Energy

Be sure to vote in the new poll about the BP oil spill.

The Gulf oil leak has given environmentalists a perfect opportunity to expose the insanity and greed mongering of deep sea offshore drilling and to show how the GOP “drill, baby, drill” philosophy is a major component of what created the country’s worst environmental crisis in its history.

Nothing shows this opportunity more than a recent poll that shows 83 percent of the American people disapprove of the way oil giant BP has responded to the leak, which is gushing millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, killing wildlife, dirtying beaches, stopping fishing in some areas and hurting tourism.

It’s an epic environmental and financial calamity that has made for typical GOP contradictions. For example, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a member of the “drill, baby, drill” party urged President Barack to lift a temporary moratorium on deep sea offshore drilling so oil companies, such as BP, could continue their great work in the Gulf. At the same time, he’s been critical of BP. So which is it, Jindal? Are these oil companies looking out for our best interests or not? Should we let them drill without additional oversight and regulation?

The real opportunity here is in the outrage against BP’s mistakes and response. This is an opportunity for Americans to wake up from their corporate-induced slumber and realize huge oil companies, such as BP, care only about their profits and feel no responsibility to the environment. What they do to safeguard the environment, whether in the ocean or on land, must be dictated by government regulation. Does anyone really think this is not true, that the market will somehow correct environmental damage on the scale that is currently happening in the Gulf?

And, oh yeah, isn’t BP just too big to fail no matter what it does? The British government apparently thinks so.

This is also an opportunity to teach that the future rests with alternative, renewable energy sources, including wind and solar power. True, fossil fuels are supposed to continue to dominate our energy scene in the U.S. for years to come, but at what cost to the environment?

In an email to his supporters before he flew back again to the Gulf, President Barack Obama asked for support for a “clean-energy future” and wrote:

The BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast is the worst environmental disaster of its kind in our nation's history. I am returning to the region today to review our efforts and meet with families and business owners affected by the catastrophe.

We are working to hold BP accountable for the damage to the lands and the livelihoods of the Gulf Coast, and we are taking strong precautions to make certain a spill like this never happens again.

But our work will not end with this crisis. That's one of the reasons why last week I invited lawmakers from both parties to join me at the White House to discuss what it will take to move forward on legislation to promote a new economy powered by green jobs, combat climate change, and end our dependence on foreign oil.

Today, we consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil, but have less than two percent of the world's oil reserves. Beyond the risks inherent in drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month -- including many in dangerous and unstable regions.

In other words, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.

The president went on to argue:

The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a new future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything -- from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks -- more energy-efficient. It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.

Many businesses support this agenda because shifting to clean energy creates opportunities for entrepreneurship. This is how we will reinvent our economy -- and create new companies and new jobs all across the country.

There will be transition costs and a time of adjustment. But if we refuse to heed the warnings from the disaster in the Gulf -- we will have missed our best chance to seize the clean-energy future we know America needs to thrive in the years and decades to come.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media doesn’t see the idea of creating more clean and renewable energy as a major story that has emerged from the crisis, even though it’s as obvious as the tar balls showing up on the Gulf’s beaches. This is short-sighted. Some media outlets also want to depict the crisis as Obama’s “Katrina” when instead the disaster is a culmination of what happens when you allow unbridled corporate power to determine how the environment will or will not be protected.

Obama’s poll numbers on how he has handled the crisis—52 percent disapprove his handling of the disaster—will also be big news, not his statements about green energy. But, as I argued before, Obama didn’t invent the SUV. He’s consistently favored green energy development. He doesn’t want to see people in the Gulf suffer financially. The big oil corporations got what they wanted and this is the result.

Plugging the leak is the main issue, but the crisis should be a referendum on corporate malfeasance and irresponsibility, not Obama. It should be about developing cleaner energy sources and about protecting the planet for future generations.

(This entry was initially posted Monday, October 13. It was reposted with its current time stamp after the Okie Funk site experienced some technical difficulties.)

You, who are on the road
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so, become yourself
Because the past
Is just a goodbye.—“Teach Your Children,” Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Surely it is easy for folks to read the recent financial demise of Aubrey McClendon and Chesapeake Energy Corporation as a good old-fashioned morality tale they could teach their children.

The morality tale could go something like this:

Sailing high the last few years, McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake, became the moral equivalent of a nineteenth-century railroad baron, pushing his political agenda and corporate ideology while reportedly amassing a huge fortune.

