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BP gets break on soot limits
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Indiana decision insulates firm from new federal rules
By Michael Hawthorne
Tribune staff reporter
August 28 2007
Indiana regulators have granted BP another exemption from environmental
standards, this time relaxing rules requiring a sharp drop in harmful
soot pollution from the company's Whiting oil refinery.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-bp_28aug28,0,4673841.story
My decision to boycott BP isn't changing and I'll be looking for additional ways to spread the word so people know what they're doing when they give money to this company.
As someone who is not a citizen of Indiana - how can I have an impact there? The legislation getting passed there which undermines environmental safeguards is horrific to me. What are they smoking down there (besides toxic chemicals)?
URRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
- Current Location:work
- Current Mood:
enraged
- Current Music:The sountrack of my intense anger at BP and Indiana policy makers
Comments
Blarg. And I liked BP. I thought they were the good guys. (In as much as any oil company can be good.)
So Citgo is preferred now? Have you heard anything about Marathon? (AFAIK, Marathon always seems to have lower prices.)
I am more angry at Indiana officials than BP. I expect it from BP - but not the people who have to live directly in BP's waste.
Do you think BP is just buying everyone so they can get what they want - or does Indiana have a death wish?
BP pays taxes to Indiana. BP hires Indiana workers. BP contributes to their economy. So of course Indiana wants to help BP. And, if Indiana won't play ball with BP, there are 49 other states who might. So it's in Indiana's best interest to do everything BP wants, or risk BP moving elsewhere and taking their tax revenue and jobs with with them.
And why did this whole thing start in the first place? Oh yeah, because BP wants to refine Canadian oil instead of Arab oil. So it's all in the interest of national security, and Indiana would be un-patriotic and would be helping terrorists if they don't bend over backwards to relax pollution controls.
I think it's disgusting.
Of course, I know you and I disagree on what to do. Given a choice, I'd rather have a nuclear power plant built in my yard, and live with all of its possible inherent risks as well as the long-term waste storage problem, than live a matter of miles away from a refinery that definitely pollutes my air and my drinking water. And let's not forget the mountaintops that are getting chopped off for coal, and all the dead coal miners, when nuclear power is a much cleaner alternative....
I consider nuclear power a lesser-of-several-evils. I wish there were other economical, environment-friendly power alternatives.
I'm conflicted on wind power. I don't think it's free. From what I've heard, if we started using it for substantial amounts of electricity production, it would screw with the global climate.
Solar power is a very good thing. But I don't live in the southwest, where one can expect lots of sun year round. And I have to wonder what kind of impact making photo voltaic cells has on the environment. And it isn't terribly economical.
Geothermal is interesting, too.... As is biodiesel.
If I had my own house, I'd love to do something green. Heck, I just saw this which looks awesome: http://www.simondale.net/house/. It looks just like a hobbit hole! I'd love to have my very own Bag End; and it's environmentally friendly, too!
I'd love to hear more about the negative impact you mention with wind farms. I am trying to learn more about alternative energy sources and I have not yet run across that info. Do you have any sources that can tell me more?
All my best - Jen