Occidental Petroleum

terry freitas

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ref 2 brennan Fossil Fuel Industry Donors See Major Returns in Trump’s Policies

owen b

fossil fuel interests donated heavily to President Trump’s 2024 reelection bid. Months after his victory, oil and gas moguls have continued to pump money into his political coffers. Now, as promised by Trump during the campaign, his administration is embracing their policy agenda and governing in a way that is netting the industry billions.

Part of

Corruption in America**

More on

• Influence of Big Money

Trump asked oil and gas executives in 2024 to raise $1 billion for his campaign and told them he’d grant their policy wish list if he won. The investment, he said, would be a “deal” given the taxes and regulation they would avoid under his presidency. He also offered to help fast-track fossil fuel industry mergers and acquisitions if he won.

The industry responded by spending lavishly to elect Trump, giving at least $75 million to his campaign and affiliated PACs, thereby making them a top corporate backer of his reelection bid and a crucial source of funding.

Several oil tycoons gave millions on their own and hosted fundraisers with Trump and his associates. Some oil and gas executives who hadn’t given Trump money during previous cycles made major donations after attending fundraisers where he pledged to start acting on the industry’s policy priorities as soon as he retook the White House.

That’s just the spending we know about. The 2024 election saw record levels of “dark money” spending, where wealthy interests keep their role secret by funneling money through groups that do not disclose their donors. The fossil fuel industry has a history of deploying dark money tactics, and any such spending in 2024 would inherently be obscured.

Even after Trump’s victory in 2024, oil and gas interests have continued to pour money into his political operation. They gave $11.8 million to his inauguration fund, and even though Trump cannot run for a third term, his main super PAC has raked in millions more from the industry since he took office — including $25 million from oil producer Energy Transfer Partners and its CEO, Kelcy Warren.

As promised, Trump is rewarding the industry by adopting its policy agenda as his own. His signature legislative package — which one executive deemed “positive for us across all of our top priorities” — gives oil and gas firms $18 billion in tax incentives while rolling back incentives for clean energy alternatives. He’s placed fossil fuel allies in charge of the agencies that oversee the industry and fast-tracked drilling projects on public lands. In just his first 100 days back in office, Trump took at least 145 actions to undo environmental rules — more than he reversed during his entire first term as president. Before Trump even reentered the White House, the industry was reportedly pre-drafting executive orders for him to issue.

The profits are already rolling in for the industry. Take Warren and Energy Transfer Partners. Trump ended a Biden-era pause on liquefied natural gas exports and cleared the way for Energy Transfer Partners (which extracts liquefied natural gas) to extend a major project. Warren’s personal wealth grew nearly 10 percent after the administration greenlit the project as Energy Transfer Partners reported a boost in profits.

There’s also Occidental Petroleum, which donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, and whose CEO cohosted a major fundraiser for Trump in May 2024. Occidental is especially well positioned to see boosted profits from the sprawling array of favorable subsidies and tax incentives in his signature bill, passed into law this summer.

Now the Trump administration is taking its biggest swing yet for fossil fuel interests: repealing the “endangerment finding,” the federal government’s formal acknowledgement that global warming from greenhouse gases, produced by burning fossil fuels, endangers the public. The finding gives the government legal authority to set clean air rules, and it’s long been the subject of the fossil fuel lobby’s ire, surviving more than 100 challenges in court. Revoking the finding would erase scores of clean air rules that the industry opposes.

The fossil fuel industry is reaping major returns on its investment in the Trump administration. But what about the costs? Extreme weather events such as flooding, wildfires, and severe storms — which overwhelming scientific consensus has concluded are driven by global warming from fossil fuel usage — are becoming increasingly common, inflicting billions of dollars of damage on American communities and costing thousands of people their lives and livelihoods each year. Life-threatening summer heat affected more than 255 million Americans this year alone. It does not appear that these concerns are having any major impact on government policy, and instead, the administration fired hundreds of scientists tasked with tracking these issues.

Trump is far from the first president to use the office in ways that reward wealthy donors. Decades of harmful Supreme Court decisions, decaying anticorruption and campaign finance guardrails, and inadequate enforcement of existing rules around money in politics have enabled an unprecedented concentration of wealth and political power. So while Trump’s embrace of the fossil fuel industry’s agenda isn’t breaking entirely new ground, it offers yet another stark example of how wealthy interests are shaping policies that affect the lives of all Americans.

