Oil & gas industry

A Legal Defense Fund for Climate Scientists

Topics: 
Oil & gas industry, Climate change, Science
Rating: 
0

Andew C. Revkin – January 25, 2012

For years, climate scientists have been assailed from many sides — through e-mail hacking, death threats, politician’s demands for documents, Freedom of Information requests (many having the strong smell of a fishing expedition).

A Climate Science Legal Defense Fund set up last fall has taken on a formal affiliation with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an established nonprofit group offering aid and advice to government whistleblowers and scientists working on environmental issues.

Keystone whistleblower alleges shoddy materials along original pipeline

Topics: 
Corporate ethics, Oil & gas industry, Environment
Rating: 
0

Lee-Anne Goodman – January 3, 2012

A former inspector for a company that did work on TransCanada's original Keystone pipeline is accusing the Calgary-based company of a cavalier disregard for the environment.

Mike Klink was an engineer for construction company Bechtel Corp., a contractor that worked on the first portion of the Keystone pipeline that carries Alberta oilsands crude to refineries in the American Midwest. It was completed in 2010; the controversial Keystone XL would extend that pipeline to Gulf Coast refineries.

Revolving Door Between Government, Big Business

Topics: 
USA, Monsanto, Oil & gas industry, Pharmaceutical industry, Financial industry, Conflict of interest, Revolving door, Media
Rating: 
2

December 22, 2011

A series of Venn diagrams shows visually how strong the links are between the US Government and big business: dozens of people moving to and fro between top positions in government and in politically-connected corporations.

It is blatant conflicts of interest like these that lead to regulatory capture, corruption and crony capitalism. The industries covered in this analysis are: Big Oil, Comcast, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Media, Monsanto and Pharmaceuticals.

Pipeline Safety Monitoring Software Deliberately Crippled: Whistleblowers

Topics: 
Corporate ethics, Oil & gas industry, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
3

Greg Palast – December 16, 2011

Whistleblowers have told Britain's "Dispatches" that the safety software on major US pipelines contains deliberate errors - and so pipelines can - and have - busted, leaked, exploded ... and killed.

Congressional Republicans are holding extended unemployment benefits hostage until President Obama agrees to speed up approval to build the XL Keystone pipeline. XL Keystone will slice down through the entire width of the USA, moving tar-sands oil from Canada to Houston.

BP says Halliburton 'intentionally destroyed evidence' after Gulf oil spill

Topics: 
Corporate ethics, Oil & gas industry
Rating: 
2

Vivian Kuo – December 6, 2011

BP is accusing Halliburton of having "intentionally destroyed evidence" related to the explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The accusation comes in court papers filed by BP Monday in federal court in New Orleans as part of a lawsuit aimed at having sanctions imposed on Halliburton Energy Services Inc., which was a contractor for BP on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

Khodorkovsky film gets limited exposure in Russia

Topics: 
Corruption, Oil & gas industry, Russia, Media
Rating: 
0
Mikhail Khodorkovsky

AFP – December 1, 2011

A documentary on jailed oil boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released in Russia on Thursday in a handful of cinemas, mostly outside Moscow, after distributors said major cinemas pulled out.

The film by German director Cyril Tuschi was one of the key attractions at this year's Berlin Film Festival. But in Moscow, the first public release was at a small cinema in the suburbs with just 88 seats.

UK secretly helping Canada push its oil sands project

Topics: 
Oil & gas industry, Climate change
Rating: 
0

Damian Carrington – November 27, 2011

The UK government has been giving secret support at the very highest levels to Canada's campaign against European penalties on its highly polluting tar sands fuel, the Guardian can reveal.

At the same time, the UK government was being lobbied by Shell and BP, which both have major tar sands projects in Alberta, and opened a new consulate in the province to "support British commercial interests".

Corporations spending billions to prevent climate change action

Topics: 
Tar sands, Oil & gas industry, Climate change, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
3

Mike De Souza – November 23, 2011

A handful of multinational corporations are "exerting undue influence" on the political process in Canada, the U.S. and other key nations to delay international action on climate change, alleges a new report released Tuesday by Greenpeace International.

The report documents a series of alleged lobbying and marketing efforts led by major corporations and industry associations, representing oil and gas companies as well as other major sources of pollution in Canada, the U.S., Europe and South Africa, which is hosting an international climate-change summit that begins next Monday.

US probe of alleged corruption in tar sands pipeline approval

Topics: 
USA, Corruption, Oil & gas industry, Conflict of interest
Rating: 
0

Darren Goode – November 7, 2011

The State Department’s inspector general has agreed to do a “special review” of whether the department’s analysis of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline project has been done properly.

Deputy IG Harold Geisel — the highest-ranking official in the department’s IG office — will look into the matter amid allegations of bias, influence peddling and conflicts of interest raised by environmental activists and more than a dozen congressional Democrats.

Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales

Topics: 
Corruption, Corporate ethics, Oil & gas industry, Foreign corrupt practices legislation
Rating: 
2

Asjylyn Loder and David Evans – October 3, 2011

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France.

In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts. “I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

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