OIL Spill Buy OFF Attempts

BP And Halliburton Build Legal Teams, Attempt To Buy Off Government Officials

Saturday 05 June 2010

by: Alex Seitz-Wald  |  ThinkProgress

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: alexanderljung, tsand)

Facing possible jail time for their roles in the largest oil spill in American history, BP and Halliburton are building high-powered legal teams with "deep Department of Justice and White House ties." But the companies are pursuing other means to defend themselves as well.

Halliburton's campaign donations have spiked as it tries to curry favor with key members of Congress investigating the disaster. The company donated $17,000 in May, making it "the busiest donation month for Halliburton's PAC since September 2008," Politico reports. Thirteen of the 14 contributions from May went to Republicans, while seven went to members of Congress who are "on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath":

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce's investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton's reelection effort. It was Halliburton's second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate.

In the Senate, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, who serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, who serves on the Commerce Committee and North Carolina Republican Richard Burr (N.C.), who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, all got $1,000. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also got $1,000.

Meanwhile, a Hill analysis found that primarily during the Bush administration, BP and other oil companies "paid for dozens of trips and meals for officials" from the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Homeland Security — agencies deeply involved in the regulation of oil exploration and spill cleanup. BP had the "highest tab for gifts to government officials" of all oil and gas companies:

BP and its affiliates — BP America and BP Exploration — show up in the gift reports at least 16 different times, paying for meals as well as for oil and gas industry seminars and tours of oil facilities. The cost of the gifts totaled more than $7,200.

Only two industry-funded trips took place during the first nine months of President Obama's administration. In 2004, BP paid for a group of Interior officials to visit an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The group included then-deputy secretary J. Steven Griles, who later went to prison for his role in Jack Abramoff scandal. In 2005, BP paid for travel and meals for then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Johnnie Burton to attended the dedication ceremony of another offshore rig in the Gulf. BP also paid for officials from the EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service to visit Prudhoe Bay, Alaska over a period of several years. A recent Interior Inspector General report covering 2005 to 2007 found a "culture of lax oversight and cozy ties to industry." Since January of 2008, BP lobbyists have spent $30 million to influence legislation, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some coastal governors have benefited from BP as well. BP and other oil companies gave Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) $1.8 million dollars for his campaign, and since the spill, he's been aggressively downplaying the disaster and encouraging people to visit his state's oily beaches. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) traveled to a BP-funded conference in Houston last month "to lobby aggressively to drill for oil and natural gas without delay." Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) dismissed potential BP negligence by calling the spill an "act of God" at a trade association funded by BP in May.

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OIL and Judge Ties

AP IMPACT: Many Gulf federal judges have oil "INDUSTRY" links

AP – An oil slick moves toward the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., Saturday, June 5, 2010. Oil from the Deepwater …

• Slideshow:Gulf Coast Oil Spill

MIAMI – More than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases, an Associated Press analysis of judicial financial disclosure reports shows.

Thirty-seven of the 64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have links to oil, gas and related energy industries, including some who own stocks or bonds in BP PLC, Halliburton or Transocean — and others who regularly list receiving royalties from oil and gas production wells, according to the reports judges must file each year. The AP reviewed 2008 disclosure forms, the most recent available.

Those three companies are named as defendants in virtually all of the 150-plus lawsuits seeking damages, mainly for economic losses in the fishing, seafood, tourism and related industries, that have been filed over the growing oil spill since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Attorneys for the companies and those suing them are pushing for consolidation of the cases in one court, with BP recommending Texas and others advocating for Louisiana and other states.

Click image to see oil spill damage photos

AP

A Washington-based federal judicial panel is scheduled to meet next month to decide whether to consolidate the cases and, if so, which judge should be assigned the monumental task. The job would include such key pretrial decisions as certifying a large class of plaintiffs to seek damages, a potential multibillion-dollar settlement, whether to dismiss the cases and what documents BP and the other companies might be forced to produce in court.

The AP review of disclosure statements shows the oil and gas industry's roots run as deep in the Gulf Coast's judiciary as they do in the region's economy. For example, one federal judge in Texas is a member of Houston's Petroleum Club, an "exclusive, handsome club of, and for, men of the oil industry."

Federal judicial rules require judges to disqualify themselves from hearing cases involving a company in which they have a direct financial interest, and some Louisiana judges have already done so. For example, U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon in New Orleans, who reported ownership of BP stock, issued an order in early May that the court clerk not allot cases involving BP or related entities to her docket.

Another New Orleans jurist, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, said in court Friday he is selling his oil and gas investments — which included Transocean and Halliburton — to avoid any perception of a conflict. Barbier is presiding over about 20 spill-related lawsuits and some attorneys are recommending that he be chosen to oversee all cases filed nationally.

