Chevron: Release The Secret Evidence That Proves Your Guilt In Ecuador

Reposted from Karen Hinton on the The Huffington Post

In the wake of a controversial U.S. court ruling that a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron is fraudulent, the oil giant has been touting loudly its innocence of any environmental crimes in the South American country.

Chevron's lawyers even successfully pressured some CBS News corporate suits to yank a damning 60 Minutes piece from the network's website about the deliberate contamination of the Ecuador rainforest from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron later bought.

(See the dead link here. You can see the segment on my company's web site. So sue me, CBS.)

Instead of succumbing to Chevron's pressure tactics, CBS' lawyers should grow a backbone and demand to see contamination "playbook" documents that Chevron has been forced to produce in an international arbitration proceeding.

They are explosive and prove 60 Minutes got it right, and the U.S. judge got it wrong.

The playbook details how the company hid evidence of contamination during an eight-year Ecuador trial resulting in a $9.5 billion damage award that the Ecuadorians are waiting for Chevron to pay.

Meanwhile, Chevron is claiming in arbitration that the Republic of Ecuador should pay the judgment, and the two parties are duking it out before a panel of corporate trade lawyers who rent office space at The Hague and act as "judges" – more about them later.

The playbook took center stage in a recent arbitration filing by Ecuador. It appears the country's lawyers have gotten their hands on much, if not the entire, playbook, but the corporate trade lawyers are requiring Ecuador to redact or cover up the really damning evidence.

Even so, a recent rejoinder filed by Ecuador reveals enough to demonstrate what a morally bankrupt company Chevron is. (See the redacted rejoinder here.)

Here's what we know about the playbook, pieced together from the filings of both the Ecuadorians in U.S. court and the Republic of Ecuador in arbitration.

In 2011, the Ecuadorians obtained a few pages from the playbook and tried to enter them into evidence during Chevron's "fraud" trial, but Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan refused to allow any evidence of contamination into the record, including the small excerpt from Chevron's playbook.

(See my recent blog about this legal travesty, and this earlier 2011 press release about the playbook.)

During the Ecuador trial Chevron's paid experts wrote the playbook to document how to handle the contamination they found at the well sites in soil and water tests.

Without the knowledge of the Ecuador court, Chevron's experts conducted unofficial and secret pre-inspections of the sites so they could avoid the badly contaminated areas during the official judicial inspections. (See page 63 in the rejoinder.)

Their pre-inspection findings would have been devastating to their case had they been turned over to the court. So they never were. (See page 63.)

Instead, they used the results to avoid the contaminated areas and test at clean spots, usually from soil and water at elevations higher than the huge, unlined and open pits Texaco built to store permanently pure crude and toxic water.

[Quick backgrounder: Texaco explored for oil in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992 and was the sole operator of the well sites during that time. The Ecuadorians filed their original lawsuit in the U.S. against Texaco in 1993, one year after Texaco left Ecuador. A U.S. judge dismissed their lawsuit ruling in 2001 at Texaco's urging the litigation should be heard in Ecuador. That year, Chevron bought Texaco. In 2003, the Ecuadorians re-filed their case in Ecuador but not before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals instructed Chevron that it must accept Ecuador's jurisdiction, which it did.]

Chevron routinely used deceptive methods, such as mixing clean soil with dirty and undercounting hydrocarbons, to hide or reduce toxic chemicals in samplings. (See pages 66-72.)

This table below, taken from the arbitration filing, reflects just a few of the thousands of pages of playbook notes Chevron's experts and field personnel took, describing the contamination and advising the company about ways to avoid it during the official judicial inspection.

It's heavily redacted. If it's true – as Chevron says it is – that the oil giant is innocent, and the truth is what it seeks, then why won't Chevron release the un-redacted, unedited playbook for all to see?

Maybe it has something to do with the 1995 remediation agreement that Chevron argues is its get-out-of-jail-free card.

The agreement, between Texaco and the Republic of Ecuador, released Texaco from government liability in exchange for a cleanup of a relatively small number of pits. It did not, however, release Texaco from third-party claims.

During the Ecuador trial, tests found contamination levels at the so-called remediated Texaco pits as high or higher than the ones not cleaned. The Ecuadorians accused Texaco of simply throwing dirt on top of the contamination to hide it.

Chevron's playbook backs that up.

At pits Texaco said it cleaned, Chevron – according to its own playbook – found contamination during its secret PIs or pre-inspections. To avoid or reduce the contamination Chevron, during the official judicial inspection, took soil only from the top layer.

Ecuador's rejoinder references the playbook notes of Shushufindi 24, Sacha 21 and Lago Agrio 6, all three well sites that Texaco said it cleaned.

In its secret, pre-inspections Chevron discovered otherwise. (See pages 68-69.)

The rejoinder reads: "During the JIs (judicial inspections) Chevron's experts sought to avoid finding pollution by sampling only to depths that it knew to be clean. For example, at Shushufindi 24, the soil boring log at pit 2 shows that during its PI, (pre-inspection) REDACTED "Then at the JI, Chevron strategically chose to take surface soil samples only – avoiding the known contamination below."

Chevron: What did you find at Shushufini 24, Sacha 21 and Lago Agrio 6?

If you found little or no contamination, then all is well.

If you found contamination and withheld it from the court, then your remediation agreement comes unraveled as does your entire legal case.

Chevron will say today that pre-inspections were allowed, but that's not what its attorneys said during the trial. Chevron wrongfully accused the Ecuadorians of pre-inspections, telling the court that pre-inspections were a "violation of legal security and due process of law," and "no technical team from ChevronTexaco Corporation has performed any secret tests here."

The rejoinder reads:"Yet by that time, Chevron's experts had conducted PIs at least REDACTED (number of) sites and taken over REDACTED (number of) samples." (See page 65.)

Chevron wants its shareholders to believe the Ecuadorians are history, even though enforcement lawsuits are underway in three countries and an appeal of the U.S. ruling is pending before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed an earlier Kaplan attempt to stop enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.

And, while the Republic of Ecuador is fighting aggressively Chevron's arbitration claim, it is doubtful the arbitration panel will rule against the oil giant.

Brought in 2009, Chevron's arbitration action is based on alleged violations of Ecuador's Bilateral Trade Agreement with the United States.

