BP limited to $75 million liability. Betcha that's still too much for Tony 'Va Fa Fongu' Scalia.

[Octafish]

Good news from Wall Street!



The New York Times reports federal law limits BP's liability to $75 million smackers.

Tax on Oil May Help Pay for Cleanup

By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
Published: May 1, 2010

WASHINGTON — The federal government has a large rainy day fund on hand to help mitigate the expanding damage on the Gulf Coast, generated by a tax on oil for use in cases like the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Up to $1 billion of the $1.6 billion reserve could be used to compensate for losses from the accident, as much as half of it for what is sometimes a major category of costs: damage to natural resources like fisheries and other wildlife habitats.

Under the law that established the reserve, called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for the damages that might be claimed by individuals, companies or the government, although they are responsible for the cost of containing and cleaning up the spill.

The fund was set up by Congress in 1986 but not financed until after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989. In exchange for the limits on liability, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 imposed a tax on oil companies, currently 8 cents for every barrel they produce in this country or import.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/us/02liability.html

Whew! For a moment there, I thought the rig's owners weren't going to get away with it and the Supreme Court would have to step in and rule that the U.S. taxpayers will have to pick up the tab or sumpin'.

In all seriousness: From 5 bill to 500 mill, Scalia and his crew reduced what Exxon had to pay out for the disaster in Alaska.

Ask Fongu Tony and his hoodlum chums on the Supreme Court who has more pull: The American taxpayer or Global Corporations?



Dat's an easy one: A no-brainer, dat!

[dkf]

1. Bailout funds and insurance contribute to irresponsibility.

It's weird that the very point of lawsuits which is supposed to make people more careful just leads to the moral hazard where there is no consequence for disasters because people have insurance.

[Octafish]

2. Tony and the Crew long-ago figured out that the taxpayers would pick up the tab.

Worked with the S&Ls.

Worked with the Great Bail Out of '08.

It's part of the natural order:

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

[Historic NY]

3. screw them....class action suit People vs BP

[Octafish]

7. What is that sound?

Lawyers working to ensure just compensation.

Lawyers flock to Gulf Coast for oil spill lawsuits

By CURT ANDERSON and THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writers
Sat May 1, 1:37 pm ET

MIAMI – Teams of lawyers from around the nation are mobilizing for a gargantuan legal battle over the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, filing multiple lawsuits in recent days that together could dwarf the half-billion dollars awarded in the Exxon Valdez disaster two decades ago.

If the oil slick fouls popular beaches, ruins fisheries and disrupts traffic on the Mississippi River, attorneys say there could be hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs from Texas to Florida seeking monetary damages from oil producer BP PLC and other companies that ran the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

At least 26 federal lawsuits have been filed since the spill by commercial fishermen, charter boat captains, resort management companies and individual property owners in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Many of the suits claim the disaster was caused when workers for oil services contractor Halliburton Inc. improperly capped a well — a process known as cementing. Halliburton denied that. Investigators are still looking into the cause.

Capt. Mike "Sandbar" Salley, who runs Sure Shot Charters out of Orange Beach, Ala., is one of many fishermen watching helplessly as customers cancel fishing excursions at the start of a busy summer season, in which he makes 80 percent of his income. Salley, 51, is a plaintiff in one of the potential class-action lawsuits seeking to recover damages from the operators of the sunken oil rig.

CONTINUED...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100501/ap_on_bi_ge/us_oil_spill_lawsuits

No amount of money has restored a ruined environment.

[harkadog]

4. That was a decision written by Souter

Hardy a member of Scalia's crew>

[Octafish]

9. Thank you. I did not know that.

Justice Souter certainly has his own views and has presented a more centrist perspective than his fellow ultraconservative justices.

While he may've slowed the rightward lurch of the court and supported abortion rights and separation of church and state, the guy was appointed by Poppy Bush.

[glitch]

11. If you know who wrote the decision you surely know who voted for it.

In this case absolutely a member of Scalia's crew.