Meanwhile, caught up in his own greed and hubris, he bet his money on a gambling scheme related to the stock market. His hubris blinded him to risk and reality. He had plenty of money by any measurement, but he needed more and more. He believed he was right, not the lessons of history, not those who pushed for more government regulations of Wall Street.

Now, according to news reports, McClendon has sold “substantially all” of his stocks and his company is facing operating cuts because of a decline in natural gas prices and the financial crisis on Wall Street.

Another GOP ideologue, another unabashed champion of the ultra-rich, has fallen because greed and hubris still have consequences.

So, kids, be conservative with your money and be nice to those who don’t have as much as you.

Well, that’s one way to put it.

But I think the seemingly overnight financial demise of McClendon and the free fall of Chesapeake Energy, a major natural gas company in Oklahoma, can be attributed primarily to irrational and illogical business decisions across the spectrum of American big business these days. These decisions can be directly related to the Orwellian era in which we live, an era defined by President George Bush’s and the GOP’s support of an unregulated free market.

It also tells us powerfully on a local level: Don’t listen to McClendon or others in what I half-jokingly call the Okie Oligarchy—Clayton Bennett, Tom Ward, Christy Gaylord Everest, etc.—about important business or political issues. They have been self-absorbed and dreadfully wrong about important issues for a long time now.

On a national level, McClendon’s financial demise and Chesapeake’s current challenges are a fitting symbol of the destructive business practices waged against this country by the market fundamentalists, led by their cheerleader Bush and now supported by one of his surrogates, U.S. Sen. John McCain.

This is what happened in simple terms: As natural gas prices increased, McClendon bought shares in the company he co-founded on margin, which means he borrowed the money. As long as Chesapeake stock remained high, McClendon was fine. But when stocks plummeted recently because of the financial crisis and when natural gas prices decreased because of the ensuing lack of demand, he was forced to raise money to cover his daring bets. In the end, he had to sell “substantially all” of his 33.4 million in stocks to meet the margin call, according to news reports. This, say the reports, represented much of his estimated $2.1 to $3 billion personal stash.

But before anyone sheds any tears for poor Aubrey, keep in mind his Chesapeake compensation was valued at $25.5 million last year. He’s still apparently drawing a paycheck that most of us cannot even begin to fathom. Let me put it in a more understandable way: He can still easily afford to go see the doctor, unlike a growing number of Oklahomans, even those with health insurance.

Even as he played his daring shell game, McClendon tried to shove his narrow, soulless ideology down our throats. In 2004, he and his former business partner, Tom Ward, donated $250,000 to a political action committee to help elect Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, another GOP ideologue. Both McClendon and Ward donated $1.1 million to Gary Bauer’s Americans United To Preserve Marriage, a group that agitates against gay marriages. Records show McClendon donated $250,000 to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a group that disseminated outrageous lies about presidential candidate John Kerry during the 2004 elections.

In addition, both former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating and former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, two ultra-conservative politicians, currently serve on the Chesapeake Board of Directors. Keating, mimicking McClendon’s style of dirty politics, recently attacked presidential contender Barack Obama with comments some say were racist and ugly. Burns Hargis, a former Republican candidate for governor and the president of Oklahoma State University, serves on the board as well. When is he going to go ballistic against Obama?

Recently, McClendon was one of 16 prominent Oklahoma executives who urged Congress to pass Bush’s financial bailout plan, which has failed so far to provide any relief to the rich fat cats who supported it. Obviously, McClendon had to be thinking on some level about his own investments, his own company. What about the others? The list included Larry Nichols, the CEO of Devon Energy Corporation, and, of course, Bennett, who is the chairman of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team.

McClendon was wrong about his business. He was wrong about the incompetent Bush. He was wrong about politics in general. He was wrong about the stock market. He was wrong about taxes. As others, including myself, spoke out repeatedly beginning years ago against the reckless tax policies and business ideology of the Bush administration, McClendon ignored the obvious and gambled his fortune away. Fine. It’s his money, right?

But has McClendon made poor business decisions that parallel his personal financial decisions? Has he hurt his employees, many of whom are hardworking, decent Oklahomans, by risking their financial security, too? How will McClendon’s business actions ultimately impact the economy in Oklahoma?

Will those legislators who recently voted to cut the taxes of Oklahoma’s richest citizens like McClendon finally see that, no, revenues are not going to grow under the archaic “trickle-down” theory the local corporate moguls used as a scam to increase their wealth?