For some time now, multi-national corporations have been abusing these trade agreements. Allowing it to happen are the corporate trade lawyers who sit on arbitration panels as judges and then rotate off as lawyers representing corporations before panels composed of their trade lawyer buddies.

Best example is the successful claim by Phillip Morris against Australia because the country placed warning signs on cigarette packs about the dangers of smoking after Phillip Morris began selling cigarettes there. See here.

International arbitration is fraught with serious conflicts of interest, and some countries are considering ending bi-lateral trade agreements due to numerous upside down arbitration rulings that have put the interest of corporations above a country's residents.

The Ecuadorians' best bet is in Canada, Brazil and Argentina where they have filed enforcement lawsuits to seize Chevron's assets in those countries as payment for the judgment.

Who knows? The entire Chevron playbook may see the light of day in one of those courtrooms soon. Or, 60 Minutes could stand by its work and demand to see it.

Ironically, during Chevron's "fraud" trial, Kaplan quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis' famous maxim that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" but when it comes to the allegations leveled by the Ecuadorians and their lawyer, Steven Donziger, Kaplan and the corporate trade lawyers hanging out at the Hague prefer the dark side of the moon.

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Shan: Chevron Loses a Round in First Amendment Battle over Ecuador Film Footage

The below post appeared on ChevroninEcuador.com today – take a look below or after the jump:

Victory for First Amendment, Filmmakers, & Amazon Communities in Battle Vs. Chevron Over Ecuador Footage!

Chevron suffered a significant legal setback in the courts today in its sprawling cynical effort to evade accountability for its environmental devastation in Ecuador

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger will get an Appeals Court hearing of his appeal of the lower court decision ordering him to turn over 600+ hours of raw footage shot during the making of his award-winning documentary CRUDE. The ruling by the three-judge panel of the Circuit Court also 'stays' the subpoena ordering the production of the footage while Berlinger's appeal is pending.

This is excellent news for supporters of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, and documentary filmmakers and investigative journalists– and everyone that benefits from the work done by these people to shine a spotlight on issues of social and political importance. In other words, this is great news for everyone.

Furthermore, this is a victory for those who have dared to discover the truth about Chevron's environmental disaster in Ecuador, and the communities struggling to hold the oil giant accountable.

Chevron's lawyers from corporate law behemoth Gibson Dunnhope to mine the CRUDE outtakes for any material that they might find useful to their relentless legal and public relations schemes to discredit the plaintiffs, their attorneys and supporters, and the courts in Ecuador.

In response to the ruling, Mr. Berlinger's lawyer Maura Wogan told The Wrap:

"Today's decision signals that the appeals court takes seriously the rights of investigative journalists like Joe Berlinger."

And Joe Berlinger had this to say:

"I am delighted that the appellate court seems to understand the significant public interest in my appeal being heard. The stay that was granted today will allow us to argue the merits of our position before the Court."

The ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals vindicates the position of the growing number of high-profile supporters who have spoken out for Berlinger.

On Friday, film legend and environmental activist Robert Redford penned a powerful opinion article in the Huffington Post, entitled 'Joe Berlinger vs. Chevron: Why We Must All Defend Independent Filmmaking'.

Redford's argument couldn't be more straightforward:

Filmmakers like Joe Berlinger fulfill a crucial role in today's society by providing independent information on pressing contemporary human rights and social issues. Their success as storytellers depends on access to those men and women willing to talk on camera. If the subjects of those documentaries are fearful of the ramifications of telling the truth then the filmmaker has no story.

Without a shield law, there is no recognized journalist/filmmaker/source protection, creating the very scenario we have now. The judges in this case must recognize this is first and foremost a first amendment issue. The higher courts need to overturn the decision and adhere to higher standards of journalistic privilege.

If we allow the voice of the independent artist to be stifled we should expect nothing less than extreme repercussions for freedom of information... and freedom in general.

Also last week, Floyd Abrams, perhaps the best-known First Amendment lawyer in the country, filed an Amicus Curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The brief was joined by 13 (!) major media organizations– ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, The Associated Press, Dow Jones, The Washington Post, The New York Times Company, Gannett Company, Hearst Corporation, the Daily News, the Directors Guild of America, and the International Documentary Association.

The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff, who has been following the case closely for the Arts Beat blog at NYTimes.com, wrote:

The brief says the district court's ruling "was fundamentally flawed" in its interpretation of the 1999 case Gonzales v. NBC, in which the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that even confidential materials can be released if they are likely to be relevant to a significant issue in the case and are not reasonably obtainable elsewhere.

Judge Kaplan's ruling, the brief said, "effectively shifted the burden of alleged unfairness onto the filmmakers, rendering this circuit's requirement of a relevance showing meaningless," and "made it far too easy for Chevron to obtain far too much, precisely what Gonzales forbids."

In the June 1, 2010 amicus brief, Abrams writes more on Judge Kaplan's misreading of the Gonzalez case and gets to the the real heart of the matter:

The vast distance between the District Court's reading of Gonzales and its text and spirit is illustrated by the Court's emphasis in both its May 10 and May 20 orders on the proposition that, because the individual subjects captured in the outtake footage voluntarily chose to expose themselves to public scrutiny through the inevitable screening of a completed film, it would "not credit any assertion that the discovery of the outtakes by Petitioners would compromise the ability of Berlinger or, for that matter, any other film maker, to obtain material from individuals interested in confidential treatment." This analysis completely ignores the relationship between a documentary filmmaker and the individuals that he or she interviews; it assumes, wrongly, that the participants in such a project would see no difference between the public circulation of a final film painstakingly prepared and edited by the filmmaker who solicited their contribution and whom they entrusted with telling their story and the potentially unlimited display of their every word in a widely-publicized multi-billion dollar international litigation.

And lastly, last week ahead of today's hearing, NPR's All Things Considered covered the legal battle in a story called 'A 'Crude' Awakening: Chevron Vs. The Documentarian'. The story predictably gives Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn and company spokesman Kent Robertson each a chance to weigh in with their cynical spin. After today's loss in the courts over their attempts to get at Berlinger's CRUDE outtakes, I'm sure they're huddling up to devise their next tactic in Chevron's treacherous strategy to deceive, deny, and delay... until it all goes away.

But the communities in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest have other plans, and have vowed to struggle until they get the justice that has been denied them so long.

