Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

Unfair to BP?

Protests show Republicans favor oil company over Gulf Coast’s citizens

While his colleagues Thursday were blasting BP for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its terrible response, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas apologized to the company.

Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told BP CEO Tony Hayward that he was “ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday.” He was referring to President Barack Obama’s successful effort to get the oil company to put $20 billion into an escrow account to pay for damage caused by the spill.

“I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown,” Barton said. He called the escrow account a “slush fund” and said it would set a “terrible precedent for the future.”

“I apologize,” Barton emphasized. “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong it is subject to some sort of political pressure that is — again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

Barton’s statement tied him firmly with BP, which has been arrogant and tone deaf in its response to the oil spill. A “tragedy of the first proportion” is the oil spill, not the effort to hold BP responsible. Some Republicans joined the Democrats in condemning Barton’s remarks. One Republican even publicly called for Barton to step down as the ranking member of the committee, and the Republican leadership quickly tried to contain the damage.

Barton was seen going into Minority Leader John Boehner’s office, and afterward issued a statement, apologizing for using the word “shakedown” and retracting his apology to BP.

As stunning as Barton’s initial comments were, in some ways they are not a surprise considering how deeply connected he is to the energy industry. He has collected more than $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry since 1990, more than anyone else in the House. Nevadans know Barton because of his efforts on behalf of the nuclear industry — he has been dogged in his support of efforts to try to turn Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste dump.

What is a surprise is that Barton is not the only Republican who appears to be supporting BP. Before Obama announced the escrow account, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann called it a “redistribution-of-wealth fund.” She also said BP officials “shouldn’t have to be fleeced” or made to be “chumps” and have to “pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.”

Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, chairman of the House’s conservative Republican Study Committee, said the administration “appears not to respect fundamental American principles” by pushing the oil company to put money into the escrow account. Price said Obama didn’t have the authority to make BP put the money in the fund and said the White House was “hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics.”

Comments such as these are insensitive, ugly and wrong. The Republican response to the oil spill shows just how far out of the mainstream the party is.

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