Interesting Reads: BP Owes $192 Billion On Gulf Coast & Chevron's Secret Deal With Ivonne Baki

Interesting reading on The Huffington Post and The Business Insider. See below.

BP Owes $192 Billion for Gulf Oil Disaster, Not $15 Billion Settlement It's Seeking

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that BP is hoping to reach an agreement with U.S. authorities which would require it to pay under $15 billion to settle all criminal and civil penalties arising from the 2010 Gulf oil disaster. The Department of Justice is reportedly seeking $20 to $25 billion. Negotiations between the DOJ and BP are accelerating and "an agreement could be reached before the Democratic party's convention in September," the FT reported.

While $15 billion sounds like a lot of money -- and it is -- it is a far cry from what BP owes for the many costs associated with the largest offshore oil spill in history. To date, a full accounting of exactly what BP should owe for its crimes in the Gulf has not been made public. Such an accounting is vital if we are to ensure that justice and restoration are delivered to the Gulf Coast and that such a catastrophe never occurs again.

A straightforward application of just the most pertinent U.S. laws yields a fine of $192 billion. (For simplicity sake, I only address BP's fines.)

Sound high? Here's why it's not. (read more)

Why Chevron Fired Ogilvy


Chevron knew full well that an executive at its PR agency, Ogilvy PR, had ties to the Andean parliamentary president in Ecuador, Ivonne Baki, and fired the shop because the agency failed to bend the Ecuadoreans to its will, not because it was a conflict of interest: That, in a nutshell, is the conspiracy theory alleged by The Chevron Pit, a blog maintained by rain forest activists who successfully sued Chevron for its pollution of the Latin American jungle.

Chevron ostensibly fired Ogilvy after it discovered that one of its executives, Felipe Benitez, had given advice to both the Ecuadorean government and environmental groups hoping to preserve the Amazon. We pointed out that the move seemed weird because Benitez's LinkedIn profile listed the fact that he had those clients dating back to 2008, so this shouldn't have come as a surprise.

Chevron Pit now alleges that Chevron knew about Benitez all along and was hoping that he could sway the government to not enforce an $18 billion judgment environmental activists won against the company for polluting the forest:

There is simply no way Chevron could not have known that the firm of its lead lobbyist on the Ecuador matter was also representing Ecuador's government. In fact, we suspect that was all part of the "value" Ogilvy was offering Chevron for its fee of $600,000 per year.

(read more)

Become a follower of The Chevron Pit.

Also follow us on Twitter at @ChevronPit and like us on Facebook.

Visit and watch a video on ChevronToxico.com to find out more.

Support Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network.

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Chevron Tells Another Whopper To U.S. Appellate Court

For the past two years Chevron has been trying to get U.S. judges to dictate to Ecuadorian judges all that is wrong with Ecuador's judiciary. In the process, Chevron has told so many lies it's impossible to keep up with them.

But, here's one that screams for attention.

On September 16th, 2011, Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn responded to a question posed by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals about the company's previous efforts to convince an arbitration tribunal at The Hague to stop enforcement of the Ecuador court's $18 billion judgment against it (a much longer story). Here's what he said:

"I want to—I do want to be super clear about this. We have not attempted, and we will not attempt, to ask the ... tribunal to stop entry of a judgment. We do intend to fight enforcement, but we—and we do intend to fight in Lago Agrio against entry of a judgment, but we have not and we will not, if I left any doubt about it, ask the ... tribunal to stop entry of a judgment in Lago Agrio."

On January 3rd, 2012, the day the Ecuador appellate court upheld the $18 billion judgment, Chevron lawyer R. Doak Bishop of King & Spalding wrote to the arbitration tribunal, once again requesting help in stopping enforcement:

"Time is now of the essence to ensure that the Republic takes measures to prevent enforcement of the fraudulent Judgment... (Chevron) request(s) that the Republic of Ecuador inform the Tribunal...of the steps that it intends to take to ... prevent the Lago Agrio Judgment from becoming enforceable."

One assumes Mastro thinks that asking the tribunal to ask the Republic of Ecuador to stop the enforcement gives him a passing grade on the lie detector test.

We anticipate Mastro will be in front of the Second Circuit again very soon, explaining the distinction and arguing why three U.S. appellate court judges have jurisdiction over an Ecuadorian court -- in a super clear way.

Maybe then he can find the doubt he left behind.

