Oil Watchdog

6-28-07 by Court

Chevron failed to convince a US District Court judge in New York
that the case against the company for contaminating the Amazon should
be sujbect to arbitration and removed from Ecuador’s justice system.

30,000
Amazon residents are seeking to make Chevron pay $6 billion in clean up
costs for subsidary Texaco’s dumping of 8 billion gallons of oil waste
water in the Amazon. Chevron denies responsiblity, but it now looks like the company will have to face an Ecuadoran judge and/or jury. 

Chevron’s
$!7 billion in profits last year can more than cover a reasonable clean
up settlment for the Amazon. It’s time the company took responsibility for the environment
and settled up.  The company has been making a lot of noise about
its committement to the environment. Now that the federal courts won’t
let Chevron escape Ecuador’s courts, perhaps its time Chevron’s board
forced the management to propose a clean up plan rather try to evade
justice.