Top McCain Fundraiser Lobbying Bush Admin To Help ‘Quash’ Toxic-Dumping Case For Chevron
Top McCain Fundraiser Lobbying Bush Admin To Help ‘Quash’ Toxic-Dumping Case For Chevron
In 1993, a class action lawsuit on behalf of an estimated 30,000 Amazon residents was filed against oil giant Chevron, who at the time had recently purchased Texaco. The lawsuit alleged that Chevron was responsible for Texaco intentionally dumping “more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters” and “16.8 million gallons of crude oil” into Ecuador’s environment.
This past spring, a court-appointed expert recommended that “Chevron be required to pay between $8 billion and $16 billion to clean up the rain forest.” Finally having “to disclose the issue to its shareholders,” Chevron has launched “an unusually high-powered battle” to convince the Bush administration to pressure Ecuador to “quash the case.”
Chevron’s lobbying offensive is being led by former senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, along with Wayne Berman, a top fundraiser for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):
Chevron is pushing the Bush administration to take the extraordinary step of yanking special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country’s leftist government doesn’t quash the case. A spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab confirmed that her office is considering the request. Attorney Steven Donziger, who is coordinating the D.C. opposition to Chevron, says the firm is “trying to get the country to cry uncle.” He adds: “It’s the crudest form of power politics.”
Chevron’s powerhouse team includes former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, former Democratic senator John Breaux and Wayne Berman, a top fund-raiser for John McCain—all with access to Washington’s top decision makers.
So far, Chevron’s power push has resulted in “a senior Chevron exec” meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte “on the matter.” “One Chevron lobbyist” told Newsweek that the company’s argument to the Bush administration is: “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”
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I take it that all star list of lobbyists had something to do with Bush allowing Chevron money to continue to flow to the Burmese junta.
http://arisfreedomswitch.blogspot.com/2008/07/chevron-money-still-flowing-to-burmese.html
Recall Bush spotlighted his Freedom Agenda this week. Apparently that’s pur economic freedom.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080724-6.html
July 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pmI bet they say,
“If you don’t like it, move.”
Compassion!
July 26th, 2008 at 6:15 pm“‘We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this…’”
This is beyond even my supply of sarcasm. I will just put my faith in the typical lethargy of bureauracy and hope nothing happens until after January 20, 2008. Then we can all smile when we hear the response from Washington, DC: Not only NO but Hell, NO! It will be clearly stated that after eight years the policy is now “We can’t let big companies screw over little countries any longer, or for that matter, big countries like us. We are going to do to Ma Oil the same thing we did to Ma Bell but it will be for keeps.” No body should own more than one oil well!
July 26th, 2008 at 6:16 pmWishful thinking: change “2008″ to “2009,” comment 3.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:18 pmem>Chevron’s powerhouse team includes former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, former Democratic senator John Breaux and Wayne Berman, a top fund-raiser for John McCain—all with access to Washington’s top decision makers.
Every one of them are oil slick scum!!
July 26th, 2008 at 6:38 pmHow the current Congress let Chevron off the Burma hook:
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-removes-oil-giant-from-burma-sanctions
July 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pmUnion-Carbide must be cursing their luck that Bhopal didn’t occur while Bush was in the White House.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:46 pmFor information on the Junta Anti-Democratic Efforts (JADE) bill go to:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-3890
It passed both houses back in December, but it took until July 25th for the White House to sign it.
Apparently it’s democratic for Chevron to keep pumping millions of dollars to the Burmese Generals.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pmDeja vu all over again. American corporations have been pulling stunts like this and bullying Latin American countries for a century or more.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:00 pmSo, big oil doesn’t want to be “kings” just in the U.S., they want that power world-wide.
Who’da thunkit?
July 26th, 2008 at 7:18 pmIf America had not sided with the oil companies against the people in 1953, Iran would most likely be a thriving Muslim Democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
Instead, our CIA promoted Coup and Backing of a Monarchy has lead to Mullahs in control.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:28 pmOne must make certain sacrifices when one is the Leader of the Free World. Sarc/off
July 26th, 2008 at 7:42 pmLott is even slimier now then he was while in the Senate. What a pompous prick!