Chevron lawyer Randy Mastro

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Chevron Faces Another Conflict With Key Latin American Country

Brazil Oil Spill Raises Questions About Company’s Respect For Local Laws

Chevron faces yet another conflict with a key Latin American country where it has a sizable investment – Brazil Chevron is currently embroiled in a huge conflict in the largest country in South America related to a huge oil spill off the coast near Rio de Janeiro. If Chevron’s flouting of local laws in Brazil is as flagrant as it has been in Ecuador, then it could lead to open warfare between Chevron and two Latin American countries.

What's happening in Brazil sounds very similar to what happened in Ecuador, where the company is attempting to evade an $18 billion judgment for massive oil contamination in the rainforest that has cost thousands of lives and devastated an area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

In Brazil, the Federal Police is investigating Chevron’s statements about the amount of oil spilled, the cause of the spill and the containment. Other government officials and environmentalists are questioning Chevron’s estimates. Also, it appears the spill has not been contained, even though Chevron said it had been. In other words, many Brazilians believe Chevron is lying to them.

Fabio Scliar of the Brazilian Federal Police said the information provided by Chevron did not match the visual evidence at the site. "Initially, the reports do not correspond to reality," said Scliar. "I want to understand what's happening."

Brazil’s Energy Minister Edison Lobao said: “If Chevron is not doing what it should (to contain the spill) it will be severely punished.”

In Ecuador, Chevron’s U.S. executives have declared political warfare on Ecuador's government as part of a strategy to discredit the $18 billion judgment for the cleanup of massive oil contamination left behind two decades ago -- one that experts believe dwarfs the size of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil giant is paying several U.S. corporate law firms, lobbyists and public relations gurus hundreds of millions of dollars to foment open conflict with Ecuador's government as part of a global strategy to escape justice. It has created the unusual specter of a major American oil company deliberately provoking a diplomatic row with an oil-producing Latin American country that is a key U.S. trading partner.

The stepped-up political strategy comes at a time when Chevron's legal prospects in the case, which is being heard in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio, have considerably weakened. Ecuadorian citizens originally filed the claims in 1993 in New York but a U.S. judge shifted the case to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request. At the time, Chevron heaped lavish praise on Ecuador's court system. When evidence began to show the extent of the contamination, Chevron declared it would never pay a damage award.

In September, a U.S. appeals court blocked Chevron from using an injunction from a U.S. trial judge to enjoin enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment in any of the dozens of countries where the oil giant operates. Separately, the Ecuador court in February found Chevron liable and imposed $18 billion in damages, which the plaintiffs are appealing as too low.

In any event, the message from Ecuador is simple -- when it comes to Chevron, Brazil should beware.

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Almost 10,000 Ecuadorians Face Risk of Dying From Contamination

Chevron argues the that lawyers for the Ecuadorian communities have submitted inflated damage claims as the oil giant seeks to derail the lawsuit against it for extensive oil contamination in the rainforest. That argument has now been turned on its head. Last week, several leading American technical experts submitted damage estimates on behalf of the Amazonian communities that found costs higher than those found in the earlier Cabera report, which calculated damages at $27 billion. One reason the damages assessment rose is because the American experts -- using official mortality and census data -- found that 10,000 Ecuadorians risk death from cancer in the coming decades as a result of Chevron’s contamination, even if the contamination is cleaned up over the next ten years. The truth is the Ecuador rainforest will never be the same due to Chevron’s contamination, and no amount of money will ever restore it to its original condition. But whatever can be done to address the contamination should be done – and Chevron, as the operator responsible for the contamination, should take the lead in fixing it just like BP is doing in the Gulf of Mexico. Below is the press release about the new economic valuation analyses of damages in Ecuador’s rainforest -- valuations prepared by American experts that put the lie to Chevron's claims about "fraud" in the Cabrera report.

Uterine cancer victim Rosana Sisalima with her granddaughter

at their home in San Carlos on November 24, 2004.

Rosana succumbed to cancer in 2006.

Chevron Faces Tens of Billions in Clean-up Costs
Top American Technical Experts Weigh In On High-Profile Damages Case

Lago Agrio, Ecuador (September 17) – A group of highly respected American technical and medical experts, using conservative assumptions, have concluded that it could cost Chevron up to tens of billions of dollars to clean up oil waste discharged into Ecuador’s rainforest and compensate local communities for the damage it caused over the 26 years it operated a large oil concession, according to valuation assessments submitted Thursday to the Ecuador trial court.