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Buffet has a famous quoteabout investing: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.” 

When it comes to his $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, Buffett will need to take that one to heart now that other investors have sued Occidental for the merger financed in part by Buffet’s stake, alleging that the amount of debt required for Occidental to merge with Anadarko left the company “precariously exposed” if oil prices went lower. They cited the billions that Buffett invested in the deal as compounding this risk. 

The fracking industry doesn’t care that you’re a world-famous investment sage: It destroys all capital. 

READ MORe desmog 720

==

==

https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/occidental-petroleum-corporation-v-carijano/

Occidental Petroleum Corporation v. Carijano

Petition for certiorari denied on April 22, 2013| Docket No. | Op. Below | Argument | Opinion | Vote | Author | Term |

Issue: (1) Whether, in an action brought by foreign plaintiffs for alleged injuries occurring in a foreign country to foreign land and foreign citizens, the foreign plaintiffs can obtain a strong presumption in favor of a U.S. forum by adding a nominal U.S. plaintiff for the tactical purpose of defeating a forum non conveniens dismissal; and (2) whether a federal court may assume hypothetically that it has Article III jurisdiction for the purpose of denying a forum non conveniens dismissal and retaining a case in federal court.

COUNSEL Marco Simons (argued), Richard Herz, Earthrights International, Washington, D.C.; Paul Hoffman, Benjamin Schonbrun, Michael D. Seplow, Schonbrun Desimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP, Venice, California; Natalie L. Bridgeman, Law Offices of Natalie L. Bridgeman, San Francisco, California, for the plaintiffs-appellants.

Daniel P. Collins (argued), Manuel F. Cachán, Gabriel P. Sanchez,

Munger, Tolles & Olson L.L.P., Los Angeles, California; Ernest J. Getto, Michael G. Romey, Kirk A. Wilkinson,Latham & Watkins, L.L.P., Los Angeles, California, for the defendants-appellees.

....

OPINION WARDLAW, Circuit Judge: These cross-appeals arise from the petroleum and oil exploration operations conducted by defendant Occidental Peruana (“OxyPeru”), an indirect subsidiary of defendant Occidental Petroleum Corporation (collectively “Occidental”), along the Rio Corrientes in the northern region of Peru. Plaintiffs, 25 members of the Achuar indigenous group dependent for their existence upon the rainforest lands and waterways along the river, and Amazon Watch, a California corporation, sued Occidental in Los Angeles County Superior Court for environmental contamination and release of hazardous waste. Although Occidental’s headquarters is located in Los Angeles County, Occidental removed the suit to federal district court where it successfully moved for dismissal on the ground that Peru is a more convenient forum. Plaintiffs timely appeal the dismissal of their suit. Occidental cross-appeals from the district court’s determination that its Rule 12 motion to dismiss Amazon Watch for lack of standing is moot. Because Occidental failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that Peru is a more convenient forum, and the district court gave insufficient weight to the strong presumption in favor of a domestic plaintiff’s choice of forum, the district court abused its discretion by dismissing the lawsuit without imposing mitigating conditions for the dismissal.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND We accept as true the facts alleged in the Achuar Plaintiffs’ and Amazon Watch’s (“Plaintiffs”) First Amended Complaint 7126 CARIJANO v. OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM (“FAC”). See Vivendi SA v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 586 F.3d 689, 691 n.3 (9th Cir. 2009); Aguas Lenders Recovery Group v. Suez, S.A., 585 F.3d 696, 697 (2d Cir. 2009) (accepting the facts alleged in the complaint as true where the case was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds without a factual hearing). Occidental is among the largest oil and gas companies in the United States. Its Peruvian operations began in the early 1970s with the development of a pair of lots near the Ecuadorean border known as “Block 1-AB.” Its subsidiary, OxyPeru, built Block 1-AB into a thriving extraction, processing, and distribution site, providing 26 percent of Peru’s total historical oil production from 1972 to 2000, at which point Occidental sold its stake in Block 1-AB to the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol.

