Fishermen were interested in stories because even then, twenty-one years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still no sense of closure. Exxon never "made it right." How could Exxon "make right" family lives shattered by divorce, suicide, or strange illnesses stemming from the "cleanup" work? Or the sense of betrayal by the Supreme Court to hold Exxon to its promise to "pay all reasonable claims"?

As fishermen listened to the Gulf stories, one asked, "Do they know how f—ed they are yet?" No, I explained, they've only lost one fishing season and they just now are filing claims for the first deadline.

When I returned to the Gulf in early January 2011, I heard the same story from Louisiana to Florida. "Everything you warned us about is coming true." During the next four months, I witnessed "oil-sick" people from grandbabies to elders, people distraught from claims denied, shellfish fisheries collapsing, baby and adult dolphins dying in unusually high numbers, continued dispersant spraying, and the early stages of Gulf ecosystem collapse — all while nationwide ads claimed BP is "making it right."

Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right — in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.

Stop the false ad campaign.

When you hear one of BP's "making it right" ads, call your local media station. Tell them to pull the greenwashing ads and get the real story. The Gulf is sick and so are its coastal residents. Money, even heaps of it, will never make it right. Airing the misleading ads only makes things worse, especially in the Gulf where people despise BP's bid to brainwash other Americans.

Stop spraying chemical dispersants.

Chemical dispersants are the oil industry's preferred method of marine spill response in the United States. Dispersants drive the oil out of sight, out of mind, while dispersant production companies like Nalco profit handsomely and the spiller writes off the expense as a cost of doing business. Big oil companies often make their own dispersants — and profits from sales — but hide connections through subsidiaries. Small wonder that spillers prefer dispersants.

The problem with dispersants is exactly what is occurring in the Gulf. The federal government uses outdated and minimal testing procedures for dispersants, which hugely underestimate the chemicals' impacts to marine — and human — life. Some of the reported chemicals in dispersants are known human health hazards; many of the proprietary chemicals are as well as we learned from Gulf disclosures. Dispersants are now linked, or heavily implicated, with the widespread occurrences of lesions and maladies in fish and shellfish, dolphin deaths, and dramatic decline in populations of some Gulf species such as shrimps and killifish.

Yet people have a say in dispersant use. For example, dispersants were sprayed in the Gulf in coastal seas and nearshore areas in direct contradiction to reports from the US Coast Guard and EPA because the coastal states have signed pre-approval letters to allow dispersant use anywhere, anytime. But people in coastal communities of America could pass local ordinances banning dispersant use in state waters after marine oil spills; people could make sure their state had a signed no-approval letter as part of their Regional Response Team's spill contingency plan. Changing the National Contingency Plan would take more effort, so let's start locally by banning these deadly chemicals in our coastal seas.

Stop pretending that people in the Gulf coastal communities aren't "oil-sick" and that BP isn't responsible and liable.

It's not only the dolphins that are sick and dying. For two years, BP and the state and federal governments denied the epidemic of respiratory problems, dizziness and headaches, horrific skin lesions, and blood problems was linked with the oil and chemical disaster — despite the fact that medical literature identifies these identical symptoms as characteristic of oil spill exposure. Now under the BP-Plaintiffs' Settlement, BP has agreed to pay literally billions of dollars for medical claims, medical monitoring for twenty-one years, medical services, and community health clinics for underserved populations staffed with specialists in chemical illness treatment — but with no admission of liability.

Get educated and educate others about what is happening in the Gulf. Tell your local film festivals to screen the award-winning Gulf documentary, Dirty Energy, in which local residents talk about being "oil-sick." Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are in drilling muds, used in both onshore and offshore oil drilling, and in injection fluids, used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in drilling for natural gas. Not surprisingly, the "oil-sick" symptoms are not limited to the Gulf.

Stop pretending that people in other oil sacrifice communities aren't "oil-sick" and that the oil companies aren't responsible and liable.

Independent films such as Gas Land and Split Estate are amplifying voices of residents from shale gas sites who are suing over fracking side-effects including earthquakes, exploding tap water, and mysterious debilitating illnesses. In Pennsylvania, residents are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking about their contaminated well water in trade for a supply of clean fresh water from the very companies that caused the problem — while the same companies then claim there is no documented evidence of well contamination.

Independent filmmakers and videographers have amplified the voices of people sickened from the tars sands drilling operations in Alberta, Canada, and the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Battle Creek, Michigan. Already eleven people have died in one small trailer court near the Kalamazoo River from illnesses that they and their doctors believe were triggered or worsened by the tar sands that flowed past their homes and soiled the river banks.

Start taking responsibility for what is happening in your backyard.

The oil companies are polluting our air, poisoning our drinking water and land, poisoning people and communities across the country, collapsing ocean ecosystems from Alaska's Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, and even altering our climate in pursuit of profit, while leaving people and communities with the costs. The federal government clearly has no exit strategy off fossil fuels, so is beholden to — actually partnered with — this industry. When the industry and its supporters chant drill, baby, drill, politicians enable oil activities and help maximize profit by drilling loopholes and exemptions into the very laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment.