Relying on official Ecuador census and mortality data, as well as relevant studies, the analysis finds that what is believed to be the world’s largest oil-related catastrophe likely will cause nearly 10,000 Ecuadorians to be at significant risk of dying from cancer by the year 2080 even if Chevron cleans up in the next ten years. The numbers could rise substantially if no remediation takes place.

The assessments analyzed numerous categories of damages, including soil and groundwater contamination, drinking water, excess cancer deaths, natural resources damage, and health costs. While the high end of the damages range of $113 billion is substantially greater than the $27.3 billion damages number set forth in a report in 2008 by court-appointed expert Richard Cabrera, some categories of damages were found to be lower than those estimated in that report.

For example, the combined cost of clean-up for soil and groundwater contamination in the new analysis – which relied mostly on Chevron’s own internal environmental audits -- at the high end of the range was roughly $1.8 billion, compared to more than the $5 billion estimate in the earlier Cabrera report. The analysis found the existence of other categories of contamination, such as oil sediment in rivers, but they could not be accurately quantified.

The differences in the soil and groundwater remediation numbers is largely a function of the fact the new analyses used far more conservative assumptions than the Cabrera report. For example, the Cabrera report concluded soil should be cleaned to a depth of five meters, while the recent analysis assumed only four meters.

A large portion of the damages in the new analyses can be attributed to Chevron’s “unjust enrichment” – money saved by using sub-standard drilling practices – and compensation for potential excess cancer deaths that have a significant chance of occurring in coming decades due to exposure to cancer-causing crude oil. Most of the damages in the Cabrera report were from the same two categories.

“The new valuation analyses are different, in many ways, than the damage assessment report from 2008 but both present reasonable and sound assessments based on the evidence,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the Amazonian communities suing the oil giant.

“The Ecuador court has more than enough evidence and expert analyses to determine the cost of remediating the extensive oil pollution that has devastated thousands in the region for decades,” Fajardo added. “There are more than 100 different expert reports in evidence, dozens of them produced by Chevron, which overwhelmingly demonstrate extensive contamination at all of Chevron’s former oil production facilities.”

The new damages analyses came in a supplemental report submitted by lawyers for the dozens of Amazon communities suing Chevron for what is believed to be the world’s worst oil-related disaster – larger than the size of the BP Gulf spill. Unlike the BP Gulf spill, the Ecuador disaster has been contaminating the rainforest ecosystem for almost 50 years.

Ecuadorian law provides that the court can consider the supplemental information when reaching a decision, but under Ecuadorian law the judge is under no obligation to adopt the estimates. Chevron, which has attacked the credibility of Cabrera’s damages assessment, had the opportunity to submit its own valuations analysis but the company previously indicated it would boycott the process.

Lawyers for the affected communities have asserted Chevron has been trying to sabotage the Ecuador trial by bombarding the court with frivolous motions and boycotting any part of the case that addresses damages. The indigenous and farmer communities first filed the lawsuit in 1993 in U.S. federal court, but it was shifted to Ecuador at Chevron’s request.

“The information in this submission is highly significant because it reflects clearly that there is a terrible oil-related disaster in Ecuador in the area where Chevron operated,” said Fajardo.

“What these analyses make chillingly clear is that thousands of Ecuadorian citizens may well contract and die of cancer in the coming decades because of Chevron’s contamination,” he added.

The analyses, based largely on technical information found in the 200,000-page trial record and relevant studies, found the following damages:

· Soil Remediation: A conservative estimate of potential costs to remediate contaminated soils at all of Chevron’s 378 former oil production facilities in Ecuador ranges from $487 million to $949 million depending on the clean-up standard used. The actual cost could be significantly higher.

· Groundwater Remediation: Based on data in the trial record, the range for clean-up of groundwater is $396 million to $911 million.

· Rivers and wetlands: Data indicates that sediment contamination exists, but no clean-up number was presented pending further investigation.

· Health Care: Using recent data from the World Health Organization and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, an estimated $1.4 billion will be needed to provide health care to the thousands of affected persons over the next three decades.

· Drinking Water: Degradation of the environment with petroleum hydrocarbons associated with Chevron’s production activities has been documented at numerous locations. The cost of a comprehensive series of regional water systems is estimated to be between approximately $326 million to $541 million.