The Peruvian government granted Occidental its first concession in the region in 1971; oil was found the next year. The company built dozens of wells, a 530- kilometer network of pipelines, refineries, and separation batteries for processing crude oil, as well as roads, heliports and camps to support the operation at Block 1-AB. The Achuar are indigenous people who have long resided along the rivers of the northern Peruvian rainforest. Block 1- AB encompasses significant portions of the Corrientes and Macusari rivers, home to several Achuar communities. The inhabitants use the rivers and their tributaries for drinking, fishing, and bathing. The region is remote, with access typically limited to small planes, helicopters, small boats, and canoes. The complaint alleges that, during its thirty years in the Achuar territories,Occidental knowingly utilized out-of-date methods for separating crude oil that contravened United States and Peruvian law, resulting in the discharge of millions of gallons of toxic oil byproducts into the area’s waterways. Achuar children and adults came into frequent contact with the contaminants by using polluted rivers and tributaries ...

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/14/fear-greed-shale-fracking-oil-warren-buffett

Buffett, CEO of investment holding company Berkshire Hathaway, is considered one of the top investors in historyand can back up that track record with a personal wealth of around $90 billion. Buffett is known for advising investors to be“fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” 

In the U.S. fracked oil industry, this month can be read like a textbook version of Buffett’s fear and greed adage. The shale industry showed plenty of signs of fear whileBuffett made a massive “greedy” beton the future of the Permian Shale in Texas and New Mexico,assuming it will produce oil profitably and investing $10 billion in Occidental’s purchase of shale producer Anadarko.

Buffett is betting on a fracked oil future as climate scientists warn of the waning window for preventing catastrophic climate change and fund managers and energy researchers warn of stranded oil and gas assets.

Déjà Vu?

industry consolidation?!

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/chevrons-share-buyback-increase-depends-on-battle-for-anadarko.html

bid war with occidental

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Rubio Victory Fund filings are a warning to anyone still underestimating the senator’s appeal to big dollar donors.

...

Another top donor to Rubio Victory Fund — who also appears to be a steal from the Cruz camp — is Stephen Chazen, chief executive officer of Occidental Petroleum,who gave $10,400 to the Rubio team on March 23, the same day that Cruz officially announced his campaign. Chazen has previously been a big supporter of conservative super PACs, including presidential ones. According to disclosure records filed last week by Cruz’s campaign, Chazen did not donate in the first eight days of his campaign.

In 2012, Chazen donated $100,000 to Make Us Great Again, the super PAC that backed GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, and $50,000 to Texas Conservatives Fund, a super PAC that split from the GOP establishment to back Cruz’ Senate run. Chazen has also donated $200,000 to American Crossroads, and last fall gave $125,000 to Freedom Partners Action Fund, the super PAC at the heart of the Koch network of donors, and $100,000 to Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a super PAC that backed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in his re-election bid.

Rubio Victory Fund also picked up a $10,400 donation from Roger Hertog, a New York philanthropist who has previously served on the board of Club for Growth and the American Enterprise Institute. Hertog has given $550,000 to the American Crossroads super PAC and large donations to both Cruz and his leadership PAC.

And that’s just the start — the Rubio Victory Fund also scooped up donations in excess of $10,000 from other prominent donors like Randy and Ken Kendricks, the owners of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team, and New York grocery magnate Jon Catsimatidis and his wife.

All of those donors, notably, are not from Florida, Rubio’s presumed natural base for fundraising. In fact, two-thirds of the money pulled in by his Victory Fund came from other states. A total of $380,000 in donations came from California, not traditionally a big source of votes or donations for GOP candidates, and $150,000 came from donors in New York, which has become the epicenter of Republican presidential fundraising. Rubio pulled in $508,000 from his home state.

The Victory Fund money is ostensibly not for Rubio’s presidential run; while these donors clearly like him, their gifts don’t mean they’ll also fork over cash for his White House campaign. But we’ll know soon enough.

===

four California Coastal Commission members appointed by Gov. Jerry

Brown have been maneuvering to oust its outspoken executive director Dr. Charles Lester. This campaign to unseat Dr. Lester is an unsheathed

assault on the coastal commission’s integrity and a dire threat to the

California coast. It is also an audacious display of industry power,

which will come to a head Wednesday at the commission’s quarterly meeting in Morro Bayon.

