DRILL, Baby, DRILL.
Senior Justice Department officials blocked the U.S. attorney in Colorado from supporting a whistleblower’s suit last year, jeopardizing the government’s prospects for recovering as much as $40 million from a major oil company for its alleged underpayment of royalties.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said Washington overruled his request to enter the case against the Kerr-McGee Corp. A lawyer for the whistleblower said he was told that decision was made ‘at the highest levels’ of the Justice Department, then run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
‘I recommended strongly that we intervene,’ Eid said. ‘My view did not prevail.’
Moreover, McClatchy found that the Justice Department has participated in only a handful of the 80-whistleblower cases brought against the oil industry since 1995.
Whistleblower suits are generally less successful without the Justice Department’s intervention, and if a whistleblower prevails on his own, taxpayers get a smaller share of the damages.
Eid was the same USA who refused to charge those “meth-heads” with attempting to kill Obama in Denver despite the FBI’s insistence.
Just sayin’
.
Second gilded age marches on
When I left for my full-time job, 7:00 Friday morning, gas at the local station was $3.58/gal. On my way home from my SECOND job, at 9:45 last night, it had jumped to $4.79/gal, supposedly because of Hurricane Ike. This was BEFORE any assessment of damage.
After eight years of the Cheney energy policy, and the systematic dismantling of any meaningful regulation of the commodity traders and financial mucketymucks who manipulate this stuff, anybody who could vote for another four years of Republican rule is fucking insane.
I resent the fact that I, my wife, and many of our friends have to work two jobs just to pay for gas. And I blame not only the Republican leaders who actually DO the raping, I also blame any fucking moron who VOTES Republican. They enable this rape. I take it personally.
Good point. We need to elect someone who’s shown they can stand up to Big Oil and actually win, hitting them where it hurts when they try to flex their muscles at the expense of the taxpayers. And someone who has a proven track record of going after corrupt politicians, regardless of party affiliation.
Vote for Sarah Palin! (Oh, and John McCain, too. It’s kinda mandatory.)
Palin faced down Big Oil in Alaska and when they tried to bully her into going along with their pipeline plan, she told ‘em to go screw and worked out a deal with an Alaskan company. And she restructured the oil taxes to take a bigger bite of the pie for the taxpayers — but in such a way that didn’t run the risks of the Carter/Obama “windfall profits” taxes.
Palin is no friend to the oil companies. They’d rather deal with someone like Barack Obama, who’s always found a way to get along with the most corrupt and venal and vile people and has never taken a risky, principled stand on anything.
J.
And in McCain’s 26 years in Washington, he has acquiesced in, and indeed beat the drum for, the discredited piss-on-’em, I mean trickle-down economics that got us to the point where we stand helpless in the face of flagrant price-gouging. If you think the hockeymom can consistently “face down” Big Oil, or wants to, you are as deluded as the other trolls on this page.
Bruce, you said it yourself — “consistently.”
She’s 2 for 2 so far — the pipeline, and the taxes.
What are Obama and Biden’s records?
J.
Here’s another thing I said myself: “Anybody who could vote for another four years of Republican rule is fucking insane.”
What Governor Mom did in her spectacular 18-month reign in Alaka is beside the point.
Look at this way. In 1994, we got Republican control of Congress along with a President who, as time went on, adopted a more and more GOP-style economic viewpoint. Then, 6 years of Bush AND GOP control of Congress. Finally, another 1 1/2 years of Bush and a Congress stymied by Republican obstructionists.
It’s as plain as the nose on your, face. If you vote for another four years of this crap, you deserve the raping you’re gonna get. I, however, DO NOT. That’s why I take it personally.
Excuse me, gotta go now. Time for my weekend job to start.
The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.
More here.
You can also read how the Governor tried to lock out the oil companies working on the North Slope, only to find she can’t do business without them and they won’t do business with her on the pipeline. And lo and behold, one of the members of the group studying the pipeline proposals was a former lobbyist for TransCanada, who finally got the contract but can’t do anything with it for years, not even start work – maybe for a decade or more. And not an Alaskan company.