· Excess Cancer Deaths: Actuarial life-table methodology demonstrates that the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths due to exposure to oil contamination in the area where Chevron operated could be approximately $69.7 billion. This is the based on the value of a statistical life used by averaging relevant data used in the U.S. court system and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ($7 million for each lost life), and comparing it with official Ecuador mortality data and census information. Up to 9,950 people in the affected area will face a significant risk of dying from cancer in the coming decades even if the area is remediated in the next ten years. Even if the analysis stops in 1990 – the year when Chevron ceased being the operator of the oil fields – the aggregate cost of excess cancer deaths is still estimated at $12.1 billion based on 1,732 deaths from cancer. (The earlier Cabrera report estimated 1,401 deaths from cancer, but he did not project future deaths.)

· Natural Resources Losses: This estimate is based on the evidence that concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons and harmful metals in soil, groundwater, and surface water have exceeded levels considered to be toxic to terrestrial and aquatic biota. While determining the exact values of service losses in the rainforest with precision is not possible, it is not clear that further studies would produce a range of plausible values different from the range posited earlier by Mr. Cabrera – approximately $874 million to $1.7 billion, depending on the methodology employed.

· Unjust Enrichment: Chevron’s unjust enrichment ranges from $4.57 billion to $9.46 billion assuming a 100% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion assuming a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment. Given the evidence of Chevron’s malfeasance in Ecuador, the plaintiffs assume the company had at best a 25% probability of detection and ultimate payment, and therefore the unjust enrichment award should at minimum range from $18.26 billion to $37.86 billion. This is a conservative figure, as in reality it is highly unlikely that Chevron believed it had more than a 10% probability of detection and ultimate payment.

· Cultural Impacts on Indigenous Groups: Representatives of the Amazonian communities, noting the acute interdependence between indigenous groups and the rainforest ecosystem, analyzed the impact of hydrocarbon contamination on indigenous culture. The team reviewed economic valuations to repair the loss of cultural and ancestral practices, including a program to purchase unspoiled land, and to construct pools of native fishes and centers to restore flora and fauna. The cost for this restoration is estimated at $481.5 million.

The analyses were submitted by the following scientists and technical experts:
· Douglas Allen, who has 25 years of experience as an environmental consultant working in soil and groundwater remediation;
· Dr. Lawrence Barnthouse, one of the nation’s leaders in ecological risk assessment and a Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science;
· Carlos Emilio Picone, a medical doctor certified in critical care medicine and Chief of the Pulmonary Section at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.;
· Jonathan S. Shefftz, a financial economist from Harvard who has performed economic modeling on theories of unjust enrichment for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy;
· Dr. Daniel L. Rourke, who has extensive experience applying advanced statistical techniques to solve complex litigation problems; and
· Dr. Robert Paolo Scardina, a civil and environmental engineer and member of the faculty at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

The analyses in both English and Spanish, as well as background information on the scientists, can be found at http://www.chevrontoxico.com/

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Trudie Styler: Chevron Trying to Restrict Constitutional Rights

Trudie Styler -- the noted environmentalist, humanitarian, filmmaker and co-founder of the Rainforest Foundation -- took aim today at Chevron's unprecedented legal assault on the constitutional rights of fellow filmmaker Joe Berlinger. Berlinger, who made the documentary film "Crude" about Chevron's conduct in Ecuador's rainforest, is being sued by the oil giant in an effort to force him to turn over more than 600 hours of private video outtakes. Chevron's legal maneuver is both unprecedented and reprehensible - and is a direct threat to Berlinger's 1st Amendment rights. Styler published a response to Chevron's actions on the Huffington Post today. Take a look below or after the jump.

Chevron Tries to Restrict 1st Amendment in Latest Twist in Crude Saga

The ongoing saga of the class action lawsuit, Aguinda v. Chevron, originally filed in 1993 by the people of Ecuador whose rainforest land had been contaminated by oil production practices, and documented on film by Joe Berlinger in Crude, has taken a new turn. Chevron's latest diversionary and delaying tactic is to engage in a widespread and unprecedented legal assault on the First Amendment in their attempt to force Berlinger, the celebrated independent documentarian, to turn over more than 600 hours of private film outtakes from Crude.

Chevron's legal tactic has attracted widespread criticism from prominent individuals across the media community, including actor and filmmaker Robert Redford, journalist Bill Moyers, bestselling author John Perkins, documentarians Michael Moore and Ric Burns, the Director's Guild of America, the Writer's Guild of America, and others.

Virtually every major U.S. media outlet, including the NY Times, LA Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Associated Press, Dow Jones, HBO, and others have opposed Chevron's action in court.

