h!

I've returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak, having written four days before the Deepwater Horizon blowout that offshore oil spills were likely a thing of the past (hence the "Do'h!"), in the new issue of the Weekly Standard out this morning, pointing out the adverse environmental tradeoffs of overreacting.  I'll have a much longer and more technical article with Ken Green coming out on Monday.  Stay tuned.

P.S.  Couldn't happen to a more politically correct oil company, by the way.  BP's entire "Beyond Petroleum" image makeover a few years ago was the brainchild of a number of liberal groups (such as pollster Stan Greenberg), and BP has been a major contributor to environmental groups.  There's long been a lefty website called "ExxonSecrets" (though what the "secret" is eludes me, since all the info on the site comes from public disclosure documents); I'm wondering if we'll get a "BP Secrets" site some time soon.  I'm not holding my breath.
Categories > Environment

Discussions - 2 Comments

Steven, I think it's fair to say that between this and your old "Buy Exxon Gas" post (a few years back now) - for starters - your credibility on this issue is all but non-existent, no? But I'm sure that won't stop the liberally-biased media from ringing you up so that you can weigh in on this issue.

While it's true that BP bailed out on the global-warming skepticism/denialism group Global Climate Coalition (which they were a founding member, I think), that hardly makes them some arm of Greenpeace - that suggestion ("a politically correct oil company"?? Come on.) is silly. In fact, In 2008, BP was awarded the "Emerald Paintbrush" award, by Greenpeace UK. They were also nominated for a Climate Greenwash Award in '09, and Mother Jones magazine has also called out BP as one of the "ten worst corporations" in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records. (check Wiki)

I'm not sure of which groups you speak when you say "BP has been a major contributor to environmental groups." but if the enviro "whackos" would know of that, I'm sure they'd shun such groups like the plague, since BP has had a very shoddy enviro record for years - even since they laughably declared themselves to be "Beyond Petroleum". You know who ELSE BP has contributed to a lot over the years? The Republican Party - and, as the chart here shows, they've done so quite consistently:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?ID=D000000091&Name=BP

Overall, since 1990, they've given 71% of their dollars to the GOP and 29% to Dems (although in the 2010 cycle there's only a 13-point difference).

I'm a bit surprised you're passing along that Jerome Corsi conspiracy theory about Greenberg and BP, though. It's really out there:
https://mediamatters.org/blog/201006080025

Okay, so the info. that ExxonSecrets posts isn't literally secret. But for most Americans, it might as well be. (They probably mean it in the same sense that the OpenSecrets site, linked to above, clearly does) And Exxon HAS given the American Enterprise Institute millions of dollars over the years. But I'm sure that didn't have any impact on any of AEI's research on issues pertinent to energy and environment issues.

BTW, it's been hard not to catch the name of BP's CEO - Tony Hayward. Could it be??? ;)

Obama's certainly been getting a whole lot wrong, but I was glad to see that he was at least perceptive enough to catch these manifestations of the Obama Derangement Syndrome, in his recent interview with Politico (ugh):

"I think it's fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending."...

"Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms."

I'd love to see even one instance by anyone on the right (I'll even settle for some random idiot on a FreeRepublic forum) who, during the GWB years (or during Obama's term before Deepwater went kaboom) was calling for more stringent and more frequent inspections of oil drilling platforms. I have a good idea what the conservative/conserva-libertarian response to that suggestion would've been!

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