Chapter 1

I was angry. I'm not angry anymore. I'm furious, and I'm determined. The former CEO of Exxon received a retirement package of $400mn. This is the same man that managed the company into a position that will forever link Exxon to environmental disaster, corporate greed, and denial of responsibility for its actions. Not that the man or the corporation cares, profits have grown through out his tenure topping out at $46.7bn for 2007. Barring a new, clean, cheap and renewable energy source profits will continue to grow significantly higher every year for the foreseeable future. Something has to change but change only comes from the outside. Governments, corporations, and the legal systems that support them are corrupt. "We the people..." has become "Bend the people over in an effort to create a more perfect union with profit for all who stretch to accommodate us. We hold your truth for you and make it evident - in the form that suits our profit. We being those of us that you have willingly and unwillingly raised above the common man only under God and only when it suits our purposes." Amen.

Sometimes a wound festers and the only recourse is to remove the infected portion. If it is not caught soon enough or in some cases, is untreatable, the infection can spread so far that there is nothing that can be done. If the infection is transmittable and untreatable quarantine is the only answer. Sometimes the infection is so deadly that a rational, thinking being would take all necessary steps to contain the outbreak. This is the world that I live in. Every day, minus the weekends, I handle viruses of every shape, flavor, and mortality. Warm and fuzzy influenza to hemorrhagic fever (you Ebola, I Ebola, we all Ebola) its what I've dedicated my life to. During the week I do my 9 to 5 and basically try to stay alive. I live for the weekends when I get to play with my newest toy.

My toy could make me huge coin but I'm doing all right, so I don't really need the money. It could make me famous, but if I'd wanted that everyone, and I mean everyone would know who I am. I'm not good-looking, just about average. I'm not someone you would ever look twice at. At best I've been called cute which I take as a euphemism for "if I were really drunk and squinted just right I might take you home but probably not." It's okay with me because my time has been filled with other things. You see, I've killed, killed and done it well. I've made decisions all through my life that have cost untold human lives and only those that read this will ever know my name. This is my only vanity to assuage my ego. I have to tell someone because every one wants to be appreciated for that spark that makes each of us special.

I've been watching intently the last 20 years waiting for the swirling kaleidoscope we like to call humanity to come into focus and realize that we as a people are really and truly up to our necks in trouble. See, I'm smart which isn't a vanity on my part it just is. I'm not the smartest pussycat in the barn but I did ok in the brainpan allotment. I'm smart enough to realize that I'm not the smartest person around, and understand that some fool will probably sic the big brain after me. Its no biggie, catching me doesn't change a thing. Taking me into custody will only be temporary; I already know how I'm getting out. Its simple really, all you have to do is be willing to act. Sorry, I'm like a kid at Christmas excited because a new adventure is starting. Let me get back to it.

20 years ago the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince George Sound. At about the same time a new and frightening paradigm was becoming known to the world. The science was sound, the consequences frightening. In many ways the Valdez spill is a microcosm of the global warming debate. Corporations deny, obfuscate and confuse, scientist's resort to exaggeration and hyperbole to make their points newsworthy enough to get play in the media, governments do their best to avoid pissing anyone off and in the end nothing gets done. 20 years later I don't think any sane person can deny that the planet is doing some really funky things. I personally cannot remember a time in my life where both sides of the world were deluged in rain and flooding. It is somewhat fitting that the two most powerful economies took a bath at the same time, both literally and economically. Fitting because both governments continue to do nothing to combat the underlying problem. In fact it was the recent Supreme Court decision that finally decided me on taking a course of action I'd been debating for the last couple of years.

SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the United States), on June 25^th of 2008, rendered a decision in the Exxon Mobil/Exxon Valdez punitive damages case. A jury fined the corporation $5bn. There were several appeals to the 9^th circuit court. Through a series of not one, not two, but three appeals and the restatements of restitution the award bottomed out at $2.5bn in what amounts to the 'AAA' division, or farm team of the Justice League. At this point Exxon Mobil approached the Supreme Court, (the majors, the show, the BIGTIME BABY) to hear another appeal, which it won (5-3), reducing the final punitive award to $500mn and used a specific 'if A then B' process for damages awarded. Justice David Souter wrote for the court 'that punitive damages may not exceed what the company has already paid to compensate victims for economic losses', which was accounted to be just over $500 million US.

Perhaps the separation of powers isn't quite as distinct as the constitution suggests or we the people have thought. Souter's pronouncement represents law until Congress addresses the issue. With no direction from maritime, civil, or military law and eschewing the direction indicated by the results of the jury trial the Supreme Court chose to write law. This conclusion is also supported by the affirmative decision using a formulaic methodology not found in the laws of the United States. The use of this process or methodology and the infringement upon the US Congress was used as the basis for the dissenting opinion as espoused by 3 of 9 judges.