This latest action by Chevron is part of a worldwide, desperate litigation campaign by the oil giant to escape liability for what is thought to be the world's worst oil-related environmental catastrophe. The extent of the contamination is almost unfathomable - by Chevron's own admission they dumped at least 15.8 billion gallons of toxic 'produced water' in the region, and their own audits indicate that the number may actually be much higher - more than 18.5 billion gallons.

Of the 18.5 billion gallons of toxins, at least 345 million gallons of it was pure crude oil. To put this in perspective, as of June 15, 2010, U.S. government estimates have indicated that the BP spill in the Gulf has spilled somewhere between 73 and 126 million gallons of oil. At least the BP spill was not intentional. By contrast, Chevron's dumping was, by the company's own admission, a deliberate production decision to maximize profits. According to experts, a saving of approximately $1-3 per barrel of oil was achieved by dumping the toxins rather than disposing of them properly.

The end result of this has been incredible devastation of a formerly pristine section of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. Though Chevron no longer operates in the area (having ceased Ecuadorian drilling operations in 1990), the pollution still remains.

The people living in that region do not have widespread running water or plumbing, and have had no access to water that has not been polluted by the oil operations for nearly four decades. I have seen firsthand the reality of the aftermath of Chevron's actions in Ecuador. I have seen some of the unlined, unfenced waste pits that Chevron left behind. I have met many people there who have lost their parents, their children, and who are losing heir own lives. The area is besieged with oil-related illnesses; families are plagued with extremely elevated levels of childhood leukemia, spontaneous abortions, birth defects, and other serious oil-related health impacts. Experts have estimated that at least 1,400 people have died needlessly from oil-related sicknesses due to the illegal dumping.

In 1993, the people in the region brought a lawsuit against the oil giant to force the company to clean-up the damage it caused on their land. An independent court-expert has estimated that the damage caused in the region could cost as much as $27.3 billion to clean up. However, even that amount will be insufficient to return the people to the lifestyles they knew before the Chevron showed up.

Small wonder Chevron are running scared. Without taking sides in the lawsuit itself, the enormous legal liability tied to all of these harms provides the context for why Chevron is so aggressively attacking its critics across the world.

Chevron has one animating principle in their attacks on Joe Berlinger, the Ecuadorean people, and anyone attempting to hold the company responsible for the pollution it left behind in Ecuador: to find some way of eliminating the legal liability to protect the company's bottom line.

But the time has come for Chevron to stop its attacks, and to stop trying to evade its responsibilities. The company should cease its futile attempts to force documentarians and journalists to open up their files to the company's lawyers, and instead focus on the essential issue: how they will remediate the damage it caused in Ecuador to the 30,000 affected people and their land.

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Chevron Should Follow BP’s Lead

In its negotiations with the White House to fund a $20 billion escrow account, BP could have stuck to its legal guns and followed Chevron's example of thumbing its nose at victims of its environmental practices in Ecuador. Instead, BP distanced itself from Chevron's strategy of blaming anyone but itself for the extensive oil contamination it caused to Ecuador's rainforest.

We will see how BP handles liability issues going forward, but this is a step in the right direction.

Chevron should accept what the BP spill makes abundantly clear: profits over safety is not a business plan. In fact, it could put you out of business.

That is proving true for Chevron in Ecuador, where an independent court expert has determined that the company faces more than $27 billion in damages for illegally dumping billions of gallons of oil-related toxins directly into the Amazon from 1964-1990. Audits conducted by Chevron, as well as the company's own sampling results, overwhelmingly prove the company's culpability.

While the BP disaster was an accident, Chevron's dumping was done intentionally as part of a plan to cut costs.

In regard to Chevron's Ecuador liability, two other things have become abundantly clear:

• Had oil companies like Chevron been held accountable for what happened in Ecuador the likelihood of accidents like the one in the Gulf would have been drastically reduced. Incentives would be different. Companies would have been forced to invest in safety, because they would have known they could not externalize environmental damage to local inhabitants, as has been done in Ecuador and the Gulf.
  

• The $27 billion in damages for the Ecuador mess is beginning to sound modest considering the astounding scope of the toxins that Chevron has admitted to dumping in Ecuador. Chevron refers to the number as a "shakedown." But in light of the $60 billion (and growing) price tag of the BP liability and cleanup, $27 billion sounds like a bargain given that the contamination in Ecuador is far larger than the Gulf spill estimates.
  

How many more Ecuadors and Gulf of Mexicos do we need to suffer through before the oil industry is held accountable?

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Chevron’s Deepwater Drilling: Blind Faith or Dump Luck?