It is the ordinary people, not the bureaucrats and oil cats, who have the power to alter our collective future — and make it right for everyone. We all matter.

We start with town meetings to recognize what we value collectively in our community, determine a shared vision, then prioritize the actions to achieve that vision. We move our money and resources to encourage businesses that match our values. Towns across America are doing this now as people strive to become more self-reliant from the corporate-driven government policies that disconnect our jobs from what we love and value.

We need to insist on energy sources that do not create, then sacrifice, communities. We need an energy policy that leaves no Americans behind — not in the mountains of Appalachia, not in the Gulf of Mexico or along the North Slope of Alaska, not in the western Rockies or over the eastern Marcellus shale deposits, not in northern tar sands oil pits or pipeline corridors, not on foreign soil in wars over oil.

Making it right in the Gulf starts with diversifying our energy portfolio in our own backyards. A federal energy policy for the sake of energy alone will "make it wrong" for many people because all jobs not created equal. Jobs that simultaneously support healthy people, thriving communities, and environmental quality are worth more than jobs that pollute and poison the biosphere for profit.

What government of, for, and by the people puts corporate profit above the wellbeing of millions of people and the very survival of the youngest generations? Governments are instituted to secure the safety, health, and wellbeing of the people. Laws and policies that fail to safeguard these rights and protect the environment are illegitimate and unjust in a democratic society. Writing laws to protect our backyards starts in our backyards with local ordinances. The community-based movement builds to constitutional reform to assert that only real humans are sovereign and entitled to human rights.

The transformation starts when we believe that we have the power to act. When enough of us prove another way is possible and demand change, the politicians will have no choice but to follow the people's lead and make things right in America.

Riki Ott is a co-founder of Ultimate Civics, a project of Earth Island Institute. Her latest book is Not One Drop (Chelsea Green) and an original essay, "They have no ears," will appear in Arctic Voices (Seven Stories Press, May).

Instead of tossing the media a juicy bone, Feinberg tossed a red herring. He is wrong at worst, or intentionally misleading at best, on all points.

The GCCF process makes it difficult for people to be compensated for medical claims or even raise illness claims, while making it easy to release claims and rights to future medical care and benefits for chemical illnesses or other medically-proven illness related to the BP blowout and disaster response.

In fact the GCCF process is so blatantly egregious in terms of protecting corporate liability at the expense of human rights and health that a bill was introduced in the Louisiana state legislature, specifically targeting the BP oil disaster, to declare such "contractual releases are invalid as against public policy" and the release of claims to future medical care and related benefits null and void. In Louisiana. BP lobbyists are reportedly out in force, trying to gut the legislation.

Further, the pro-industry bias in the GCCF process turned thousands of people away. Over 130,000-plus claimants have filed lawsuits, now consolidated in Louisiana federal court under Judge Carl Barbier. According to one of the law firms involved, many of these claimants have indicated concerns about health and desire medical monitoring.

Feinberg's downplay of chemical illnesses and other medical issues stemming from the BP oil disaster — with full knowledge of the parallel court proceedings — shows that he and his boss, BP, have no intention of "making it right" for people in the Gulf.

"Not recognizing that there is a problem — that's the problem," said Joey Yerkes, a former Florida cast net fisherman who became sick from chemical exposure while doing cleanup work during summer 2010. He filed a medical illness claim for compensation through the GCCF in early 2011 despite the obstacles. He had to file all his paperwork for medical claims twice because the GCCF employees could not find his initial paperwork. Joey undertook a rigorous treatment under medical care to detoxify his body — but he exhausted his finances before completing treatment. Now he is forced to wait for the BP-controlled GCCF to pay, while his health steadily deteriorates. It's all he can do, he says, "just to chase my 2-year-old daughter around the park when we play."

Unlike Joey Yerkes, Monette Wynne has not filed medical claims through the GCCF. Her entire family — herself, husband, 4-year-old twins, and 6-year-old child — all tested positive for oil in their blood after spending last summer in their seaside home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Wynne was so upset about her sick family that she and her husband drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and presented the family's test results to seven toxicologists with the federal agency, Center for Disease Control.

"We were told the levels of oil were of no concern," Wynne said. The federal scientists told them their levels of oil in blood were typical of urban dwellers who breathe traffic exhaust. Wynne didn't believe it — her family's blood work shows they have more oil in their blood than most people, and her family is all sick with symptoms like those of Joey Yerkes — symptoms that became widespread in Gulf communities during summer 2010; symptoms that are not going away. Wynne is considering borrowing money to treat her family. She and her husband had exhausted their savings to buy their dream home, a home that is now for sale.

Unfortunately for Joey Yerkes and the Wynne family — and the legions of other Gulf residents and visitors with similar medical issues from summer 2010, British Petroleum is the "responsible party" for its disaster, but BP is actually responsible, by law, to its shareholders, not the injured people in the Gulf. This inherent conflict of interest means Feinberg is nothing more than a well-paid sock puppet for BP. He can be expected to act to minimize liability and financial damages for the "responsible party" by covering up the chemical illness epidemic in the Gulf.

