BP has broken a self-imposed moratorium on political donations to make big contributions to key Republican congressional leaders and the party’s electoral campaigns. Think Progress has the story in this repost.
Its first round of political contributions for the 2012 cycle total $29,000 and it “went almost entirely to the campaigns of a handful of House Republican leaders.” BP North America’s PAC gave $5,000 each to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), along with $10,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which are tasked with electing more Republicans to Congress.
Notably, BP also gave $5,000 to Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), who has used his chairmanship of the Energy Committee to push legislation friendly to oil companies like BP. However, Upton told The Hill “he is not accepting the contribution and will return it to BP.” The company also gave $1,000 to Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), who chairs the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN), the only Democrat to which BP donated, received $3,000.
As the Huffington Post’s Michael McAuliff reports, those who did take BP’s money did so “without blushing“:
“From day one, Speaker Boehner has been clear in his position that BP should be accountable for every dime of the Gulf cleanup,” said Boehner campaign spokesman Cory Fritz.
“We appreciate the support of all of our donors,” said the NRSC’s Brian Walsh.
Since taking control of Congress, Republicans have advanced oil-friendly bills on a number of fronts, seeking to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases, preserve subsidies for oil companies, and reinstate President Bush’s lax standards on oil drilling in wilderness areas. Last year, Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said it would be “ridiculous” to eliminate oil subsidies. Meanwhile, several Republican leaders have called for slashing funding to the EPA or even abolishing it outright. And of course, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) infamously apologized to BP during a congressional hearing on the Gulf spill last summer.
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What I don’t get is why politicians can be bought off so cheaply. I mean, is 5K, or 25K, really enough to buy a senator? What am I missing here?
I am confused, is this graft, corruption, or treason?
Or is it business-as-usual US Congress politics?
It’s lots of little 5Ks, VL Brandt, lots of them, and paid ‘fact-finding’ junkets, then there are the retirement plans, the ‘consultancies’ and ‘speaking tours’ rewarded very richly indeed. The latter two are favourite techniques in Australia, particularly for ‘Labor’ Party operatives who were so good as to sell out their constituents to the benefit of our hyper-avaricious masters. While the destruction of human civilization will be a great pity, what with all our real achievements, our Beethovens, Shakespeares, Buddhas, Lao Zis etc consigned to permanent darkness, at least the cosmos will be cleansed of the avaricious appetite for wanton destruction of the parasitic fraction of humanity, before it escaped the confines of this planet to ravage other worlds. In short, while our technology and science advanced a great deal, and our cultures produced much to be proud of, we were never capable of producing a social organisation that kept the worst of us, with the most destructive and vicious instincts, under control-in fact the opposite has occurred, and this type, although only tiny in number, dominates the planet, completely.
VL Brandt,
A favorite search engine for locating individual donors is supplied by Huffington Post.
One can search by occupation, employer, name or just zip code.
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/
Just click on employer and put in BP, and the donor names will unfurl; click on those to find the political recipients of gifts of $500 or greater.
Those are technically voluntary contributions by BP employees to political candidates. It adds up. But that would not be a full list.
Some donors may not list BP as employer, but may work for an associated company like those involved with BP in the Deepwater Horizon. Others will just list a line of work, like engineer.
@ Mulga Mumblebrain: The Golden Rule never had any provisions for enforcement. Empathy for the plight of others was never enough to do the job of enforcement, and now has almost been bred out of our species. As you point out, our loss is the Universe’s gain.
At least we know where we stand. Boehner and his friends have a story, and they’re sticking to it: sprinkle every speech with “working American families”, then go about screwing them every way you can think of.
Meanwhile, strut around in $3000 suits and $200 haircuts, and have the glow that comes from knowing that you’re a comfortable whore for life- think tank assignments, speaking fees, lobbying jobs, maybe even a corporate VP assignment.
It’s up to us to shine a light on these turds. The Democrats don’t appear willing to do it, since their hands aren’t quite clean either.
Mulga #3. There were cultures with the social organization that produced cooperation for the common good but we have done our very best to wipe them out. I put some refs on these in postings addressed to Richard Brenne on the humour theme that featured the overweight donkey cartoon, ME
NPR’s Morning Edition had a piece on BP’s PR mistakes this morning.
“BP: A Textbook Example Of How Not To Handle PR”
(They wouldn’t have needed better PR if they’d used better techniques for their off shore deep well oil drilling!)
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/21/135575238/bp-a-textbook-example-of-how-not-to-handle-pr
I find this quite amusing in a sedate kind of way.
BP hires an American company (haliburton) and an American rig crewed by American bosses and when it does a crap job and blows up, contaminating a large swathe of the Gulf coast, it’s a British problem.
Then the British CEO fulfills all the responsibilities of the signatory company by paying to stop the mess, being on site, directing the operations (after all they had nothing more important to resolve at that time), puts aside $20bn dollars as a fighting fund to deal with the aftermath and admits that it is a BP responsibility to fix the mess they “created”.
The British CEO and BP are vilified. Obama tries to arrange an American buyout of BP and then everyone gets sulky fast when the BP board decide it’s safer to go in with the Russians. After all they’re openly avaricious crooks and you know that you have to wear the kevlar suit to keep the knife out.
The British CEO is dumped and replaced with an American.
BP then goes on a program of avoiding responsibility, failing to meed the calls for cleanup, playing American style games of “catch me if you can” with a boatload of solicitors, then drops it’s self imposed rules of no political intervention and starts trying to buy favours and grace form the only politicians likely to entertain them.
I thought you only saw Irony like this on Spitting Image. Clearly real life has it whipped hands down.