And of course, Berlinger's legal battle isn't over. While the Circuit Court stayed the lower court's order to turn over all his raw footage to Chevron, Berlinger still has to argue his case on appeal. Want to help with the costly legal battle? Any amount you can donate to the CRUDE First Amendment legal defense fund is deeply appreciated.

And if you still haven't seen the explosive, award-winning documentary CRUDE, see it, and judge for yourself.

– Han
Han Shan is Coordinator of Amazon Watch's Clean Up Ecuador Campaign

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Norman Lear Latest to Blast Chevron for Trying to Seize Ecuador Film Footage

This article, by Norman Lear, appeared today on The Huffington Post:

Was Oil Named 'Crude' Because of the Way Oil Companies Do Business?

Let me leave it to you; which is it? "Couldn't be" or "certainly possible"? The recent BP crisis could be called the greatest of "natural" disasters. Natural for a company that had already received 760 citations for "egregious, willful violations," accounting for "97% of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry..." according to the Center for Public Integrity,as quoted by Frank Rich in this past Sunday's New York Times.

Currently setting another high standard for crude behavior in the oil business is Chevron. As for the battle between Chevron and the indigenous groups of people in Ecuador who are suing the oil company for despoiling a swath of the Amazon rainforest the size of Rhode Island that is their habitat, and upon which they depend for their sustenance, I am not taking sides. It is Chevron's reaction to a documentary on that very subject, Crude, which received the most glowing reviews in 2009, with which I take issue.

With no precedent for such a broad action, Chevron has subpoenaed the filmmaker, Joe Berlinger, to turn over his entire vault of footage -- over 600 hours shot (Berlinger is an exceedingly thorough filmmaker) plus the notes and sources the film was based on -- by citing the relevance of three scenes totaling about six minutes in a film that has a running time of 105 minutes and represents an infinitesimal fraction of the total hours shot.

Let me say that again: Chevron wants it all, every scene, 600 hours, because they believe they've found six minutes of footage that they think can help discredit the class-action suit filed against them by 30,000 Ecuadorians. Who would have guessed that Chevron would find a crudely sympathetic ear in U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan? Flouting the First Amendment, the author's right to keep his sources and work product private, and simple common sense (600 hours for the six minutes that they hold in question, my God!!) Judge Kaplan, ruling in favor of the company, ordered the largest turnover of a reporter's work product in American history.

Giving deep-pocketed corporations the right to rummage around in the files of a well-respected, independent documentarian like Berlinger will not only send a very discouraging message to anyone involved in the news-gathering business, but also to anyone who might want to talk to reporters about exposing the kind of corporate negligence or potential villainy that made the BP disaster possible. Chevron is the largest corporation in California and the fifth largest on the planet. I am quite confident that the Founding Fathers did not want corporations to use their vast profits to discourage this kind of reporting from taking place and at the same time place considerable financial burdens on filmmakers like Berlinger to defend their constitutional rights.

Although the American media has been on hand to catch BP with its tactics and ethical shorts down, the Chevron situation took place far from the lens of most American journalists and is the kind of story often overlooked by the mainstream American press. Whatever the reason for that may be, the chilling effect that this ruling will have on investigative filmmakers like Berlinger will mean that stories like this might not be told in the future. This is such a matter of grave importance that the bulk of American media companies signed on to leading constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams friend-of-the-court brief recently filed on behalf of Berlinger's case. The group filing included all three major broadcast networks, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The crudest thing of all in this story is the tilt in this country in favor of corporations. From the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing corporations to flood Washington with campaign finance -- which in turn keeps our country tethered to an antiquated fuel source that is destroying our environment -- to Chevron's current attempt to destroy the protections that allow a free press to function, it is time we put the future of this country back in the hands of its citizens, not its corporations.

Having observed hundreds of thousands of Americans in almost 50 states wait in line as long as 90 minutes to spend a moment with a touring original copy of the Declaration of Independence, born the night of July 4, 1776, our country's birth certificate, I am here to report that the American people, the solid American people, are ready for a rebirth of citizenship. They are ready to be freed, to become born-again Americans -- citizens who once more declare their independence, this time from the growing corporatocracy in which we find ourselves today.

I suggest that we begin by applauding today's appellate court decision granting Berlinger a stay in order to have a full hearing on his appeal. I, along with my fellow citizens, hope that these judges will continue to put the sanctity of the First Amendment ahead of the rights of corporations when Berlinger's appeal is heard in July.

* * * * * * *

To learn more about how to help with Mr. Berlinger's legal efforts, please click here

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Chevron’s Ecuador Corruption and Ricardo Reis Veiga

The environmental crime committed by Texaco in Ecuador – and now defended by Chevron in a multi-billion litigation there – is intimately tied to the malfeasance of Chevron lawyer Ricardo Reis Veiga. Reis Veiga is known as the architect of Chevron's fraud in Ecuador. It is no coincidence that Chevron has hidden the formerly high-profile Veiga under the sheets for some time now, trying to keep him out of public view while the awful consequences of his misconduct play out in the trial in Ecuador and in the health problems of thousands of people.

To put it bluntly, Reis Veiga was Texaco's corporate hit man in Ecuador. He used fraud, money, deceit and the oil giant's raw power to help it evade responsibility for the deliberate dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon while Texaco operated an oil concession from 1964 to 1990. Reis Veiga, along with ten Ecuadorian officials with whom he is accused of conspiring, is currently under indictment for fraud in Ecuador for lying about the results of a sham remediation Texaco did in the mid-1990s.

While Reis Veiga supervised the trial in Ecuador, terrible strategic mistakes were made. Chevron took numerous soil samples that proved that the previously remediated sites were in fact not remediated, even though Reis Veiga and his colleague and Chevron lawyer Rodrigo Perez Pallares signed off on the clean-up. Under Reis Veiga's brilliant supervision, Chevron's local lawyers essentially proved the case of the plaintiffs.

For this brilliant legal work, Chevron has spent tens of millions of dollars in fees.

The latest issue for Reis Veiga is the role he played in directing Chevron employee Diego Borja in his failed effort to entrap a trial judge in Ecuador in a bribery scandal to derail the trial where the company faces a $27.3 billion liability.

The so-called "bribery" videotapes have been discredited since Chevron released them in August 2009. They do not show anyone taking a bribe; the judge never discusses a bribe. The two men who made the videotapes are not the good Samaritans Chevron portrayed them to be. American Wayne Hansen is a convicted felon and inveterate liar; Borja is a man who bragged to a friend that "crime pays" and said that Chevron "cooked" evidence in the lawsuit, created a dummy laboratory to process soil samples, and engaged in all sorts of malfeasance that if known in full would allow the plaintiffs to win the case in the time it takes him to snap his fingers.

