Author Topic: Mixing politicians and BP  (Read 3056 times)

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Offline AlanS

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Mixing politicians and BP
« on: April 11, 2011, 06:10:51 PM »
Can be expensive. Not content with stealing taxpayer money, they abuse BP. ::rockets::

http://www.klfy.com/Global/story.asp?S=14420169

Quote
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In the year since the Gulf oil spill, officials along the coast have gone on a spending spree with BP money, dropping tens of millions of dollars on gadgets, vehicles and gear - much of which had little to do with the cleanup, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oil giant opened its checkbook while the crisis was still unfolding last spring and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Gulf Coast communities with few strings attached.

In sleepy Ocean Springs, Miss., reserve police officers got Tasers. The sewer department in nearby Gulfport bought a $300,000 vacuum truck that never sucked up a drop of oil. Biloxi, Miss., bought a dozen SUVS. A parish president in Louisiana got herself a top-of-the-line iPad, her spokesman a $3,100 laptop. And a county in Florida spent $560,000 on rock concerts to promote its oil-free beaches.

In every case, communities said the new, more powerful equipment was needed to deal at least indirectly with the spill.

In many cases, though, the connection between the spill and the expenditures was remote, and lots of money wound up in cities and towns little touched by the goo that washed up on shore, the AP found in records requested from more than 150 communities and dozens of interviews.

Florida's tourism agency sent chunks of a $32 million BP grant as far away as Miami-Dade and Broward counties on the state's east coast, which never saw oil from the disaster.

Some officials also lavished campaign donors and others with lucrative contracts. A Florida county commissioner's girlfriend, for instance, opened up a public relations firm a few weeks after the spill and soon landed more than $14,000 of the tiny county's $236,000 cut of BP cash for a month's work.

The April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. As BP spent months trying to cap the well and contain the spill, cities and towns along the coast from Louisiana to Florida worried about the toll on their economies - primarily tourism and the fishing industry - as well as the environmental impact.

All told, BP PLC says it has paid state and local governments more than $754 million as of March 31, and has reimbursed the federal government for another $694 million.

BP set few conditions on how states could use the money, stating only that it should go to mitigate the effects of the spill. The contracts require states to provide the company with at least an annual report on how the money has been used, BP spokeswoman Hejdi Feick said. But it's unclear what consequences, if any, the states could face if they didn't comply.

Some of the money BP doled out to states and municipalities hasn't been spent yet, but the AP's review accounts for more than $550 million of it. More than $400 million went toward clear needs like corralling the oil, propping up tourism and covering overtime.

Much of the remaining chunk consists of equally justifiable expenses, but it's also riddled with millions of dollars' worth of contracts and purchases with no clear connection to the spill, the AP found.

William Walker, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, said it's clear now that communities bought more equipment than they wound up needing. But he doesn't regret handing out BP's money freely.

When oil from the ruptured Macondo well began to lap at Louisiana's marshes, BP deployed an army of workers to sop it up and hired contractors who specialize in disaster cleanup.

Even with BP and the federal government taking the lead, many communities weren't content to rely on equipment they had before the spill.

Lafourche (luh-FOOSH') Parish President Charlotte Randolph billed BP for an iPad, saying she needed it in addition to her parish-paid Blackberry to communicate with staff and other officials during the crisis. But she didn't buy the iPad until Aug. 26, a month and a half after the well was capped and several weeks after the federal government said much of the oil had been skimmed, burned off, dispersed or dissolved.

"Just because it wasn't streaming from the well any longer doesn't mean it wasn't approaching our shore," Randolph told the AP. "My work is very important. Perhaps one day you could follow me somewhere and learn what my work involves. I must be in contact at all times."

Lafourche Parish spokesman Brennan Matherne, who bought a new Dell laptop and accessories for $3,165, said working on the spill had worn out the computer he got just a year earlier for $2,700.

Biloxi, home to a strip of casinos overlooking the Mississippi Sound, bought 14 sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, two boats, two dump trucks and a backhoe loader with its $1.4 million share of BP grant money.

Mayor A.J. Holloway, who drove a city-owned 2006 GMC Yukon before the spill, now has one of the vehicles the city purchased with the BP grant - a black 2011 Chevy Tahoe 1500 LT that cost more than $35,000. The city's public works director and chief engineer also are driving SUVs bought with BP money.

