Republican Congressman Apologizes to BP: He Is Ashamed of the Way BP Has Been treated

Tonington

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Quite so. Profit for its shareholders.

And the shareholders are also responsible for the behaviour of the corporation.

Quite so. Ownership implies responsibility.
 

ironsides

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BP is a private corporation and as such its first aim (rightly) is to make a buck, make profit. That is why left to itself, BP wouldn't have done much, done only the legally minimum required (in spite of what Republicans claim).

Obama was quite right to put pressure on BP about the trust fund. But all the Republican whining about the shakedown tells me one thing. If USA had a Republican president, it is highly unlikely he would have pressured BP to set up a trust fund. He would have taken his cue from Limbaugh and left it pretty much up to the discretion of BP as to what they wanted to do.

BP is a publicly traded company and is responsible to its shareholders. BP will be drained of every cent they have till that spill is cleaned up and Gulf is restored. Life will be brought back as close to normal as possible.
 

SirJosephPorter

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BP is a publicly traded company and is responsible to its shareholders. BP will be drained of every cent they have till that spill is cleaned up and Gulf is restored. Life will be brought back as close to normal as possible.

Perhaps. But it will take years before the coast recovers fully. This may be worse disaster than Katrina.
 

L Gilbert

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BP is a private corporation and as such its first aim (rightly) is to make a buck, make profit. That is why left to itself, BP wouldn't have done much, done only the legally minimum required (in spite of what Republicans claim).

Obama was quite right to put pressure on BP about the trust fund. But all the Republican whining about the shakedown tells me one thing. If USA had a Republican president, it is highly unlikely he would have pressured BP to set up a trust fund. He would have taken his cue from Limbaugh and left it pretty much up to the discretion of BP as to what they wanted to do.
Opinion. There are lots of opinions around. You have one thing right, though. It's pretty evident that profit is a higher concern than people.

CNN just made a presentation about BP scheming to low ball claimants who are seeking compensation for their losses. One guy proved he made $162,000 in income last year in his fishing business. BP only offered him $30,000 as compensation for his losses. That is less than 1/5th of his income. So where is the proof that BP is the good guy who is seeking to compensate claimants like the forum Republicans are saying?

Still waiting for their imaginary "proof".
That's SOP: minimize losses.

Perhaps. But it will take years before the coast recovers fully. This may be worse disaster than Katrina.
More like decades of recovery. And it is not even close to a maybe. It's undoubtedly worse than Katrina. N.O. can be rebuilt and repopulated. How does one rebuild a species? Gulf sperm whales are threatened, bluefin tuna are threatened, etc.
 

atwhatcost

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I am an American. (I'm on this board, because I like Canada, consider us truly "Most Favored Nation" status, not in the way politicians make that sound, but in reality, and some of my fondest memories are from the summer vacations on a tiny lake in Ontario that few, but the locals, know about.)

Contrary to popular beliefs, I applaud Barton. He said part of what needed to be said. The politicians running my country have become incredibly boorish, insulting, conviving, and, most embarassing, assume that they run the world, not merely the country.

I feel sorry for The CEO of BP, even if I don't consider him completely innocent either. Did you know the first thing they were going to do to stop that "leak" (leak seems like such a small word for what's happening), was to cap it like they did a couple of weeks ago? Do you know why they didn't? Obama's team saw a slight chance it could cause more problems. (There was also a slight chance that the atom bomb could have destroyed all the oxygen in the atmosphere, but apparently some chances are worth it?!) There was a chance it could make matters worse, so he asked (in a very strong tone) BP to use that as a last resort.

Something is very wrong when a foreign company, doing business in America and hiring 100s of 1000s of Americans, is told to hold off on the best option until last. It wouldn't have been "the best option," if it was some haphazard plan they pulled out of their hats that very day. It wasn't like they panicked, immediately had scuba divers dive down there and try to plug up the leak with anything they could get their hands on. This was a plan thought out for "worse-case-scenarios" and chosen as the best option, long before last spring.

Now, BP is demonized as the one to blame for all that went wrong, they are probably going to go bankrupt, tossing all those folks working for them throughout the world out of good paying jobs, and they cannot even mention what happened, because they are being threatened with legal action - big time, by the Attorney General of the USA. (Well, not yet. So far, it's only Obama deciding their fate.)

You have to understand something about the USA. We were never meant to be a socialist country, but we became one. Now, we are passing socialism at an alarming rate, and zipping right into communism. Am I exaggerating? Do you know any other forms of government that fired a CEO of major company, and replace him with a government agent? Do you know any other form of government that vilifies banks, after forcing them to do business in ways that guaranteed what has happened to my country in the last three years? Do you know any other form of government that vilifies business, in general? Do you know any other forms of government that enact laws that their people resoundingly demanding they not enact? Do you know any other form of government that tells opponents to "Shut up," implying there will be repercussions if they do talk? (And, I'm not referrring to that General. He should have been fired for that interview with "Rolling Stone.") Do you know any other leader, who would demand the entire world spend money like he is doing, to stop the recession? Do you know any other forms of government that would not work with the head of a company who just released an environmental disaster, to help clean it up? Actually, there is one other form of government that does these things, but I don't think the USA has become a dictatorship yet.