"Ginsburg, in her dissenting opinion, said the justices were engaging in "lawmaking" by ruling punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid in compensation for victims' economic losses.
"The new law made by the court should have been left to Congress," Ginsburg wrote."

"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, expressed concern the one-to-one restriction could later be reflected in a broader punitive-damages ruling by the court. Currently, Supreme Court precedent - beyond maritime law - generally limits punitive damages to single-digit ratios. "On next opportunity, will the court rule, definitively, that one-to-one is the ceiling due process requires in all of the states?" Ginsburg wrote."

This isn't about the facts. The facts were a ship owned by Exxon Mobil and staffed by people hired by Exxon, under questionable conditions ran aground on a known hazard spilling between 10million gallons to 35million gallons of crude oil (or a low estimate of 240,000bbl to a high estimate of 900,000bbl of a load of 1.26 million bbl) into Prince George Sound causing economic, environmental, and social disaster over a 500 to 1300 mile stretch of coastline, 11,000 sq/miles of ocean surface and an unknowable amount of the oceans of the world. No, based on facts the $5bn original assessment seems a fairly generous award to the company, but everyone could have lived with it.

The original award would have provided $75,000 per person to the people affected by the spill. It would have provided excellent seed money for those affected and would have allowed them to start a new life. 20% of those people entitled under the settlement are now dead. 20 years is a long time to wait for justice or what little justice a person can afford. The real tragedy is not that these people will only receive on average about $15,000. The truly horrible part is that these figures are based on the award number before the lawyers get their portion, estimated at approximately 22%. What is even more disheartening is that the lobbying has begun to provide a tax-free status for any award received. The clean up received public monies, the clean up was a loss for Exxon providing a tax-write off while reducing public monies further, and the money Exxon finally pays will be written off as a loss while the taxpayers of America once again foot the bill for corporate greed. Once again like the mortgage scandal, the savings and loan debacle, the Enron rape, and the on-going plundering of the public purse by the military and its suppliers the public will be bent over and financially raped. The good news is it will be televised with appropriate commentary from the appropriate talking heads with appropriate talking points provided by the appropriate stakeholders. Just remember not to tense up, I hear it real hurts if you don't go with it.

It is significant to note that the lowest figure (10.8 million gallons) is the number reported to the media by Exxon Mobil and agreed to by the state of Alaska who then called off its own estimation process. Alaska saved money by not processing its own estimation, by not being dragged into court by Exxon to fight over the discrepancies in estimation, and received whatever fines Exxon owed under the 'fine per barrel spilled' law within the shortest conceivable time frame. All this achieved by agreeing to a simple number. If the high number or average of the lower/higher number had been used Exxon would have paid approx 50% to 66% more in simple fines and unknowable costs in punitive damages. Environmental groups Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife as well as many private citizens and people directly affected by the spill believe the high number as being more truthful. Simple maritime modeling would be able to provide a realistic range for the number of bbl spilled but political will is lacking. Exxon provided a specific 10.8 million-gallons/257,000bbl number that is amazingly specific and Alaskan officials agreed to it. The environmentalists took the lower number gave an upper limit and said the number was probably edging towards the higher number based on corporate past practice.

The fishing in the area never really recovered, 2 or 3 of the largest employers (fish canneries) in the area don't employee anyone anymore, and the other two run at a significantly reduced capacity. Catastrophic numbers of aquatic, land, and aerial life died and are still dying. This doesn't include the almost complete destruction of much of the microbial organisms along the coastline itself caused by the steaming used in the attempted cleanup. Most of this microorganism death took place in the especially important coastal tidal area in which the land exits/enters/meets the water. Life has always been attracted to changes in conditions. Shorelines, rivers, shorelines meeting at a river(s), etc., these areas have always been areas of change allowing for a greater diversity of connections between organisms.

Had the oil slick stayed out to sea the environmental costs would have been less severe but still tragic. The weather that pushed the slick onto the coast coupled with Exxon's less than willing participation in mitigating the damage significantly compounded a terrible accident into an unholy nightmare. For all intents and purposes this was an accident but an accident ultimately created by Exxon Mobil. No one intended for the Valdez to run aground — not the Captain, not the crew, and not the management of Exxon. The actions of the Captain, the crew and especially Exxon provided the inevitable opportunity for this horror. In the end Exxon Mobil is the only reason that the Valdez spilled oil. Without Exxon the Valdez doesn't exist and doesn't spill.