Further, the federal laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment from oil and chemical poisoning are so riddled with exemptions that they cannot deliver their promise of protection — as people near oil drilling and hydrologic fracturing ("fracking") operations have discovered. Social documentaries such as Gaslands and Split Estate exposed chemical illnesses and symptoms similar to the Gulf injuries and independent studies documented groundwater contamination, but the federal government still denies there is a problem.

Similarly, the federal government is also in denial about the horrific-and-federally-sanctioned poisoning of the Gulf people and wildlife, despite prior and post knowledge of the extent of contamination and the health impacts of oil and chemicals used to drill or disperse oil.

As Joey pointed out, denial of the problem is the problem. At the root of the issue of oil and chemical poisoning in the Gulf and elsewhere in America lies the problem of corporate constitutional rights — transnational corporations claiming human rights. The challenge for all Americans is to reclaim our democracy and end corporate rule.

Activist and author Riki Ott is attending the Democracy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin, August 24-28, hosted by the grassroots coalition MoveToAmend. To learn more about what happened in the Gulf, and people and communities are doing to reclaim democracy and end corporate rule, visit www.changingtheendgame.org.

Read original post at The Huffington Post here.

Riki Ott is author of the book Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Here, in a nutshell, are pieces of the Exxon Valdez story that are familiar to most news-reading Americans: 19 years ago, the Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing the largest oil spill in the United States, contaminating 10,000 square miles of ocean and 3,200 miles of pristine coastline, and trashing the local fishing industry and the communities it supports.

And, here are the lesser known elements of the story: after Exxon got thousands of claims thrown out of court, the roughly 32,000 that remained were heard by a jury that awarded spill victims $5 billion in punitive damages and another $287 million in compensatory damages. The compensatory damages were only for short-term harm — mostly fisheries closures in 1989 — and not for the long-term harm that we have since experienced in Prince William Sound from collapsed fisheries. Exxon, then ExxonMobil, appealed the punitive award, and the Ninth Circuit judges cut that award in half despite finding no legal reason to do so. ExxonMobil appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court — keeping the case unsettled for nearly two decades — and that court slashed the punitive award to just $507 million, a mere 10 percent of the original award and an amount so small, after court expenses, that many plaintiffs face bankruptcies, foreclosures, and other financial distress from debt stemming from this spill.

But that is not the worst of it. The biggest injustice is that the Supreme Court set a dangerous precedent by ruling to limit the size of punitive damages in maritime cases to no more than compensatory damages. In other words, the court set a cap of 1:1 punitive to compensatory damages.

It is just a matter of time before this precedent in maritime law is extended to other fields of law — which will affect everyone in America.

No community should have to go through what we, in Cordova and other oiled communities, have been through. Livelihoods have been lost, financial stress has broken families apart, businesses supported by fishermen have crumbled, and our environment remains oiled after 19 years awaiting compensation. Ultimately, the law could not replace what we lost. And the Supreme Court has just assured that others will fare no better in future manmade disasters, unless we act now.

On July 23, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the effects of this case and others on ordinary Americans. The chair, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), has invited comments.

I hope many of those comments will stress that the Supreme Court decision creates too much leeway for carelessness by corporations. I also hope those comments advocate that the decision should be overturned for three reasons.

First, legislating from the bench undermines the power of people to self-govern and sets bad precedent. The high court overstepped its boundaries. Several Supreme Court judges wrote in their opinions, in effect, if Congress doesn't like what the high court did, then Congress should set guidelines for punitive awards. Congress must take up this challenge.

Second, setting a cap of 1:1 punitive to compensatory damages makes an absolute mockery of "punitive" damages as punishment. Some corporations have grown far too large and profitable to be punished sufficiently enough under this ruling to deter behavior that puts the public and environment at risk.

By minimizing financial liability — a powerful incentive for corporations to abide by the law — the Supreme Court's ruling practically guarantees that there will be many more such industrial disasters. Further, the Supreme Court's decision to low-ball predictability of punitive awards allows industries to externalize the cost of risks to the public and environment, thus ensuring that citizens and communities will bear the full brunt of industrial accidents, pollution, and faulty consumer products.

Third, linking punitive damages to compensatory damages instead of profits is wrong-headed. The jury of peers — ordinary Americans who first heard the Exxon Valdez case — realized that to punish a mega-corporation like ExxonMobil, the punitive award needed to be linked to corporate profits, not compensatory damages. Linking punitive damages to profits creates a tool for ordinary people to dispense meaningful punishment to all sizes of corporations, including giants like ExxonMobil. It gives big business the predictability it desires — and that the Supreme Court sought to achieve with its most recent ruling. It also gives ordinary people the predictability we need of knowing that corporations will act responsibly to minimize risk of harm to people and the environment.