Another thing you probably don't know - did you know that no oil company considers inventions for cleaning up oil spills, because the United States government doesn't consider them? Personally, I think that is a silly business practice, however, the only reason Kevin Costner's family member sold that invention to separate oil from water, is because the US Government listened to his sale's pitch finally and checked it out. I believe business needs to use their common sense and work towards such things on their own, but since they won't someone ought to. If the US government had taken this approach 150 years ago, and kept up with it, such disasters wouldn't be disasters by now. Yes, BP is to blame for not persuing ways to clean up, when such things happen (and they're going to happen), but so is the American government for ignoring the same thing. If we need to point fingers, we'll need more than one finger.

Yes, I'm glad Barton spoke up. America is not the only nation in the world. Our opinions are no more valid or invalid as any other opinion, and I'm so incredibly embarassed Obama thinks he speaks for all of us. We need to apologize for what we've done to BP. We needed to help them immediately. We needed to work together immediately. We never needed to point the finger at BP. It isn't as if they don't know they are the cause of something terrible.

And, dangit, BP DOES need to set aside a whole heckuva lot of money to keep the people, they've destroyed with this mess, going. And, they need to get it moving faster. Giving a woman $300, after being unable to work for two months, doesn't cut it. Giving a businessman, with a payroll, $30,000 after two and a half months doesn't cut it. They probably will go bankrupt, but they owe these people what they have. They owe a clean-up. Had they been wise, they would have ignored the President of the United States and done what they should have immediately. Who knows how hurricane season is going to affect their efforts in capping the thing?

One other group of people to point the finger at - anyone who drives their cars. After all, if we had bothered to find ways to get energy apart from dangerous substances, this would rarely happen.

And make no mistake about this - it would have happened eventually, if we never used gas. Oil comes from deep in the ground and it only goes one way - up! They are measuring the amount of oil in the ocean constantly. There is always oil in with ocean water. The media is making the plume and the effect of the plume much worse than it is. (Not to be confused with "it's not all that bad." It's very bad!) It's hard to find the true story behind all the hype, all the finger pointing, all the condemnation, and all the double-speak. Still, if we're going to argue about it, it's best to know enough facts to argue with. Did you know - even after this has been going on since last April, it's still not the worse oil spoil? It has yet to get up into the top five worse. After all, it only becomes important, if it happens in America. (Another misconception of my fine country.)
 

Tonington

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Can you link to a source that clearly shows that BP was taking orders from Washington on how or rather how Washington wanted them to stop the flow of oil? That seems ludicrous to me.
 

SirJosephPorter

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If it recovers fully. That is by no means guaranteed.

They may not recover fully. Also, it remains to be seen what happens to the moratorium. I think the judge who struck it down was a moron, and very likely Appeals Court will reverse him.

However, if Appeals Court does not reverse him and drilling proceeds willy nilly without any safeguards, chances are that another similar disaster may happen. And if it does, all bets are off.

Incidentally, the same bunch of fools who want unrestricted drilling offshore will be the ones screaming the loudest, will blame Obama the most, if another disaster occurs as a result of the moratorium being declared invalid.
 

YukonJack

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I watched some of the hearings, and I came to the conclusion that I would rather see an honest opinion such as the one expressed by Congressman Barton, than the utterly phony grandstanding by Congressman Henry Waxman.
 

SirJosephPorter

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I watched some of the hearings, and I came to the conclusion that I would rather see an honest opinion such as the one expressed by Congressman Barton, than the utterly phony grandstanding by Congressman Henry Waxman.

I do hope Barton's opinion becomes the official Republican position and that Republicans decide to run on that position in November election. Blame Obama, not BP.
 

YukonJack

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"I do hope Barton's opinion becomes the official Republican position and that Republicans decide to run on that position in November election. Blame Obama, not BP."

SirJosephPorter, I am reasonably sure that Democrats in the United States and Obama acolytes there and everywhere else will find a way to blame everything on Bush and Cheney.

And for good measure they will add Sarah Palin.

Pathetic, but typical.
 

SirJosephPorter

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"I do hope Barton's opinion becomes the official Republican position and that Republicans decide to run on that position in November election. Blame Obama, not BP."

SirJosephPorter, I am reasonably sure that Democrats in the United States and Obama acolytes there and everywhere else will find a way to blame everything on Bush and Cheney.

And for good measure they will add Sarah Palin.

Pathetic, but typical.

No doubt what Barton said will become an issue in the November election. My hope would be that Democrats hold each and every Republican candidate accountable, demand to know if he/she agrees with Barton.
 

Tonington

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SirJosephPorter

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It already is worse than Katrina, the damage has been done even if they shut it off today.

And it is much worse than Exxon Valdes. That was a tanker, and hence finite amount of oil. Once all the oil from the tanker leaked into the ocean it would be over. Here it is a gushing well, the oil could keep gushing for years if not stopped.

Exxon Valdes took many years to recover, I expect this will take even longer.

There's quite a few Avro who've agreed in principle, that Obama was shaking BP down.

See this release: Republican Study Committee (RSC) - The Caucus of House Conservatives

That's a Republican committee with over 115 members.

And the weird part about all this? Bill O'Reilly actually took Obama's side on this when he had Rep. Michele Bachman on his show. She essentially was agreeing with Barton without the clumsy language that he used.

Whether it is supported by a few or a lot of Republicans, Democrats will probably will try to make issue of it in the election.