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The 12-member coastal commission has regulatory authority over all

permits, licenses and funding approvals for projects impacting coastal

resources, including offshore oil and gas development. For more than 40

years the coastal commission has brought balance to the struggle between

advocates of clean water, healthy wetlands, unspoiled vistas, unpaved

agricultural farms and broad public access against the real estate and

energy tycoons who now seek Dr. Lester’s ouster. Dr. Lester has been the

commission’s most vocal champion for safeguarding California’s public

trust assets and preserving the coast from unwise and shortsighted

development.

Industry launched its campaign to topple Dr. Lester shortly after he expressed skepticism over the proposed Banning Ranch development,

which would place nearly 1,400 homes with resort and retail space on

environmentally sensitive coastal habitat and wetlands. Aera Energy, a

jointly owned affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ExxonMobil Corp, is

a leading project promoter.

Californians are increasingly aware of the anti-democratic clout wielded by energy barons and developers.

The ongoing Porter Ranch

gas leak offers striking parallels and strong cautions about

Sacramento’s merger with corporate power. The Porter Ranch disaster is

the offspring of a greedy company and its delinquent regulator who

ignored a missing safety valve on a 62-year-old well for 31 years. When

the inevitable blow out happened, it took Gov. Brown 40 days to declare a state of emergency to address the largest gas leak in history—one which has displaced 4,400 families, sickened hundreds of adults and children and drawn compelling comparisons to the BP oil spill.

:{Residents wonder if Gov. Brown’s cozy ties to petroleum and real

estate interests inspired his lethargy. Brown has taken $1.1 million

from real estate developers since 2011 and $2,014,570 from oil and gas

barons since 2006. His sister, Kathleen Brown, sits on the board of Sempra Energy, whose affiliate, SoCal Gas, is the culprit in the Porter Ranch well collapse. Sempra paid her

$188,380 in 2014 and $267,865 in 2013. Kathleen Brown also owns rights

to Sempra stock worth $409,945. She is a partner at a law firm that

represents the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) and a

defendant in a RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization—lawsuit against Gov. Brown and the oil industry. CIPA and its members donated lavishly to Gov. Brown’s legacy ballot measure—Prop 30.}:

:{Beginning in 2011, CIPA joined with Occidental Petroleum to persuade Brown

to approve a host of illegal injection wells of the kind that failed at

Porter Ranch. In response to a direct request from Occidental’s

attorney Gray Davis, Brown fired two diligent public servants—State

Oil & Gas supervisor Elena Miller and her boss Derek Chernow, the

acting director of the state Department of Conservation—when they

refused to issue illegal well permits.}:

Two months later, on Jan. 9, 2012, Brown’s new State Oil & Gas supervisor, Tim Kustic, issued Occidental an illegal permit

to drill a frack well in a Kern County almond orchard without the

required environmental review designed to protect vital aquifers. Four days later, Occidental gave its first of two $250,000 contributions

to the governor’s proposition to increase taxes. In a striking

expression of fealty to the carbon czars, Brown pledged on the same day

as the Occidental contribution that neither human health injuries nor

the law would deter him from continuing to serve their interests. “There

will be indictments and there will be deaths. But we’re going to keep

going,” he said.

In total, grateful oil and gas tycoons contributed

more than $1.2 million to Brown’s proposition to increase income taxes. Brown later boasted that firing Miller and Chernow facilitated oil development in Kern County. It also meant that millions of gallons of contaminated waste would be injected each month into the aquifers in the California San Joaquin Valley.

In her shocking new book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,

Jane Mayer reveals how a small cadre of oil titans have used their

astonishing riches to game America’s political system, capture our

regulatory agencies, corrupt our politicians in order to subvert

democracy, defy our environmental laws and push American democracy

toward a new Gilded Age for corporate kleptocracy.

California and a handful of other states have largely escaped this

kind of hostile takeover of state government by corporate power. But

California’s democratic values cannot flourish long with Sacramento

politicians suckling at pipelines of oily cash. The move to oust the

coastal commission director is a signal that public servants with

courage and integrity that stand up to well-connected robber barons will

be crushed and silenced by government officials on industry payroll.

As the coastal commission convenes tomorrow, the rest of the world

will be watching California, not just for how she protects her

coastlines, but how she safeguards her democracy

rfk2

==

==

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.,Occidental Petroleum, International Paper, and Overstock.com are the latest corporations to say they have left the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after a wave of technology companies led by Google and Facebook announced their departures last week.