By tying punitive damages to net profits, not a fixed amount, then the award rises if profits rise while the case is appealed. This would have a secondary desirable effect of hastening case closure by removing a powerful incentive to profit by stalling. Further, Congress should also mandate that punitive awards be escrowed when entered to further remove financial incentives for corporations to stall payment through appeals — as ExxonMobil did for 12 years.

Obviously, given the size of some corporations, capping punitive damages in a 1:1 ratio with annual net profits could result in some obscenely high awards — in keeping with obscenely high profits posted by ExxonMobil and some other corporations. In anticipation of this, Congress could mandate guidelines to share such large awards.

For example, if the punitive award exceeds compensatory awards by more than, say, ten-fold, then Congress could mandate that the excess must be distributed to community foundations within the affected region.

In Alaska, the plaintiffs (and I am one) were prepared to share the taxable portion of the punitive award with local communities through charitable giving strategies. If ordinary people can figure out an equitable way to share large punitive awards, then Congress ought to be able to do the same.

Congress has the power to make a course correction of the Supreme Court's ruling before it is too late for other communities to avoid our fate. Congress should restore people's primary tool to hold corporations accountable to the law: financial liability in the form of large punitive damage awards.

Further, Congress should overturn this decision retro January 1, 2008. More than one-third of the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez case — some 6,000 people — have died and will never see justice done. It is now up to Congress to make good on Exxon's promise to make the rest of us whole.

Read original post at The Huffington Post here.

Riki Ott is author of the book Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.

For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!" The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama.

"There's only one reason for that," the pilot said. "BP doesn't want the media taking pictures of oil on the beaches. You should see the oil that's about six miles off the coast," he said grimly. We looked down at the wavy orange boom surrounding the islands below us. The pilot shook his head. "There's no way those booms are going to stop what's offshore from hitting those beaches."

BP knows this as well — boom can only deflect oil under the calmest of sea conditions, not barricade it — so they have stepped up their already aggressive effort to control what the public sees.

At the same time I was en route to Orange Beach, Clint Guidry with the Louisiana Shrimp Association and Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp processor in Louisiana, were in Grand Isle taking Anderson Cooper out in a small boat to see the oiled beaches. The U.S. Coast Guard held up the boat for 20 minutes - an intimidation tactic intended to stop the cameras from recording BP's damage. Luckily for Cooper and the viewing public, Dean Blanchard is not easily intimidated.

Credit - Clint Guidry. U.S. Coast Guard blocking media from oiled beaches off Grand Isle, Louisiana. June 2, 2010.

A few days later, the gig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle.

Credit - Louisiana Bayoukeeper. Ineffective boom traps oil on beach; oiled brown pelican awaits fate. Queen Bess Island, Louisiana. June 5, 2010.

With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!"

Provided by Riki Ott. Laughing gull head is separated from body during collection, rendering it useless for autopsy. Waveland, MS. May 13, 2010.

The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up–a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions.

On Saturday June 12, people across America will stand up and speak out with one voice to protest BP's treatment of the Gulf, neglect for the response workers, and their response to government authority. President Obama needs to hear and see the people waving cameras and respirators. Until the media is allowed unrestricted access to the Gulf and impacted beaches, BP - not the President of United States - will remain in charge of the Gulf response.

For more information on community rallies, please visit HERE.

Grand Bayou, Louisiana — The federal agencies delegated with protecting the environment, worker safety, and public health are in hot water in the small coastal communities across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Fishermen responders who are working BP's giant uncontrolled slick in the Gulf are reporting bad headaches, hacking coughs, stuffy sinuses, sore throats, and other symptoms. The Material Safety Data Sheets for crude oil and the chemical products being used to disperse and break up the slick — underwater and on the surface — list these very illnesses as symptoms of overexposure to volatile organic carbons (VOCs), hydrogen sulfide, and other chemicals boiling off the slick.

When the fishermen come home, they find their families hacking, snuffling, and complaining of sore throats and headaches, too. There is a good reason for the outbreak of illnesses sweeping across this area.

Last weekend, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted its air quality monitoring data from the greater Venice, Louisiana, area. The data showed federal standards were being exceeded by 100- to 1,000-fold for VOCs, and hydrogen sulfide, among others–and that was on shore. These high levels could certainly explain the illnesses and were certainly a cause for alarm in the coastal communities.

I wrote an article based on EPA's information. So did chemist Wilma Subra with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN). Baton Rouge-based LEAN is an advocate of public health and worker safety, and a trusted source of information on chemicals, exposure, and safety monitoring throughout this region.

Two days after the EPA posted its air quality monitoring data, most of it vanished from its website–except for the data showing the very highest level of airborne chemicals. Subra reports that she had a conference call with EPA officials yesterday and those officials confirmed that the higher levels they initially reported had remained on the site and were accurate.

"The detection levels on the instrumentation used by the EPA were not accurate enough to report airborne chemicals at lower levels," explains Subra. "So the EPA removed the data showing low levels from their website. But the EPA maintained the higher levels–those concentrations of 5 to 10 parts per billion, the concentration where you start getting acute health impacts."

