Who has not suffered through the nauseatingly politically correct commercials that mega-polluter BP ran? BP tried to brand itself with the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” Why? Because it’s exactly the kind of slogan that opinion writers – the kind of people who write editorials for newspapers – believe as an article of faith. You know that, in their heart of hearts, the Virginian Pilot editors believe that the government should force the country to convert from oil and coal to “reusable energy” NOW. Well, BP is their kind of company.
Companies like BP have their willing dupes ready to swallow their BS line as they get ready to ride the government mandated gravy train to ever greater profitability. BP is the kind of corporate citizen that gets government awards for "outstanding safety and pollution prevention."
The incestuous relationship between government and BP is nowhere more clearly revealed that in BP’s support of “cap and trade” Columnist Tim Carney writes in the Washington Examiner that
As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post
the Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.
Bait and switch is one of the favorite tricks of the Left:
Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.
… Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate.
There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.
BP backs the kind of tax that the Pilot relentless advances, a gas tax:
Tne provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.
The “Beyond Petroleum” hucksters saw an opportunity to get its greedy hands in the taxpayer’s pockets via government subsidies for policies that are economically unviable unless subsidized by tax dollars. The Left is perfectly willing to shovel money from your pockets to the pockets of BP.
Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.
Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey—again, profiting BP.
Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.
BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. ..
Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.
Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.
Let there be no mistake, BP is not the free-market Republican tool that the press would like you to believe they are. They are “rent seekers” who use the power of the government to profit at the expense of the consumer. They are the people who, like the Virginian Pilot, lobby for the non-stimulating “stimulus” bill (where much of the money went to pay public employee salaries) , the Wall Street bailout, Cap and Trade, higher gas taxes, solar subsidies, in fact, subsidies for all of their uneconomical alternative energy projects.
BP is the kind of energy company that the Virginian Pilot loved. You can be sure that the Dear John letter is already in the mail as they try to convince you that they were never in bed with their corporate lover.
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