ExxonMobil, DC
November 2,
2013
Republican’ts
continue their childish obsession with killing Obamacare, voting over forty
times to defund it. Perhaps the most amusing part of this is that the part
where everyone has to buy coverage from the already rich and greedy insurance
companies is essentially an old Republican idea. Cruz & Co. are willing to
sacrifice anything-that’s-not-military-spending to get their way. They shut
down the federal government to avoid risking affordable healthcare for all
Americans, but that’s not all they wanted. Not by a long shot. Republican’ts created
a laundry-list of demands, including cutting taxes on the wealthiest (nobody
saw that one coming), cutting regulations on the Wall Street criminals that
helped destroy our economy, keeping contraceptives out of the hands of women and
gutting environmental regulations in exchange for raising the Debt Ceiling.
Yet, they refused to entertain any debate regarding raising the Debt Dumb
Ceiling, which they do every Monday.
They also
demanded that Obama immediately approve the Keystone XL pipeline to transfer
tar sands oil from Cruzland Canada through the United States to the Gulf
of Mexico for sale everywhere but America…to maximize profit. The jobs promised
by proponents of the pipeline are mythical and the oil will simply pass through
this country like jalapeno-inundated diarrhea. The Keystone pipeline will
provide close to zero benefit to Americans - except for the oil company
executives who stand to make a killing on the deal, in more ways than one.
The next big eco-tourism destination?
Canadian tar
sands extraction is the largest industrial operation on the planet. Toxic-sludge
byproducts are simply carted off to create giant 'lakes.' Every day hundreds of
thousands of gallons of toxins are leaching into the water table in northern
Canada. The process for extracting tar sands oil uses more natural gas than all
the homes in Canada. Tar sands oil puts 3-4 times more carbon pollution into
the air than regular gasoline. What could possibly go wrong?
Tar sands
oil is also more fun because it eats through the pipes that carry it so it escapes
its containment regularly and will do this more often if we let it. Another fun
fact: It doesn’t float on water like regular oil; it sinks and is therefore
much more dangerous and all but impossible to clean up. There aren’t even any
serious clean-up plans in place for regular oil spills, let alone this stuff.
The oil companies, though they receive massive subsidies (i.e., welfare) from
the federal government (i.e., our tax dollars) spend whatever is left over,
after the obscene salaries and bonuses for their CEOs and the pittance they pay
their workers, on extraction technology, but nothing on safety and clean-up.
On March 29,
2013 tar sands began oozing out of its pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas causing
the evacuation of 22 homes. ExxonMobil, owner of the pipeline worked very hard
after the 'accident' keeping cameras and reporters away. They then proceeded to
'clean up' the mess with paper towels. This is their state-of-the-art
technology in the year 2013. Paper towels. And that is after 364 oil spills in
2012 alone. You'd think they'd have something that looked better to at
least distract us by now.
They probably clean their bathrooms with Q-tips and club soda
Tar sands
oil that began bubbling up from the ground, in amounts that would make Jed
Clampett weep, in northern Alberta, Canada in May is still spewing onto the
earth’s surface from four different leaks. Nobody knows how the leaks started
and nobody knows how to make them stop even five months later.
Thanks to
creative regulations (written by lobbyists) tar sands oil is not considered
oil, it is called bitumen. Since it is labeled as bitumen and not oil, it
doesn’t fall under the regulatory umbrella that protects us (yeah, right) from environmental
devastation, like when giant oil barges captained by drunks run aground in
Alaska, or purposely flimsy oil rigs explode in the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore
tar sands oil is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund
typically required for every barrel of oil shipped in the US. Oil companies
that earn huge profits by shipping toxic tar sands across our country don’t
have to pay into the fund that is designed to pay for most of the clean-up of
the XL’s inevitable spills. ExxonMobil used this loophole to get out of paying
to clean up their mess in Arkansas.
James Hansen,
who spent 46 years at NASA and is one of the world's leading climatologists
says extraction of the Athabasca oil sands is "essentially game over"
for any hope of stabilizing global climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change raised its level of certainty from "very likely,"
which is a 90% likelihood, to "extremely likely," which is a 95%
likelihood that "human interference has been the dominant cause of the
observed warming since the mid-20th century." We're #1.
My parents
always told me to clean up after myself when I made a mess. What about all this
talk about individual responsibility? Republicants are frothing over Obamacare,
a plan that was hatched under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and supported by
conservative think tanks for decades until Barack Obama fought for and then
signed into law. They insist that people be responsible for their own
healthcare. And food. And multiple jobs. Why won't they hold oil companies
responsible to clean up after themselves? Why won't we hold them responsible to
clean up our planet now that we know we are responsible for causing catastrophic
damage to the environment? Now that’s real healthcare.
I. Mangrey and T. Doff reporting
Thanks for listening.
Don't take any bitumen nickels.
