Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Spill by Greg Palast

[Joanne98]

Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won’t have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon’s liability by 90% to half a billion. It’s so cheap, it’s like a permit to spill.

Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.

But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.

In San Diego, I met with Exxon’s US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, “Admit it; the oil spill’s the best thing to happen” to the Natives.

His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal — but Natives die.

And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/06/court-rewards-exxon-for-valdez-spill/

Bush activist judges!!!!!!! HAVE GOT TO GO!!!!!!

[texastoast]

1. This is so sad, so much damage, so preventable

If EVER there was a need for a huge punitive damage award, this is the case.

And you want to hear just how much Exxon worried about it happening again?

They took the Valdez back to California, drydocked her, patched the hole, then sent her to work in the Black Sea (or Caspian, not sure).

All the while, every freaking oil company knows that double-hulled tankers prevent spills. They don't give an unprofitable fuck about anything but money.

[Demeter]

2. Needs One More Rec!

[tom_paine]

3. In Imperial Amerika, one gets used to the Bad Guys winning and winning and winning...

You know, it's a miracle the Bushies didn't overthrow FDR and join the Nazis in 1934.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

It really is.

[agincourt]

4. Undeniable proof

That big oil crocodiles control our press (Faux, Glen Beck), our gov't (GOPigs), and our courts. Through GOPig judicial appointments. I knew our system was fucked, but even now it still surprises me how corrupt it can go.

[Octafish]

5. Petroleum revenues are larger than US GDP.

Big Oil is the biggest big business there is.