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- BP - the oil giant that is expensively rebranding itself
as a green company - is financing the election campaigns of most of the
US congressmen with the worst environmental records, an investigation by
the Independent on Sunday reveals.
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- It has contributed money over the past four years to
two-thirds of the senators and members of the House of Representatives
who have voted against every key green measure that has come before them,
and failed to help most of the legislators who have supported them.
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- The revelation will gravely embarrass the BP chairman,
Sir John Browne who has become something of a green hero over the past
three years and add fuel to the flames of a growing controversy about
the rebranding exercise, perhaps the most ambitious ever undertaken by
a British company. The new image will cost the company $100m (£69m)
a year, not far short of what it will be spending on solar power, the most
striking of the new initiatives that it is advertising.
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- Gone is the shield that the company has used as its symbol
since the 1930s. In its place is the so-called Helios mark, "a vibrant
sunburst of green, white and yellow" named after "the sun god
of ancient Greece". But opponents denounce the new emblem, which will
gradually be introduced at the company's 28,000 service stations worldwide
over the next four years, as a symbol of hypocrisy and hype.
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- Even its critics admit that BP has a far better environmental
record than almost any other big oil company and is now undertaking a range
of pioneering green initiatives. But they point out that it is still increasing
oil exploration and production, and is heavily involved in exploiting two
of the world's most sensitive fields, in the Arctic and in the Atlantic
west of the Shetlands. Greenpeace says that its new slogan, Beyond Petroleum,
should instead be Burning the Planet.
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- The Independent on Sunday's revelations are being made
despite obstruction from BP, which refused to supply a list of the contributions
it makes to US politicians, although they have to be made public by law.
"Why should I want to do that?" said Yusuf Ibrahim, BP's spokesman
in America, when asked to provide the information early last week. Why
indeed? The details, obtained instead from the Federal Election Commission
and compared with voting records compiled by the League of Conservation
Voters show that the company's contributions conflict sharply with its
squeaky-green image.
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- Over the last four years, it contributed to the election
campaigns of 22 of the 36 senators and 37 of the 55 representatives who
achieved a zero per cent rating from the league last year for voting against
all the environmental legislation that it monitored. By contrast, the company
has supported only two of the 38 representatives and two of the 11 senators
who scored a 100 per cent rating by voting in favour of all the measures
in 1999.
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- Further analysis shows that three-quarters of the congressmen
whose campaigns have received the most money from BP over the last four
years have ratings of less than 11 per cent, and that most of them were
scored at zero. Among them are Senator Frank Murkowski, the Chairman of
the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who has received $7000
despite having had a zero per cent record every year since 1994, and Representative
Don Young, Chairman of the House Committee on Resources, who has had over
$11,000, though he has scored less than 10 per cent in every year over
the same period. Both Congressmen are from Alaska and are pressing for
legislation to open up the state's protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
known as America's Serengeti for the richness of its wildlife to drilling
by oil companies, including BP. The company has contributed similar sums
to Senator Trent Lott, the republican leader in the Senate, and Senator
Don Nickles, the chairman of its Energy Research, Development, Production
and Regulation Subcommittee. Lott has zero scores for six consecutive years
and Nickles for three, and both voted for opening up the wildlife refuge.
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- Analysis of voting on other specific issues reveals a
similar pattern: BP has contributed to the campaigns of 33 of the senators
who voted against increasing funding for renewable energy, and only 11
of those who voted for it; it has helped 34 of those who blocked reforms
to the way oil companies receive royalties, and only nine of those who
supported the environmentalists' position.
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- Perhaps most strikingly, the company has helped to finance
the campaigns of 34 of the 65 senators who successfully introduced a motion
in 1997 to reject any international agree- ment to combat global warming,
though Sir John Browne and BP have led industry attempts to persuade politicians
to tackle the the problem.
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- BP's spokesman in America refused even to hear the results
of the Independent on Sunday's investigation. "I have nothing to say
about that," Mr Ibrahim interjected. "We are financing according
to American law and we are happy with what we are doing."
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- The revelations and BP's response to them will undermine
the rebranding exercise and genuine green initiatives that are being taken
by the company. Last month Sir John announced that BP would double its
investment in solar power to $500m over the next three years and aimed
to make this a $1bn business by 2007. It already has almost 20 per cent
of the global market.
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- It is fitting 200 of its service stations with solar
panels and will equip all its new ones with them. It has promised to cut
its own emissions of the pollution that causes global warming by 10 per
cent by 2010 and aims to sell cleaner petrol in more than 40 cities around
the world by the end of this year.
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- Three years ago Sir John accepted the dangers of global
warming and made his company the first to break ranks with the oil industry's
united front against cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning
of fossil fuels. In April he joined leading environmentalists in giving
one of this year's Reith lectures. "The enlightened company,"
he said, "increasingly recognises that there are good commercial reasons
for being ahead of the pack when it comes to issues to do with the environment."
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- But Greenpeace points out that Sir John also announced
that he expected BP's oil production to increase by 4 to 5 per cent per
year, and gas production by twice as much. And capital expenditure on fossil
fuel exploration and production will rise to $8bn a year, double what was
spent in 1999.
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- BP is the only company taking oil from one of the world's
most controversial areas, the Atlantic Frontier, 100 miles west of the
Shetlands. It is also planning to become the first company to extract oil
in the even more sensitive Arctic Ocean, off the northern coast of Alaska,
as well as backing efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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- Rob Gueterbock, Greenpeace's climate and energy campaigner,
says: "BP's rebranding is a triumph of style over substance. At best
it is misleading its shareholders and customers; at worst it is engaged
in blatant hypocrisy."
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- BP responds: "The world still wants petroleum and
we still aim to provide it. But we are looking at the future, to a world
that wants cleaner fuels and solar power. 'Beyond Petroleum' describes
not where we are now but where we are looking to be."
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