This raises serious concerns for people in and around the coastal city of Venice, Louisiana, where the data were collected. And concentrations of oil and chemical dispersants are expected to be much, much higher offshore above the slick. How high? Five oil rigs have been shut down in the Gulf near BP's blowout allegedly because of concerns about fire. However, many of the fishermen in this area also work on the rigs. And the fishermen know the oil workers coming in from the rigs are suffering identical symptoms to the fishermen and their families.

But oilmen and fishermen are not being treated the same by BP and other oil companies operating in the Gulf. Oilmen are being evacuated because of high concentrations of dangerous chemicals, according to the fishermen, not fire danger. Meanwhile, fishermen responders are not even being provided with respirators for cleanup work - much less being protected from "fire danger."

As someone who witnessed the Exxon Valdez disaster, I saw this same charade unfold 20 years ago in Prince William Sound-and the result was literally thousands of sick cleanup workers who thought they had "the Valdez Crud," or simple colds and flu. Instead Exxon likely dismissed injured workers - and its own responsibility/liability to take care of these people - using an exemption for reporting "colds and flu" in hazardous waste cleanup regulations. 29 CFR (1904.5(b)(2)(viii)

The response to the BP leak is starting to look an awful lot like what happened during the Exxon Valdez cleanup. BP is not a self-regulated company, but it sure is acting like one.

The federal agencies responsible for monitoring public health and worker safety need to take aggressive action to prevent human tragedy. EPA should do continuous monitoring of air quality across the oil-impacted Gulf states–rather than only in communities where the oil is coming ashore–and EPA should post all the data it collects. It is public information and the people have a right to know about a toxic menace in their communities. If air quality continues to exceed public safety standards, the federal government has an obligation to act to evacuate people-just as it would in response to a hurricane, except at BP's expense.

Further, the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) officials should be monitoring BP's worker-safety program. OSHA has a responsibility to order BP to take steps to figure out why workers are getting sick and to order BP to take immediate preventative action. This is all supposed to be part of BP's worker-safety program and it's up to the federal government to make sure BP's plan works in practice as stated on paper.

The current situation is a disaster in the making. Fishermen who ask BP for respirators jeopardize their cleanup jobs. So, they've stopped asking. Fishermen are aware that only three workers need to request a Health Hazard Evaluation for the federal government to take action. But no one has stepped up because fisheries have closed and spill response might be the only job they have–even if it might cost them their health or life, as happened to Exxon Valdez workers.

Americans need to demand that Congress authorize the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety to conduct a Health Hazard Evaluation of the Gulf situation. Failure to have our regulatory agencies act immediately to protect people's health in impacted coastal communities is a crime our country cannot afford to commit.

The Supreme Court ruling means Americans can kiss goodbye whatever shred of faith we had left in the electoral process. Forget dissent. Forget debate. Forget reason. Corporate-owned media megaphones will drown out any troublesome voices. Our elected officials will henceforth represent corporations first and people second — bluntly and boldly — if they want to serve in "public" office.

Our ExxonMobil-funded officials will tell us climate change is good for us as they open America for coal and oil leasing. Our Big Pharma- and Big Insurance-backed congressional delegates will tell us you-don't-really-want-a-public-option in health care reform. Our Monsanto-owned officials will give us growth hormones in milk and GMO diets. Goodbye Republic. Goodbye Democratic Process. Hello Corporate America.

Constitutional scholars are calling this is the most tragic assault on our human rights in the 220-plus years of our Republic. How did things come to this?

The expansion of corporate rights began over 200 years ago as the anti-corporate fervor from the American Revolution began to fade. The U.S. Supreme Court blurred the distinction between "natural persons," or real living human beings, and "artificial persons" — corporations — in 1886 when it conferred the 14th Amendment right of "equal protection of the laws" to an artificial person, a railroad corporation in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Since then, the Supreme Court has handed out other human rights to artificial persons (corporations), including the battery of First Amendment rights leading to Citizens United.

There were early attempts to reverse parts, but not all, of the trend to give human rights to corporate persons. Specifically, under First Amendment issues, Congress passed the Tillman Act in 1907 to prohibit corporate expenditures in candidate elections to end an era of big money corruption and usher in campaign finance regulation. However, regulating something allows it to happen to the extent allowed by law and laws can change.

Starting in the 1970s, the Supreme Court began to chisel away our election integrity by granting corporations First Amendment rights including: "commercial speech," as in free speech equals money; "political speech," as in unlimited corporate spending for ads to overturn citizen initiatives; "negative speech," as in the right not to speak and disclose harmful contents of products; and "false speech," as in the right to blatantly lie in advertising under the guise of let the buyer beware. "Robust speech" or unlimited corporate spending on elections is just the next chip to fall from our First Amendment protections. It may be the last chip as there's really nothing left to protect from corporate usurpation.