[harkadog]

13. Written by someone who doesn't know how the SC works.

The internet is great for showing ignorance isn't it?

[Octafish]

14. True: 'The internet is great for showing ignorance isn't it?'

Something else that's true: I don't need a law degree to make clear I've been on to the Bush crime family for a lot longer than most.

BTW: BFEE stands for "Bush Family Evil Empire," a nickname for the connected few who seem to have hijacked American democracy in the service of the world's wealthiest individuals.

Henry Paulson, Banker to the BFEE

Know your BFEE: Cultkeepers

Know your BFEE: It wasn’t Obama who Looted the Treasury and Banks. It was Bush and his Cronies.

Know your BFEE: John McCain, Dim Knight Errant of the War Party

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

Know your BFEE: The Corrupt Bastards Club… with Lipstick

Know your BFEE: Olympic Games Show Who’s Best Friends Forever with Authoritarians and Dictators

Know your BFEE: 1984 Death of Outstanding Congressional Staffer Buried Poppy-Moon Relationship

Know your BFEE: Forget Rev. Wright! It’s Bush and His Cronies Who Owe an Apology for Rev. Moon!

Know your BFEE: GW Bush Covers Up His Lying America Into War

Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

Know your BFEE: Bush has Killed a Million Innocent People for Their Oil.

Know your BFEE: Scions of the Military Industrial Complex

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit.

Know your BFEE: America’s Ruling Gangster Class

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and "Conspiracy Theorists" at Ford Funeral

Know your BFEE: Robert Gates did more than keep the doors open at BCCI

Know your BFEE: The Fellowship ‘Preys’ for America

Sink the BFEE: Foley gives us Congress. Condi sends 'em to prison.

Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush

Know your BFEE: Neil Bush hangs out with Russian Mafiya Godfather

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

Know your BFEE: Lies Are the Currency of Their Realm

Know your BFEE: Cheney & Halliburton Sold Iran Nuke Technology

Know your BFEE: The Stench of Moussaoui Permeates the Octopus

Know your BFEE: Moussaoui Must Die for Bush and 'His' Government

Know your BFEE: Alito is just another word for Mussolini

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI

Know your BFEE: The China-Bush Axis

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Libby Is the First Big BFEE Turd to Go Down

Know your BFEE: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) made phony case for Iraq War

Know your BFEE: The Secret Government

Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Know your BFEE: Killer Businessmen who put Power and Profit before Country

Know your BFEE: Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam

Know your BFEE: Corrupt Craftsmen Hoover and Dulles

Know your BFEE: Poppy’s CIA Made Saddam Into the Butcher of Baghdad

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

Know your BFEE: R. James Woolsey, Turd of War

Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

Know your BFEE: Bush Lied America into War

Know your BFEE: James R Bath – Bush – bin Laden Link

Know your BFEE: War Profiteers

Know your BFEE: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Rev. Sun Myung Moon OWNS Poppy Bush

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

Know your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes

Know your BFEE: A Crime Line of Treason

Know your BFEE: How Smirko Got Rich

Know your BFEE: George W Bush did "community service" at Project P.U.L.L.

Know your BFEE: Vote Suppressor Supreme, the Turd Bill Rehnquist

Know your BFEE: George W Bush Knew 9-11 Was Coming and Did NOTHING!

Know your BFEE: Oliver North, Drug Dealer

Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incorporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist


These aren’t labeled “Know Your BFEE,” but they’re meant in the same spirit:

Poppy Bush Involved in JFK Assassination -- BFEE's Spooked!

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

BFEE Turd Daniel Pipes tied to DANISH CARTOONS

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

Plame Affair makes clear: USA is run by TRAITORS.

How Cheney Got His SNEER: The Curse of Dick Cheney

Know your BFEE: Dope Dealers & Money Launderers

BFEE Is More than Capable of Bombing Their Own Countrymen

Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping.


