Yeah, I've been hearing that little dog whistle loud and clear. But that's the reason for the escrow, to get the decisions out of BP's hands. I agree, it's going to be ugly, but it this does seem to be a big step in the right direction.
==========
http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Do you think the families of those k!lled in 9/11 would agree?
http://www
http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There's a line that BP's people have been using since this began that is state-of-the-art weasel lawyer-speak: "We will pay all legitimate claims".
That's equivocation, and when I see it in the terms of this deal ("Any money left in the fund once all legitimate claims have been resolved and paid will revert to BP") along with other terms that make it very easy for BP to game this, I know that a lot of lawyers are going to be getting very rich on money that should be going to victims of this, and that BP is not going gently into that good night.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
"BP has spent $1.75 billion so far on containment and cleanup efforts"
What's next? Burping? Wet Wipes?
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Ok, it's going to work like this:
BP will establish an independent claims facility and an escrow account of $20 billion (ultimately). BP will put into this escrow account $3.5 billion immediately, another $1.5 billion at the last quarter of this fiscal year, and then $1.25 billion every quarter for the following 3 years.
BP will set up a facility where claims can be reviewed and decisions made about how to proceed. The escrow account which will be independently administered by Ken Feinberg. Small businesses, states and local governments can file claims which will be reviewed by Feinberg and a 3-person review panel. If anyone filing a claim isn't happy with the decision by the review panel, they retain all their legal rights to sue in federal court. BP can only seek an appeal of the review panel's decision if a claim is in excess of $500k or if Feinberg certifies an appeal is allowable.
It's unknown when this facility will be up and operating, but until it is, the process that is in operation now will continue.
BP has already paid $1.75 billion on this spill and the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf isn't anywhere near contained.
Then there's this -
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The only cost-effective way to get there is through Alaska's north slope.
“We’ll be doing a number of things that have never been done before,” said Doug Suttles, the then president of BP Exploration (Alaska), when in July 2009 he announced the BP board’s final approval of the Liberty development. “We’ll be drilling the longest wells ever drilled.”
http://www
BP, doing a number of things it's never done before, drilling the longest wells ever drilled.
Peachy.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
It's used to pay claims for those financially injured by BP's negligence
==========
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It's an escrow account. All that it is is BP's putting money aside for determination as to where it'll go LATER. It could wind up going to BP's shareholders.
Not a dime of it will get dispersed without BP's consent.
And not all $20 billion is being put into the 'kitty' immediately. BP could be out of business within months, which would mean that all it paid into this account was $3.5 billion. BP's already spent $1.75 billion on this spill, the oil is still gushing uncontrollably; nobody knows what the ultimate price tag will be.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
BP has spent $1.75 billion already on this spill.
All that this deal is is BP putting $20 billion into an account (and not all at once, but $3.5 billion now, $2 billion by the end of the year, and $1.25 billion every quarter for the following 3 years) where NOBODY CAN TOUCH IT until there is a judgment (court) or an agreement.
BP decides who, if anyone, gets a dime of it. It may go to BP's shareholders yet.
How is this a good deal?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You don't understand how this is being structured.
BP isn't putting $20billion into escrow today -- BP is PROMISING to put up $20 billion in portions over 4 years, beginning with $3 billion now, and if they're still in business by the end of the year, another $2billion. BP is self-insuring, just like what it's done in the past:
While BP is the principal developer of the oil field with 65% interest. 25% is owned by AnadarkoPe
Anadarko maintains insurance policies designed to provide financial protection for such events, & estimates its coverage will likely total approximately $177.5mill
And BP's insurance coverage?
About 3 years ago, BP decided that it was being taken for a ride, overcharged for insurance, so it decided "to go bare".
And what's our government's response? "No problem. We've got to stimulate growth & jobs."
None of these corporations has insurance coverage that comes anywhere close to repairing the damage. But they don't have to because they know that our government will bail them out & pass the costs of clean-up onto the American
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
If you think this is so great, chew on this - http://www
Obama is letting BP continue its other drilling operations, including the Atlantis which is in as bad/worse shape as Deepwater Horizon, as well as giving BP the go-ahead with its plan to drill in the arctic. http://ala
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You don't understand how this is being structured.
BP isn't putting $20 billion in an escrow account today -- BP is PROMISING to put up $20 billion in portions over 4 years. Self-insurance, just like what it's done in the past. I'll explain:
While BP is the operator & principal developer of the oil field with 65% of interest. 25% is owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007 (a unit of Mitsui).
Anadarko maintains insurance policies designed to provide financial protection for such events, & estimates its coverage will likely total approximately $177.5 million, less $15 million deductible. Mitsui is believed to have a $45 million owner's extra expense policy. Transocean (the drilling contractor) is believed to have $560 million of physical damage insurance & some $950 million in third party liability insurance, of which $700 million excess of $50 million is thought to cover offshore risks. Cameron (manufacturer of the blowout preventer that failed on the rig) has a $500 million liability insurance policy.
And BP's insurance coverage?
About 3 years ago, BP decided that it was being taken for a ride, overcharged for insurance, so it decided "to go bare".
And what's our government's response? "No problem. We've got to stimulate growth & jobs."
None of these corporations has insurance coverage that comes anywhere close to repairing the damage. But they don't have to because they know that our government will bail them out & pass the costs of clean-up onto the American people.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I don't even know how to write a description, an intro to this -
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There's no way to drill offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate.
http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In 1995, Clinton signed the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act to encourage drilling offshore. It lowered the royalties that oil companies had to pay for the oil they got from drilling in the Gulf.