Still another judge in Louisiana, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, recused himself because his attorney son-in-law is representing several people and businesses filing suits against BP and the other companies over the rig explosion.

In many ways, the financial conflict rules are murky. For example, a judge does not have to step aside if the investments are part of a mutual fund over which they have no management control. Mere ties to companies or entities in the same industry, no matter how extensive, also don't require disqualification, according to legal experts.

"The specific rule forbids judges from hearing a case in which they have a financial interest. The more general rule forbids them from hearing cases in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned," said Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor who has closely studied judicial ethics.

So a judge like U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval of New Orleans would not have to disqualify himself even though he reported royalties from "mineral interest No. 1 and No. 2" in Terrebonne Parish, La., on his 2008 forms. Likewise for Senior U.S. District Judge William Barbour Jr. of Mississippi, who listed at least 30 oil and gas interests in three states including "McGowan Working Partners" and "Petro-Hunt Bovina Field," both in Mississippi.

Some judges have close ties to the energy industry that aren't for financial gain, but could still raise questions of potential bias.

The judge BP wants to hear all of the spill-related cases, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston, for the past two years has been a "distinguished lecturer" focusing on ethical issues for the 35,000-member American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Hughes is not paid a fee but does receive reimbursements for travel, food and lodging, said association spokesman Larry Nation. Hughes has appeared at petroleum geologist meetings in several Texas cities, in New Orleans and also in Cape Town, South Africa. He is scheduled to give a lecture later this month in Calgary, Canada, the oil and gas capital of that country.

"Under the circumstances, I can see why the questions are being raised," Nation said. "But one of the reasons Judge Hughes was chosen to be a lecturer is that he is known as a very ethical person. I would think his being an ethics lecturer for our organization would be a positive, not a negative."

Hughes said at a hearing Friday that his work for the geologists poses no conflict and that his other oil and gas investments — which include royalties from several mineral rights interests — are not connected to BP or the other companies involved in the spill lawsuits.

Florida attorney Scott Weinstein, whose firm represents charter captains and other companies suffering economic loss from the spill — including the owners of the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in Key West — said people might think it's unfair for BP to win its wish with a Texas judge rather than one seated in Louisiana or Florida, where the spill's impacts are greater.

"I would never assume that a judge is biased because of the jurisdiction that he or she sits in," Weinstein said. Still, "if this case winds up in Houston, many of the victims will feel very distant from where that justice is being handed out. It will not make sense to them."

Another Florida plaintiffs' attorney, Stuart Smith, was more blunt about the companies' aims.

"They would get much more sympathetic judges and perhaps a more sympathetic jury," Smith said.

In court papers, BP says that Hughes has the "experience and capacity" to handle the lawsuits and that Houston is the ideal location because most of the defendants' companies have headquarters or major operations there. BP spokesman have repeatedly declined to comment on pending lawsuits.

Some attorneys have come up with an unusual assertion: import a New York federal judge with a strong background in environmental lawsuits to Louisiana to preside over the cases.

They are recommending that the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation appoint U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin. Scheindlin presided over settlement of some 200 lawsuits brought against BP and other oil companies over a toxic additive called MTBE that contaminated drinking supplies nationally — and she has no oil and gas investments, according to her financial disclosure forms.

Attorneys with the Weitz & Luxenberg firm in New York said they recommended Scheindlin rather than a Louisiana judge because "most or all of the judges in the (Louisiana) district have a conflict and cannot preside" over the consolidated cases.

Scheindlin's deputy said Friday she was out of town and unavailable to comment on whether she would accept such an appointment.

The judicial panel meets July 29 in Boise, Idaho, to hear arguments on consolidation of the oil spill cases. Recommendations also have been made for sending the cases to Alabama, Mississippi and South Florida.

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OIL Spew ON

Containment cap offers hope

"YET" oil spews on

AP – Workers remove oil that has washed ashore from the Deepwater Horizon spill, Sunday, June 6, 2010 in Grand …

• Slideshow:Gulf Coast Oil Spill
• Play Video Barack Obama Video:Gulf Crisis Shaking Media's Faith in Obama? FOX News

Related Quotes

Symbol	Price	Change
BP	37.16	-2.11
^GSPC	1,064.88	-37.95
^IXIC	2,219.17	-83.86

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – A device that's now sucking up significant amounts of the oil spewing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico offered a measure of optimism Sunday even as the government's point man on the spill warned problems would persist for months.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the spill, which is ravaging beaches and wildlife, will not be contained until the leak is fully plugged and that even afterward "there will be oil out there for months to come."

The disaster, which began with an oil rig explosion in mid-April, will persist "well into the fall," Allen said.