And for all my friends with those hard-to-reach areas between the ears:

A fact curiously missing from American history and any mention of the Warren Commission

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory


Note 1: The subject is a work in progress. The entries are not perfect, nor are they complete. They do provide a framework for a who's-who and what's-what and how we got here. Started for educational and historical purposes, these threads are meant to serve the public interest. What gives them a special quality are the contributions of DUers. May they also serve some prosecutor in the future.

Note 2: As no individual is totally evil or totally good, not all Bushes are evil or beholden to the BFEE. Nor are all those who gain by its existence members of the immediate or extended Bush family. Nor are the Bushes at the pinnacle of global power -- it is quite likely they serve an even wealthier class. What they all have in common is the use of the powers of the government of the United States for accumulating wealth and power for themselves, their associates and the other affiliated beneficiaries among the world's financial elite and authoritarian regimes. Always, they gain at the expense of the people and nations of the world, including the citizens of the United States and its Constitution.

I don't recall your observations on the subjects, harkadog. Does that mean you're ignorant?

[harkadog]

18. I wasn't responding to you. I was responding to another poster.

But to your point I freely admit I am ignorant on many subjects. When I know I am I try and remain silent and let others incriminate themselves.

[gordianot]

5. No good solutions in sight, it is a deep deep well.

This is mega-disaster that may transcend a solution of cash and technology, who knows there may not be pockets deep enough anywhere to get out of this one.

[Octafish]

10. Thank you for putting it in perspective.

This is a catastrophy unlike any other. Well, apart from Halliburton's involvement...

The process is tricky. A 2007 study by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that cementing was the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period.

So, money trumps life, too.

[Festivito]

6. I wish we could RICO da rica. Expire Halliburton's charter.

Empty all their coffers to clean every grain of sand.

[Octafish]

15. Here's the guy to ask: Jack Grynberg

Thanks for the suggestion, Festivito.

Jack Grynberg Battles On

FCPAblog
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 5:48PM

Jack Grynberg: "I have been pursuing fraud in the energy industry for the past 15 years."Colorado-based independent oilman Jack Grynberg filed a 311-page complaint in December with the European Commission. He's asking for an investigation into alleged bribery and tax evasion in Kazakhstan by several oil companies he once partnered with. His claims relate to oil and gas developments dating back to the early 1990s -- the same ones at the center of the U.S. prosecutions of James Giffen and Brian Williams. See our post James Giffen And America's Secrets.

Grynberg, 78, who speaks six languages including Russian, is alleging "wholesale bribery and corruption of top Kazakh government officials." He claims the corruption led to his company's loss of rights in the Greater Kashagan and Karachaganak Oil Fields -- estimated to hold more than 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

His complaint names BP plc, StatoilHydro A.S.A., Total S.A., Royal Dutch Shell plc, ENI S.p.A., ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Inpex.

In a release he sent to the FCPA Blog, he said:

My lawsuit in Brussels will attempt to open the window on this large scale bribery, tax evasion and corruption scheme, obtain subpoena power, and finally answer . . . questions which have remained unanswered for too long. It is unfortunate that the U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute the messengers, namely Mr. James H. Giffen and Mr. Brian J. Williams, instead of the main criminals and their (chief) executives. My hope is that the European Commission will take a more balanced and assertive approach.

CONTINUED...

http://fcpablog.squarespace.com/blog/tag/bp

Gee, what we can learn on the Internet. No thanks to Corporate McPravda.

[Union Yes]

8. Scalussolini. Fuck him and every American Fascist. knr nt

[Octafish]

16. My sentiments, exactly. A good man told me that bit of shocking news.

Can't blame the son for the sins of the father, I've also been told.



See everything with Hollerith punch-cards (1934)

[Union Yes]

19. Thanks for posting those links.

BM'd for future reference. Good info!

:fistbump:

[Soylent Brice]

12. K&R

[Rex]

17. Scarface loves to damage America, he is a truely evil bastard.

I hold nothing but contempt for Tony and his sidekick Thomas.

[inna]

20. what unimaginable assholes. the mind boggles.

[inna]

21. k