News Corp., the $8 billion-a-year global media company run by media mogul Rupert Murdoch that owns the Wall Street Journal, had been a member of ALEC's Education Task Force and Communications and Technology Task Force. A spokesperson told Media Matters in response to an article published Friday that the company is no longer a member of ALEC. Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications Ashley Huston told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that News Corp. has not been a member of ALEC since its split from 21st Century Fox in July 2013.

Occidental Petroleum, at $24.5 billion in annual revenue, is one of the largest global oil and gas exploration and production companies based in the United States. It had been a member of ALEC's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. Linda Peterson, Associate General Counsel at Occidental, said in a letter to Timothy Smith of Walden Asset Management, who is involved in leadership of shareholder campaigns, that "there are no plans to continue Occidental's membership in, or make further payments to ALEC." She said the company had paid $12,500 to ALEC in 2014. She also referenced the concern that the company could be "presumed to share the positions" on climate change and air pollution regulations held by ALEC, as *National Journal* reported.

Tim Smith said of Occidental's decision, "This is very welcome news. It's one of the first major oil companies to acknowledge cutting ties to ALEC. It did so in response to ongoing and sustained investor pressure in relationship to ALEC and especially because of ALEC's opposition to renewable energy at the state level. We hope there'll be other companies following."

International Paper, the $29 billion-a-year global paper and packaging company headquartered in Tennessee, had been a member of ALEC's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force and had sponsored ALEC's 2011 annual meeting. Company spokesperson Tom Ryan told Common Cause on September 26 that "we no longer have a membership with ALEC" and confirmed that the company no longer funds ALEC.

Overstock.com, the $1.3 billion-a-year online retailer, had joined ALEC to push a state sales tax legislative issue. A company spokesperson told CMD on September 26 that the company had determined not to renew its membership after a year of funding the group.

"Climate deniers are the new tobacco executives"

Corporations that have publicly cut ties to ALEC since CMD launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011 include Fortune 500 firms such as General Motors, General Electric, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Kraft Foods, Coke, and Pepsi. ALEC spent years pushing controverisal Stand Your Ground gun laws and bills to make it harder for Americans to vote before trying to distance itself from that legacy.

More recently, ALEC has been criticized for its bills on energy. The group has worked to repeal renewable energy laws and is working to get state attorneys general to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

Last week, a number of tech companies left ALEC after sustained campaigning by environmental, labor, and community groups. This prompted Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune to say:

"Climate deniers are the new tobacco executives -- nobody wants to be seen with them. With Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Microsoft all dumping ALEC, it’s increasingly obvious that you cannot run a successful 21st century company while associating with ideologues from the stone age. Fossil fuel-backed groups like ALEC are on the wrong side of nearly every effort to tackle the climate crisis and on the wrong side of history."

Interestingly, tobacco giants Altria/Phillip Morris and Reynolds American remain stalwart ALEC

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12612#sthash.E1NQPvKh.dpuf

==

shareholder revolt on frack

impacts on communities and the environment from hydraulic fracturing.

The oil & gas production industry is consistently failing to report measurable reductions of its impacts on communities and the environment from hydraulic fracturing operations, according to a scorecard report released byAs You Sow,Boston Common Asset Management,Green Century Capital Management, and theInvestor Environmental Health Network.

The report,***Disclosing the Facts: Transparency and Risk in Hydraulic Fracturing Operations***, benchmarks 24 companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing against investor needs for disclosure of operational impacts and mitigation efforts.

While scores varied, no firm succeeded in disclosing information on even half of the selected 32 indicators related to management of toxic chemicals, water and waste, air emissions, community impacts, and governance. Even the highest scoring company, Encana Corporation (ECA) provided sufficient disclosure on just 14 of the 32 indicators. The lowest scoring companies were: BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) (2 of out 32 indicators); BP plc (BP) (2 out of 32 indicators); Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) (2 out of 32 indicators); Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) (2 out of 32 indicators); Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN) (2 out of 32 indicators); and, in last place, QEP Resources, Inc. (QEP) (1 out of 32 indicators).

Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) is an international oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Middle East/North Africa and Latin America. Oxy is the fourth largest U.S. oil and gas company, based on equity market capitalization. Oxy is the largest oil producer in Texas, the largest gas producer in California, and has additional operations in Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Oxy has assets in Libya, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen and is a partner in supplying natural gas from Qatar to markets in the United Arab Emirates. Oxy has operations and assets in Colombia and Argentina.