Borja has worked for Chevron in Ecuador since at least 2004. On tapes recorded by childhood friend Santiago Escobar, Borja said he was hired by and took all of his direction from Chevron's Miami office headed by none other than the indefatigable Reis Veiga. Let's just say this type of behavior would be consistent with Reis Veiga's historical pattern. See transcripts of Borja's recorded conversations with Santiago Escobar, the childhood friend. (Transcript 6, October 1, 2009 p. 7-8; Transcript 2, October 1, 2009, pages 2-3)

Borja for years collected soil samples for Chevron during the Ecuador trial, for which he was paid $10,000 per month – a millionaire's wage in Ecuador. His wife, Sara Portillo, worked at the so-called "independent" laboratory that processed the company's soil samples and then presented them as "evidence" to the court.

In his conversations with Escobar, Borja said Chevron was concerned about a possible Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation should anyone discover that the oil company had anything to do with the bribery scandal. The Act prohibits American companies from bribing or otherwise offering benefits to foreign government officials to obtain business.

Borja wrote in an online chat: "Imagine I disappear and say that everything is planned by the company…. They'll shit themselves, because the corruption law would apply in that case, and they'd close down their operations in the U.S." (9/15 online chat).

Chevron's management needs to bring Reis Veiga out from under the sheets to answer some basic questions about his relationship to Borja and the video scandal.

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Chevron’s Watson To Feds: Stop Us Before We Hurt Somebody

From a recent Dow Jones article: Chevron Corp. (CVX) Chief Executive John Watson said that the oil and gas industry has asked the U.S. government to raise safety standards for offshore drilling in order to avoid another "tragedy" like the massive spill that is still threatening the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

In other words: "Stop us before we hurt somebody."

Watson's remarks are an astonishing admission from an oil industry CEO. He's acknowledging that oil companies are incapable of ensuring safe operations and conceding they will maximize profits and compromise safety standards unless the government steps in.

But Watson knows exactly what he is talking about – the damage that he is talking about is exactly what Chevron caused in Ecuador, an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. Left to its own devices, Chevron put profits ahead of the safety of indigenous groups and the pristine environment of the Amazonian rainforest from the moment it landed its first helicopter in 1964 until it exited the country in 1992. By using substandard exploration and safety measures, Chevron "saved" an estimated $8 billion during three decades of exploitive oil drilling and exploration. This "savings" has resulted in the devastation of thousands of lives, an outbreak of cancer, and the decimation of indigenous groups.

The New York Times reported recently on a BP memo that admitted the oil company elected to use a cheaper type of cement casing system around the "blowout preventer" that experts believe may have prevented the explosion and the resulting spill. Texaco made a similar decision in Ecuador in the 1970s when it decided to not spend the $4 million at each of its well sites necessary to implement proper safety measures, such as the lining of toxic waste pits. Instead, Texaco's preferred method in the impoverished rainforest could be described quite simply: "dig and dump."

Instead of re-injecting deep into the ground the oil and toxic waste water left over from drilling well sites, as was the industry standard in the United States since at least 1962, Texaco dug over 900 huge holes in the ground and dumped a deadly mix of oil, chemicals and minerals into the unlined oil pits. Recent testing during the trial at about 100 of these oil pits and well sites revealed illegal and unacceptable levels of contamination that continue to leech into the ground, polluting the soil and water that the indigenous tribes and other Ecuadorians living in the area depend on for their survival.

The deadly consequences stemming from putting profits ahead of safety is a lesson that Chevron learned all too well in Ecuador. BP is now learning the same hard lesson in the Gulf. The question is whether either company will be held accountable.

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Amazon Watch: Chevron Condemned for Human Rights Abuses, Activists Arrested

This press release was put out today by Amazon Watch. Read on:

Chevron Condemned for Human Rights Abuses, Ecuador Disaster at Annual Shareholder Meeting Today

Activists Arrested Inside and Outside Chevron's Meeting
Community Leaders Barred, Ejected from Annual Meeting for Exposing the Truth about Chevron

Amazon Watch
26 May 2010 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Brianna Cayo-Cotter, Rainforest Action Network, 415-305-1943 or brianna [at] ran.org
Paul Paz y Miño at 510-773-4635 or paz [at] amazonwatch.org

Houston, TX – At Chevron's shareholder meeting today the company faced outrage for its continued lies, deception, silencing of critics, and human rights abuses. Concerned community leaders from several nations including Ecuador and Nigeria traveled from around the world yet were refused entry to Chevron's annual meeting.

One of the few community members allowed inside the shareholder meeting was Mariana Jimenez, a 71-year-old grandmother from Ecuador. She spoke directly to Chevron's CEO and Board and demanded an end to Chevron's lies about the massive oil contamination in Ecuador that is destroying her community in the Amazon rainforest.

"In 1976, I lost two young children. In 1979, one of my daughters became very sick with an unknown illness on her throat and lost her voice for three months. People are still getting sick every day. There are children born with birth defects. I want him [Watson] to take responsibility for the crime that his company committed in my country."

Rather than showing Ms. Jimenez and the 30,000 other Ecuadorean people the respect they deserve, Chevron CEO John Watson chose to mock the community's suffering and disingenuously claimed that, "My predecessor (former CEO David O'Reilly) showed great empathy and I will do the same."

"We don't need empathy from Chevron, we need them to accept full responsibility for the pain and suffering they have caused our people and clean up Ecuador now," said Guillermo Grafa, an Indigenous leader from Ecuador who was denied access to Chevron's shareholder meeting after traveling from his home in the rainforest.

Chevron's Board also felt the heat inside the shareholder meeting. During the Board re-election process, shareholders challenged Chevron's Board of Directors to intervene in the company's failed strategy of covering up its massive liability.

"While Chevron's management systematically deceives regulators, shareholders, and the public about its liability in Ecuador, the Board of Directors has been asleep at the wheel," said Maria Ramos, Change Chevron Campaign Director at Rainforest Action Network.

"Since taking the helm at Chevron, we have seen Mr. Watson continue to endorse this company's long running, expensive and dead-end strategy with respect to the dire situation in the Amazon -- a strategy which has cost both the company and the people of the Amazon dearly."