Holloway declined to answer questions about his new vehicle. City spokesman Vincent Creel said the mayor has used it to travel to "countless meetings" about the spill and to gauge the city's response with his own eyes.

"The mayor also uses the vehicle in the normal course of his duties, just as other BP equipment is used in the course of day-to-day business," Creel wrote in an email.

Walker, the state official, said he didn't know about the mayor's use of the vehicle but doesn't object.

Some Mississippi communities took a conservative approach in using their share of the money. Bay St. Louis received $382,461 to buy safety vests, street barricades, radios and other gear, but decided against buying a vacuum truck or other expensive equipment. City Clerk David Kolf said local officials trusted BP's word it would handle all the cleanup, so they didn't see a need to buy a "bunch of new toys."

"They had a lot of heavy equipment already staged here," he said. "We don't have the training. We don't have the personnel."
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

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charlesoakwood

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Re: Mixing politicians and BP
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2011, 07:25:57 PM »

BP knew it would be cheaper to payoff Obama than to fight him.
The intent of all this money is to stop the lawsuits.  They know
it's cheaper to by off the locals than to have another court appointed Federal Paymaster.  This is the New America, Obama's America;
The third world.


Online Pandora

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Re: Mixing politicians and BP
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2011, 07:32:43 PM »

BP knew it would be cheaper to payoff Obama than to fight him.
The intent of all this money is to stop the lawsuits.  They know
it's cheaper to by off the locals than to have another court appointed Federal Paymaster.  This is the New America, Obama's America;
The third world.



Exactly.  And more wealth destruction.
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

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Offline Libertas

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Re: Mixing politicians and BP
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2011, 07:36:34 AM »
So we are at the point where caving into shakedowns by these criminal bastards is commonplace and accepted without fighting?!

 ::cussing:: suicide!  No, not suicide, homicide!  They are taking innocents to the depths with them, damn their souls!

We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline John Florida

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Re: Mixing politicians and BP
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2011, 07:43:16 AM »
The shame of it is that there are probably people(real people) that will probably be ignored cause the politicians are scamming money.
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Offline Libertas

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Re: Mixing politicians and BP
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2011, 09:21:10 AM »
The shame of it is that there are probably people(real people) that will probably be ignored cause the politicians are scamming money.

It's always like that, isn't it?  And nobody pays attention because most of these people are people of character, independent and look to help themselves first instead of bemoaning thier fate and crying for a freebie!
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline AlanS

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I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2012, 05:05:09 PM »
Since the media only wants to cover the lawsuits, I thought I'd enlighten my brethren (or Ya'll) about the results of the 'TERRIBLE TRAGEDY'.

It seems dey got some of dem oil eatin' bugs in da water down here. Who'd a thunk it? Mother Nature takin' care of herself? Wonder why the Lamestream media hadn't picked this up? ::thinking::

Here's da link.

Quote
A fortuitous combination of ravenous bacteria, ocean currents and local topography helped to rapidly purge the Gulf of Mexico of much of the oil and gas released in the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, researchers reported on Monday.

After spewing oil and gas for nearly three months, the BP PLC well was finally capped in mid-July 2010. Some 200,000 tons of methane gas and about 4.4 million barrels of petroleum spilled into the ocean. Given the enormity of the spill, many scientists predicted that a significant amount of the resulting chemical pollutants would likely persist in the region's waterways for years.


According to a new federally funded study published Monday by the National Academy of Sciences, those scientists were wrong. By the end of September 2010, the vast underwater plume of methane, plus other gases, had all but disappeared. By the end of October, a significant amount of the underwater offshore oil—a complex substance made from thousands of compounds—had vanished as well.

"There was a lot of doomsday talk," said microbiologist David Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But it turns out "the ocean harbors organisms that can handle a certain amount of input" in the form of oil and gas pollutants, he said.

A year ago, Dr. Valentine and other scientists published a paper describing how bacteria that feed on naturally occurring oil and gas leaks underwater had apparently devoured much of the toxic chemicals released in the BP spill. That federally funded study, published in the journal Science, triggered disbelief among other researchers who questioned whether microbes could gobble up that much gas and oil so quickly.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

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Online Pandora

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2012, 05:10:24 PM »
Quote
"There was a lot of doomsday talk" ...