Company History

Oxy began in California in the 1920s as a small oil and gas company. In 1961, Oxy made its first major discovery, drilling into previously unexplored depths near the Sacramento Basin in northern California and discovered the state’s second largest dry gas field at Lathrop. Over the next ten years, Oxy expanded its worldwide operation to the Middle East and South America. In 1968, Oxy entered into the chemical business with the acquisition of Hooker Chemicals, today known as Oxy Chemical Corporation (OxyChem), and is the leading chemical manufacturer with interests in basic chemicals, vinyls and performance chemical products. Beginning in 1997, Oxy completed a series of acquisitions, sales and asset swaps to become a more highly focused oil and gas company with large, long-lived, high margin oil and gas assets concentrated in the United States, Middle East and Latin America. Oxy transformed Colombia from oil importer to exporter with the 1983 discovery of the billion-plus barrel Caño Limón oil field located in the Llanos Basin in the northeastern part of the country. In 2006, this oil field averaged 28,000 BOE per day. In 2005, Ecopetrol approved development of the Caricare field, an exploration discovery adjacent to the Caño Limón field, in which Oxy has a 35 percent working interest. That same year, Oxy signed an agreement with Ecopetrol for an EOR project in the La Cira-Infantas field in central Colombia. In December 2006, Oxy completed the second pilot phase and agreed to enter a third and commercial phase with Ecopetrol. [1]

Oxy is California’s largest natural gas producer and the state's largest oil and gas producer on a gross-operated barrels of oil equivalent basis, which has increased with the use of hydraulic fracturing. On its website, Oxy states that the company "is applying the expertise gained from exploring and producing different shale zones at Elk Hills to other California assets, including properties in the Los Angeles, Ventura and San Joaquin basins. More than one-fourth of Oxy’s California production currently is from shales."[1]

Historical Financial Information

Business Strategy

Political and Public Influence

Occidental Files Claim Against Government of Ecuador (Press Release) Oxy filed an arbitration claim against the Ecuadorian government, seeking redress for Ecuador’s illegal confiscation of Occidental’s Block 15 operations in Ecuador. [2]

Political Contributions

Lobbying

Occidental is one of the largest oil company contributors to both Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress. These contributions total $396,100 to the 110th US Congress (as of the third quarter), the largest of which has been to Rep. John Sununu (R-NH) for $23,400. Rep. Sununu, for his part, has consistently voted with the oil industry on energy, war and climate bills.[3]

Contributions like this from fossil fuel companies to members of Congress are often seen as a political barrier to pursuing clean energy.

More information on oil industry contributions to Congress can be found at FollowtheOilMoney.org, created by the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Oil Change International.

Corporate Accountability

Labor

Human Rights

Tomas Maynas Carijano et al. v. Occidental Petroleum Corporation

This document discusses a lawsuit on behalf of 25 indigenous Achuar plaintiffs from the Peruvian Amazon against Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy). The claim alleges harm caused by Oxy over a 30 year period in the Corrientes River Basin during which Oxy contaminated the river and the lands of the indigenous Achuar communities, causing death, poisoning and destruction of way of life. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Esther Mamallacta Shiguago et al. v. Occidental Petroleum Co., Occidental Exploration and Production Co.

In 2006, a case was filed against Occidental for using military and paramilitary death squads to guard its pipeline in Ecuador. The plaintiffs in this case are victims of murder and torture. [4]

Blood Proves Thicker than Oil

The 7,500 U’wa people, aided by Colombian social movements, environmental organizations (including Friends of the Earth Colombia) and campaign groups around the world have recently won an important victory in their decade-long campaign to stop the exploitation of their lands by Occidental Petroleum. [6]

Occidental Adopts Human Rights Policy

The policy specifically provides for social risk assessments prior to the onset of operations in locations outside the United States; the inclusion of human rights provisions in foreign contracts; human rights training programs for employees and security contractors; and background checks on security personnel. [7]

To What Extent does a Corporate-State Consensus Undermine Human Rights? Oil Extraction in Arauca: Colombia, the United States and Occidental Petroleum

This is a dissertation submitted for Mc in Development Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. It discusses the national context including the struggles over territorial control and the consolidation of the elite. It also addresses the international context and the impact of the United States and Occidental Petroleum on human rights violations. [8]