Meanwhile outside, Chevron arrested four shareholders and representatives who refused to leave Chevron property after they were denied access to the meeting. Those arrested were trying to voice their concerns about environmental destruction and human rights abuses in Ecuador, Richmond, CA, Houston, TX, and around the world. The people arrested were Han Shan and Mitchell Anderson of Amazon Watch; Juan Parras of TEJAS in Houston; Rev Ken Davis from Richmond. Antonia Juhasz of the True Cost of Chevron coalition was arrested while trying to make a statement inside the shareholder meeting after being admitted with a valid proxy. None of the arrested had been released as of 3:30 pm CT.

Amazon Watch staff Han Shan and Mitch Anderson participated in the "sit in" before their arrests. "More than 20,000 [Chevron] proxy shareholders have been barred from the meeting for no valid, legal or legitimate reason, but simply because they come from communities in Ecuador, in Burma, in Nigeria, in Richmond, CA like Rev. Davis here. And they want to deny those people speaking out about their concerns. It's appalling," said Han Shan. Mitch Anderson added, "We are not leaving the premises. They have disenfranchised our voices and they are going to have to drag us out of here."

Shelley Alpern, Vice-President at Trillium Asset Management Corporation was also outraged at Chevron's actions, stating, "I attend several shareholder meetings every year and I have never seen a company deny entry to legal proxy holders. This is outrageous and reflects very poorly on our company's respect for the laws that govern our proxy process. The shareholders in attendance today should stand forewarned not to say anything critical or it could be you next year."

More information at www.chevrontoxico.com.

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RAN’s Maria Ramos to Chevron CEO: You are Hiding the Truth about Egregious Human Rights and Environmental Abuses

Maria Ramos, the campaign organizer for the Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) "Change Chevron" campaign confronted Chevron CEO John Watson at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Houston today. While Chevron barred the majority of the individuals that were brought with various environmental groups, despite their having legal proxies, the company could not bar Ramos from being speaking during the meeting. Her comments are below.

Ramos' comments to the Board during the board re-election process:

I would like to echo outrage for disenfranchising legal shareholders from entering this meeting. These people have travelled from around the world from Angola, Nigeria, the Philippines, Ecuador, to speak about egregious human rights and environmental abuses. You are not letting shareholders hear the truth. That is not the Chevron way. I would like to speak directly to your nomination to the board Mr. Watson.

Highlighted as a qualification in the 2010 proxy statement for Mr. Watson's election to the Chairmanship of the Board of Directors of Chevron is Mr. Watson's role in leading Chevron's integration effort after its acquisition of Texaco Inc. Whether or not Mr. Watson's leadership in the merger with Texaco represents a qualification, or rather a poor lack of judgment is another question. Since taking the helm of Chevron, we have seen Mr. Watson continue to endorse this company's long running, expensive and dead-end strategy with respect to the dire situation in the Amazon -- a strategy which has cost both the company and the people of the Amazon dearly.

A particularly important question for shareholders is whether or not Mr. Watson, as architect of the Chevron-Texaco merger, adequately vetted Texaco before purchasing the company in 2001 for $31 billion -- a sum which is just $4 billion more than its current financial exposure in the Ecuador lawsuit. It strikes us that Chevron's management overpaid for Texaco by billions of dollars and thereby diminished shareholder value through its own negligence.

And an even more important and urgent question is -- given the position that Chevron is in, with the cloud of Ecuador threatening its stock price, and causing grave political and reputational risk -- are you Mr. Watson ready to take charge of this company, put an end to the days where lawyers and public relations officials are running the show, and come to an honest, fair, and equitable resolution with the people of Ecuador?

Mr. Watson, the question to you is if you have the courage to change Chevron?

Ramos' comments seconding the shareholder resolution requiring that at least one board member have "significant" environmental experience:

Maria Ramos again with Rainforest Action Network. I would like to second Stockholder proposal regarding the appointment of an independent director with environmental expertise - Item #4 on the proxy card.

It is disconcerting that your board has recommended a No vote on this proposal - by just looking around this room and having seen the protest outside and the many people from around the world who were not allowed in with legal proxies - it is clear that Chevron's track record is riddled with environmental abuses. It is neither some mass global conspiracy nor coincidence that has brought people from as far as Nigeria, Australia, Angola, Ecuador, Alaska Canada and Richmond California - all with accounts of environmental pollution, all supported by a broad body of evidence. The California Air Resources Board has found Chevron's Richmond refinery to be the biggest single source polluter in the state. Chevron blatantly continues the illegal practice of gas flaring in the Niger Delta. And in Ecuador, Chevron is on trial for widespread oil contamination, facing a possible $27 billion liability. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced his office would be launching inquiry to determine if the company is misleading shareholders over its Ecuador liability - this at the request of New York shareholders.

Shareholders should know that this proposal has received high level of support from investors, representing billions in Chevron stock - including the support of RiskMetrics - because there is a broad concern that Chevron's board has failed to comply with their governance obligations and has failed to address serious environmental risks.

On the Ecuador case: there is no evidence that Chevron board members ever visited Ecuador to understand the potential environmental liability. There is no evidence that Chevron board members have vetted the company's Ecuador liability independent of senior management.

Why the board would not want to better position Chevron to deal with the profound environmental challenges that the company is facing is troubling. The board's negative response to the proposal -- citing that board members should not be selected on the basis of a single criterion - is myopic, when faced with an onslaught of legal and public relations debacle. The board's negative response citing that the board already includes directors with experience on environmental matters -- well, If Chevron believes it already has this level and caliber of expertise, then shareholders should be told now - who that is, and what makes them experienced.

Some of the members of Chevron's board of directors have been on the board for 2, 3 decades -- Mr. Armacost, Chair of the Governance Committee has been on the board for 29 years. And I want to direct my comments to you -- it's a different world from when many of you started your positions on the board. The public's environmental values are deepening, their support for companies to take responsible action is growing.

Chevron is an oil company. It is inconceivable -- even as the oil spill off the Gulf is fresh on the mind -- that the board would not deem it important for an oil company to have adequate environmental oversight. It's only sensible to vote in favor of this proposal.