When I recently asked a class of fifth graders in Santa Barbara who were the "people" referred to in our Constitution, there was a stunned silence. Finally, one boy jabbed his thumb into his chest and said in an exasperated tone, "WE!" Surely our Founders had only this WE in mind when they drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights. After all, WE had just rebelled against the monarchy and moneyed corporations of the time. When we first set out on the new adventure of our Republic in 1888, corporations were carefully controlled creatures of state legislatures. They had privileges, not rights. But no more. Powerful corporations burst their legal shackles using a backdoor approach through the Supreme Court to amend the real people's Constitution by judicial fiat. Our democracy has been hijacked by corporations through illegitimate usurpation of rights intended for human persons. It makes no sense to fifth graders that fake persons have the same rights as real people - and it shouldn't make sense to the rest of us either. The United States is no longer a government of, for, and by the real people: human rights are being trumped by fake persons - corporate - rights and power. It's time to change the rules. Our Founders knew that the ultimate defenders of the U.S. Constitution were not the government or the court. The ultimate defenders are WE, the real people. It's time to amend our Constitution through the front door approach spelled out in the Constitution. It's time to make what is obvious to fifth graders the law of our land: People rule, not property! WE need to amend the Constitution to affirm that only human beings have constitutional rights, not artificial persons, not corporations.

 
Riki Ott shares her personal story of transformation from scientist to community activist in Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (Chelsea Green, 2008). Sign the motion to amend the Constitution to affirm rule by the people, not corporations!

 
This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.

Governor Parnell,

The recent Pathfinder accident at Bligh Reef calls into question Alaska's ability to deliver on its promise of "environmentally responsible" oil and gas development. Especially for people in Prince William Sound, this promise is meaningless unless it includes transportation, and response and restoration after the inevitable spills.

There is an opportunity for this state to demonstrate that it will act fairly and responsibly to protect its residents from oil spill impacts when the law fails to do so. Specifically, I am writing to ask you to forgive debt owed to the state, or any state banks such as CFAB, on all Prince William Sound herring seine and gillnet permits that were impacted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill–or, at a minimum, to identify and work with the hardship cases to prevent further forced bankruptcies, home or business losses, or even more suicides over spill-related debt and stress.

Let me explain why I am asking you as governor to prevent further financial and emotional harm from this spill. Recall when the Prince William Sound seiners blockaded Valdez Narrows in August 1993, fishermen made three demands: 1) ecosystem studies to determine what was ailing the Sound; 2) no fines for civil disobedience; and 3) forgiveness of debt on fishing permit loans. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt pledged to fulfill the first two demands - and did. Then Governor Hickel pledged to fulfill the last demand, but the state's banks later refused to make good on the governor's promise.

Federal Judge Russel Holland ruled that Exxon didn't have to pay for devalued fishing permits as long as losses weren't realized through sales. Of course, the losses were realized by the banks, which passed the ballooning debt on permits that couldn't be fished, or where the fisheries no longer supported permit payments, off to their clients. Individuals were left to bear the losses alone - and the losses mounted each year as debts went unpaid.

Salmon seine permits tumbled in PWS from the pre-spill record high prices of $300,000 to a low of around $12,000 when the pink salmon population collapsed in the mid 1990s from delayed oil spill impacts. Since then, pink salmon recovered, and the permit prices are roughly one-third of their pre-spill value, selling, and trending upward in value.

In contrast, herring seine permits also tumbled in PWS from the pre-spill record high prices of $300,000 to a low of around $10,000 after PWS herring stocks collapsed also likely from delayed oil spill impacts. (The high mortality of eggs and young fish in 1989 were realized in 1993 as poor recruitment and high mortality of adults.) Herring stocks have not recovered and the fisheries are closed indefinitely. Herring seine and gillnet permits are not selling and trending downward in value but upward in debt from unpaid loans.

The mandatory class action against Exxon was largely over last fall when Exxon was ordered to pay the outstanding interest on the greatly reduced punitive award. The full costs of Exxon's spill have finally hit home and it falls most heavily on fishermen who owned the once-prized PWS herring seine permits and other herring permits.

In some cases, the individual's long-tem debt on their herring permit exceeds their entire punitive award. Instead of assisting in such hardship cases, the state is exacerbating the problem. Not only has the state seized punitive awards to pay outstanding debts, it is also demanding more payments in cases where the debt exceeds the individual's award - and the state has left nothing for individuals to pay federal taxes owed on the award amounts.

This community may suffer a fresh wave of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and maybe even suicides from insurmountable spill debt. But there is a chance to minimize this trauma.

Governor, you could make good on the pledge of a former governor. You could forgive debt on all PWS herring permits - or you could forgive debt on the hardship cases and return to hardship individuals a portion of the seized punitive award to satisfy the individual's income taxes on the award.

There is urgency to this request: Scientists do not anticipate herring stocks to recover sufficiently to support fisheries in the foreseeable future. We can assume any outstanding debts on unfishable herring permits will only continue to accrue interest - and impact individual lives.

Governor, fishermen didn't spill the oil that caused this financial hardship. Why should fishermen be held accountable for assuming the financial risk of transporting oil? Surely protecting innocent residents from unforeseen oil spill impacts, such as the outrageous debt on unfishable and worthless permits, counts as "responsible oil and gas development." It's time for you to get creative and make good on a past promise from one of your predecessors.

