Hill Heat

In a letter to BP America CEO Lamar McKay, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) are demanding that BP disclose its “spending on corporate advertising and marketing relating to the the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and relief, recovery, and restoration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.” Their request follows the efforts of Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to get answers about BP’s massive greenwashing campaign, which includes months of full-page advertisements in national and regional newspapers, radio spots, television commercials, and Internet ads. Outside estimates of the scope of the greenwashing campaign managed by BP’s public relations firm Mediashare are in the tens of millions of dollars, the Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson reports:

After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April, BP went on the air with television ads and bought a series of full-page ads in The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other papers to position itself as an imperfect but responsible corporation committed to the cleanup of the gulf. The company has spent $55.8 million on television and print advertising so far this year, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks ad spending.

According to Media Monitors, BP’s radio spots surged to 10,684 last week, with a particular focus on Florida stations. Since mid-July, BP’s internet ads have been running on political blogs, including Talking Points Memo, the Common Sense Media network of liberal sites from FireDogLake to AmericaBlog, and a host of conservative sites, including Eagle Interactive’s network with RedState and the Salem Web Network’s Townhall.com and Hot Air.

BP seems to be working harder to protect its brand than to help the people of the Gulf Coast, argued Alabama Attorney General Troy King. He has filed suit against BP because “while BP is spending millions on print ads and airtime, it’s not spending what it should on claims.” Fortunately, BP’s control of the claims process will finally end Monday, with the launch of Kenneth Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility.

From the Wonk Room.

The undersea cloud of “highly toxic” oil emanating from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster “is undoubtedly poisonous,” according to President Obama’s federal oceans chief. Marine scientist Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) director, described the threat posed by the “hidden” plumes of oil and dispersants diffusing into the Gulf of Mexico to its valuable ecosystem at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Tuesday. She told interviewer Andrea Mitchell that NOAA and independent scientists have identified “not a lake of black ooze” but a “cloud of very fine droplets spread over an area in the general vicinity of the well,” a prime spawning ground for bluefin tuna. This oil cloud “is undoubtedly poisonous” to the marine life in the Gulf:

As that oil, which is highly toxic, comes into contact with small larvae, with eggs, fish for example, or other creatures, it is undoubtedly poisonous to them.

Watch it:

“This truly is an environmental disaster but more a human tragedy,” Lubchenco said in her opening remarks. “Its impact is likely to be considerable,” she said of the oil hidden undersea, “but we don’t yet know what it will be.”

From the Wonk Room.

Johnnie Burton, the director of Bush’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) from 2002 to 2007, has no regrets about her tenure, saying in an interview that she found no problems within the agency, now disbanded in disgrace. Burton – at 70 now a case worker for Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) – defended her record to the Caspar, WY, Star-Tribune. Under Burton, the “mismanaged, unaccountable” agency was so corrupt that even pro-drilling Republicans like Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) bashed the agency. Burton responded with insouciant calm, telling the Star-Tribune “when I was there it seemed to work well”:

As for allegations of lax enforcement at the Minerals Management Service, grossly inadequate spill response plans and other regulatory shortfalls, Burton said that as MMS director she was unaware of those problems. “I can’t answer all these questions at this point because when I was there it seemed to work well,” Burton said.

The agency worked so “well” that investigators found evidence of “cronyism and cover-ups of management blunders; capitulation to oil companies in disputes about payments; plunging morale among auditors; and unreliable data-gathering that often makes it impossible to determine how much money companies actually owe.”

