BP to defend spill as Obama pitches greener U.S.

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 6/15/10 | Ayesha Rascoe and Chris Baltimore

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON/HOUSTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will outline a plan to reduce the country's addiction to oil on Tuesday after U.S. lawmakers say BP's cost-cutting culture caused the worst spill in U.S. history.

A day after BP shares fell 9 percent in London and New York, U.S. lawmakers will ask its U.S. boss Lamar McKay why the company made repeated choices that appeared to favor cost savings over safety before its rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.

The accusations come as BP, a listed company which has lost about half it's market value since the spill began almost two months ago, was stripped of its AA debt rating by rating agency Fitch.

...

U.S. politicians have also been calling on BP to scrap its quarterly dividend to ensure it has enough money on hand to cover these costs.

BP shares were down 1.3 percent at 350.7 pence at 1246 GMT (8:46 a.m. EDT) on Tuesday.

McKay, the head of BP America, will be surrounded at the congressional hearings by executives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell seeking to stave off repercussions for the industry.

McKay's rivals are likely to hang him out to dry in a rush to prove their companies would never take such risks or face such failures as the spill that has poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

"This incident represents a dramatic departure from the industry norm in deepwater drilling," Exxon Mobil Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said in prepared testimony obtained by Reuters.

The April 20 explosion on an offshore rig killed 11 workers and ruptured BP's well. The spill has fouled 120 miles of U.S. coastline, imperiled multibillion-dollar fishing and tourism industries and killed birds, sea turtles and dolphins.

[NormsRevenge]

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Obama prepares to push this country even deeper into the economic morass

[Lucky9teen]

[massgopguy]

Does he intend to pre-empt the Celtics-Lakers game?

[NormsRevenge]

I believe crude oil is not addictive.

shades of the cigarette execs.

Oil company executives (L-R) ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, Chevron Chairman and CEO John Watson, ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO James Mulva, Shell Oil Company President Marvin Odum and BP America Inc President and Chairman Lamar McKay are sworn in before they testify on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico during a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 15, 2010. REUTERS/Molly Skipper

[norraad]

BP, your evil and you have no defense!

OB, STFU!

[Carling]

President Barack Obama will outline a plan to reduce the country's addiction to oil

Nice to see out objective media acting as an arbiter of truth...

Also, I like using oil, it's the cheapest and most effective way we have to fuel our economy. I don't need this moron Oilbama telling me how to live my life.

[norraad]

Our grandparents drove gasoline powered cars very similar to the ones our grandchildren will drive.

[goodnesswins]

Yeah....maybe we should start a FACEBOOK page....Can you live without OIL FOR ONE DAY? And, see how many dummies show up....

[yorkie01]

Find the enviromental wacko who forced drilling one mile down and you’ll solve the problem. It’s absolutely insane to crill that deeply and expect today’s technology to support the operation. America’s it’s time to take America back and send the wackos and PC crowd back into their closets to do what they do best. Let’s restore democracy for the majority of the people instead of protecting the fringe groups and their metastisizing message of anti-democratic hatred.

[Matchett-PI]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=244#244

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for that link!

Only took two months? wow.

That’s screaming for a mindless bureaucracy of agencies..

[ChiMark]

Zer0 has a plan for energy efficiency it’s called a depression.

Zer0’s neighborhood on Chicago’s wonderful South Side
is becoming green. Yes, weeds are overgrowing abandoned
buildings. Long gone are the businesses and small factories
and they are turning green going back to the earth.

If there were an incentive to invest no one would risk going into the South side. It’s a health issue. Being shot, stabbed or mugged is bad for one’s health.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

If we get much damned greener we'll be eating the grass!

There are millions of fresh graduates looking for jobs now, are they counting them as unemployed yet?

[gitmogrunt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion

[MrB]

By “greener”, he means “redder”.

[rurgan]

1.BP and other oil companies have been banned from drilling in shallow waters by the U.S. government. It was government who by banning oil drilling in shallow waters and only APPROVING oil drilling in shallow waters that caused BP to go drill in those deep waters ,miles beneath the surface of the Ocean. Yet the media blames BP for having to go drill in miles deep water which is ANOTHER WORLD as the water pressure is so immense.Can you do it,provide the oil the world needs, or do you want to stop driving your car and using your electricity? Can you or any government create a pen efficiently and compete in the free market against private companies? NO. No government is making any product we can hold in our hands. So you think government or you could make those oil drilling platforms to go get the oil miles deep beneath the Ocean surface and even miles deeper beneath the Ocean floor? Don't make me laugh.

2.Obama/U.S. government has banned oil drilling. This is GENOCIDE, TREASON, against the American people of Southeastern Louisiana (including New Orleans). This moratorium on drilling will cause oil companies to take their rigs else where. The jobs 150,000 jobs lost in this area are the economic engine that drives this area. How many children and people in Southern Louisiana will because of this action by Obama ? No one will know because the media is blocking out the economic devastation Obama’s moratorium will cause.

3. This banning of offshore drilling will hurt the U.S economy and world economy and make the U.S. more dependent on Muslim countries.

4. The Marxists/democrats especially the media and Obama are ecstatic this oil leak happened and are doing every thing they can to make look worse than it is and are not doing anything to better it. They do this because they hope to destroy capitalism or at least the oil industry which is the engine of the world economy and capitalism.

[rurgan]

1.BP and other oil companies have been banned from drilling in shallow waters by the U.S. government. It was government who by banning oil drilling in shallow waters and only APPROVING oil drilling in deep waters that caused BP to go drill in those deep waters ,miles beneath the surface of the Ocean.So the government is responsibble. Yet the media blames BP for having to go drill in miles deep water which is ANOTHER WORLD as the water pressure is so immense.Can you do it,provide the oil the world needs, or do you want to stop driving your car and using your electricity? Can you or any government create a pen efficiently and compete in the free market against private companies? NO. No government is making any product we can hold in our hands. So you think government or you could make those oil drilling platforms to go get the oil miles deep beneath the Ocean surface and even miles deeper beneath the Ocean floor? Don't make me laugh.

2.Obama/U.S. government has banned oil drilling. This is GENOCIDE, TREASON, against the American people of Southeastern Louisiana (including New Orleans). This moratorium on drilling will cause oil companies to take their rigs else where. The jobs 150,000 jobs lost in this area are the economic engine that drives this area. How many children and people in Southern Louisiana will because of this action by Obama ? No one will know because the media is blocking out the economic devastation Obama’s moratorium will cause.

3. This banning of offshore drilling will hurt the U.S economy and world economy and make the U.S. more dependent on Muslim countries.

4. The Marxists/democrats especially the media and Obama are ecstatic this oil leak happened and are doing every thing they can to make look worse than it is and are not doing anything to better it. They do this because they hope to destroy capitalism or at least the oil industry which is the engine of the world economy and capitalism.

[Bean Counter]

[rurgan]

To make one point clearer: In years past the government has been banning oil drilling practically everywhere , basically leaving BP and other oil companies only the deep waters off the Gulf to drill in. Then government approved every heavily regulated step in every deep drilling so it is Obama/government who is responsible not BP. Drilling miles Deep beneath the surface is going to another world. The world needs oil. That was the only place left for non-Muslim countries to drill in.