Is Oklahoma about ready to face another energy company bust like it did in the early 1980s that brought about the failure of Penn Square Bank?

These are important questions that important people need to be asking. But don’t count on the corporate media here for anything more than a cursory discussion about these questions.

Some financial pundits are predicting Americans will soon be paying $7 a gallon for gasoline, and, rest assured, when it happens the corporate media here will spin this on one level as great news for Oklahoma because local energy companies will benefit with massive profits.

Sure, you might see the obligatory times-are-tough stories. But, really, who cares that you cannot afford to drive to work anymore? What is good for energy companies is good for Oklahoma, the mantra goes at The Oklahoman and Tulsa World. It has become a deeply entrenched Okie mythology that Oklahoma’s quality of life and the happiness of its people is dependent on the success of a handful of energy companies here and throughout the world.

When gasoline prices go up, well, then Okies should be dancing in the streets, right? After all, these wonderful energy companies contribute much to the state’s tax base and provide great jobs. Why, you are simply un-American and un-Oklahoman if you do not love those wonderful energy companies who make life so great here.

The only problem here is the mythology is not the least bit true. This is what energy company worship has wrought in this state: Oklahomans have relatively low average incomes when compared to other states. It does not provide adequate funding for education because its tax base is traditionally low and shrinking because of recent tax cuts that reward wealthy people. Its deteriorating roads and bridges are some of the worst in the nation. The state has high rates of hungry families, poverty and uninsured people. It ranks close to the lowest in the nation in most categories dealing with health issues.

Meanwhile, some local energy executives use their wealth to support ultra-right wing politicians and initiatives that help promote the oil-company mythology. This keeps the state’s political leadership mired in a corporate-worship mindset that hurts ordinary Oklahomans and rewards only the relatively few millionaires in the Okie oligarchy.

So what happens to a state that has been built on the sanctity of energy companies and planned on the ubiquity of the automobile when gasoline prices hit $7 a gallon?

During the last belch of The Oil Age, expect Oklahoma, in particular, to face incredible fallout. The state’s sprawling cities and neighborhoods were planned on cheap gasoline, for example, even though the idea of diminishing supplies of oil has been discussed for decades. Who will lose out as people here move closer together in centralized locations? More importantly, who will want to move here knowing they might have to drive 300 miles or more each week? As the economy sours even more because of rising costs, local energy companies will have even more leverage here to call the political shots.

The solutions are obvious, but nothing will happen here until we face a full-blown crisis because of the current political influence of energy companies. Here are some obvious solutions to rising gasoline prices: The state should become more sustainable. Oklahoma City and Tulsa should centralize their neighborhoods and important institutions. Local governments should provide new funding for mass transit. The government here should encourage the use of alternative energy sources through tax incentives.

The first thing that must happen, however, is for Oklahomans to stop electing politicians who support the agenda of oil companies over the needs of struggling families. A vote for politicians such as U.S. Senators Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, who support the interests of energy companies over regular families, is an act of self-loathing. It should be known as a form of family abuse.

The financial success of energy companies has been an integral initiative of the failed neoconservative experiment, and these companies have reaped record profits. Now it is shaping up to be a year of great political change in this country. It would be a shame if Oklahoma once again got left behind, but it seems inevitable at this point.

Once the last bit of oil and natural gas is sucked from the soil here, the energy companies will leave and never come back. They are a blip on the state’s and country’s history. They have prevented the state from prospering by using political manipulation to protect their narrow interests, and that is what the historical record will show.

Carlin and Russert

When NBC’s big-shot infotainer Tim Russert recently died, he received the equivalent of a state funeral and the corporate media lauded him for days as a great “journalist.” Imperial President George Bush even attended Russert’s wake to obviously thank him posthumously for his unequivocal support of the Iraq invasion and ensuing occupation.

When comedian George Carlin died a couple of weeks later, the media offered up obligatory obituaries.

This is yet another example of how the mainstream media distorts reality and significance. Carlin and his comedy, which always offered brilliant critiques of our culture, will be remembered as an essential part of the American milieu in the last half of the twentieth century. Russert, who hosted Meet The Press, will be forgotten in a few years or so. If Russert is remembered at all, it will be as a sidenote, as one of those millionaire celebrity infotainers who served as a toady for the most corrupt presidential regime in the country’s history.