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Chevron Lawyer Admits “Release” Doesn’t Cover Ecuador Lawsuit

Chevron Lawyer Rodrigo Perez Pallares

If there was ever ironclad proof that Chevron is being deceptive in court and before the public about the "release" it claims it received in Ecuador, it can be found in the sworn deposition testimony of Chevron's own lawyer in Ecuador who signed the release for the company. It turns out that this lawyer, Rodrigo Perez Pallares, admitted under oath that the "release" does not apply to the claims in the pending Lago Agrio lawsuit in Ecuador. This contradicts what Chevron's American lawyers and public relations operatives are telling judges, journalists, the SEC, and shareholders all over the world.

Proof of this admission can be read here. Remember, Perez Pallares negotiated and signed the "release" for Chevron so we can assume he knows what he's talking about.

Chevron's CEO, John Watson, and General Counsel, Hewitt Pate, continually refer to the release as "proof" Chevron's contractual rights are being violated in Ecuador by the mere existence of the lawsuit brought by the indigenous groups for environmental clean-up. The company has submitted this false information as "fact" to the Bush and Obama Administrations in an attempt to convince them to cancel trade preferences for Ecuador as a "punishment" for letting its own citizens sue Chevron in their own courts. (Chevron, remember, fought for nine years to move the case to Ecuador out of U.S. federal court where it was filed in 1993.)

But that's not all. Chevron is also basing an entire international arbitration against Ecuador's government – which commenced recently in London -- on what is essentially a misrepresentation of the facts. This is not the first time Chevron has tried this maneuver – they also tried it against Ecuador's government in a litigation in New York federal court that lasted from 2004 to 2009 (which is where Perez Pallares testified). In that case, Chevron hastily withdrew the "release" claim when it appeared a U.S. federal judge could actually review it and issue a ruling.

In his deposition, Perez Pallares was clear that Chevron's arguments about the "release" are bogus. Under questioning from a lawyer from Ecuador's government, he said the "release" does not apply to the claims of the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio case.

An excerpt from his sworn testimony:

Q: But what [Article 8 of the MOU] does do instead is it carves out entirely any action brought by parties who were not parties to the settlement agreement. Would you agree with that?

The Witness (Pallares): I agree…

Q: If I'm understanding you correctly, and I don't mean to mischaracterize your testimony – you'll tell me if I'm incorrect – I think what you're saying is that a plaintiff can sue in Ecuador but can only obtain relief to the extent that Ecuador permits that relief.

Pallares: That's exactly it.

Q: But the MOU and the settlement doesn't affect that one way or the other. It doesn't give them rights they would not otherwise have. Is that a fair statement.

Pallares: That's correct.

Read the entire page of the testimony here.

Note also that section VIII of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Chevron and Ecuador's government in 1994 explicitly states (in reference to the release):

The provisions of this agreement shall apply without prejudice to the rights possibly held by third parties for the impact caused as a consequence of the operations of the former PETROECUADOR-TEXACO Consortium.

Because of these facts, Watson and Pate have Chevron in a legal pickle over the Ecuador problem. Chevron is faced with overwhelming scientific evidence of the extreme destruction that Texaco's substandard operational procedures caused in the Ecuadorian rainforest when it operated there from 1964 to 1992. As a result, Chevron faces an enormous potential liability.

Chevron has spent years trying to evade accountability in Ecuador. The company has tried lobbying, public relations campaigns, wild accusations, and even a "Nixon"-style dirty tricks operation to undermine the trial. Now, Chevron is using all of its influence in Washington and around the world to try to pressure the government of Ecuador based on a myth about the "release" -- just so it can extract an advantage in a private litigation that it is losing.

Chevron needs to understand that the Obama (and Bush) Administrations try to make policy on what is best for the country, not what is best for Chevron. That is why for five straight years our government has renewed Ecuador's trade preferences over Chevron's objections.

About the only thing separating Chevron from that enormous liability in Ecuador is a misrepresentation about its supposed "release". That must not be terribly comforting for Chevron's shareholders, even if it gives false comfort to those managing the company.

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LA Times Editorial: Chevron Should Be Prevented From Violating Journalist's Privilege

Chevron sues over 'Crude'

A documentary's unused footage, akin to reporters' notes, should be protected.

Journalism that serves society does not always spring from objectivity, nor is it always written from a distance. When Upton Sinclair exposed the conditions of Chicago's meat industry, he did so on assignment from a socialist newspaper. He went to work in grim stockyards and returned with "The Jungle." The result was a revolution in food safety and the founding of the Food and Drug Administration.

Sinclair's closeness to his story gave his journalism urgency and moral power. It was precisely the sort of work that deserves the greatest protection from corporate intrusion. That lesson, however, has been turned upside down by a New York federal judge who this week ordered a documentary filmmaker to turn over outtakes of his work to Chevron.

The man at the center of this important 1st Amendment battle is Joe Berlinger, a respected documentary filmmaker who launched a project in 2005 to chronicle a landmark lawsuit filed by Ecuadoran indigenous people seeking compensation for environmental damage. Berlinger's acclaimed documentary, "Crude," followed the case, focusing on the lawyers for the plaintiffs. Chevron, however, says several scenes reinforce the company's charge that those lawyers cooked up the case: In one, a lawyer for the plaintiffs meets with an expert witness hired by the government to estimate damages from oil in the Ecuadoran jungle; in another, a lawyer is shown meeting with the judge and remarking that such a meeting would be inconceivable in the United States but not in Ecuador, because there "this is how the game is played. It's dirty." Because just a fraction of Berlinger's footage made it into the final film, Chevron believes there was potentially more damaging material left on the cutting-room floor, so it sought to force Berlinger to hand over his outtakes.

Were the material in question notes gathered by a journalist in pursuit of a story, the journalist's privilege, which recognizes the societal benefit of allowing journalists to shield their unpublished notes, would almost certainly have protected it. So the issues were: Was Berlinger a journalist, and do the protections for notes extend to film outtakes? U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan sided with Berlinger on both points, concluding that the filmmaker covered a newsworthy event and disseminated his findings to the public — a fairly sound description of journalism in any form.