A containment cap placed on the gusher near the sea floor trapped about 441,000 gallons of oil Saturday, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said, up from around 250,000 gallons of oil Friday. It's not clear how much is still escaping; an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is believed to be leaking daily.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward told the BBC on Sunday that he believed the cap was likely to capture "the majority, probably the vast majority" of the oil gushing from the well. The gradual increase in the amount being captured is deliberate, in an effort to prevent water from getting inside and forming a frozen slush that foiled a previous containment attempt.

The next step is for BP engineers to attempt to close vents on the cap that allow streams of oil to escape and prevent that water intake, and Hayward told the BBC that the company hopes a second containment system will be in place by next weekend. Allen told CBS that the oil would stop flowing only when the leak was plugged with cement.

Hawyard, who has faced criticism over his company's response to the spill, told the BBC that he wouldn't step down and that he had the "absolute intention of seeing this through to the end."

"We're going to clean up the oil, we're going to remediate any environmental damage and we are going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event," he told the BBC.

Allen took issue on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday with BP officials who said they were pleased with results of the latest effort. He said progress was being made, "but I don't think anybody should be pleased as long as there is oil in the water."

He said on "Fox News Sunday" that he doesn't "want to create any undue encouragement" and that "we need to underpromise and overdeliver."

While BP plans to eventually use an additional set of hoses and pipes to increase the amount of oil being trapped, the ultimate solution remains a relief well that should be finished by August.

The urgency of that task was apparent along the Gulf Coast nearly seven weeks after the BP rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and rupturing the wellhead a mile below the surface. Since then, millions of gallons of oil have been rising to the surface and spreading out across the sea.

The oil is coating and miring waterfowl in the sticky mess, and dead birds and dolphins are washing ashore. Scientists say the wildlife death toll remains relatively modest, though, because the Deepwater Horizon rig was 50 miles off the coast and most of the oil has stayed in the open sea.

The oil has steadily spread east, washing up in greater quantities in recent days. Small tar balls have washed up as far east as Fort Walton Beach, about a third of the way across the Florida Panhandle. Government officials estimate that roughly 23 million to 49 million gallons have leaked into the Gulf.

A line of oil mixed with seaweed stretched all across the beach Sunday morning in Gulf Shores, Ala. The oil was often hidden beneath the washed-up plants. At a cleaning station outside a huge condominium tower, Leon Baum scrubbed oil off his feet with Dawn dishwashing detergent.

Baum had driven with his children and grandchildren from Bebee, Ark., for their annual vacation on Alabama's coast. They had contemplated leaving because of the oil, but they've already spent hundreds of dollars on their getaway.

"After you drive all this way, you stay," Baum said.

At Pensacola Beach, Buck Langston and his family took to collecting globs of tar instead of sea shells on Sunday morning. They used improvised chopsticks to pick up the balls and drop them into plastic containers. Ultimately, the hoped to help clean it all up, Langston said.

"Yesterday it wasn't like this, this heavy," Langston said. "I don't know why cleanup crews aren't out here."

With no oil response workers on Louisiana's Queen Bess Island, Plaquemines Parish coastal zone management director P.J. Hahn decided he could wait no longer, pulling an exhausted brown pelican from the oil, slime dripping from its wings.

"We're in the sixth week, you'd think there would be a flotilla of people out here," Hahn said. "As you can see, we're so far behind the curve in this thing."

At the mouth of Alabama's Mobile Bay, hundreds of seagulls squawked on a beach dotted with countless small tar balls but not a cleanup crew in sight.

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Oil spill siphoning picks up speed,  Yet-Still Oil Escapes!

Reuters – BP CEO Tony Hayward tours the recovery operations aboard the Discover Enterprise drill ship in the Gulf …

• Slideshow:Gulf Coast Oil Spill
• Play Video Barack Obama Video:Gulf Crisis Shaking Media's Faith in Obama? FOX News
• Play Video Barack Obama Video:Obama Nominates New Spy Chief FOX News

By Anna Driver and Michael Peltier Anna Driver And Michael Peltier – Sat Jun 5, 5:53 pm ET

VENICE, La/PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla (Reuters) – The latest effort to siphon oil and gas gushing from a ruptured deep-sea wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico is working well so far, U.S. officials said on Saturday, as President Barack Obama defended his handling of the environmental crisis.

British energy giant BP Plc said it collected 6,077 barrels (255,000 gallons/966,000 liters) of oil per day from the well on Friday, and that "improvement in oil collection is expected over the next several days."

After soiling wetland wildlife refuges in Louisiana and barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama, the black tide of pollution has reached some of the famous white beaches of Florida.

The toll of dead and injured birds and marine animals, including sea turtles and dolphins, is also climbing.

But 47 days into the crisis and after several unsuccessful attempts at containment by BP, a partial solution finally appears at hand.

The containment cap that BP clamped over the leak earlier this week was siphoning oil to a waiting drill-ship at a faster rate than initially estimated, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said at a briefing in Theodore, Alabama.