Understatement.  Leftists were whinging that oceans all over the planet would be ruined, so much so that it got ridiculous and began to seem that's exactly what they wanted.

As for the oil-gobbling microbes, I read a while ago that they are present in the seas wherever oil seeps are natural.

 
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Offline Damn_Lucky

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2012, 05:23:58 PM »
Somebody call Rush he was right again. ::hysterical::
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves - Edward R. Murrow

charlesoakwood

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2012, 05:33:28 PM »

It's got to go somewhere.      ::burp::

Online Pandora

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2012, 05:38:22 PM »

It's got to go somewhere.      ::burp::


Well .... yah.  Hard enough getting the environazis to admit that oil is *gasp* organic; harder still to convince them that it will be dispersed as well by "organic" methods.
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Online IronDioPriest

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2012, 05:39:49 PM »
Sometimes I wonder if the Obama regime blew up the Deepwater Horizon rig in order to justify closing down oil drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. It gets into "truther" territory, so I don't allow myself to walk too far down that trail. But sometimes I do wonder.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

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Offline AlanS

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2012, 06:04:13 PM »
Sometimes I wonder if the Obama regime blew up the Deepwater Horizon rig in order to justify closing down oil drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. It gets into "truther" territory, so I don't allow myself to walk too far down that trail. But sometimes I do wonder.


As much as I'd like to encourage that type of thinking, no. It didn't happen that way.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

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Offline BigAlSouth

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2012, 05:27:58 AM »
Think BP will get their 200 Billion back from Obama?
The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living
are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
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Offline AlanS

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2012, 06:59:19 AM »
Think BP will get their 200 Billion back from Obama?

Check's in the mail.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

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Offline Libertas

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2012, 07:29:44 AM »
Think BP will get their 200 Billion back from Obama?

Check's in the mail.

 ::hysterical::

They could make up for it by running ad's saying "I told you the fears were overblown by Obama & the econuts"...but I doubt they got the stones for in-your-face retaliation...

Too bad, if anybody deserves in-your-face retaliation it is Obama & The Left!

 ::gaah::
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Online ToddF

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2012, 08:32:47 AM »
Think BP will get their 200 Billion back from Obama?

Companies put that kind of money aside as a cost of doing business in backwards ass, third world countries.

Offline AmericanPatriot

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Re: I know you've been wondering about the BP oil spill
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2012, 09:49:57 AM »
I don't know if it's still used, but 20 or so years ago, there was work on using bacteria to clean up contaminated soil.
It had pretty high hopes for the oil industry.

It was simple.
Pretty much scatter this dirt on the contaminated area and let the bugs go to work

Online Pandora

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Fmr BP Engineer, Kurt Mix, Seeks Acquittal After Guilty Verdict
« Reply #18 on: March 05, 2014, 11:24:14 PM »
This needs to be added to the BP spill thread, wherever it is ..........

http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2014/02/28/fmr-bp-engineer-kurt-mix-seeks-acquittal-after-guilty-verdict/

Read it and weep at the state of our "judicial system".

Kudos, an ATTABOY, and my thanks to the member that finds the damn thread and posts the link so I can merge ........

H/T MachiasPrivateer, commenter, Belmont Club
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Offline Libertas

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Re: Fmr BP Engineer, Kurt Mix, Seeks Acquittal After Guilty Verdict
« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2014, 07:11:14 AM »
Our oldest link on the subject appears to be this - http://itsaboutliberty.com/index.php?topic=958.msg10090#msg10090

There is another one here showing the "Doomsday" predictors aka shakedown artists were wrong once again - http://itsaboutliberty.com/index.php?topic=4456.msg49140#msg49140

We could merge this one and the above one into the first one, the dates appear like they would sequentially follow each other and look OK.

Oh, BTW, that judge and his wife should be tarred, feathered and run out of town.  How ANYBODY can expect fair treatment from someone with an axe to grind and looking for a winning lottery ticket is a moonbat fricken retard who has no clue how and why America was Founded as it was!

 ::gaah::
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.