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Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Environment - "Echoes of Gulf Spill Ripple in BP's Midwest Refinery Expansion "
From the NY Times, see this story by Elana Schor, dated Aug. 6, 2010 -- a few quotes from the long story:
Almost 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is pressing ahead with a $3.8 billion expansion of the largest refinery in the Midwest -- and facing off with environmental groups over controls aimed at preventing a gusher-style release of chemicals into the air.The two-year clash over BP's refinery modernization in Whiting, Ind., where the company aims to process more high-sulfur crude from Canadian oil sands, touches on some of the same thorny political issues that continue to dog the Gulf recovery effort. In both regions, the industry's bottom line and its value as a job creator is being pitted against local green advocates' skepticism about the ability of regulators to effectively rein in pollution.
"Putting economics above public safety and the environment appears to be a pervasive practice" at BP, said Environmental Law and Policy Center senior attorney Faith Bugel, whose group joined a 2008 petition against the company's Whiting expansion permit. "If there's a loophole, the practice appears to be to find their way through it. Our concern is that what happened in the Gulf doesn't happen here." * * *
EPA asked the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) in October to revise parts of its permit for BP's project, walking back an earlier approval granted by the George W. Bush administration. The latest EPA order kick-started ongoing talks between BP and advocates who objected to the permit and now hope to secure new controls aimed at minimizing toxic releases from the retooled refinery. * * *
The power of the jobs created at Whiting, and the local leverage that comes with it, is not lost on BP. With discussions proceeding on possible changes to the refinery's permit, the company's political action committee (PAC) focused all its donations in June -- a total of $27,300 -- on 80 state-level candidates in Indiana. Members of Congress got no BP PAC money in June, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 10, 2010 02:04 PM
Posted to Environment