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BP lobbying enlists rodeo and boy scouts |
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Financial Times , 6 March 2007
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
The lobbying efforts BP planned as it fended off tougher emissions
controls at its troubled Texas City refinery were so sweeping that
staffers were assigned to get involved with boy scout groups and the
local rodeo, according to internal company documents.
The strategy is set out in a series of internal BP e-mails and
presentations to executives, as well as a 47-page draft of an “Advocacy
Strategy”, copies of which have been seen by the FT.
BP is not alone in an industry known for extensive government lobbying,
but its efforts offer an insight into how the UK-based company
successfully lobbied against tighter environmental controls by state
regulators, saving up to $150m in monitoring and equipment upgrades
prior to the fatal Texas City refinery explosion in 2005.
Fifteen people were killed and more than 500 injured in and around the
refinery in the blast, which regulators called the worst industrial
accident in a decade. The US government has empanelled a grand jury to
determine whether to bring criminal charges against the company and/or
its officers for the explosion.
The “Advocacy Strategy’’ – dated May 29 2003 – explains how BP staff
were to be assigned to employees at the state regulator, the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
BP employees were to attend small public meetings with their assigned
TCEQ staffer in order to build close relationships, and make sure they
went to any BP meeting where that staffer was present.
They were to “meet with the person at least annually for lunch or other
close encounter”; and send a follow-up note after any one-on-one meeting
or facility visit.
BP aimed to host either a TCEQ Commissioner or the executive director
for a plant tour at least annually, according to the document.
Those in BP’s health, safety and environment office were to visit the
regional TCEQ office at least twice per year, and BP environmental
engineers were told to establish a relationship with state regulatory
permit writers, corrective action project managers or their respective
counterparts with periodic contact.
Everyone from county judges and fire chiefs to state representatives and
air permit engineers were on the list of people that staffers were
assigned to woo.
The effort was so comprehensive that BP staffers were assigned community
involvement opportunities ranging from the Boy Scouts of America, and
the high school business club of junior achievement, to Habitat for
Humanity, and the Galveston fair and rodeo.
Ronnie Chappell, BP spokesman, said: “BP’s participation in this process
was not unusual and was appropriate.’’
“BP was among many companies, NGOs and individuals to comment on the
proposed changes.”
That is because the TCEQ’s proposed controls might have forced BP to
invest in upgrading the exhaust system to include a flare on the unit
that exploded in 2005.
The Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the
accident, has said that the upgrading would have prevented, or at least
mitigated, the impact of the blast.
BP says it would not have been able to fit the flare before the accident. |
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