Governor Palin also signed into law a progressive windfall profits tax on oil, which has more than doubled the oil tax revenue in just the last year-odd for Alaska. ConocoPhilips estimates that all the taxes on oil taken out in that state take seventy-five percent of the price of a barrel of oil before the oil leaves the state. Details here.
Here’s a description of the tax from the article:
The tax is imposed on the net profit earned on each barrel of oil pumped from state lands, after deducting costs for production and transportation. The tax is set at its highest rate in Prudhoe Bay, where the state takes 25 percent of the net profit of a barrel when its price is at or below $52. The percentage then escalates as oil prices rise over that benchmark.
So keep touting that “success” in the Pipeline From Nowhere (business failure) and the oil tax increase (speaks for itself) from Governor Palin. Not much of a Republican record there. Definitely more press is needed.
Jay Tea? I’m back! Where ya been since KC outed you as another dupe who will believe anything Newsmax tells you? That was HOURS ago!
Bruce, I was at work. I don’t get one of those M-F, 9-5 jobs.
The pipeline has moved forward substantially since Palin started working like hell on it. And the oil taxes Palin pushed through were not the “windfall” like Obama wants to do and Carter did, but a restructuring of how the state takes its cut.
Also, note that the people criticizing Palin are the spokespeople for Big Oil. Why are you suddenly giving them all kinds of credit — could it just be because they are saying what you want to hear?
Oh, and I never read NewsMax. But it’s my understanding that they’re at least marginally more reliable than Daily Kos, which is where you seem to be getting most of your arguments.
J.
Oil tax revenues in Alaska have more than doubled in a single fiscal year, from just over $5 billion to over $10 billion. That is not a restructuring. That is a tax increase. The amount of taxes paid by the oil companies to the state of Alaska as a percentage of the price of a barrel has increased. And the amount paid goes up by 0.2 percent per dollar of profit over $30 (or cost over $52). That is not a restructuring. It is a new tax. Read the article. Or you can read this one. It’s a year old but still has a lot of information.
Or this one:
Under Palin’s plan, called “Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share,” oil company profits are taxed at a 25 percent base rate, up from the previous 22.5 percent. When the price rises to $30 over cost, or about $52 a barrel, the tax rate rises 0.2 percent for each dollar.
The article goes on to talk about other projects she cut funding to, as she doubled the state’s oil tax revenue and sent checks out to every resident. I’m no longer surprised at her approval rating – people tend to ignore not fixing the sidewalks, or the fire station, or funding a pro-life adoption program when they’re being bribed. Combine that with all the earmarks she’s brought in from the federal government to pad the state’s budget, and you’ve got a lot of other people’s money to spread around. Sounds like Big Government to me.
You can find more railing against the Governor’s tax increase at Hot Air or the Cato Institute, if you go look.
The fact that there is an agreement on paper with a company to study a possible pipeline is a start, not a substantial move ahead. No construction. No impact study. No route, even, TO study. Not a lot of progress.
I have no trouble with the oil companies being asked to pay more for drilling in Alaska. I do have a problem with the oil companies paying less than they pay Alaska when they pump oil out of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and the other oil-producing states, and not even paying the royalty rates they agreed to pay. The Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service in this administration have actively undermined their own mission and have discouraged royalty auditors from pursuing underpayment cases. That is billions of dollars in lost revenue the administration refuses to collect.
And I’d bet real money that we’d see absolutely no improvement on any of these questions with a McCain/Palin administration. I wouldn’t be surprised one whit to see Alaska’s new tax repealed at the “request” of such an administration. Palin herself has made no noise about her new tax that I have seen in her couple of appearances. You’d think if she was so proud of it, she’d be bragging about it.
KC busts you with facts, like “No construction, no impact studies”, and your argument is full of vague assertions, like “moved forward substantially”, and “not a windfall-profits tax, but a restructuring”. Pretty weak.
Whether you get your talking points from Newsmax, the RNC, or some other source of tired, trickledown dogma, KC has bested you here. You’re pretty good sometimes, but on this one you’re beaten.