Boehner: Government--i.e. Taxpayers--Should Help Pay For Oil Spill

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

Boehner's statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that".'

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BP Oil Leak May Last Until Christmas in Worst Case Scenario

BP Plc’s failure since April to plug a Gulf of Mexico oil leak have prompted forecasts the crude may continue gushing into December in what President Barack Obama has called the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP’s attempts so far to cap the well and plug the leak on the seabed a mile below the surface haven’t worked, while the start of the Atlantic hurricane season this week indicates storms in the Gulf may disrupt other efforts.

“The worst-case scenario is Christmas time,” Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said. “This process is teaching us to be skeptical of deadlines.”

Ending the year with a still-gushing well would mean about 4 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, based on the government’s current estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking a day. That would wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf, and along hundreds of miles of coastline, said Harry Roberts, a professor of Coastal Studies at Louisiana State University.

So much crude pouring into the ocean may alter the chemistry of the sea, with unforeseeable results, said Mak Saito, an Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

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BP Capping Information Flow on Oil Gusher Damage

British Petroleum, accountable for a devastating oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, is reportedly blocking efforts to expose the extent of damage caused by the environmental disaster.

The explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig has been sending a historic amount of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico over the past three weeks.

With at least 70,000 barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf per day, there are grave concerns that wildlife is faced with a serious threat.

BP rejected claims that the move sought to hide the extent of damage. The company argues that the censorship was only established to provide one reliable source for the public.'

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BP Oil Gusher Threatens 'Total Destruction'

The British Petroleum oil spill is threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with "total destruction," reports say.

An ominous report by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources warned of the impending disaster resulting from the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico, calling it the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history, the European Union Times reported.

Russian scientists believe BP is pumping millions of gallons of Corexit 9500, a chemical dispersal agent, under the Gulf of Mexico waters to hide the full extent of the leak, now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

Experts say Corexit 9500 is a solvent four times more toxic than oil.'

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BP Gulf Catastrophe Typifies Corporate Behavior in America

The Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, now in its 35th day, has struck land, coating tourist beaches, marshes and shorelines with a greasy black filth that metaphorically represents the corporate greed that now dominates the U.S. economy. We are all awash in the dark slime of corporations gone bad, and now we're paying the price for allowing these companies to dominate our media, our government and our entire economy.

You might think government regulators could have prevented all this, but that's hardly the case. This disaster isn't merely about a government regulation failure; it's about what happens when you let corporations rule Washington.'

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Oil Spill Nets $270m for Transocean

The firm that owns the leaking oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has made a $270 million profit from insurance payouts, despite having caused a massive ecological disaster.

Transocean, the company contracted by BP to drill the well, brought the story to light in a conference call on Monday.

Transocean took out a $560 million insurance policy on its Deepwater Horizon rig, which was greater than the value of the rig itself.'

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The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster

WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign -- more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP's liability for damage caused by what can be called a "mega-disaster."

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP's chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR's federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.

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Since Spill, Feds Have Given 27 Waivers to Oil Companies in Gulf

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama’s vow that his administration would launch a “relentless response effort” to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.'

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Is Gulf Oil Rig Disaster Far Worse Than We're Being Told?

Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. And Noel is not the only person questioning the scope of this disaster.

A recent story from the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reports that many independent scientists believe the leak is spewing far more than the 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, per day being reported by most media sources. They believe the leak could be discharging up to 25,000 barrels (more than one million gallons) of crude oil a day right now.'

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BP Cautions Against Bid to Stop Oil Leak

British Petroleum (BP) has cautioned that a containment dome designed to suck in the oil gushing out of its Gulf of Mexico well may not work as planned.

As the wrecked wellhead at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico continued to spew oil into the water for the 16th day, BP moved forward with a plan to cap the leak using the dome with hopes of containing the ecological disaster.'

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Oil Slickonomics

“At its current leak rate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day, the spill could surpass the size of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill by next week. If the leak cannot be contained, it could exceed the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska by mid June.” Paul Harrison, Environmental Defense Fund

Three scenarios lie ahead. They rank as bad, worse, and ugliest (the latter being catastrophic and unprecedented). There is no “good” here.'

