Bastard of the Day
Did you know that Exxon never finished paying for the Exxon Valdez environmental disaster which occurred 18 years ago? Check it out:

The Supreme Court's recent decision to hear ExxonMobil's reasons to void the $2.5 billion punitive award in the Exxon Valdez case hit the town of Cordova, Alaska, hard. This small coastal fishing community -- my hometown -- along with the Alaska Native villages in Prince William Sound have borne the brunt of the largest crude oil spill in America's waters; a spill that took place more than 18 years ago, but one that continues to hold the region hostage. The second painful blow was the high court's decision to not even hear our reasons why the award should be restored to the full $5 billion that a jury of peers decided was necessary to punish the corporate giant back in 1994.

Here's some more rotten news...

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Exxon paid $2.5 billion for its cleanup and another $1 billion for penalties. But, it might surprise people who live outside Alaska to learn that taxpayers, not Exxon, paid a majority of that bill.

You always knew those unctuous bastards were going to weasel out of paying their fair share.

Just a few days ago, ExxonMobil posted a profit of $9.4 billion for the past three months! And those greedy bastards can't cough up $2.5 billion -- or even the full $5 billion -- for destroying the economy of an Alaskan fishing village? Do these oil people ever sit up at night wondering why everybody hates them? Surely they know.

Labels: bastards, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 5:14 PM 1 comments

 
Silly Dutchman
From the Financial Times:

Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has warned that the increasingly nationalistic position of oil-rich countries and their redrawing of contracts is a "new reality" that international energy companies have to accept... [He] told the Financial Times: "The higher the oil and gas price is, the more national thinking you get. This is a new reality. In the end, governments are always the boss." (emphasis added)

You silly Dutchman! Haven't you learned from our example? If the oil-rich countries try to get your oil company to pony up more for exploiting their natural resources, there is a simple solution... Invade them! Host governments may be "the boss," but you can always install a new boss more to your liking. Surely you can find a few thousand young Dutchmen you'd be willing to sacrifice to achieve those ends. Or maybe you guys should just stick to tulips and leave the exploitation to us.

Labels: int'l politics, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:29 AM 0 comments

 
Bastard of the Day
I had to go out to the northwest suburbs today. The Bastard of the Day is the Mobil station at the Des Plaines Oasis on the Northwest Tollway (I-90). On the way out to Schaumburg at 10:50 AM, I noted that their gas was $2.93. In Elk Grove Village I drove past a Shell station charging $2.95, figuring I'd just stop at the oasis on the way home. When I got to the oasis at 12:10 PM, just 80 minutes after I had passed westbound, the bastards had raised the price four cents to $2.97! While the price increase didn't make a big difference for a 10 gallon fill-up, it still bugged me.

Labels: bastards, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

 
About Oil Prices: What He Said
John McCarron's editorial "How to escape the automotive life" in the Chicago Tribune is right on target. He starts by encouraging Americans to walk more and to consider walking and biking in suburban planning. Then he takes on misguided political "solutions:" Bill Frist's $100 rebates, Judy Baar Topinka's sales tax reduction, and President Bush's suspension of environmental regulations. I think a lot of people aren't aware of this:

We should, if anything, raise the state tax on gasoline. Illinois is about to leave mega-millions of federal transportation dollars on the table for lack of a 20 percent state "match." ... That means federally approved projects like the rebuilding of South Wacker Drive, the CTA's proposed Circle Line and Metra's circumferential Star Line are indefinitely sidetracked, just when they'll be needed the most. The way gas prices are rising, who'd notice another penny or two to improve our region's public transportation?

After explaining what government should not do, he returns to what individuals should do: buy more efficient vehicles, drive more smoothly (I've been trying to teach this to my wife for years!), keep tires inflated, and try not to blame the oil companies -- despite their record profits, they aren't the ones setting the price of oil (I'll admit that ExxonMobil is a fabulous scapegoat, but deep inside I know McCarron is mostly right). His last point is obvious, wise, and hard to imagine for many:

We should change the way we live. It sounds drastic--not driving anywhere, anytime on a whim; not air-conditioning our homes to 68 degrees and toasting them to 72.

Frankly, that doesn't give me much to work with -- I walk or take public transportation wherever I can, I only run the air-conditioning when it's so hot that 80 degrees inside feels cool, and in the winter our thermostat ranges from 65 when we're awake to 60 when we're asleep. There is plenty of room for improvement for others, though. Like my parents -- occasionally I make the mistake of wearing a long-sleeved shirt to their house in the winter, and within minutes of entering, I'm burning up. Mom argues that their energy bills aren't that high, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be lower (I shouldn't pick on them too much; at least they have some compact fluorescent light bulbs).

