LibrosSee original article here:
The federal government wants to fine Exxon $2.7 million for the March oil spill from its 70-year-old pipeline in Mayflower, Ark. The ruptured pipe spewed 5,000 gallons of tar-sands oil and triggered the evacuation of 22 houses, some of which had to be bulldozed.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration sent a letter [PDF] to the Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. on Wednesday proposing the civil penalty because the company failed to heed test results and take other steps that could have prevented the spill. The fine isn’t final yet; Exxon has 30 days to file an appeal. And an appeal seems likely considering that Exxon is claiming PHMSA’s analysis contains “fundamental errors.”
Meanwhile, Montana and the U.S. Department of Interior informed Exxon last week that they plan to sue the company over a 63,000-gallon oil spill from a pipeline two years ago in the Yellowstone River. That’s on top of $3.4 million in state and federal fines that have already been assessed. From the Associated Press:
The move puts Exxon on notice that Montana and the Department of Interior expect the company to make up for harm done to wildlife and their habitat. The company also is being asked to pay for long-term environmental studies and for lost opportunities for fishing and recreation during and since the cleanup.
Exxon spent millions on cleanup, but it turns out that its cleanup workers did a pretty shitty job:
“You picked up the oil, but you picked up the stuff that makes the habitat work, as well,” said Bob Gibson, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “We know there’s damage out there that has not been mitigated, cleaned up or compensated for. We need to decide what further can be done.”
But what does Exxon care? The company made $45 billion in profit last year. A couple million here and there in fines and legal fees doesn’t even make a dent.
Source
Montana, U.S. to seek damages for oil spill, Associated Press
Notice of probable violation and proposed compliance order, PHMSA
Exxon faces $2.7 mln fine for Arkansas pipeline spill, Reuters
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
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Another day, another Obamacare horror story. The latest involves UPS, which has decided to eliminate health insurance for spouses who already get health coverage from their own employer. UPS has sugested that Obamacare was responsible for their decision, but I think Bloomberg has pretty much the right take on this:
It’s possible, of course, that UPS is using the health-care law as a smokescreen for cutting costs it wanted to cut anyway.
Ya think? I’d say it’s a safe bet that every employer in America that raises copays or reduces coverage or ratchets up employee premiums is going to try to blame it on Obamacare as a way of deflecting worker resentment at the news. It’s a pretty handy cudgel, after all. And right wing blatherers will all pitch in, painting it as the latest sign that President Obama is destroying America’s healthcare system before our eyes.
Needless to say, the evidence doesn’t really back this up. Will Obamacare have modest effects on some kinds of coverage and certain demographic groups? Sure. Are these effects either large or persistent? No. Jon Cohn provided the details a week ago:
UPS officials said that the company’s actuaries expected overall employee health costs to rise by about 12 percent next year—and that about a third of that increase was in reaction to Obamacare….But those are basically one-time increases—the result of changes that will take place only as Obamacare gets underway.
….Even UPS officials caution that Obamacare’s role in this decision isn’t as big as some are making it out to be. “One way of saying this is that we are restructuring our benefits ‘because of the ACA’—but that’s not accurate,” Andy McGowan, a UPS spokesman, told me. “We are doing this because we are looking at many different factors adding to our costs, and ACA is one of them.”
So at worst, what we’re looking at is Obamacare being responsible for a one-time cost increase of 4 percent—largely due to its requirement that health plans cover children until age 26, a provision popular enough that even Republicans claim to favor it nowadays. Considering that the cost of health premiums has nearly doubled in the last decade, this is neither a bombshell nor a sign of the imminent destruction of the American healthcare system. In fact, given Obamacare’s likely long-term moderating effect on healthcare premiums, it’s almost certainly going to end up as a net moneysaver for UPS.
But it won’t stop health premiums from continuing to rise, and it won’t stop companies like UPS from doing everything they can to reduce their healthcare spending. Big companies have been doing that for the past two decades, and they’ll keep doing it for decades to come.
From:
Mother Jones
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Would you like to know more about what makes Mitch McConnell tick? Zach Carter and Jason Cherkis have you covered with a Brobdingnagian profile of the Senate minority leader in the Huffington Post today. Here’s a taste:
After 30 years in Washington spent fighting Democrats on nearly every front, McConnell has embraced his persona as the dark lord of Capitol Hill. John Yarmuth, the Democratic Kentucky congressman who as a young Republican had traveled with McConnell organizing college campuses for Marlow Cook’s Senate campaign in 1968, says the two are no longer on speaking terms. “He won’t talk to me now,” Yarmuth says of McConnell. “I’ve known him for 45 years.”
Recently, Yarmuth says, he ran into the Senate minority leader at a largely empty airport VIP room. McConnell was sitting alone with a newspaper. “I looked straight at him,” Yarmuth says. “I said, ‘Hi, Mitch.’ There wasn’t a muscle in his face that moved. … He just buried his head in the paper.”
McConnell’s life has become an endless campaign.
Marlow Cook is disappointed in his former staffer. “When you go to Washington, you make your record,” says the retired former senator. “Nobody else makes it for you. And the record that he has made, he has to be comfortable with or he wouldn’t be there. … A man makes the reputation he gets. Mitch has to be satisfied. If I were there and I were in that position, I would not be satisfied.”
As it happens, I suspect that this piece exaggerates McConnell’s influence. Does he deliver plenty of pork for Kentucky? Yes, but that’s what senators do. Did he help turn Kentucky into a Republican stronghold? Yes again, but that was happening all over the South in the 70s and 80s. McConnell was part of that movement, but I’m not sure he played a uniquely transformative role.
Nonetheless, if you want to understand the forces that made McConnell McConnell, this isn’t a bad place to start. Put aside a half hour one of these days and dive in.
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