And Breaux was a DINO when he was in office. Spent about as much time with the Repugs as JoeL does now.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:44 pmThe officers of multinational corporations that have poisoned indigenious lands with the their waste and taken no responsibility should be arrested and the companies fined billions. But that won’t happen because the US of Corporations won’t do a thing. The same greedy bastards involved in 1973 and 1986 and 2001 are still pulling the strings. And they will go on pulling the strings unless somebody is brought to justice. Which proves that the Democratic leadership has been complicit in these crimes. We won’t see any impeachment because Pelosi and Reid and Schumer and Hoyer and Emmanuel and who knows who else were given evidence of illegal activity and approved it anyway. Time for a change, and I’m not necessarily talking about Obama.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:02 pmWhat is the chance that Chevron will be forced to clean it’s house? What are the chances that Ecuador will get an ethical response from this administration?
As for Trent Lott, this man is so slimy he leaves a trail in the driveway when he walks. He has always been a fixer and a trader of favors for money or influence. Any truth you get from this man is inadvertent.
And one of these men is attached to McCain as so many are,as in the case of Berman a fund raiser. And McCains bedding of nearly every lobbyists he is involved with, shows just where his interests lie. America by way of it’s corporate masters manage to screw over nearly everything we touch.
God help me, I am so tired of all of them. So fed up with lies and liars and double dealers and greed.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:14 pmAmen, QuestionEverything! Some of you might find a recent interview with Noam Chomsky enlightening:
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18257
July 26th, 2008 at 8:38 pm16.8 billion gallons of oil.
That’s less than the 19 billion that naturally seeps into our environment each year.
That’s nothing.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:58 pmI’ll be on KALX tonight at 9. podcast it for me!
July 26th, 2008 at 8:58 pm“One Chevron lobbyist” told Newsweek that the company’s argument to the Bush administration is: “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”
Can there be any question now as to who really runs this world? If our government is nothing but an enabler for multi-national corporations, can it actually be said that we live in a democracy? If we don’t take back this country soon it’s going to be too late, if not already.
http://progressiveworldreview.com
July 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pmOnce again, you scratch the WH and you find big oil.
Now this news helps show McCain’s link to big oil.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:57 pmReports on Huffpo and AMericablog detailing the particularly disingenuous, if not downright nasty, campaign attacks on Obama by the McCain campaign are enough to make the stomach turn.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pmOne Chevron “lobbyist” is our Sec. of State.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:33 pmMcSpin says:
“My friends, we can’t be responsible for another country’s regulation of our corporations. We know that regulation doesn’t work. We told the little (bleeps!) not to mess with Chevron. Chevron is pissed they didn’t heed the warning of the first 7 spills and Shut The (Bleep) Up!“
July 26th, 2008 at 11:42 pmSo Negroponte is sending a death squad down south to ‘deal with the problem’??
July 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm#16 Thank you for that post, link…Blessings
July 27th, 2008 at 12:18 amWitch1, you may find also this interesting:
http://arisfreedomswitch.blogspot.com/2008/07/gedenk-campaign-targets-holocaust.html
Blessings as well…
July 27th, 2008 at 12:35 amThe big legislative push for drilling is about to fizzle. Big Oil knows they can’t keep the price inflated, or risk losing more elected lobbyists — ehem, representatives, come November. Here in San Diego the price is dropping rapidly, and it just dropped another six cents a gallon since yesterday, on top of the $.40 it dropped in the past week. Whoever it was in the oil industry who thought they could spin rising prices into ANWR gold, when Big Oil knew they’d have to drop prices before the election miscalculated so badly, they must be a relative of George Bush. I expect the push for drilling will subside in the coming months, giving lawmakers time to spin their inaction as a good thing for their constituents, and the country.
July 27th, 2008 at 1:06 ambarfly Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 1:06 am
The funny(?) thing is that “big oil” hasn’t really been pushing for new leases or more drilling on existing leases. The only people with their undies in a bundle about more drilling are Bush, McSpin, and a bunch of nuts.
Big oil isn’t going to make big investments when they are profiting from the volatile, peak, market. They won’t invest in refineries, pipelines or even transport for a soon to be shrinking demand. The great fallacy of the drilling nuts is the presumption of an ever increasing demand.
Big oil won’t call for more drilling until the bubble bursts. And then it will be to beg for tax breaks, and government loans, to pay for modern, efficient, infrastructure they should already be building for the future. That would include facilities to produce greener renewable fuels.
Heck! Demand has already gone down, in most places, for two or more consecutive months. The futures/commodities market is already starting to “sell short” and take “preventive losses”. The next few weeks, or months, will see countless billions pissed away on crude being prematurely released to market, causing an immediate increase in supply.
As the Reichwingers are so fond of saying, “the Free Market will correct itself” and it will happen before anyone can make a credible case for more drilling.
