From British daily The Guardian:
Report accuses BP over safety
Fiona Walsh, business editor
Tuesday January 16, 2007
Oil giant BP was today accused of serious safety failures in the long-awaited Baker report, which was released this afternoon.
Stretching to 374 pages and more than a year in preparation, the report, by a review panel headed by former US sercretary of state James Baker, says that “material deficiencies existed at BP’s five US refineries in process safety management and BP had not implemented an effective process safety management system throughout its US refining line organisation”.
It added: “In the judgment of the review team, there is still much work for BP to do in order to achieve process safety excellence.”
The report highlighted what it called “instances of a lack of operating disciplines, toleration of serious deviations from safe operating practices, and apparent complacency toward serious process safety risks existing at each of the US refineries”.
It is seen as a damning indictment of BP’s safety culture, with the finger being pointed all the way up to main board level.
The review panel was established to investigate safety management systems at BP’s five US refineries and to examine its corporate safety culture.
It did not investigate specific incidents such as the Texas Refinery disaster in 2005 in which 15 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured.
BP has accepted responsibility for the Texas City refinery explosion and has already set aside $1.6bn (£816m) to compensate victims.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Its about time someone does – US House takes on Big Oil
Posted by: “Corey” cpmondello@yahoo.com cpmondello
Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:04 am (PST)
US House takes on Big Oil
A bill to be voted on Thursday would cut federal benefits by a third and give them to renewable-energy programs.
January 18, 2007 edition
The House of Representatives is poised Thursday to play Robin Hood with energy policy.
It aims to cut $14 billion in federal oil and gas tax breaks and other benefits over the next 10 years and give them instead to renewable-energy programs.
Such a change would represent a noticeable trim in government support for the oil and gas industry at a time when it is trying to boost domestic production. It would provide a huge boost to renewable energy industries as they try to replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy that’s also domestically produced.
Full Story;
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0118/p01s01-usec.html?s=hns
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Posted by: “bigraccoon” bigraccoon@earthlink.net redwoodsaurus
Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:23 pm (PST)
House Republicans who opposed this bill receive big donations from Big Oil
Oil and Gas contributions to members of Congress —
http://www.opensecr ets.org/industri es/indus. asp?Ind=E01
House Rolls Back Oil Company Subsidies
House Approves Additional Fees, Taxes on Oil Companies; Plans to Use Money for Renewable Fuels
Associated Press – January 19, 2007
WASHINGTON – The House rolled back billions of dollars in oil industry subsidies Thursday in what supporters hailed as a new direction in energy policy toward more renewable fuels. Critics said the action would reduce domestic oil production and increase reliance on imports.
The energy legislation was the last of six high-priority issues that House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had pledged to push through during the first 100 hours of Democratic control. The bill passed by a 264-163 vote.
The bill’s prospects are uncertain the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow majority. The top Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, said the bill was “another pig in the poke” that targets incentives necessary to promote domestic drilling.
The legislation would impose a “conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from
deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil
industry
tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties
lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases
issued in the late 1990s.
Democrats said the legislation could produce as much as $15 billion in
revenue.
Most of that money would pay to promote renewable fuels such as solar and
wind
power, alternative fuels including ethanol and biodiesel and incentives for
conservation.
“The oil industry doesn’t need the taxpayers’ help. … There is not an
American
that goes to a gas pump that doesn’t know that,” said Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer, D-Md. Pump prices topped $3 per gallon last year as the oil industry
earned
record profits.
The bill, Hoyer said, “starts to move our nation in a new direction” on
energy policy.
The bill’s opponents accused the Democratic majority of grandstanding and
said
the legislation was unnecessary.
“We do not need a tax on domestic energy production and development, ” said
Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., the former House speaker. “Increasing taxes on
our
nation’s energy industry means one thing more reliance on foreign oil and
gasoline.”
Added Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska: “If you want to do things right, let’s tax
foreign
oil.” Young, who had on a bright red shirt, made reference to it when he
said, “It’s
the color of this bill we’re debating Communist red.” The legislation
“amounts to a
taking of private property” by forcing oil companies to renegotiate leases
they view
as valid contracts, he said.
The bill would bar companies from future lease sales unless they agree to
renegotiate flawed leases issued in 1998-99 for deep-water drilling in the
Gulf of
Mexico.
Because of a government error, the leases did not contain a trigger for
royalties if
prices soared as they have in recent years. As a result, the companies have
avoided $1 billion in royalties so far and stand to avoid an additional $9
billion over
the life of the leases, the Interior Department says.
The White House said it strongly opposes the new production fees and future
lease bans. Those steps could reduce domestic production, according to the
administration. It views the repeal of the tax break for oil companies as
unfairly
singling out an industry.
That break, aimed at helping U.S. manufacturers compete against imports, has
saved oil companies $700 million a year, House Democrats say.
Information on the bill, H.R. 6, can be found at http://thomas. loc.gov/
http://www.abcnews. go.com/Business/ print?id= 2805859
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