Chevron has its own ticking time bomb in the Gulf of Mexico. The following article, from John Collins Rudolph, appeared on the New York Times' "Green Blog" today:

On a Wing and a Prayer: Chevron's Deep Well

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/on-a-wing-and-a-prayer-chevrons-deep-well/

One of the deepest offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico lies beneath 7,000 feet of water and under more than 20,000 feet of rock and sand. Estimated to hold as much as 100 million barrels of crude, the field was discovered by Chevron in 2001, and production began in 2008. It is less than 20 miles west of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

The name of the field, and the rig anchored above it, is Blind Faith.

It's a curious choice for a high-tech drilling operation pushing the boundaries of modern engineering, perhaps a bit like NASA naming a new shuttle "Dumb Luck." But there's an explanation: Blind Faith is in fact the name of a short-lived 1960s psychedelic rock supergroup, fronted by the guitar god Eric Clapton.

The investigative reporter and former 60 Minutes correspondent Peter W. Klein uncovered this factoid during a visit to the Blind Faith rig last summer while filming a story for ABC News on deepwater drilling. The segment features video of submersible robots thousands of feet down on the seafloor manipulating drilling equipment.

"When I asked the manager of Chevron's gulf rigs what he would do if there was a leak at his wellhead more than a mile down, he assured me they had robot-controlled devices that could handle any contingency," Mr. Klein wrote in a recent essay on the National Public Radio Web site.

In Congressional testimony this week, Chevron's chairman and chief executive, John S. Watson, testified that his wells and rigs – presumably including Blind Faith – were far safer than the BP well that continues to gush after 50-plus days of desperate attempts to cap it.

"We have multiple systems to prevent a tragedy like the Deepwater Horizon," Mr. Watson said. "Our drilling policies and procedures are rigorous. We require continuous training. We certify our drilling personnel to ensure they are qualified to manage unusual circumstances. And we verify that contractors have the skills to execute well control."

Mr. Watson joined three other oil company executives in rhetorically throwing BP under the bus during Wednesday's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The leaders of Shell, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips also claimed that their deepwater operations were safe, and that it was negligence by BP – not the inherent risks of drilling in ultra-deep waters, or lax regulation of the industry – that led to the uncontrolled blowout.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the Democratic chairman of the committee, was having none of it.

"BP failed miserably when confronted with a real leak," Mr. Waxman said, "and Exxon Mobil and the other companies would do no better."

As for Blind Faith – well, it is perhaps BP, not Chevron, who could find some solace in one of the band's hits: "Had to Cry Today," by Steve Winwood.

"The feeling's the same as being outside of the law," the song laments. "Had to cry today."

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Pat Murphy: Chevron’s Bogus Blogger Up to Old Tricks

Surprise, surprise: Pat Murphy, purveyor of the SanFranciscoSentinel.com (a small online "newspaper" that sells editorial control of its opinions while pretending to offer neutral commentary) is once again carrying Chevron's water in the company's never-ending campaign to escape justice for its environmental catastrophe in Ecuador.

Pat Murphy

This time, Murphy has attacked the indigenous people of Ecuador suing Chevron for having the temerity to characterize Chevron's man-made, planned disaster in Ecuador as larger than BP's accidental spill in the Gulf. In Ecuador, Chevron discharged the equivalent of at least 345 million gallons of crude into the rainforest where six indigenous groups lived for centuries. Due to Chevron, all of those indigenous groups have seen their lifestyles devastated – not dissimilar to what is happening right now to the fisherman of Louisiana.

The U.S. government's most recent estimate is that BP has discharged between 18 and 39 million gallons of crude into the Gulf. At the top end, that's about one-tenth as large as the dumping Chevron did in Ecuador when its predecessor company Texaco operated a large oil concession from 1964 to 1990. Texaco's sludge, now Chevron's problem, is still there: Take a look at photos of the contamination and its impacts.

The question for Murphy is: Why is it a tragedy when 18 to 39 million gallons of contamination are spilled in America, but Chevron is getting "defrauded" when people call attention to 345 million gallons the company systematically dumped in Ecuador?

The answer is simple: Because in the world according to Chevron, Ecuadorian lives aren't worth much – particularly when they are indigenous people living in the forest. And, of course, BP isn't paying Pat Murphy to spread their propaganda while Chevron is.