Occidental invites Amnesty to Colombian Facility(May 19, 2004)

Occidental stated that it would be open for Amnesty to investigate its role following an Amnesty report on human rights violations that named Occidental in association with Colombian security forces used to defend company facilities as guerrilla war rages on the Arauca part of the country. [5]

Riding Shotgun on a Pipeline(May 16, 2004)

The U.S. and Colombia launched an extraordinary military operation that sent thousands of troops into Arauca to combat rebel attacks on Occidental’s pipeline. [6]

Galvis Mujica v. Occidental Petroleum

A lawsuit by Galvis Mujica that alleges that Occidental Petroleum had a role in the bombing of the village of Santo Domingo that killed 17 residents and wounded many others. The court dismissed the case in 2005, claiming that the Alien Tort Statute claims were political questions that should not be considered by the court system.[7] [8]

Protecting the Pipeline: The U.S. Military Mission Expands [9]

A Laboratory of War: Repression and Violence in Arauca

This document discusses Occidental’s human rights violations, including the XVIII Brigade which is reportedly funded by Oxy that has collided with paramilitary forces and the Santo Domingo killings. [10]

Occidental Pipeline in Colombia Strikes it Rich in Washington

The Occidental pipeline is often attacked by guerrilla groups, more than 1000 times since its 1986 construction. It has spilled more than 2.9 million barrels of crude oil (more than 11 times the amount spilled by Exxon Valdez) and has polluted more than 1,625 miles of river. [11]

Special Issues and Campaigns: World Report 1999

Human Rights Watch claims that Occidental along with Ecopetrol and Royal Dutch/Shell, took no action to address reports of extrajudicial executions and a massacre committed by the state forces assigned to protect the consortium’s facilities. The companies’ response was that human rights violations were the responsibility of governments, and they did not announce any programs to ensure that their security providers do not commit human rights violations. [12]

Human Rights Watch World Report 1998

Arauca province was the site of the Occidental Petroleum, Royal Dutch/Shell, and Ecopetrol consortium's Caño Limón-Covenas oil fields and pipeline. By putting the companies in a new relationship to the military, the contracts had raised serious questions. The direct contracts signed with the Ministry of Defense inappropriately tightened the companies' relations with an abusive military and compounded the fundamental problem: that the companies relied on that abusive military institution for security and thereby assumed a responsibility to take concrete, programmatic measures to prevent violations and to confront those that may arise. The companies have taken very little action in regarding human rights. [13]

Environment

Oxy describes their environmental protection principles as requiring constant focus on waste reduction and resource conservation. Oxy also tracks energy efficiency and it has been shown that efforts focused on improving energy efficiency have yielded an 8 percent improvement since 1996. Energy use per pound of production in OxyChem has decreased more than 40 percent since 1995. [14]

Consumer Protection and Product Safety

Anti-Trust and Tax Practices

Social Responsibility Initiatives

Oxy describes their social responsibility initiatives as working closely with neighboring communities to bring economic and social advantages and foster self-sufficiency. Internationally Oxy has built schools, medical clinics, and day-care centers in remote rural areas near their operations. Oxy also provides teachers and agricultural training and other programs to enhance sustainable development. [15]

Oxy has also helped with social responsibility initiatives in Colombia, by helping to build 34 elementary schools in the state of Arauca and has implemented an innovative and successful adult education program called A Crecer (Let’s Grow). A Crecer has more than 800 students with 80 trained tutors in 15 locations. To complete the literacy program, the students must complete 5 grades, a class project and 800 hours of extracurricular work. It takes about three months to complete one grade, each of which is organized into four modules, math, communication, community and environment. The adults attend classes on the weekends in the schools that were built were for the children of Arauca. [16]

Oxy has also helped bring medical care and health education to the rural communities surrounding the Caño Limón oil field. Oxy helped build, equip and staff 11 medical facilities which provide emergency medical treatment and preventative care. In 2004, the medical center treated an average of 380 patients per month. [17]

Personnel

• Ray R. Irani - Executive Chairman[9]

• Stephen I. Chazen, President and CEO[9]

Board

Accessed May 2012:[10]