Nevertheless, noting that the journalist's privilege is a limited one, Kaplan ordered Berlinger to turn over the footage precisely because, paradoxically, Berlinger's close ties to the plaintiffs meant that he has material that Chevron is unable to get anyplace else. (Kaplan seems to have overlooked the presence of other witnesses in the filmed scenes.) Kaplan may be right that Berlinger has exclusive material, but forcing him to relinquish it turns the point of journalistic access on its head: If journalists must reveal what they learn but do not publish from those sources they cultivate most carefully, then sources will keep them at arms' length. This nation is better off because Sinclair was able to insinuate himself into Chicago's meatpacking plants; it will be better again if Berlinger prevails on appeal. And it will be better still when Congress passes a federal shield law that protects journalists and their sources.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

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John Perkins: Fake Accounting, Greed and Oil

This article, by New York Times bestselling "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" author John Perkins, appeared on The Huffington Post.

Fake Accounting, Greed and Oil

While countries around the world continue to watch their economies collapse, and Goldman-Sachs leaders testify to Congress about how they manipulated both their shareholders and the American public, we are also faced with a tragic oil spill on our most fragile coastlines.

The sad truth is that oil, greed and fake accounting work hand in hand to empower those who have -- and significantly disempower those who do not.

In my book, HOODWINKED I talk about the 30,000 Ecuadorians who filed a lawsuit against Texaco (since purchased by Chevron). See this link. The company destroyed vast sections of rain forest and the toxic wastes from its operations allegedly killed many people and made many more chronically sick.

It is often the indigenous people who are the ultimate losers in the greed wars. How can they with so little to start with take a stand against a huge oil company? Despite the challenges they faced, the Ecuadorians did do this and continue to battle.

Trudie Styler who visited the devastated Ecuadorian site and joined me at a public talk in Quito several years ago hosted a concert at Carnegie Hall on May 13, 2010. It featured her husband Sting, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, and Debbie Harry and was a fundraiser for the Rainforest Fund, founded by Trudie and Sting in 1989. Afterwards Trudie expressed to me feelings similar to those she often says publicly:

"You know,(Trudie said) I love beaches and coastal environments. I love the ocean. I'm appalled by the terrible scenes of devastation that etched themselves forever into our consciousness after the Exxon Valdez disaster and now are haunting us once again along the Gulf Coast. I am dismayed by the continuing destruction of our delicate ecosystems -- of birds, fish, animals, and plants. This is absolutely unacceptable. We MUST protect or coastlines from such tragedies.

"However, I have also flown over thousands of miles of rain forests that have been destroyed by oil. I have been with mothers sitting at the bedsides of their children, as they lie in terrible agony, innocent victims of the most horrible deaths imaginable -- because oil drilling poisoned their water and their food sources. I have stood beside once-pristine lakes now turned into black tar.

"So, I feel compelled to ask everyone to take into account the entire planet as we mourn for the Gulf Coast and seek ways to protect our beaches. Let us avoid the temptation to say "not in my back yard; take the pollution someplace else." Let us rather commit to freeing ourselves from the oil addiction that ultimately will destroy all of us."

Steve Donziger, a New York lawyer who has devoted more than a decade to the case, repeats every chance he gets, "And most of the consumers in the United States have no idea. They are oblivious to the true price of the oil they consume. And Big Oil wants to keep it that way."

These statements express a sad truth about so much of what is going on in the world today and the inadequacy of our accounting procedures to assign the true costs to products. Oil is a classic example of how those who sit on resources are inadequately compensated while those who consume them are charged prices that do not begin to cover the actual costs. In light of last week's oil spill, it seems we are seeing the same thing happen again with BP and the countless millions the oil spill will affect horribly for a decade.

Many costs are never taken into account when determining the price of the goods and services we consume. They are all too often considered "externalities." Those externalities include the social and environmental costs of the destruction of resources, the pollution, and the burdens on society of workers who become injured or ill and receive little or no health care; the indirect funding of companies that are permitted to market hazardous products, dump wastes into rivers or oceans, and pay employees less than a living wage, just to name a few.

All of these and more contribute to the current global economic crisis. Because so many resources are underpriced, they are wasted casually and depleted unnecessarily. Instead of recycling or using them more efficiently, we continue to drill, mine, extract, and manufacture with reckless abandon.

Is the "Age of Reckless Abandon" really what we want to be most remembered for in generations to come?

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Bill Moyers Blasts Chevron For Attacking First Amendment Rights

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers, the celebrated and venerable journalist, blasted Chevron's recent attempt to force an independent filmmaker to turn over the 600 hours of private video outtakes from the documentary "Crude," in an article which appeared on the Huffington Post recently. "Crude" chronicles the legal struggle of more than 30,000 indigenous people and their lawyers in Ecuador where Chevron is accused of dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste directly into the Amazon Rainforest.

Moyers, along with Michael Winship (the Director of the Writers Guild of America, East) wrote the article in response to Chevron's unprecedented attempt to force Joe Berlinger, the director of Crude, to allow Chevron to rummage through his files to find film footage that the oil company can take use to attack the litigation pending against the company in Ecuador. They were uncompromising in their condemnation of Chevron's maneuver, writing: "Chevron is trying to avoid responsibility and hopes to find in the unused footage -- material the filmmaker did not utilize in the final version of his documentary -- evidence helpful to the company in fending off potential damages of $27.3 billion…If we -- reporters, journalists, filmmakers -- are required to turn research, transcripts and outtakes over to a government or a corporation -- or to one party in a lawsuit -- the whole integrity of the process of journalism is in jeopardy; no one will talk to us."

Read the entire article here.

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Trudie Styler: Chevron caused "Hell" in Ecuador

Trudie Styler, the co-founder of the Rainforest Foundation with her husband Sting, blasted Chevron for its irresponsible behavior in Ecuador in an online interview last week with Katie Couric of CBS News. The interview was during the run-up to the Rainforest Foundation's annual fundraiser at Carnegie Hall, which featured inspired performances by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Lada Gaga, and Elton John.

Styler on numerous occasions has visited Ecuador's Amazon region, where Chevron is accused in a lawsuit of dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste. She has partnered with UNICEF and the Amazon Defense Coalition to start a project to deliver clean water to the region. Her work was featured in Crude, a Joe Berlinger documentary about the lawsuit.

Styler told Couric: "I work in down in Ecuador, where we've seen the plight of the indigenous people there. They've had their lands decimated by Chevron, the oil company, and they have no clean water. They have no good land to grow anything on. This to me is sort of like, just an example of how we are completely ignorant to what their plight is. It doesn't apply to us, because it's not in our backyard…[in Ecuador] You
see a microcosm of what hell is really like for the people who lived with good air, with good water; they could fish from their streams. They could raise their children who were joyful in the sort of beautiful, simple lives they were living. Along comes oil companies…and they're left with nothing but illness."

