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We need to make sure BP pays every dime for damage to the Gulf Coast and its people. (Photo copyright Marta Evry)
With President Obama’s announcement that BP will set aside $20 billion in an escrow fund to pay out for damages to the Gulf Coast and its people, we’ve passed an important first step in making sure BP pays every dime for its oil disaster.
While the President reiterated that $20 billion isn’t a cap, it’s important to know how much more BP could and should pay. One analyst said it could be as much as $63 billion; I suspect and hope it will be in the hundreds of billions. Either way, $20 billion should be considered a down payment.
Setting aside money from BP is a good first step. But Congress has a role, too. The Senate will soon debate legislation to make BP pay every dime for its oil disaster. Anything less is a taxpayer funded bailout of BP.
More than 44,000 people have already signed our petition to the Senate to make BP pay. Can you add your name and help us reach 50,000 signatures before we deliver our petition to the Senate next week?
BP is counting on the federal government, and by extension the taxpayers, to save the company from its own disaster. They’ve even hired bailout veterans Goldman Sachs for advice on how to limit financial liability.
As long as companies like BP know that the government will be there to bail them out when things go wrong, they will continue to take the kinds of excessive risks that led to the Gulf oil disaster and the financial meltdown.
It is only when they are forced to take full financial responsibility for their mistakes, the same way ordinary Americans would be, that they will stop taking these dangerous chances. That’s the responsibility side of the “free market” always being touted by corporate interests.
This is BP’s mess, and we’re determined to make sure BP pays every dime. We need to stop the BP bailout.
Help us reach 50,000 signatures before we deliver our petition to the Senate next week. Click here to add your name.
24 Comments
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Why shouldn’t they bailout BP?
After all they’re on a roll bailing out every other BIG failed company or BIG failed bank
Ding.
I ask this question without condescension:
Do you honestly believe the Senate 1. regards public petitions with anything more than mild amusement? Why? And as a logical extension to the first question, do you honestly believe the Senate 2. cares whether or not the public objects to a bailout of BP? Why?
Granted, yours is not a Facebook petition, but like the public protest march, recent history indicates to us that public petitions are a relic of another time in American politics, IMHO.
I wish that someone would ask those congressmen who are against this kind of legislation if they want the government to then pay for it. What would be their response?
I am trying to t think a little beyond my rage and radical libertarian definition of business. The reality is, not only are we as individuals interdependent but also there is an interdependence between the public and these private businesses also. Whether we like it or not we do bail out individuals all the time who make stupid decisions and act stupidly.
As long as we accept private business as the provider of choice for most essential commodities we are going to have to keep them going. That doesn’t preclude some singling those persons within a business who are criminals.
Listening to the hearing right now, the response from the likes of Barton would, by his own words, be the gummint can do it. Taxpayers = small people in Joe Barton’s world.
Shakedown, he calls the $20B escrow fund. Pushback on that should be swift, harsh and universal. This is the Rethug meme now.
Why would you hope for things to get worse?
Can’t do any harm.
And failed war
Things don’t have to get worse for it to cost $100 bil. to clean this up. That’s probably the figure we’re at right now to clean up this mess if it were to stop flowing at this moment.
Plenty of evidence of criminality of BP, and real investigations haven’t yet begun.
On your fundamental assertion that corps provide jobs & goods, just ain’t so. Consumers create the demand for goods, services, and derivative of that, jobs. It BP didn’t do it, some other corp would, if there is consumer demand. No reason whatsoever to support any given corp.
New Obama-backed stimulus package fails in Senate vote
There’re gonna be alot of individuals NOT “bailed out” here pretty soon.
Problem is that when huge, irresponsible corporations get in trouble, they take down the whole society with them because our current government lets them and enables them
Given Obama’s well documented negotiating tactic of giving away the family farm, jewels, and first born before commencing negotiations with a rich and powerful corporation, I’m going to assume that the $20 billion is a cap, unless I see proof to the contrary.
I can’t help but wonder what other concessions he made . . .
I wonder if he backed it the same way he backed the Public Option.
Unless they are in practice monopolies. If we bankrupt BP we only move toward further monopolization by the few existing oil companies. One could argue we should legislate against monopolies and aggregation of wealth and provision of essentials into corporations as large as BP.
The problem is there are some goods and services that cannot be provided by mom and pop small business. And consumers who are in need cannot use the tool of simply doing without.
Personally I would rather see a public utilities model with set rates etc for essential goods and services. Let the free wheelers deal in basketball players and movies.
We’re trying to be targeted with this petition, and will deliver to a members of the Senate that can use our petition to demonstrate significant public support. Our petition won’t alone make the difference, but is an important tool to building momentum in the chamber.
Fair enough, but as long as we’re “keeping them going” we need to have, and exercise, the power to weed out those that are counterproductive, predatory, incompetently/dangerously run, etc.-no?
Are you able to share with us which members of the Senate actually deliberate, argue, and act with “public support” as their primary moral imperative?
I’d be very interested to know which Senators these are, because when I watch the machinations of the Senate what I see are appeals to public support used as pandering. I suspect I’m watching the wrong Senators.
Beyond that, even among those Senators who can use this to “demonstrate significant public support” is there any evidence that the other Senators they’re wheeling and dealing with actually care about that same “public support.”
I mean, if I’m arguing with you and try to appeal to you based on a premise or conclusion you fundamentally disregard, then neither my premise, nor conclusion, are significant.
Make no mistake, Obama’s statement that “BP is a strong and viable company and it is all our best interest that it remain so” is the first indication that O has eased up on BP since acquiring the $20 billion.
If BPs liabilities exceed its assets BP should be allowed to fail. But make no mistake, Obama will be bailing out BP for all the ‘folks.’
It is to be sure a cap. As the president said yeaterday, “BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all our best interest that it remain so.”
Please keep in mind that BP is a key player in cap and trade legislation, having authored it more than 15 years ago. Big name Dems lobby for and act as PR consultants for BP helping them buy off big name environmental groups and ‘greenwash’ their image. Many administration officials and members of Congress will personally gain from cap and trade legislation as well as huge corporations like Goldman Sachs, GE and BP.
Meanwhile, drilling moves to Brazil and Africa thanks to the moratorium and Petrobus is poised to purchase abandoned assets. Obama backer Soros is a key investor in the Brazilian oil company. Jobs lost here in the US from BPs negligence and from the administration’s policies, a ‘green jobs bill’ on the table that will enrich Onama’s cronies and prominent Dems like Pelosi and Markey.
Obama does not care what the people think. He is capitalizing on a crisis, yet again, to enrich his cronies.
Tell me, do you feel that Obama’s pay czar is qualified to be an ‘independent’ party responsible for administering the Gulf claims?
Environmental groups cozy with BP are already lining up to get their share of the $20 b. This is poised to become another government directed slush fund for those favored by the administration. Will the ‘folks’ who really need this help get their fair share?
We are on a fast track becoming a country governed by a corporatist mafia.
Also, is there any chance you could directly answer davidasposted’s questions? Like bullet them out, and answer them individually?
I suspect the answers would be instructive and illustrative for all of us. I’d be curious to know what the projected relative value of a petition-signature to a petrol-dollar is on the American Political Exchange.
BP spent ~$16,000,000 on lobbying, just last year, so the math works out as:
1 signature = $320 dollars. Is that what you got too when setting up the petition?
This is like the coyote holding up a fancy drink umbrella to stop a 100 ton rock falling above his head.
Welcome to the Untied Corporations of America.
Couldn’t agree more.