Posted on 06/16/2010 6:37:08 PM PDT by GlockThe Vote
Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool By: Timothy P. Carney Examiner Columnist June 9, 2010
In this May 30, 2010 file photo, BP PLC CEO Tony Hayward talks to reporters as he visits a Coast Guard command center in Venice, La. BP's inability to contain the worst oil spill in U.S. history has focused attention on CEO Tony Hayward's words and deeds over the past six weeks - and the scrutiny has not yielded a flattering image. (AP file photo)
As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post.
Kerry never got to have his photo op with BP chief executive Tony Hayward and other regulation-friendly corporate chieftains. Within days, Republican co-sponsor Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., repudiated the bill following a spat about immigration, and Democrats went back to the drawing board.
But the Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.
While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.
Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.
As Democrats fight to advance climate change policies, they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance efforts: posing as the scourges of the special interests and tarring “reform” opponents as the stooges of big business.
Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate.
There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.
In February, BP quit USCAP without giving much of a reason beyond saying the company could lobby more effectively on its own than in a coalition that is increasingly dominated by power companies. Theymade out particularly well in the House’s climate bill, while natural gas producers suffered.
But two months later, BP signed off on Kerry’s Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.
Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.
Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey—again, profiting BP.
Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.
BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. It employs the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director and confidant. Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton’s Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic congressman. Former Republican staffers, such as Reagan alumnus Ken Duberstein, also lobby for BP, but there’s no truth to Democratic portrayals of the oil company as an arm of the GOP.
Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.
Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.
Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's lobbying editor. His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-a-government-pet-BP-now-a-capitalist-tool-95942659.html
This article makes so much sense!
Podesta also runs the Center for American Progress, a left wing think tank that is said to have the most sway over the administration.
Now we know why Gorelick was hired, why BP is getting a free pass, why they supported the stim bill, etc.
PLEASE SEND THIS TO GLEN BECK!!!!!!
My conspiracy detector is pegging the meter.
Got foil?
Its not a CT when it is out in the open and true.
Everything makes perfect sense now to me. Beck has talked about the Podesta connection amongst the Apollo Alliance, Crap & Tax, the Stim Bill Etc.
Now we know they are working for both obama and BP at the same time!
Finally, please tell me why BP lobbied for the Stim Bill? What did they get out of that?
here we go and I bet the 20 million will travel in a circle..tax payers will get the bill for the leak plus lose all jobs. slavery is back...thats what this is..the same ones we voted into office have enslaved us.
Yup. The 20 Billion is probably not a pittance to what it should cost them, yet, I’’ bet their liability is capped at 20 billion now. You watch.
I agree 100%..and most of that will vanish like our tax dollars
Just wait, the 20 Billion might actually be the BP bail out. We will see how this unfolds but I suspect that the tax payers will foot this bill. Obama doesn’t have the authority to make this deal and is a circumvention of the legal process. Something smells about this deal.
Now, find the link to Lindsey Graham.
My conspiracy detector is pegging the meter.
###
More like karma than a conspiracy. BP pushed the global warming hoax and wasted money on “green” energy instead of paying attention to safely and efficiently extracting the oil and gas the world needs. Karma is a bit@#.
When did BP get the approval to drill this well? Was it after OBOZO HUSSEIN took Office? and How Much has BP contributed to OBOZO and the entire Demorat Partyand How Much has BP spent on their Massive Advertising Campaigns supporting OBOZO’S CAP and PLUNDER AMERICA AGENDA? Why wasn’t EXXON out drilling there when BP had a Horrific Violatios Record (790+ Major Violations) verses EXXON’s One Minor Violation in the same time period!!!! Stinks the High Heavens!!
The Podesta, Appollo Alliance, Stim Bill, Wall Street Bailout, Gorelick connection had me up late last night looking at all of this.
This really stinks and I believe is the tip of the ice berg of the corruption Beck has been exposing.
I’ll see what I can dig up.
Just guessing, but it could be that, in view of their less-than-impeccable safety record, they were "buying" some bureaucratic "look the other way" stuff on safety inspections.
I sent this article to everyone I know.
The 0bama administration thanks yu for doing their anti-capitalist bidding for them.
Exactly. bttt
I really hope Beck sees this article and puts his people on it. This to me could, should, and would be valid grounds for impeachment of this entire admn from the top down for incompetence, malfeasance, and conflicts of interest that are beyond the pale.
WSJ June 14, 2010, 10:26 AM ET bttt
WH Takes Cues from Liberal Think Tank on Spill
By Jonathan Weisman
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/06/14/wh-takes-cues-from-liberal-think-tank-on-spill/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fwashwire%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Washington+Wire%29
If you want to see where President Barack Obama’s response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster is heading, try following the urgings of the Center for American Progress.
The liberal think tank with close White House ties appears to have more influence on spill policy than the president’s in-house advisers. On May 4, for instance, the CAP’s energy and environment expert, Daniel Weiss, called on the president to name an independent commission to look at the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. On May 22, he did just that.
On May 21, CAP president, John Podesta, privately implored White House officials to name someone to be the public point person for the spill response. A week later, the White House announced that Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen would hold daily briefings on the spill, wherever he would be on any given day.
On May 26, Weiss said the White House needed to demand that BP immediately set up an escrow account with billions of dollars from which claims for Gulf state residents would be paid out.
Monday’s headlines proclaimed the president’s latest get-tough stand: BP needs to set up a billion-dollar escrow account. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575304650090670686.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
What’s next, Mr. Podesta?
237 posted on Monday, June 14, 2010 12:27:51 PM by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=237#237
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