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Levin: SWAT Team Response To Oil Spill Is Government Takeover Plot

Radio talk show host and former Reagan cabinet advisor Mark Levin has slammed President Obama’s bizarre announcement that he will be sending SWAT teams to deal with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, alleging that the response is part of a plan to grease the skids for government takeover and nationalization of the oil industry.

In a move that has shocked and dumbfounded political observers in equal measure, Obama said yesterday the “Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWAT teams to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs.” '

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Blair's Fight to Keep His Oil Cash Secret: Former PM's Deals Are Revealed as His Earnings Since 2007 Reach £20 Million

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq.
The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation.
Mr Blair - who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 - also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait.
In an unprecedented move, he persuaded the committee which vets the jobs of former ministers to keep details of both deals from the public for 20 months, claiming it was commercially sensitive. The deals emerged yesterday when the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments finally lost patience with Mr Blair and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details.'

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Hillary Clinton Slaps Britain in the Face Over the Falklands

The transcript of Hillary Clinton’s press conference in Buenos Aires with Argentine President Kristina Kirchner last night, has just been released by the State Department, and it is a real eye-opener. Her remarks represent an astonishing propaganda coup for the Peronist regime in its dispute with Britain over the Falklands, with Washington brazenly backing its position.'

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Haiti: From Shackles to a Wrecked Land

The country of Haiti was hit with an earthquake on a scale of seven on January 12, 2010.

However, being left in ruins is not only a by-product of a natural disaster, it lies within a history of imperialistic savagery and exploitation by the powerful – namely France and the US.

One can trace the beginnings to the independence of the country in 1802-1804, which came after a costly and brutal war.

The slave revolt led to the creation of a new state, a state which was only illusory in terms of actual sovereignty.

France did not leave without making sure the Haitians paid for their disobedience. “Nor could the infant US, a land of slave owners, cope with the idea of such a nation at its gates. There was only one solution: to forbid it to exist. The plan succeeded thanks to the cooperation of Haiti’s elite. They agreed in 1825 to pay France a gigantic sum to concede independence and indemnify themselves”.'

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Flashpoint in The Falklands: Argentine Anger as British Oil Rig Moves in Today and MoD Beefs up Forces

Hostilities between the UK and Argentina will reach boiling point today with the arrival of a British oil rig off the Falkland Islands.
Buenos Aires has threatened to take steps to prevent what it believes is 'illegal' drilling - including a blockade of ships.
But oil exploration firm Desire Petroleum confirmed that the huge drilling platform Ocean Guardian was due to enter the archipelago's waters in defiance of the Argentine government's warnings.'

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Argentina Takes Control of Falkland Waters Over Oil Rights After Row With Britain

Argentina has taken control of the waters around the Falkland Islands in an escalation of its row with Britain over the disputed territory.

The move would effectively grant it the power to blockade the British-ruled archipelago.

It comes as relations between the two countries hit a new low earlier this month following the recent discovery of oil reserves buried in the Falklands seabed.'

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The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.'

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Yemen. Strategically Correct -The Whole Story

Tony Blair’s £1m-a-year Paymaster Seeks Giant Iraqi Oil Deal

A Middle Eastern investment fund that pays Tony Blair about £1m a year as an international adviser is in talks to develop one of Iraq’s biggest oilfields.

Mubadala, a United Arab Emirates investment firm, is in negotiations to join a consortium of western oil companies developing the Zubair oilfield in southern Iraq. More than £6 billion of investment is required for the project.

Blair has always insisted that the Iraq conflict was never linked to the country’s vast oil reserves, but he was facing criticism this weekend over his role with Mubadala. The investment firm, which receives 80% of its revenues from oil and gas, intends to build the biggest oil company in the eastern hemisphere.

Blair was accused of supporting the interests of the western oil companies with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, but dismissed the allegations as a conspiracy theory. He proposed that oil revenues should be placed in a United Nations-administered fund for the benefit of the Iraqi people.'

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