“We should never forget that the oil industry, whatever its problems (and most of those are caused by bad government policies) is the single most vital industry in the world.”
This election year, America faces many crucial legislative choices in the oil/gas industry–and the PR strategy of oil companies will certainly affect the outcome.
What should oil company executives do to improve their industry’s reputation and secure their freedom to produce the lifeblood of civilization?
Unfortunately, the conventional answer is: pretend they’re not oil companies. BP’s John Browne some years ago infamously declared his company’s aspirations to be “Beyond Petroleum”–a slogan that obviously does not aid the industry’s desire for more petroleum drilling rights. (BP, to its credit, no longer trumpets this slogan, which defaults BP back to the implicit original, British Petroleum.)…
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing on the Blowout Prevention Act of 2010. A draft of the legislation and other pertinent documents are available on the Subcommittee’s Web site.
Although the draft legislation and hearing documents address serious problems brought to light by the Committee’s ongoing investigations, the Blowout Prevention Act would throw the baby out with the bath water.
To restate the obvious, although oil spills are bad, oil is good. Without oil, there would be no modern commerce and no mechanized agriculture. Life for most people would be “nasty, brutish, and short,” and many of us would not even be alive. Another obvious point — British Petroleum (BP) is to blame for the worst environmental disaster in U.S.…
[Editor note: Mr. Lewis’s musical parody, “How I Was Not Al Gored Into Submission,” released three weeks ago, has exceeded 20,000 views on YouTube.]
“Polluter-funded” is the global warming movement’s favorite pejorative to discredit anyone who questions the reality of a climate crisis or opposes their policy nostrums. Google the term and you’ll find about 18,300 sites where it appears.
“Polluter-crafted” brings up about 7,500 sites. The warming lobby uses this buzzword to trash legislation they oppose, most recently Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to stop EPA from dealing itself into a position to make climate policy – a power Congress never approved when it enacted the Clean Air Act.
Who are these “polluters” who craft and fund?…