October 29, 2010 at 15:14:00
Promoted to Headline (H2) on 10/29/10: Permalink
Halliburton and the Upcoming Election
SAVE AS FAVORITE
VIEW FAVORITES
By Robert Reich (about the author) Become a Fan (11 fans)
For OpEdNews: Robert Reich - Writer
Next Tuesday Americans will be deciding whether to hand over even more
of our government to corporations that have been plundering America --
such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wellpoint insurance,
Massey Energy, and Halliburton, the giant oil services company.
Not every large corporation is irresponsible, of course, but
plunderers that get away with it gain a competitive advantage over the
more responsible, and thereby lead a race to the bottom.
Case in point: The staff of the presidential commission investigating
the BP oil spill has just revealed that Halliburton executives knew
the cement it was using to seal BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well was
likely to be unstable but didn't tell BP or act on the information.
In a letter to the commission's seven members, the staff found that
the failure of the cement was a key factor in the blowout that caused
millions of barrels of crude oil to escape into the Gulf of Mexico.
(Not the sole factor, of course; most of the blame for the disaster,
says the staff, still rests with BP and Transocean, the company BP
hired to drill the well.)
Halliburton has not sat out this election. Last May, as Congress began
investigating its role in the disaster, its political action committee
made 14 contributions -- 13 to Republicans and one to a Democrat. Many
were involved in the investigation; others had responsibility for
overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf. It was the biggest donation month
for Halliburton's PAC since September 2008.
Halliburton, in case you've forgotten, is not exactly a model citizen.
It has evaded U.S. taxes and export bans through foreign subsidiaries;
admitted to bribing foreign officials (a subsidiary paid $2.4 million
to a Nigerian government official in exchange for favorable tax
treatment); conceded in an internal memo (leaked to the Wall Street
Journal) its cost controls for government contracts in Iraq were
"antiquated" and its procurement "disorganized; was found by Pentagon
auditors to have overcharged estimated at $27.4 million for meals
served to American troops at five military bases in Iraq and Kuwait
(in one camp billing for an average 42,000 meals a day but serving
only 14,000).
The list of Halliburton's crimes goes on and on. And yet, somehow,
Halliburton goes on piling up profits. How? Because of its deep
connections to Washington.
Dick Cheney hadn't had any experience in the oil business when he
became Halliburton's CEO in 1995. But he did have experience in
government -- as George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. And those
military ties were invaluable to the company. Under his reign,
Halliburton rose from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon's list of top
contractors, and the money garnered from government-sponsored agencies
(such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the
Export-Import Bank) soared from $100 million in the five years prior
to Cheney's arrival to $1.5 billion a few years after.
As vice president to George W. Bush, Cheney made sure Halliburton's
stunning performance would continue (Cheney continued to receive
checks from the company). According to congressional inquiries,
Cheney's vice presidential office was instrumental in forcing the
Environmental Protection Agency to remove sections on climate change
from reports in 2002 and 2003 (a process Christine Todd Whitman, then
the E.P.A. administrator, subsequently described as "brutal.") The
Bush-Cheney administration also sought to control or censor
congressional testimony about climate change by federal employees, and
tampered with other reports in order to inject uncertainty into the
climate debate.
Which brings us back to the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Halliburton's
executives knew the cement it used to seal the well was filled with
mud -- but Halliburton said nothing presumably because doing the job
correctly would have cost too much. And, hell, Halliburton is in
business to make money.
Halliburton isn't on the ballot next Tuesday, but it might as well be.
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of
California at Berkeley. He has served in three national
administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President
Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including "The (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Contact Author
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment