tagged w/ Obama adminsitration
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*White House accused of double standards as Obama aide appears to issue threat over compensation
As Barack Obama's administration was attacking BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (death toll: 15), one of the president's most trusted advisers was writing an email to an Indian official in which it was implied that if the New Delhi government did not shut up about the 1984 Bhopal gas leak (death toll: up to 16,000), there might be a "chilling effect" on investment.
The Bhopal tragedy (above), in which deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the US-owned Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city, remains the world's worst industrial accident. Up to 16,000 people were killed and another 558,125 injured. Chemicals from the plant are believed still to be contaminating groundwater supplies in the area.
Five years after the tragedy, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million in compensation to the victims. The company was bought by another US company, Dow Chemical, in 2001, which claimed the affair had been resolved.
However, the Bhopal Medical Appeal says Union Carbide remains liable for "environmental devastation", because it was not included in the 1989 settlement. And the Indian government is reportedly deciding whether Dow should be held liable for an additional $200m in compensation.
The current furore is the result of an email exchange obtained by India's Times Now television channel.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, wrote to Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser Michael Froman to lobby for US backing in India's application for World Bank funds.
In the course of the exchange, which neither side has denied, Froman writes: "While I've got you, we are hearing a lot of noise about the Dow Chemical issue. I trust that you are monitoring it carefully.
"I am not familiar with all the details, but I think we want to avoid developments which put a chilling effect on our investment relationship."
The exchange has been taken in India as implying that US backing could be relied upon only if India pulled back from its pursuit of further damages from Dow.
Following the fuss over the BP oil spill, and the establishment of a $20bn compensation fund for people affected by it, critics are suggesting that the Obama administration believes the lives of Indians are cheaper than the livelihoods of Louisiana shrimpers.
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal said the leaked email showed the US government was "not pursuing the same levels of accountability from American Dow Chemical as it has from BP" and that it "values profit over people, when the profit benefits American corporations".
Froman has denied suggestions of intimidation, saying: "I want to make clear that I was not making any link between what are two separate and distinct issues nor issuing a 'threat' of any sort."
President Obama is due to visit India in November. With New Delhi already upset at the arming of Pakistan by the US, the president can ill afford a poisonous and intractable issue such as Bhopal to dominate headlines.*White House accused of double standards as Obama aide appears to issue threat over... more
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Where is the civil disobedience? Where is the outrage? Hayward was skewered in Congress in a show for the masses and that's all we &*&^&^^% get? Even the media now talks about this "spill"... HELLO, it's a GUSHER, as if it is just another ho hum news story.. "Ho Hum, day sixty five and the oil is now reaching Pensacola with oil soaked globs on the beaches, as a dolphin washes up on shore... and now the weather and coverage of the World Cup! "
I don't want to be a part of any species that is not now absolutely INCENSED by this ecocide, and I'm sick and tired of hiding how I feel.
It is now obvious this government and BP are in this together somehow. Civil disobedience is now imperative.Where is the civil disobedience? Where is the outrage? Hayward was skewered in... more
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Obama's nominee for the head of USAID Rajiv Shah appears to be just another Monsanto crony through AGRA. Where will this all end? It will end when we stand up forcefully to end it. But people need this information first in order to take action to protect their food and food sovereignty. The industrial agricultural model of the Monsantos of this world is not sustainable. It is time for REAL change.Obama's nominee for the head of USAID Rajiv Shah appears to be just another... more
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The Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding whether to approve a pipeline carrying greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands fuel from Canada into the US.
Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, is expected to decide as early as this month whether to approve the Alberta Clipper, a 1,000-mile pipeline designed to carry up to 800,000 barrels a day of fuel from Canada's vast oil sands.
Environmentalists say doing so would be at odds with the green economy pledged by the administration.
"Approving new mega-projects like the Alberta Clipper pipeline would lock North America into the old, high-carbon energy economy," said Keith Stewart, director of climate change at WWF-Canada. "We need to invest in the green economy of the future, not pour billions into the Betamax of the energy world."
But Enbridge Energy, the Canadian pipeline builder, said the project would improve US energy security. The pipeline and associated facilities "will serve the national interest ... enhancing the ability to deliver a secure and growing supply of Canadian crude oil, thereby supplementing the diminishing supplies of domestically produced crude oil," the company said in its May application.
It is hard for the US to resist the 175 billion barrels of oil sand reserves, given rising concerns over energy security. But the extraction of a barrel of crude from oil sands is estimated to generate as much as five times more greenhouse gas emissions as from a barrel of conventional crude.
Environmentalists have seized on a delay in granting the permit, which could have come in early July, as a sign it might be rejected. But the state department told the Financial Times it had not finished the review process.
Enbridge is confident it will obtain the permit this month, enabling it to build.
"We're going to start construction at the end of this month," the company said. "We believe we will have a successful outcome and look forward to completion by mid-2010. We're not worried at all."
Canadian environmentalists sent the state department a letter last week urging it to delay a decision until after a climate treaty emerges from the Copenhagen summit. "This decision carries significant implications regarding greenhouse gas pollution and global warming that cannot be duly considered in the absence of clear US climate change policy and an understanding of an international climate treaty," it read.
The Dirty Oil Sands Network said: "Climate security and energy security must go hand in hand. The best way to achieve this is for the Obama administration to keep building a clean energy economy."
end of excerptThe Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding... more
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