Bob Fryar, senior vice president with BP, later told a meeting of local mayors in Alabama that the latest undersea containment effort had gone "extremely well" so far.

Click image to see oil spill damage photos

AP

The collection rate is still only about one-third of one day's flow from the oil geyser, which has been estimated by the government at about 19,000 barrels (800,000 gallons/3 million liters) per day.

But it could mark a turning point in the drama that has riveted the world and forced the Obama administration to reconsider plans to expand offshore oil drilling, which was seen as way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Allen said the full capacity of BP's containment device was about 15,000 bpd, the "upper limit" of the current leak control effort. BP does not expect to fully halt the oil flow until August, when two relief wells are due to be completed.

He said that winds continue to push parts of the vast oil slick closer to the coastline across a wide area -- roughly from the Mississippi-Alabama border to Port St. Joe in the Florida Panhandle, or more than 200 miles.

Florida's fishermen got a glimmer of good news late on Friday when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reopened about 16,000 square miles (41,400 sq km) that had been closed to fishing on June 2 as a precaution.

Still, fully one-third of Gulf federal waters, or 78,603 square miles (203,582 sq km), remains closed to fishing in waters off four states. The U.S. shrimp and oyster supply, in particular, is heavily concentrated in the Gulf.

OBAMA'S TEST

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Obama defended his administration against charges it had not moved aggressively enough in its response to the worst oil spill in U.S. history, which followed an April 20 rig blast that killed 11 workers.

Obama, who made a third trip to the Gulf coast on Friday, said he has put in place the largest response to an environmental disaster in U.S. history. The government had been "mobilized on every front," he said.

Meanwhile, BP said it had no specific pre-allocated budget to pay damages claims resulting from the spill, but will pay all those "hurt, harmed or damaged" until all legitimate claims are satisfied,

"We will make these payments for as long as it takes ...There is no budget, we'll do this until it's finished," BP America Vice President of Resources Darryl Willis said in a conference call from Orange Beach, Alabama.

The company faces a U.S. criminal probe, several lawsuits, dwindling investor confidence and growing questions about its credit-worthiness. Its share price has been stripped of about one-third of its value since the crisis began.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward has insisted the company had plenty of money to meet its obligations, including $5 billion in cash and additional credit lines it could tap.

The company has said it had already spent $1 billion on the disaster.

It is preparing to send a second advance payment to individuals and businesses along the Gulf Coast to compensate for the loss of income as a result of the spill. About 14,000 individuals and businesses will have received about $84 million once the second payment is processed.

The company delayed a decision on Friday to suspend its quarterly dividend payments, as some U.S. politicians have demanded.

Video courtesy of ABC News. For more visit ABC News.com

SUNSHINE STATE TARRED

The far-flung but fragmented oil slick appeared to make its first landfall in Florida on Friday as tar balls and an oily sheen washed up on Pensacola Beach on the Panhandle.

Tar ball sightings were fewer on Saturday, but residents and environmental officials were still uneasy.

"BP can't stop it, I don't think the Navy or the military can stop it," said local businessman Michael Penzone. "If we can get people to come out and start praying, maybe something good can come out of this."

Local officials are bracing for more impact from the spill on Florida's $60 billion-a-year tourism industry.

Protesters planned an anti-BP rally for Sunday at a BP gas station in downtown Pensacola -- although such grass-roots actions are mostly seen as damaging to small business owners who run the stations.

In Orange Beach on Alabama's Gulf shore, BP's Fryar faced anger from local mayors about what was termed the company's sluggish response to oil clean-up on local beaches.

"We just climbed out of a hole, from two hurricanes and two years of recession. This was going to be a banner year, and BP killed it," said Tony Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach, just west of the Florida border.

WILDLIFE IMPACT GROWS

Latest figures from the U.S. government on Friday showed 527 birds across the Gulf Coast have been collected dead over a 45-day period, although not all showed signs of oil.

Tom Bancroft, chief scientist for the National Audubon Society, said the government's numbers tell only part of the story. "Some (birds) just sink under the water and will never be counted," he said.

Of particular concern, Bancroft said, are threatened shore birds that breed on Gulf Coast beaches. The spill could also be "a really bad setback" for the brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird, which was only removed from the endangered species list in 2009.

NOAA also reported many heavily oiled sea turtles in the spill zone. The turtles are being caught, cleaned and transported to an Audubon Aquarium outside New Orleans for further care. Dozens of dead dolphins have also been stranded within the spill area since late April.

(Additional reporting by Chris Baltimore in Houston, Pascal Fletcher in Miami, Jeff Mason in Kenner, La., Kelli Dugan in

Orange Beach, Alabama, Sarah Irwin in Buras, Louisiana, and Jane Ross in Pensacola; Writing by Ros Krasny; Editing by Philip Barbara and Paul Simao)

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