Take a look:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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Did Chevron Lawyer Callejas Direct “Dirty Tricks” Operation?

Question: What role did Chevron's lead lawyer in Ecuador, Adolfo Callejas, have in directing the company's "dirty tricks" operation that was used to delay the multi-billion dollar environmental damages case?

Callejas has become Mr. Silent as evidence mounts that he was involved in a corruption scandal involving Chevron contractor (and member of the Callejas trial team) Diego Borja. Callejas has refused to answer even a single question about how Borja became embroiled – at Chevron's apparent behest – in a corruption scandal where he secretly videotaped a trial judge doing essentially nothing and then claimed the judge was involved in a bribery scheme (Chevron's allegations about the judge have been completely discredited).

As new evidence has implicated Chevron's legal team in a whole range of dubious activities – including "cooking" evidence submitted by the oil giant to the Court, creating dummy corporations to form "independent labs" that company lawyers would control, etc. – it would be appropriate for Chevron's General Counsel, Hewitt Pate, to step up and tell what he knows about possible misconduct from his own lawyers in Ecuador.

After Chevron posted the videos of the judge on YouTube and demanded an official "investigation", Callejas swore to the Ecuador Court that Borja was an independent third party who turned over the tapes to Chevron out of a sense of civic duty. We now know – through Borja himself – that he worked for Chevron on the environmental trial since at least 2004, supervising field sampling for the company, and that he shared an office building with Callejas and his Chevron colleagues in Ecuador's capital of Quito. Through at least the end of last year (and presumably to this day) Chevron was paying Borja the princely sum of $10,000 per month, a true millionaire's wage in Ecuador.

Borja also was caught on an audio recording telling a friend that he created a dummy company to make a Chevron lab appear "independent" when it was actually run by his wife. Borja's signature, and that of his wife, are on chain-of-custody documents for soil samples gathered during the trial at the direction of Callejas and the Chevron legal team.

Now Callejas has come under fire, and faces possible sanctions, in Ecuador for misleading the Ecuadorian Court when he told the judge that Borja was an independent third party when in fact he worked for the legal team being run by Callejas. Gives some insight into Chevron's peculiar brand of truth-telling, doesn't it?

One might wonder: What else did Callejas and Chevron lie to the court about relating to the dirty tricks operation? Why did Chevron, under false pretenses related to supposed "threats" against him, move Borja out of Ecuador and set him up in a luxury house paid for by Chevron's oil revenue only one mile from its world headquarters in San Ramon, CA?

One easy way to answer this question would be to ask Borja what happened in Ecuador. That's not possible now, because Chevron hired him a criminal defense lawyer and continues to pay him a salary (read: hush money) for sitting around his backyard pool which abuts a golf course.

This sort of delay, misdirection, and dishonesty is about par for the course for Chevron's legal team.

After all, two Chevron lawyers are currently under indictment in Ecuador (and fugitives from justice, living in the United States) for conspiring to falsify remediation results to induce the Government of Ecuador into "releasing" the company from further liability to the government for the company's actions in the area. Ten Ecuadorian government officials with whom they worked face the same charges.

Callejas needs to come clean and explain his relationship to Borja and the secret videos.

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BP: 200,000 gallons per day by accident. Chevron: 4 million gallons per day on purpose.

Try comparing the environmental disaster that Chevron created in Ecuador's Amazon to the oil slick that now threatens the Gulf Coast states.

The disaster at "Deepwater Horizon" is causing an oil well to bleed some 200,000 gallons of oil a day into the ecosystem. And this was a horrible accident.

If you can believe it, this is only a fraction of what Texaco (now Chevron) deliberately dumped in Ecuador's rainforest when it operated hundreds of oil wells there from 1964 to 1990.

Chevron has admitted that Texaco dumped toxic "produced water" into the Ecuadorian rainforest and into the streams and rivers that 30,000 people used for their bathing and drinking water. "Produced water" can contain a toxic mixture of chemicals, including benzene and other components of crude oil. Some believe that approximately 2% of produced water is pure crude oil.

Over the course of 26 years, Chevron has acknowledged that it dumped more than 18.5 billion gallons of the industrial waste into the waterways of the populated and sensitive ecosystem, or 4 million gallons per day at the height of its operation. Put another way, Chevron's dumping of 18.5 billion gallons of produced water is the equivalent of discharging 332 million gallons of crude directly into the rainforest.

Without taking anything away from the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico, at the rate that the Deepwater Horizon spill is going, it will have to discharge 200,000 gallons per day for 1,660 days to dump as much oil as Chevron deliberately dumped into the Ecuadorian rainforest. That is a little over 4.5 years.

And that only accounts for the pure crude oil Chevron dumped – not the oil it spilled from shoddy operation practices, or the 98% of the "produced water" that isn't pure crude, but encompasses a toxic "cocktail" of industrial runoff, salty water, and other chemicals. If you want to start comparing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to the entirety of Chevron's dumping in Ecuador (all the produced water it has admitted to dumping, not just the crude oil), consider this: at a rate of 200,000 gallons a day, the Deepwater Horizon spill would have to go on for 92,500 days to spill 18.5 billion gallons into the environment. 92,500 days. 253 years. And no, that isn't a typo.

The worst part? Deepwater Horizon was an accident. But Chevron's actions in Ecuador, through its predecessor company Texaco, were the product of a system designed to dump toxic waste directly into the environment to keep production costs to a bare minimum.

Since the Deepwater Horizon incident happened, BP has taken full responsibility for the spill. More than 2,500 people have been mobilized to respond to the disaster, and the company has insisted that it will pay for a full clean up. Of course, we will see what ultimately happens – but at least it's a good start.

Chevron's response to their disaster in Ecuador? The opposite. Chevron has launched a full-scale litigation war to cover up the disaster and the company's own fraud in a purported remediation in the mid-1990s. It has committed fraud on the court by engaging in deceptive sampling practices and by controlling a laboratory that it represented as independent, according to audio recordings of one of Chevron's longtime contractors involved in the fraud, Diego Borja.

If the Ecuador disaster happened within the U.S., Chevron would be pressured and shamed into cleaning it up. In Ecuador, where the company disregarded the rights of the local indigenous groups on its way to ever higher profits, we see nothing of the sort.

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