A lot of Americans seem to look down on energy conservation as something they should only do if they can't afford to pay. After all, consumption is the American way. But the truth is that conservation helps everybody. Maybe you can afford your gas bill, but if you use less and the price goes down, maybe your retired neighbors will be able to afford their gas bill, too.

By making a few basic changes this winter, I cut our electric bills by 35%. We now use about 250 kilowatt-hours per month, which costs $32 (just wait until we get rid of that 16-year-old refrigerator!). Even allowing for 1,000 kWh during four summer months, we're 25-40% below the U.S. annual average. I'm not saying this to brag (okay, maybe a little); I want people to realize how wasteful we are and how easy it is to minimize energy usage. One person can't make much of a difference, but what if every residential customer reduced electricity usage by 35%? What if every motorist drove a little more smoothly and a little less often?

Labels: energy, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:17 AM 0 comments

 
Bastard of the Day
Both Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist are claiming that Bill Clinton should be blamed for high gas prices. C'mon guys, he hasn't been president for half a decade! And for much of that time, you two have been guiding the legislative agenda of our country. What has your "bold" leadership achieved? Surely you could have done something since 2000 to, I don't know, raise fuel economy standards. Or was Dick Cheney's secret energy task force supposed to solve our problems? Yeah, that's it. Blame Dick. But watch your backs. He'll blow off your faces next.

Still, the best you can do is to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? You guys know damn well there isn't enough oil there to make an appreciable difference in our supply over the long term (of course, oil supply isn't the problem right now anyway -- just ask the Saudis). And you know that contrary to your statements, Dr. Frist, Americans do not "overwhelmingly support" wrecking that environment for an extra trickle of crude.

Above all, just how long do you expect Americans to buy this "blame Clinton" schtick? You bastards really need to come up with some new material.

Labels: bastards, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:14 PM 0 comments

 
Bastard of the Day
Today's bastard is a familiar one... Yes, once again President George W. Bush is the Bastard of the Day. Only a tool of the petroleum industry could look at current gasoline prices, weigh them against record profits for the oil companies (Exxon made the greatest profit of any company in history last year), and decide that the problem is that environmental requirements are too strict!

Frankly, I'm a free market guy when it comes to gas (not so much when it comes to other things, like healthcare). I live in the city, I use public transportation, and I walk to the grocery store unless I'm stocking up on heavy stuff. My wife drive 3.5 miles to work and I work at home (of course, last summer working on my book was a different story). We go through a tank of gas every 10-14 days, so a few extra dollars at the pump won't kill us (don't bother telling me that all prices will go up because of oil prices; I've already written about that). I think gas is still too cheap in America, and cheap gas has been abetting suburban sprawl and poor land use decisions for too long. Americans would be better off living closer together instead of being isolated in McMansions and driving ridiculous distances to work to pay for them. Automobiles are such a part of American mythology that they symbolize freedom when in fact, people are slaves to purchasing, fueling, insuring, and maintaining them.

Bush and his henchmen are almost always free market true believers. Heck, Republicans have been deregulating everything in sight since the Reagan years, all in the name of almighty free market capitalism. So we shouldn't be surprised that the only time Bush is willing to interfere with free markets is when he can strip away more of those pesky environmental regulations, the ones that coincidentally restrain the greenhouse effect, which Bush will tell you doesn't exist.

Of course, that's not all Bush is doing. He is also going to stop contributing to our strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available. But Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi says that a supply shortage is not the reason for high oil prices. And isn't this the same strategic petroleum reserve that Bush scoffed at Gore for proposing to draw from in order to lower oil prices six years ago? You can say there is a difference between not contributing oil to it and withdrawing oil from it, but isn't that really just splitting hairs?

Bush also talks a good game about alternative fuels. But if he had promoted those fuels when he came into office rather than jumping on the bandwagon only this year, we would be a lot closer to actually using those alternatives today.

For what it's worth, the experts agree with me that Bush isn't really solving any problems here. He's just making life a little easier (and richer) for his cronies, the underlying objective of every policy decision he has ever made. For that, George "32% approval rating" Bush is a bastard, today and every day.

Postscript: I couldn't help laughing at the photo Reuters chose for the expert story linked above: "Gas prices are displayed at a 76 station in Beverly Hills, California, April 25, 2006." Do you think the average American is shedding any tears over high prices in Beverly Hills?!? Well, okay, maybe there are maids and landscapers who work there shedding tears, but that's about it.

UPDATE 04/26/2006 - Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch dispels several of Bush's myths about the oil industry and high gas prices.

Labels: bastards, GW Bush, oil

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:11 PM 0 comments