Amazon Watch and the Amazon Defense Coalition have demonstrated that Pat Murphy is a paid blogger who has sold editorial control of his website to Chevron – an accusation that Murphy has never denied. (He once stated that he was not being paid directly by Chevron.) Over the past two years Murphy has offered a steady stream of commentary and misleading facts meant to discredit Chevron's critics – critics that Chevron is working hard to silence. And if you are Googling the Chevron case in Ecuador from Rotterdam or some other far-flung place, you might actually think the "San Francisco Sentinel" is the leading newspaper of San Francisco rather than one of the least-trafficked news sites on the Web (it ranked 171,939 in popularity among websites, compared to 851 for the San Francisco Chronicle).

Of course, the practice of blogging or writing articles on behalf of clients without disclosing payments is considered highly unethical. But that's never stopped Murphy before, and we don't expect it to stop him now. When you lay down with dogs, as Murphy has with Chevron, you get fleas.

If Murphy really wants to understand the issues in Ecuador – and not just squander any semblance of journalistic integrity that he might have once had (or thought he had) – we would invite him to visit the impacted region. If Murphy had to drink the poisoned water being forced on the local inhabitants because of Chevron, he might be slower to take what amounts to "blood money" to help cover up an environmental and human rights tragedy that is unparalleled on Earth.

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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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Chevron’s Corrupt and Cozy Relationships with Oil Industry Regulators

President Obama recently promised Americans to end the "cozy relationship" between government and the oil industry. No oil company has been better at developing these "cozy relationships" with regulators than Chevron, which is being sued in Ecuador for the worst oil-related contamination on earth. The sordid tales below give you a glimpse of just how far Chevron will go to evade laws designed to protect people and the environment.

Chevron Courts US Regulators With Money, Drugs & Sex: The news media has reported widely about the "cozy relationship" between the U.S. Minerals Management Service and the oil industry, and President Obama has promised to end it by separating conflicting regulatory functions. Recently news broke about an upcoming Inspector General's report which will detail how MMS officials allowed oil companies to write their own oversight reports.

We should not, though, forget about Chevron's corruption of the MMS detailed in a 2008 report.

In September 2008, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior accused MMS employees of accepting thousands of dollars in gifts, including ski trips, from Chevron and three other oil companies. The report also alleged drug use and sexual affairs between MMS and Chevron officials and charged that

Chevron was the only oil company that did not cooperate with the IG's investigation.

Chevron's Phony Lab Results:
The New York Times reported recently on the "cozy relationship" between oil companies and laboratories that test for contamination. The article focused on the potential conflict of interest between BP and the laboratories being used by the federal government to test for contamination of the water and soil on the Gulf Coast. State and local leaders are concerned that the labs could distort information about given that they also work for all the major oil companies. They should be concerned. In the lawsuit against Chevron for oil contamination in Ecuador, Chevron is testing soil and water samples at a lab where its own contractor worked even though it tried to pass off the lab as "independent".

Several weeks ago, the indigenous and farmer communities suing Chevron revealed new information that Chevron "cooked" evidence in the Ecuador trial to avoid a judgment – and that the oil company was providing financial support to employee Diego Borja to prevent him from going public with the company's fraud. Among Chevron's corrupt and fraudulent acts, according to Borja: the oil giant directed Borja to create dummy companies in Ecuador to make it appear that a laboratory Chevron used to process soil and water samples during the environmental trial was independent, when in fact it was controlled by Chevron.

The plaintiffs have long contended that Chevron has intentionally and fraudulently used bogus lab testing procedures to artificially lower the amount of contamination reported to the Court.

Chevron Corrupts Weak Governments: Details about the waivers and permits that U.S. federal agencies granted BP on the Gulf Coast prior to the oil spill are not comforting – they suggest that the regulators the American people were depending on to protect us from disasters have been thoroughly compromised by their cozy relationship to the oil industry. But this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who pays attention to this sector. Chevron in particular has a long history of colluding with government officials to exploit natural resources at the expense of that country's citizenry.

The most destructive and disturbing incidents occurred over four decades in Ecuador's rainforest, where Texaco (now Chevron) intentionally contaminated the waterways and soils and destroyed a way of life for indigenous groups that has led to suffering, illness and ultimately death for untold numbers of people. The "cozy relationship" that Texaco developed with the governments of Ecuador during this time (from 1964 to 1992) resulted in the largest environmental disaster on the planet.

