Sherry Chandler » SCOTUS Exxon decision
SCOTUS Exxon decision
A correspondent sent this link with the remark, “let’s open ANWR and more of our coastlines to the same stalwart oversight.”
Greg Palast, Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill:
Chicago Tribune (revised)
[Thursday, June 26, 2008] Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won’t have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon’s liability by 90% to half a billion. It’s so cheap, it’s like a permit to spill.
Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.
But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.
In San Diego, I met with Exxon’s US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, “Admit it; the oil spill’s the best thing to happen” to the Natives.
His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die.
And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.
Follow the link and read all of this post.
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Addendum: And then there’s this: Supreme Court Strikes Down ‘Millionaire’s Amendment’ :
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law meant to level the financial playing field when rich candidates pay for their own political campaigns.
The 5-to-4 decision, legal experts said, was significant for rejecting the rationale behind the law, known as the “millionaire’s amendment,” and for confirming the court’s continuing skepticism about the constitutionality of campaign finance regulations.
“Supporters of reasonable campaign finance regulation are now zero for three in the Roberts court,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “This is a signal of what is to come. What could easily fall following this case are the longstanding limits on corporate and union spending in federal elections.”
The law at issue in Thursday’s decision imposed special rules in races with candidates who finance their own campaigns. Those candidates are required to disclose more information, and their opponents are allowed to raise more money.
Five/four, five/four, five/four…
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4 Comments
1. koshembos replies at 28th June 2008, 3:03 pm :
The US has become, with substantial support of Democrats, a country for the rich, government by the rich and for the rich. The intellectually ridiculous supreme court is just the tip of the iceberg. In the Democratic primaries, the hedge funders and investment bankers have selected Obama, endowed him with money and then co opted the DNC to make sure that he wins. The poor were “expelled” from the party as punishment for not voting for the rich candidate. Now, both Republicans and Democrats are parties of the rich.
Are we really different or do we sadly resemble an African nation?
2. Max replies at 30th June 2008, 7:24 am :
March 24, 1989. I happened to have duty at Coast Guard Support Center Kodiak when the Exxon Valdez grounded on the rocks at Bligh Reef. Then we find out a drunken skipper (Hazelwood) was out of commission. The response teams weren’t prepared (didn’t train) so the gooey crude oil just kept leaking unimpeded. 11Million Gallons, into the pristine Alaskan waters.
A command center was set up on Kodiak Island, seems every one came to help clean up Alaska’s waters. Though highly paid, we all thought then that Exxon was going to pay the cleanup bill.
But wait, we taxpayers paid the bill. Really what should we expect, with big oil (like big tobacco) is so well entrenched in Washington.
But like the previous post reads, Money talks.
3. sherry replies at 30th June 2008, 12:51 pm :
Max! You were there? You saw it? You worked on the cleanup?
Money not only talks, it seems to keep us from ever being able to make real change for the better.
4. Max replies at 30th June 2008, 3:12 pm :
Actually I was general network installations/maintenance.
People were hired to clean up the shores, so there were people running up and down the shores in small motorboats picking up the goo and placing it in plastic bags. Lots of islands and shoreline to cover. Many were cleaning up birds, otters and other wildlife, don’t think many of those lived though. Cold crude is like sticking your hand in a bucket of tar and trying to wash it off; many of the animals were covered with it.
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