Sincerely,

Riki Ott, PhD
Cordova, Alaska

cc: Alaska Congressional Delegation (Sen. Murkowski, Sen. Begich, Rep. Young)
Former Governor Walter Hickel
Alaska state legislators (Sen. Albert Kookesh, Rep. Bill Thompson)
Cordova Mayor Tim Joyce

Cordova District Fishermen United
United Fishermen of Alaska

 
This letter was originally published on the Huffington Post.

This month, we’ve been given an opportunity to start changing that. The U.S. Department of Interior is asking Americans if we want to drill for oil and gas in our coastal oceans – the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Arctic. We can either take this opportunity to voice an opinion – or ignore it. But ignoring it would be a big mistake because the Obama Administration and Congress would then make the decision without ample citizen input. And that could be a disaster, because – even in a time of clear and present danger precipitated by burning fossil fuels – Congress has failed to reach consensus and give us a comprehensive vision of our energy future.

The reason is simple: too many politicians owe allegiance to Big Oil and Big Coal instead of the American people. Further, armies of corporate lobbyists deep in Big Oil’s pockets work to block efforts to – God forbid! – reduce our dependency on oil. For every member of Congress, there are now four climate lobbyists, working feverishly to block or water down any effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Citizens are understandably confused about the options before us. Polls are skewed to influence public opinion and confuse our understanding of the dangers involved in offshore drilling by not honestly stating issues. For example, public hysteria in favor of drilling was primed by the loaded question: Do we need to drill America’s coastal seas for oil so we will have lower gas prices at the pump? Yet the facts remain that permission to drill offshore would not provide gas consumers with immediate financial relief.

People would have clamored to get off oil had the issues been honestly stated. Perhaps we should ask: Do we need to drill America’s coastal seas for oil to further enrich Big Oil? To further reduce our chances of reversing and surviving climate meltdown? To give more children asthma or to have more adults die premature deaths from illnesses related to breathing ultrafine particles – soot and oil emissions – ubiquitous in urban air from school buses, cars, and coal- or oil-fired power plants? (USNews.com, TerryTamminen.com)

With our nation in the throes of economic crisis, it’s easy to think that any business is good for the economy. Offshore oil drilling, tar sands, oil shales, whatever: bring it on. Anything sounds good as long as it has a positive economic return.

But more of the same will not work. Burning fossil fuels is what got us into this mess of climate meltdown, if you agree with thousands of non-industry funded scientists. Even if you don’t agree, it is better to err on the side of caution, especially with so much at stake.

So who is pushing for more drilling? Who is leading America into this evolutionary dead end of increased reliance of even dirtier coal and oils? Big Oil and Big Coal, of course.

Einstein observed, “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.” It is no surprise that oil corporations see America’s future as more of the same – crude oil and coal or, as conventional oil becomes increasingly scarce, then the energy- and ecologically intensive tar sands and oil shales.

One of the most hostile regimes to sustaining life and the planet is ExxonMobil, the so-called T. rex of the hydrocarbon age (after CEO Rex Tillerson). According to Exxon’s magical thinking, the world is awash in oil, climate meltdown is a natural geologic cycle, and there is no need for alternative energy. “We’re not in that business,” Tillerson stated at the company’s 2007 annual meeting.

T. rex is one of the largest corporate predators on the planet. Driven by corporate tunnel vision and profits, Exxon operates more single-hull tankers than the other top nine oil companies combined , ignoring risk to the world’s oceans. It is the largest importer of Middle Eastern oil to the U.S., ignoring risk to U.S. security. It is one of the (if not the) largest sponsor of propaganda from climate critics, ignoring risk of climate meltdown. And much of its untapped reserves, waiting to be developed, are unconventional “dirty” gas and oil such as the Canadian tar sands that will produce, when burned, three to five times more greenhouse gases than conventional crude.

If Exxon is not in the business of alternative energy, it should step aside for those who are – but that is not the nature of a hostile regime. It won’t step aside until forced to do so. Why should it? T. rex is the largest and most profitable oil company in business – at the planet’s expense.

Change starts with us, the American people, and we have a perfect opportunity now for radical reform on many levels. Obama cannot free America from the tyranny of Big Oil and Big Coal without lots of support from the people. Let’s not fool ourselves. Now is the time for tough choices.

“Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare,” states a Japanese proverb. First and foremost, America needs a national energy plan that achieves the people’s vision of a sustainable future – passing a living and livable planet to future generations. Asking the public to comment on a plan to produce more oil is getting the cart before the horse.

All action, then, must be compatible with that vision. We should request moratoria on dirty oil and gas – tar sands, oil shales, and sour gas. We should reinstate the ban on offshore drilling. Weaning ourselves off other people’s oil and not further encouraging this Last Century industry in our country should coincide with starting energy conservation programs and growing green energy businesses that make the best use of resources at hand in each region.