Burton was in charge during the development of the offshore drilling plan that expanded drilling to the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Her Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2007-2012 included 2008’s Lease Sale 206, in which BP purchased Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (MC252) for $34 million. MC252, also known as the Macondo Prospect, has been flooding the Gulf of Mexico with oil for months now. Burton’s plan dismissed the environmental threat of that sale, primarily because no huge disasters had taken place since the Ixtoc I blowout in 1979, as these excerpts show:

The analysis above shows that with regard to potential oil spill impacts, areas that contain wetlands and marshes such as the Central GOM are particularly sensitive. However, lessees have been producing oil and gas from the Central Gulf and other areas for over 50 years with a remarkable record of environmental safety. For more than 30 years, there have been no significant oil spills from platforms anywhere on the OCS. [p. 92]

No Environmental Justice impacts from accidental oil spills are expected because of the movement of oil and gas activities further away from coastal areas and, also, the demographic pattern of more affluent groups living in coastal areas. [p. 60]

The Central Gulf coastal area ranks second in marine primary productivity only to the Mid-Atlantic. The marine primary productivity of the Central Gulf does not appear to have been appreciably diminished by offshore exploration and production activities. The same is true of other areas of the OCS with existing operations and production. Thus, the size, location, and timing of lease sales in the PFP are consistent with the marine primary productivity of the areas in which lease sales will be held. [p. 95]

Overall, impacts on national parks, national wildlife refuges, national estuarine research reserves, and national estuary program sites due to routine operations are expected to be limited under the proposed action because these areas are restricted from development. Impacts from oil spills are unlikely because it is anticipated that 75 percent of the hydrocarbons developed, as a result of the 2007-2012 leasing program in the GOM area are expected to occur in deep water (>330 m) usually located far from the shoreline. [p. 57]

Any single large spill would likely affect only a small proportion of a given fish population within the GOM, and it is unlikely that fish resources would be permanently affected. [p. 57]

In areas with a large proportion of impact-sensitive industry, such as tourism, the potential incremental impacts of oil spills would likely result in a one-time seasonal decline in business activity. [p. 59]

Impacts of accidental releases to water quality would depend on the size of the spill, type of material or product spilled, and environmental factors at the time of the spill. However, there would be no long-term, widespread impairment of marine water quality. [p. 60]

The Sierra Club holds a conference call, beginning at 3:30 p.m., to discuss experiences touring the oil damage in the Gulf Coast with national religious leaders.

Speakers

• Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, founder of Interfaith Power and Light
• Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor at Providence Missionary Baptist Church
• Fr. Dan Krutz, Episcopal priest and director of Louisiana Interchurch Conference
• Rev. Jim Wallis, editor in chief of Sojourners Magazine
• Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
• Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell of the Progressive National Baptist Convention
• Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America
• Lynn Hybels, co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago
• Rev. Kris Peterson, pastor of Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church
• Rabbi Julie Schonfeld of the Rabbinicial Assembly
• Pastor Chris Seay, senior pastor of Ecclesia Church
• Susan Stephenson, executive director of Interfaith Power and Light

CONTACT: Orli Cotel, 415-977-5627, [email protected]

Call in, 888-228-9795; conference ID# code: 86171908. RSVP to [email protected]

07/07/2010 at 03:30PM

From the Wonk Room.

President Barack Obama told NBC’s Matt Lauer he would have fired BP CEO Tony Hayward for his dismissive comments about the foreign oil giant’s Gulf of Mexico disaster. After relating Hayward’s “very big ocean,” “very very modest” and “I’d like my life back” comments, Lauer asked, “He doesn’t work for you, but if he did, would you want him out?” Obama replied that Hayward would be out of a job:

He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.

Watch it:

Hayward’s dismissive comments are not unusual for BP management—Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, COO Doug Suttles, BP America President Lamar McKay, and Managing Director Bob Dudley have likewise minimized off the scale of the disaster and the devastation to the United States of America while overselling their failed attempts to stop the oil gusher, which may now be flowing at four million gallons a day.

According to National Incident Commander Thad Allen, Tony Hayward is still actively involved in the oil disaster response, discussing issues regularly with Allen. In addition to the failed efforts to stop the leaks, BP still controls claims processing, environmental contractors on land and sea, volunteer assistance, access to the disaster site, hotlines, and data collection.