• Ray R. Irani, Chairman since May 2011
• Spencer Abraham - Director since 2005
• Howard I. Atkins - Director since 2010
• Stephen I. Chazen - Director since 2010
• Edward P. Djerejian - Director since 1996
• John E. Feick - Director since 1998
• Margaret M. Foran - Director since 2010
• Carlos M. Gutierrez - Director since 2009
• Averdick B. Poladian - Director since 2008
• Rodolfo Segovia - Director since 1994
• Aziz D. Syriani - Director since 1983
• Rosemary Tomich - Director since 1980
• Walter L. Weisman - Director since 2002

Former Board Members

• John S. Chalst - Director since 1996
• Ray Irani - Director since 1984
• Irvin W. Maloney - Director since 1994

Contact Information

Corporate Headquarters/ Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation

10889 Wilshire Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90024

Tel: (310) 208-8800

Occidental Chemical Corporation

Occidental Tower

5005 LBJ Freeway

Dallas, TX 75244

Tel: (972) 404-3800

URL: http://www.oxy.com

Articles and Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

• Steven J. Milloy
• Libyan oil industry
• J. Steven Griles
• Defence Systems Limited
• Third Way Foundation
• TVA Productions
• William D. Ruckelshaus
• Meridian International Center
• Cerrell Associates, Inc.
• Odeh F. Aburdene
• AMIDEAST
• Armand Hammer
• Crocodyl
• Alliance for Children's Rights
• Joseph Vardi
• John Kluge

External Resources

External Articles

EarthRights International, Racimos de Ungurahui & Amazon Watch, "A Legacy of Harm: Occidental Petroleum in Indigeneous Territory in the Peruvian Amazon", April 2007.

References

1. ↑ "Our businesses: California," Occidental Website, accessed May 2012.
2. ↑ "Class Action Complaint", Superior Court of the State of California in and for the County of Los Angeles, May 14, 2007.
3. ↑ "Indigenous Peruvians Sue Occidental Petroleum", EarthRights International, May 10, 2007.
4. ↑ "Amazon Leaders Give Oxy Ultimatum: Clean Up Your Toxic Waste from our Rainforest or Face Legal Action in the U.S.", EarthRights International Press Release, May 3, 2007.
5. ↑ "New Report Exposes Occidental Petroleum's Legacy of Harm in the Peruvian Amazon", EarthRights International, May 3, 2007.
6. ↑ Friends of the Earth International,"Blood Proves Thicker than Oil", Clashes with Corporate Giants pg. 30-31, July 2002.
7. ↑ "Occidental Adopts Human Rights Policy", Occidental Press Release, December 7, 2004.
8. ↑ Annabel Short, "To What Extent does a Corporate-State Consensus Undermine Human Rights? Oil Extraction in Arauca: Colombia, the United States and Occidental Petroleum", Birkbeck College, September 2004.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Occidental Petroleum, Message from Executive Management, corporate website, accessed May 3, 2012
10. ↑ Occidental Petroleum, Directors, corporate website, accessed May 3, 2012

Categories:

• Energy
• Fracking
• Water

 ===

"Between May 15, 1983, and February 7, 1985, Administrator William Ruckelshaus attempted to win back public confidence in the EPA. It proved to be a difficult period, in which a skeptical press and a wary Congress scrutinized all aspects of the agency's activities and interpreted many of its actions in the worst possible light. Yet when Ruckelshaus left EPA, he did so with a sense of satisfaction. He had filled the top-level positions with persons of competence, turned the attention of the staff back to the mission, and raised the esteem of the agency in the public mind. He returned to private life at the start of President Reagan's second term, joining the Seattle law firm of Perkins and Coie. Three years later, he assumed the roles of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Browning Ferris Industries of Houston, Texas." [1]

• • "After his second stint at the agency he formed a consulting firm called William D. Ruckelshaus Associates, which was then hired by the Coalition on Superfund, an organization seeking to weaken the Superfund law by absolving polluters of strict legal liability for their actions. The coalition included such Superfund polluters and their insurers as Monsanto, Occidental Petroleum, Alcoa, Flow Chemical, AT&T, du Pont, Union Carbide, Aetna Insurance, and Travelers Insurance. Assisting Ruckelshaus were Lee Thomas, his hand-picked successor as EPA administrator, and William Reilly, then head of the Conservation Foundation. (Ruckelshaus and Thomas helped fund Reilly's organization to produce studies in support of the coalition's position.)" [2]