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Chevron's 2008 annual report is a glossy celebration of the company's most profitable year in its history. What Chevron's annual report does not tell its shareholders is the true cost paid for those financial returns, or the global movement gaining voice and strength against the company's abuses. This jointly-produced report documents negative impacts of Chevron's operations around the globe, in stark contrast to the message sent by the company's ubiquitous "Human Energy" advertising campaign.
When Chevron learned that "60 Minutes" was preparing a potentially damaging report about oil company contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, it hired a former journalist to produce a mirror image of the report, from the corporation's point of view. An Ecuadorean judge is expected to rule soon on whether Chevron owes up to $27 billion in damages.
The Obama administration seeks the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But Big Oil is not on board. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving "beyond petroleum," has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. The list goes on.
For the past eight years, the oil giant formerly known as British
Petroleum has tried to convince the world that its initials stand for
"Beyond Petroleum." An announcement just issued by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency may suggest that the real meaning of BP
is Brazen Polluter.
The chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the coal-burning power plant responsible for an enormous flood of coal ash in East Tennessee late last month, acknowledged Thursday that the plant's containment ponds had leaked two other times in the last five years but had not been adequately repaired.
Royal Dutch Shell last year suffered more workforce deaths than any other large western oil company. Two employees and 28 contractors were killed working for Shell in 2007. Nine of last year's deaths were in Nigeria, with two people killed in attacks on Shell facilities, and 10 in Russia.
In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields.
Two Chevron Corp. lawyers fighting a landmark pollution lawsuit in Ecuador have been indicted by that country's prosecutor general, a move the company says proves the government is trying to tamper with the suit.
Trillions of dollars' worth of oil are present, but the environmental costs are high, too - and growing.
The intersection of human rights, the environment and corporate responsibility was highlighted today at a Capitol Hill hearing featuring activists from Burma and Nigeria who underlined the failure to date of "voluntary" controls over major oil companies operating in their countries.
Entergy Nuclear (part of the broader Entergy energy family) is spinning off its northeastern U.S.-based nuclear power plants into a related limited liability corporation, Enexus. Stakeholders in Vermont, home of the Yankee Nuclear power plant, are less than happy, with Entergy also reneging on prior commitments to cover eventual plant decommissioning costs, potentially stranding taxpayers with much of the bill.