The underlying facts that get misplaced in the legal wrangling are this: Exxon, as an oil conglomerate knowingly took on a risk-severe enterprise. Exxon, as an oil conglomerate knowingly accepts that people and wildlife will die as a result of oil spills. Exxon, as an oil conglomerate knowingly accepts that they will spill oil and be held responsible. Exxon, as an oil conglomerate is specifically invested in limiting any and all legal responsibility derived from spilling oil to protect present and future profitability.

$5bn sounds reasonable in light of the damage created by the spill if you take the side of everyone and everything except Exxon Mobil and the oil industry. It is supremely reasonable to expect the highest standards of safety for any activity that has the destructive potential of a tanker of crude oil, and it is even more reasonable to punish anyone involved in this activity that knowingly disregarded their own policies, procedures and protocols. "A week after the disaster, Exxon CEO Lawrence Rawl said the captain had been drunk. And Rawl acknowledged that the corporation had known about Hazelwood's drinking, had ordered him into rehab, and then had allowed him back at the helm despite numerous reports that he relapsed into drinking. As Rawl would put it at the time, "The judgment to put him back on the ship ... was a bad judgment." (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=48308288)

From the oil industry and Exxon's corporate point of view they have a massive fleet, of massive ships, that have a fixed lifetime. Over the lifetime of those ships the chance of accident increases in a predictable probability distribution. Those ships must be insured to protect shareholders and stakeholders. Probability guarantees that these ships will have more and more accidents. Economics guarantees that insurance will become more and more costly. The lower the payout the greater the benefit to two significant financial pillars of the 'community' of capitalism - oil and insurance. Oil and insurance win not just Exxon and Lloyds (or whoever underwrites Exxon).

SCOTUS has decided that there is a cap on punitive awards and adjusted the number accordingly. One Justice recused himself due to owning stock in Exxon Mobil. All the Justices, if they own stock, have stock that is affected by the cost of oil. If insurance goes up that cost will be transferred to the consumer. Capitalism demands profit for continued survival and profit is simply the cost a market will pay above and beyond the cost of doing business. Capitalism says that Exxon Mobil saved $4.5bn less the costs incurred for legal and expert defense as well as the clean up costs that are pegged at approx $3.4 billion. The $3.4bn figure comes from Exxon and would have been developed by accountants. Accountants are paid for by people and corporations to maximize return and limit exposure both legal and tax-wise (which of course is just a different legal). As the Arthur Anderson Group highlighted, accountants have interesting ways of adding numbers together. Couple that with the simple fact that the Valdez was insured to mitigate the potential costs associated with just such an event as well as Exxon writing off $2.2bn in cleanup costs as a loss (and all the tax benefits such a loss accrues) means that Exxon's actual exposure is somewhere between the $500mn ($1bn adjusted for interest) payout and the $3.9bn implied ($3.4bn + $0.5bn = $3.9bn).

Exxon Mobil drills for a known carcinogen. Exxon Mobil pumps a known carcinogen. Exxon Mobil transports a known carcinogen. It refines and distributes a known carcinogen. It promotes a known carcinogen and actively pursues an agenda to market a known carcinogen as essential to the welfare and future benefit of not just America, the Western World, the rich or the poor, but every single man, woman and child upon the planet earth. All this while ignoring the fact that Texas Tea is bad for you. If you eat it you will die. There is a very small family of bacteria that can eat it, but you and most of the living world can't. Joggers in urban environments have higher incidents of cancer than joggers in rural settings. Why do you think that is? The burning of fossil fuels creates particulate on the nano scale. Particles on this scale are invisible to the body's defenses. The human body has no defense because it is the equivalent of the robotic arm on the shuttle or space station picking up a sewing needle and doing a few stitches. The robot arm was not designed for this functionality and neither was your body. The necessity for sewing with the Canadarm doesn't exist and neither did the necessity for nano-particle defense until the burning of fossil fuels.

What I'm furious about is that the economic, social and environmental disaster has morphed into a judicial disaster. It brings into focus for the entire world what a farce the legal system of representational democracies has become. In every court case aggrieved parties have the right to appeal if points of law seem to be overlooked. In the case that the appellate court doesn't provide what is perceived to be proper judgement by the defendant or plaintiff the Supreme Court can be asked to adjudicate. Simple language — you go to court, you can appeal, and you can appeal the appeal to the Supreme Court. A jury convicted Exxon Mobil and assigned damages. The general rule of thumb in regards to jury trial is that unless there is a grievous and gross miscarriage of justice the people have spoken and have indicated the direction for the judicial system to follow.