Monday, July 12, 2010

BP and Carbon Tax: Follow the Money Trail

The home page for the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) website exhibits a list of global corporate sponsors who would seem more likely to fight against legislation that purports to cut air pollution, not fund it. But that is exactly what they are doing. Names such as AES, Alcoa, Chrysler, Dow, General Electric, PG&E and Siemans are but a few of the over 25 corporate giants who are USCAP members. USCAP is the largest lobby for legislation to combat global warming. On their list of members, however, there is one conspicuous absence. That is BP who was a member of USCAP until earlier this year when they opted out of the lobby. Their official reason was the lack of carbon allowances that would be afforded to oil companies through the legislation. But this seems suspect considering that Shell Corp. is still a member. So one might ask the obvious question, What are oil companies, some of the biggest polluters on the planet, doing fighting against global warming and air pollution. The short answer. Carbon tax and trading.


First, a quick rundown of some key figures surrounding the BP oil spill, an event that may be the biggest environmental disaster in history. Tony Hayward has been the CEO of BP plc since 2007, but before that he filled a number of roles in the company including Group Treasurer since 2000 where he was in charge global treasury operations and corporate finance. From 2000 to 2003 he served as a member of the Advisory Board of Citibank, the world's largest bank. Halliburton has had a black eye since the beginning of the Iraq war. Their official task in the Deep Water Horizon endeavor was to pour concrete into the deep oil well. In an amazing coincidence, though, just weeks before the oil spill Halliburton purchased Boots and Coots, the worlds largest company for cleaning up oil spills. BP is the largest corporation in Britain and the Royal Family are major shareholders. Although it used to be called British Petroleum for many years, since 2001 it has simply been known as BP because its holdings go far beyond the shores of Britain. In fact, the largest shareholder of BP stock is JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan Chase and Citibank are intrinsically connected to the Federal Reserve system. The Federal Reserve is where your tax dollars go to. But more on that later.


Carbon Tax


Their is a great perception that the so called "carbon tax" will be placed on big polluting companies, thus reducing carbon emissions and harmful air pollutants. This is a fallacy. Big polluting companies will not have to pay a tax if they receive carbon allowances or buy so called "carbon credits". Discover's Howstuffworks.com website describes the carbon tax as a tax on electricity, natural gas and oil. The website seems enthusiastic about the prospects of a carbon tax:


"And don't forget about all the money raised by the tax. It can help subsidize environmental programs or be issued as a rebate. Many fans of carbon tax believe in progressive tax-shifting. This would mean that some of the tax burden would shift away from federal income tax and state sales tax."


This is an admission that the carbon tax will be so significant as to merit a comparison to federal income tax and state tax. Indeed, major studies have concluded that the economic impact on the average american household will be the equivalent of two income taxes or more.


Carbon trading scheme


A Washington Examiner article from May, 2009 illustrates how big energy companies can pollute the environment and profit from trading so called 'offsets' to greenhouse emissions. The article reveals that AES Corp. was getting together with GE to start selling carbon credits, a scheme that was invented by none other than Enron who in the 1990's was the chief instigator for the Kyoto Treaty by funneling in multi-millions of dollars to environmental lobbying groups in hopes of capitalizing on what are essentially CO2 derivatives. What did this lobbying get them? The fates of Enron and Kyoto are well known to history.


The money trail


Make no mistake. The carbon tax is yet another direct tax that goes to the big banks. Carbon trading is yet another form of derivatives. The $600 trillion derivatives market has not proven to produce anything thus far except a huge black hole for the global economy. Are we really to believe that these derivatives will produce significant sources of alternative energy? This is banking, plain and simple.


Devvy Kidd of World Net Daily investigated where our taxes actually go since the money that goes to pay for the public sector and the government is loaned to us by the Federal Reserve. She found out through significant sources(1) that all taxes collected by the IRS go directly to the Federal Reserve banking system. So, to follow the money trail, BP spills oil, carbon taxes are passed, the IRS collects and the big banks behind the Federal Reserve loan it back to us with interest. (Oh, and let's not forget that big bond that the US government must put up to insure that the loan will be paid back).


The media is spinning the Gulf oil spill as a gross act of negligence. Major publications such as Atlantic Monthly and Mother Jones, however, have revealed that BP and some of their engineers knew before hand that drilling into such great pressure was more than they were equipped to handle. Add to this the suspicious purchase of Boots and Coots by Halliburton only weeks before the spill. And the very suspicious fact that Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward sold millions of dollars worth of BP stock only weeks before the spill. President Obama is hyping cap and trade and carbon taxing like never before. Is this some gross coincidence? Probably not, according to Senator Mitch McConnell: He had this to say on the Senate floor:


"The problem for Democrats is that debating the Democrat cap-and-trade bill might not fit neatly into the White House messaging plan, since it’s been widely reported that a major part of the Kerry-Lieberman bill was essentially written by BP. This is clearly an inconvenient fact: an administration that seems to spend most of its time coming up with new ways to show how angry it is with BP is pushing a proposal that BP helped write."



Source:


1. "President's Private Sector Survey On Cost Control: A Report to the President" [Reagan] Jan. 15,1984

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