At a minimum, drilling in coastal seas should be banned in areas where oil companies have no or limited ability to clean up spills – the entire Arctic Ocean – and in areas with resources more valuable than oil – such as commercial fishing (Bristol Bay, Alaska) or tourism and recreation (Atlantic and Pacific coasts). Further, every single new oil and gas program should have a mandated citizen oversight council, modeled after the successful ones in Alaska instituted after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Human rights and community values need to trump corporate profits. Every American who is old enough to write should be commenting on what you want for energy resources and development in America’s Outer Continental Shelf. Let the Obama Administration and Congress know what you want in our energy future—and what you don’t want.

Send written comments electronically at www.mms.gov/5-year/2010-2015DPPComments.htm, or by mail to Ms. Renee Orr, Chief, Leasing Division, Mineral Management Service, MS 4010, 318 Elden Street, Herndon, VA 20170-4817. Copy your congressional delegation.

Exxon-Valdez spill survivor, author, and scientist Riki Ott shares insights on making human values count over corporate profits in Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (Chelsea Green, 2008) and on her website: UltimateCivics.com.

Wainwright is one of eight Inupiat villages at the top of the world or at least the top of America. The largest and most northern village — and probably the only one on most U.S. maps — is Barrow with 4,000 people. All of the villages are well above the Arctic Circle. Five sit on the wind-swept coast of the Arctic Ocean.

I am visiting the villages with Earl Kingik, an Elder from Point Hope, which lies 500 miles west of Barrow, and Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the former mayor of Nuiqsut, which lies 130 miles southeast of Barrow and 12 miles inland.

Earl is a whaling captain, a revered position that translates into community leader. He opens our meetings in his first language, Inupiaq. Then he effortlessly switches to English to explain that we have come as volunteers on this 1,000-plus mile circuit to warn the communities of a threat to their way of life and culture.

Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush opened the vast bulk of the North Slope — 23 million acres onshore and 73 million acres offshore — to oil and gas lease sales and development. What started as a paper shuffle in Washington, DC, is now arriving in the villages as promises of "environmentally-sound development," borne by oilmen and federal officials.

Rosemary and I live in communities that have experienced first-hand the impacts from broken promises. Rosemary's village of Nuiqsut ("new-WICK-sit") is 60 miles west of Prudhoe Bay, where oil and gas development has occurred for over 40 years. As the oilfields expanded, Nuiqsut felt the pressure like the slow relentless squeeze of an anaconda.

"The first oil well was over 60 miles from the village," she explains to our audiences. "That wasn't so bad. But then they wanted another well. They came to our village and told us one well would mean a 12-acre gravel pad, no road, 200 people to build the well, and 20 airplane and helicopter flights a month during our hunting season."

Her black eyes snap but her voice remains even as she says, "That's not what we got. We got 400 acres of gravel pads, miles of pipelines, 12 miles of roads, a large runway, two helicopter pads, 1,200 people, and 1,900 flights in six weeks during the caribou migration."

When she mimics the noise from the seismic testing — BOOM! BOOM! — the children all jump. The caribou changed their migratory route to avoid the commotion of development. Before the seismic tests and pipelines, 97 of 103 households in her village harvested caribou; after, only three.

Before the seismic tests in the ocean, village hunters — the whalers — harvested whales within 2 miles of the island; after, the whales moved 20 miles or more offshore. Twenty miles is too far from the village to safely harvest whales. When storms blew up, the whalers would have to stop hunting as small boats can easily swamp.

Rosemary's voice breaks only when she shares her personal story. The place where her oldest son, his father, and his grandfather harvested their first caribou is now a gravel mine. Her oldest son was nine when the caribou herds last migrated through the village. He is now twenty-four.

Subsistence — harvesting, sharing, and celebrating wild foods — is the primary means of survival in all of the villages. As Earl says, "The ocean is our garden." Everyone understands that loss of traditional foods and loss of the opportunity to harvest the food means loss of their way of life. Loss of resources fits the United Nations definition of cultural genocide.

There are also health problems in Nuiqsut associated with the oil development. Rosemary is a former community health aide practitioner. She was the first to sound the alarm about the skyrocketing cases of asthma as the oil wells marched ever closer to Nuiqsut. The closest wells with their flaring gases and air pollution are now within four miles of — and almost surround — the village.

The refrain we hear from the other villages is: "We don't want to happen here what happened in Nuiqsut!" But unless other Americans act to intervene, the Inupiat culture will almost surely be assimilated.

Millions of Americans are protesting the Bush administration's headlong rush to open coastal seas of California, Virginia, Florida, and other Lower 48 states to oil and gas development. These well-meaning citizens don't realize that a coastal moratorium in the Lower 48 only means more pressure to develop in Alaska.

Why don't we all learn more about Bush's U.S. Arctic Policy along with Inupiat children like Ricky? If the Alaska story "went into you," maybe you could help protect our coasts along with yours.

The U.S. Interior Department is accepting comments on the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (Arctic Ocean) Oil & Gas Lease Sales until March 16, 2009. We are all in this together.

Originally published on AlterNet.