We might even be smart enough to follow the World’s lead and switch to small, efficient, vehicles that, in the near future, will use little or no petroleum while the oil companies will be forced to invest in renewable fuels by the laws of supply and demand.
Soon it will become more profitable to make fuel out of things other than petroleum. And you can damn well bet the oil executives know that.
July 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am#26 Thank you once again..Your post’s have been very informative…Blessings
July 27th, 2008 at 2:27 amMy friends, fu(k the people of the Amazon, they are brown.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:37 ampete Says:
The funny(?) thing is that “big oil” hasn’t really been pushing for new leases or more drilling on existing leases. The only people with their undies in a bundle about more drilling are Bush, McSpin, and a bunch of nuts.
Make that “a bunch of congressional nuts.”
One must assume the Texas republican representatives and senators are all store-bought, and preprogrammed.
The big threat is now to shut down both houses of congress, with “continuing resolutions,” much like Gingrich did in the Nineties.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:31 amBig Oil only has 6 months left of smooth sailing under the current mis-administration, they are going to get away with as much as possible. Exxon Mobil has already skated on paying for the devastation to Prince William Sound, and that because of the Bush-whacked Supreme Court…
July 27th, 2008 at 8:59 amProject for the New American Century member, John Negroponte, is meeting on the matter? Wow. That means the planet is screwed again by the Oil Maggots.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:08 amchevron’s wasting its money on lott and breaux. All it needs to do is throw Hoyer, Reaid, Pelosi, and few other vichy dems a couple grand to get them to pass the Big Oil immunity from prosecution act.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:13 amThe Bush Admin over the past 8 years: One Big Toxic Dump
July 27th, 2008 at 9:31 amSpreading freedom yet again…
July 27th, 2008 at 9:39 amNevar, the Supremes have one last gift to award on ExxonMobile for spilling 11 million barrels of oil in Prince William Sound.
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2008/07/exxon-begs-supremes-for-greater-valdez.html
July 27th, 2008 at 9:54 amRUCerious beat me to it, but I was going to say the samething. I don’t know if RUCerious was being facetious, but I’m not. John Negroponte, Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State, has people killed!
We have an administration that has as our Deputy Secretary of State a guy that has people that get in the way of the administration he works for killed!
I wouldn’t put it past the Cheney/Bush administration to use every bit of the “skills” of Negroponte to make this problem go away for Chevron before Jan. 20, 2009.
“Principle is okay up to a certain point, but principle doesn’t do any good if you lose.” – Dick Cheney, espousing Rethuglican family values
July 27th, 2008 at 10:46 amHow’s this for a means of visualizing this process?
Huge sums of money flow from citizens of this country to the major oil companies (paid at the gas pump) and to Washington, D.C. (in the form of taxes).
Once that money has left our pockets, it then remains indefinitely within a closed loop, moving back and forth between the Big Oil and their friends in Foggy Bottom.
Any guess as to who Big Oil wants to see in the White House?
According to opensecrets.org, the donations from the oil/gas industry to date are as follows:
McCain (R) — $1,039,768
Obama (D) — $351,550
If there was a way to directly invest in the corporate purchase of influence in Washington, D.C. and then share in the resultant spoils, the performance of all other investment vehicles would pale by comparison.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:59 amIt seems John Negroponte is a busy man. In addition to meeting with oil company big wigs regarding South America, last week he met with the top Israeli General.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126951
July 27th, 2008 at 12:45 pm“We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”
And that, my friends, is American foreign policy in a nutshell.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:57 pmOhh, so THAT’s why we’re so strongly supporting Colombia’s illegal military incursions onto Ecuador’s territory!
July 27th, 2008 at 2:51 pmFor more on that theme, go to:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/32.html
July 27th, 2008 at 3:20 pmThese guys can’t stop whoring for Big Oil long enough to even create the illusion of integrity.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:01 pmBig oil would love access to Iran.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331116435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
July 28th, 2008 at 12:06 am“LobbyDelegtes.com is a great tool, I have contacted all my State Delegates for free through email, I have come accross another tool from the same company http://www.statedemocracy.org its also free and I can contact my lawmakers, apply for an absentee ballot & voter registration and on election day I can locate my polling places. Great tool…. use it”
July 28th, 2008 at 2:55 am“‘We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this…’”
July 28th, 2008 at 8:59 amYou BIG OIL lobbyist are pathetic little men in my book.Once again you prove to the rest of the world that money comes before the people and enviroment………