It also produced a fraudulent remediation agreement between Texaco and the government – an agreement that Texaco and now Chevron argue releases it from any liability. Chevron says Texaco cleaned up a small number of oil sites in exchange for the release and cites the agreement as its main defense in the 17-year-old lawsuit. However, recent testing conducted during the Lago Agrio trial at the oil sites Texaco said it cleaned found them to be just as contaminated as the oil sites not cleaned. For their part in the scam, two Chevron lawyers, involved in the negotiation of the remediation agreement, along with seven former government officials, have been indicted for fraud in Ecuador.

As the oil pours into the marshes and onto the beaches of the Gulf Coast, people need to pay more attention to Chevron's disastrous story in Ecuador.

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Bill Moyers: Chevron's "Crude" Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

This article, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, appeared on The Huffington Post.

Chevron's "Crude" Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

Even as headlines and broadcast news are dominated by BP's fire-ravaged, sunken offshore rig and the ruptured well gushing a reported 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico, there's another important story involving Big Oil and pollution -- one that shatters not only the environment but the essential First Amendment right of journalists to tell truth and shame the devil.

(Have you read, by the way, that after the surviving, dazed and frightened workers were evacuated from that burning platform, they were met by lawyers from the drilling giant Transocean with forms to sign stating they had not been injured and had no first-hand knowledge of what had happened?! So much for the corporate soul.)

But our story is about another petrochemical giant -- Chevron -- and a major threat to independent journalism. In New York last Thursday, Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered documentary producer and director Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create a film titled Crude: The Real Price of Oil.

Released last year, it's the story of how 30,000 Ecuadorians rose up to challenge the pollution of their bodies, livestock, rivers and wells from Texaco's drilling for oil there, a rainforest disaster that has been described as the Amazon's Chernobyl. When Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001 and attempted to dismiss claims that it was now responsible, the indigenous people and their lawyers fought back in court.

Some of the issues and nuances of Berlinger's case are admittedly complex, but they all boil down to this: 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.

This is a serious matter for reporters, filmmakers and frankly, everyone else. Tough, investigative reporting without fear or favor -- already under siege by severe cutbacks and the shutdown of newspapers and other media outlets -- is vital to the public awareness and understanding essential to a democracy. As Michael Moore put it, "The chilling effect of this is, [to] someone like me, if something like this is upheld, the next whistleblower at the next corporation is going to think twice about showing me some documents if that information has to be turned over to the corporation that they're working for."

In an open letter on Joe Berlinger's behalf, signed by many in the non-fiction film business (including the two of us), the Independent Documentary Association described Chevron's case as a "fishing expedition" and wrote that, "At the heart of journalism lies the trust between the interviewer and his or her subject. Individuals who agree to be interviewed by the news media are often putting themselves at great risk, especially in the case of television news and documentary film where the subject's identity and voice are presented in the final report.

"If witnesses sense that their entire interviews will be scrutinized by attorneys and examined in courtrooms they will undoubtedly speak less freely. This ruling surely will have a crippling effect on the work of investigative journalists everywhere, should it stand."

Just so. With certain exceptions, the courts have considered outtakes of a film to be the equivalent of a reporter's notebook, to be shielded from the scrutiny of others. 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.

In his decision, Judge Kaplan wrote that, "Review of Berlinger's outtakes will contribute to the goal of seeing not only that justice is done, but that it appears to be done." He also quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis' famous maxim that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

There is an irony to this, noted by Frank Smyth of the Committee to Protect Journalists.Brandeis "made his famous sunlight statement about the need to expose bankers and investors who controlled 'money trusts' to stifle competition, and he later railed against not only powerful corporations but the lawyers and other members of the bar who worked to perpetuate their power"

In a 1905 speech before the Harvard Ethical Society, Brandeis said, "Instead of holding a position of independence, between the wealthy and the people, prepared to curb the excesses of either, able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected the obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people."

Now, more than a century later, Chevron, the third largest corporation in America, according to Forbes Magazine, has hauled out their lawyers in a case that would undermine the right of journalists to protect the people by telling them the truth. Joe Berlinger and his legal team have asked Judge Kaplan to suspend his order pending an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

As the Independent Documentary Association asserts, "This case offers a clear and compelling argument for more vigorous federal shield laws to protect journalists and their work, better federal laws to protect confidential sources, and stronger standards to prevent entities from piercing the journalists' privilege. We urge the higher courts to overturn this ruling to help ensure the safety and protection of journalists and their subjects, and to promote a free and vital press in our nation and around the world."

Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. Michael Winship is president of the Writers Guild of America, East. Rebecca Wharton conducted original research for this article.

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