DeSmog

On the eighth anniversary of the BP oil spill, Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré stood in front of the New Orleans Federal Court House and called “bullshit” on the court’s handling of claims made by those who participated in the cleanup efforts. 

Thousands of workers BP hired to clean up the spill that polluted the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 have claimed exposure to oil and the dispersant has made them sick and still have not had their day in court. “It’s a crying damn shame we’ve allowed this in America,” Honoré said.

Investors love a good comeback story and right now oil by rail seems to be a story they're pushing to justify investment in rail companies, especially Canadian ones.

But with little change in safety practices or regulations since the 2014 oil-by-rail boom, is the industry setting itself up to once again earn the nickname that rail workers gave oil trains — that is, will “bomb trains” make a comeback?

In 2008, Aubrey McClendon was the highest paid Fortune 500 CEO in America, a title he earned taking home $112 million for running Chesapeake Energy. Later dubbed “The Shale King,” he was at the forefront of the oil and gas industry's next boom, made possible by advances in fracking, which broke open fossil fuels from shale formations around the U.S.

What was McClendon’s secret? Instead of running a company that aimed to sell oil and gas, he was essentially flipping real estate: acquiring leases to drill on land and then reselling them for five to 10 times more, something McClendon explained was a lot more profitable than “trying to produce gas.” But his story may serve as a cautionary tale for an industry that keeps making big promises on borrowed dimes — while its investors begin losing patience, a trend DeSmog will be investigating in an in-depth series over the coming weeks. 

Hope Rosinski kept watch over the construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline as one of its segments was installed on her land in Arcadia Parish, Louisiana. While she had signed an agreement allowing Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, to use her property, she had little choice in the matter and she didn’t want the pipeline there. 

Like anyone along the route of proposed oil or gas pipelines, Rosinski was in a position where, had she not signed the agreement, her land would have been taken anyway by virtue of eminent domain — a right the government can assert to seize private property for public use. So she negotiated the best contract she could, which included a clause specifying that the company could not begin work until all its permits were in place. 

But with the crude oil export ban lifted and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports on the rise, landowners like Rosinski are starting to question whether or not giving up their land to serve these private aims qualifies as “public good.”