An American Politician Speaks Out Against Powerful Corporations Working Against The Good of the People – Finally!

U.S. Senator for Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor last week, proposing a path to restore government agencies that have been taken over by corporate interests.  Citing lax oversight and the inappropriate influence of corporations over the Minerals Management Service (MMS), Senator Whitehouse said  “We can no longer wait for more catastrophes to root out improper corporate influence in our government, we have to at long last address the problem of insidious regulatory capture.”

The Senator went on to cite many examples of MMS corruption, including: MMS staff accepting money and gifts from oil and gas companies; senior executives at the agency’s Royalty in Kind office steering contracts to their own outside consulting firm; an inspector in the agency’s Lake Charles, Louisiana office conducting inspections of a company’s drilling platforms while negotiating a job with that company; and other “significant issues worthy of separate investigation, including ethical lapses, program management, and process failures.”

Senator Whitehouse then explained how these activities led to conditions ripe for disaster, and that the answer to this disaster is to “clean house” and free the government from corporate interests:

We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests; of corporate interests, because that’s where the big money is at stake.

Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, from the financial melt-down and the Gulf disaster, the price, the terrible price, of all those quietly cut corners?

Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government?

I pray, let us have learned this; let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson, and that this will never happen again. But let’s not just pray.

In this troubled world God works through our human hands; grows a more perfect union through our human hearts; creates his beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act.

To read the full transcript of Senator Whitehouse’s speech and view it on video, click here to go to Daily Kos.

Here’s a video of Senator Whitehouse in September, 2008, where he asks a very pointed question of oil company executives and top energy experts at a Senate Energy Policy Forum. This guy seems to “get” it – and in this video he articulates it. What an anomaly he is politics today!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXV7EBaRVxk]

More links:

Senator Whitehouse official website

To send Senator Whitehouse an email to support and encourage him, you can go to his website and click on the “email Sheldon” link on the bottom.  If you’d like to write a letter or telephone him, his contact information is below:

Washington Office:
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 502
Washington, D.C. 20510
202-224-2921 phone
202-228-6362 fax



President Obama: “We Can’t Afford Not To Change How We Produce And Use Energy”

In his first address to Americans from the Oval Office, last night Barack Obama discussed the BP catastrophe in the Gulf, promising that BP would pay for their “recklessness”, and then he went on to say that the time to embrace clean energy is now:

So one of the lessons we’ve learned from this spill is that we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling. But a larger lesson is that, no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk.

After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean: because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.

Time and again, the path forward has been blocked, not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean-energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean-energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.

This is not some distant vision for America. The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time. But over the last year- and-a-half, we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jump-start the clean-energy industry.

It’s a hopeful sign, and could signal stronger leadership from the White House on clean energy. Obama, after all, is a father to two young daughters who are going to have to live with the consequences of his leadership, or lack of it, on this issue. What is certain, though, is that Obama can’t do it without the support of the majority of Americans – and Republicans are already massing on the side of Big Oil – so hopefully there will be a groundswell of support for the President that can’t be ignored. I, for one, will be watching with great interest from north of the border, as this unfolds over the next months.  Could the Gulf disaster be the tipping point that finally gets North Americans to kick our fossil fuel habit? And does this mean that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to start talking about weaning Canadians off our addiction, including shutting down the tar sands? After all, for months, he and his Environment Minister Jim Prentice have been repeating that they can’t formulate their own policy, they have to wait and take the lead from the Americans.  It looks like President Obama is leading, Mr. Harper. The question is, are you going to follow?

More Links:

For the full text of President Obama’s speech, click here. For video, click here.

For analysis, go to “A Clean Energy Future is Now: But Mr. President, How Do We Get There?” on The Huffington Post.

Disappointingly, from my perspective as a Canadian, the coverage of the speech on the CBC website focuses almost exclusively on his remarks on BP and the Gulf, which was the first half of the speech, without mentioning the last half of his speech, which was all about transitioning to clean energy (click here to check for yourself).

The Globe and Mail does cover the speech in more depth, although you wouldn’t know it from the headline. Click here to read “Obama Lashes Out At BP in Oval Office Address”.  And the headline in the Toronto Star read “Barack Obama Calls Gulf Clean-up a ‘National Mission’ ” (click here to read article).

And, via the FB group 1,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling, a request to add your votes to their clean energy questions for the White House’s Press Secretary tonight. “Its a long-shot, but please add your quick votes if you haven’t yet (it’s as easy as clicking the green thumbs). We’re close to the top of the list. Click here to do just that.