No amount of cheap oil is worth the damage caused by accidents.
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like re-regulating business, banking reform, public healthcare, DADT, etc.).
If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&R0ve were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&R0ve were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.
Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?
Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.
The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but that they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them in spite of their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama has the power & the ability to transform not only the region, but the woes of the entire country, by seizing this moment & delivering what he campaigned on: A new economy based on GREEN SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT.
Obama's let every opportunity to undo the damage that BushCheney & Republicans have done, everything from breaking up the banks & Wall St. to real job stimulus, go by the wayside.
Democratic politicians dream of moments like those we've experienced these past 18 months, to effect real change, to connect themselves to the People through their inner FDRs, but all that Obama's doing is channeling Herbert Hoover.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues, like public healthcare, DADT, etc.
If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&R0ve were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&R0ve were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.
Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?
Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.
The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but that they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them in spite of their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.
About Climate Bill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Of course Obama's attorney general Eric Holder is going ahead with an investigation. But that's where it'll end. There won't be any criminal charges brought by the Obama administration's Justice Department.
Holder investigated, but refuses to prosecute the CIA, Yoo, Bybee, or anyone for waterboarding, torture (or anyone at Goldman Sacks, or anywhere else for the financial meltdown). Instead this administration is continuing what Bush did: Going after government whistleblowers, detaining people with no evidence indefinitely and with no judicial review, letting BP's other drilling operations continue, including the very dangerous Atlantis and Liberty (BP is moving ahead with drilling in the arctic, with the blessing of the government http://ala
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
BOP's have a 50% failure rate! What a perfect reason to use two or three in line!
==========
That's not a solution. Because even if a BOP is in working condition when installed, it has to be constantly serviced and maintained, like weekly, at costs that the oil companies balk at.
You see, even if you were to put requirements in, regulations, about what the oil companies are required to do to decrease any chance of an accident, there are so many that it becomes cost prohibitive and the cost of a gallon of gas would be like a downpayment on a house. You couldn't employ enough government regulators and inspectors to oversee, to make sure that the oil companies were doing what they are obligated to do.
And even if you could, it's still not any guarantee of accident-free drilling.
And relief wells are not guaranteed to stop a well from gushing -- Last year's blowout at Montara required the drilling of FIVE relief wells before the gush was stopped.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In 1995, Clinton signed the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act to encourage drilling offshore. No amount of royalties are worth the damage caused by accidents.
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
There's no way to drill offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate. http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In 1995, Clinton signed the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act to encourage drilling offshore. No amount of royalties are worth the damage caused by accidents.
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
There's no way to drill offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate. http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In 1995, Clinton signed the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act to encourage drilling offshore. No amount of royalties are worth the damage caused by accidents.
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
There's no way to drill offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate. http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In 1995, Clinton signed the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act to encourage drilling offshore. No amount of royalties are worth the damage caused by accidents.
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
There's no way to drill offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate. http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama's Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone. An all time high. http://www
Salazar has always been for drilling and he helped open up the Gulf for drilling, including the lease bloc that BP drilled, WHEN HE WAS A SENATOR so he's always been for this and he went full speed ahead as soon as they got in office and then they pushed for more offshore drilling.
Do you know that Ken Salazar was a US Senator prior to becoming Obama's Secretary of the Interior? Do you know what his record was as senator?
As a senator, Salazar voted to end protections that limit offshore oil drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast. http://www
He also voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, a vote that the League of Conservation Voters notes is anti-environment. In the same year, Salazar voted against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major petroleum companies.
http://www
Salazar was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the United States Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Why are more & more Democratic & Independent voters saying that Obama's a corrupt fraud?
Obama didn't run on a campaign to keep the status quo. It's not like he didn't know that Bush&Cheney had planted all kinds of industry stooges throughout the government -- We all knew it. But no sooner had he been elected (even before, with his FISA flip-flop in June 2008) had he done a 180-degree turn on campaign pledges & has continued just about all of Bush's policies (and going Bush-Cheney one better when it comes to eroding Constitutional rights & protections). Obama put & keeps a fox (Ken Salazar) overseeing the MMS chicken house.
Obama hasn't shut down BP's other operations in US waters -- Atlantis is potentially a worse nightmare than Deepwater Horizon & is still operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP is moving ahead with drilling in the arctic, with the blessing of the government http://ala
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You're missing the point -- No amount of royalties are worth the damage caused by accidents.
That law was to encourage drilling offshore, "Don't worry about accidents or cleaning it up".
Both Democrats & Republicans allowed the issuance of permits to drill offshore, in ecologically sensitive areas, to potentially destroy Americans' food supplies & our source of oxygen (80% of the earth's oxygen comes from the oceans).
While the government required, by law, oil companies to file & put into place disaster plans in the event of a catastrophic failure, they knew that the oil companies' plans were bogus. There's no way that the government (Congress & presidential administrations) didn't know that all of the oil companies falsified disaster plans.
There's no way to drilling offshore safely. Not in any depth of water.
Ixtoc in 1979 & Montara in 2009 (both blowouts that gushed for months) were in shallow water. Relief wells are no guarantee, carry with them the same risks. Five relief wells had to be drilled before Montara's gushing could be stopped.
Blow Out Preventers (BOPs) have a 50% failure rate. http://www
ALL offshore drilling must stop, but Obama intends to continue offshore drilling, in both deep & shallow waters. Obama's 6-month moratorium & Commission is window-dressing, a phony show, an attempt to stall efforts to end the oil economy. The moratorium's end isn't dependent on any Commission report & the Commission has no time deadline.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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