More On Judge Lewis Kaplan

Chevron Pit just posted a few quotes form Lewis Kaplan, the judge who blocked the enforcement of the $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest.

“On the other hand, we are dealing here with a company of considerable importance to our economy that employs thousands all over the world, that supplies a group of commodities, gasoline, heating oil, other fuels and lubricants on which every one of us depends every single day. I don't think there is anybody in this courtroom who wants to pull his car into a gas station to fill up and finds that there isn't any gas there because these folks have attached it in Singapore or wherever else.”

Judge Kaplan sounds very worried about Chevron’s wellbeing and shows absolutely no concern for Chevron’s victims.

Read more here.

Chevron’s Heartless Team

I started this blog because I was outraged by Chevron’s lack of concern for the environment and the communities suffering because of Chevron’s refusal to clean up its own toxic mess. With each shocking development in the lawsuit, I wonder who stands behind Chevron’s abusive defense campaign. Who would willingly choose to stand in the way of Ecuadorians fighting for justice? Apparently, with the right amount of money, a team of heartless experts is not hard to find. To meet all of the Chevron’s Human Rights Hitmen visit Chevron Pit and RAN’s websites.

U.S. Judge Siding With Chevron.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan who blocked the enforcement of the $9.5 billion judgment is not objective and clearly sides with Chevron. The judge even encouraged Chevron to file the RICO charges against the plaintiffs and their legal team. It is unbelievable that anyone would voluntarily choose to stand in the way of the Ecuadorians fighting for justice especially since scientific evidence has proven Chevron is guilty of dumping over 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into Amazon and destroying their lives.

The Damage In Ecuador Is So Great, Chevron’s Own Tests Can’t Hide It

Chevron hired an independent expert to test the soil in Ecuador to prove there is no contamination, but the environmental damage in the Amazon is so great even Chevron’s own expert couldn’t deny it.

Here’s what Chevron’s tests showed:

• All but one facility had contaminated water discharge into creeks and streams.


• Hydrocarbon contamination at all facilities and a majority of drilling sites


• Water waste was historically discharged into surface water.


• “An oil spill prevention and control plan was not identified. The audit teams also did not observe any spill control or containment equipment.”


• Rather than cleaning chemical or hydrocarbon spills, the oil company covered the spills with sand.

Read more here.

Devastating effects

A few days ago New York Times reporter Ian Urbina wrote an article about devastating effects of hydrofracking on the environment. Billions of gallons of wastewater filled with toxins being improperly disposed of; contamination of drinking water and soil; unusually high rates of cancer and other illnesses sound awfully familiar, don’t they? Chevron Pit points out similarities between the results of the investigation into the harmful effects of hydrofracking and the environmental damages in Ecuador caused by Chevron’s careless operations.

Video: oil worker talking about Chevron's operation in Ecuador

Chevron dumped over 16 billion gallons of wastewater polluting rivers and streams in the Ecuadorian rainforest. It is horrible especially since Chevron knew how harmful the toxins were, but what makes it even worse is the fact that Chevron had a safer system designed but chose NOT to use it in order to save money.

Watch this unbelievable video of an oil worker talking about Chevron instructing the employees to drain the chemicals straight into the environment.

Chevron & The Koch Brothers

Chevron’s campaign to defame the Ecuadorians suing the company for oil contamination is starting to sound a lot like the attacks by the arch-conservative Koch Brothers, the billionaires who have financed campaigns against liberal groups, like Common Cause. This blog by Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club makes that clear. I’m not surprised that Chevron is following the Koch Brothers’ playbook — the company’s general counsel, Hew Pate, and the former general counsel, Charles James, worked for the Justice Department under George Bush and with the lawyers who wrote the torture memos. What a resume these guys have!

A Gang of Thieves -- Without Honor or Humor

Carl Pope
Chairman, Sierra Club
Posted: February 16, 2011 01:47 PM

San Francisco -- That's the thought that comes to mind this week, watching the behavior of Big Oil. In Ecuador, a Court found that Chevron owes local communities $8 billion for damages left behind from an oil drilling business Chevron inherited when it took over Texaco. Chevron's response was not that the damages hadn't been done, but that the Ecuadoran decision was "illegitimate" and that the company simply wouldn't pay its debts. (Does this remind you of Exxon-Mobile around the Valdez decisions? It would be nice if the oil industry was satisfied to be the world's richest, but at least paid its bills.)

Of course, Chevron's Ecuadoran bill is more than matched by the amount of direct subsidies Big Oil draws from American taxpayers. The Obama Administration, in its proposed new budget, thinks that there are probably better ways to spend taxpayer dollars, and has proposed eliminating $54 billion of these subsidies, including $10 billion that flows from the U.S. Treasury to such governments as Saudi Arabia. (You might not have known that oil producers are, in fact, one of the major recipients of this form of foreign aid. Big Oil pays the Saudis, and the Treasury reimburses Big Oil.) The new Tea Party-influenced Republican leadership in Congress doesn't seem to agree: the Defense Department, the nuclear industry, and Big Oil are virtually the only items in the federal budget protected from proposed slash-and-burn budget cuts.

If you are running this kind of racket, it is always good to have friends in high places, and the oil industry is making sure that politicians remain in its hock. The billionaire Koch Brothers announced that in 2012 they plan to raise $88 million to purchase influence in Washington. When Common Cause organized a protest at the secret Palm Springs gathering the brothers host, conservatives yelled "foul" and began organizing dirty tricks against Common Cause. This is classic Koch style; they've also brought a lawsuit against pranksters who sent out a press release last December saying the brothers had seen the light and would no longer fund global warming denial groups. The lawsuit claimed that the spoof press release's authors were "guilty of trademark infringement, cybersquatting, unfair competition, and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," a criminal statute that penalizes those who hack into protected governmental and private computer systems.

It's hard to take such a lawsuit seriously. But the Koch Brothers are serious. Anyone who shines a light on their secretive effort to take over the U.S. government can expect this kind of bullying. And while Big Oil is too restrained to carry on these kinds of shenanigans here in the U.S., the Chevron response in Ecuador shows their true face.