Oil Watchdog
06-28-2007
by Court
A project of 
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.
COMMENTS
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an Ecuadoran judge and/or jury."
Maybe they are guilty. I don't know. I do know that they should have a fair trial. But you don't think so, because you've already found them guilty.... all members of the industry are guilty until proven innocent.
I also know that uninformed people will believe anything that supports their preconceived world views. If I set up a rogue website and claimed some bogus scientific affinity, and I told you that the oil companies caused hurricane Katrina, and trotted out all sorts of fudged meorological data that you didn't understand, you'd probably take my word at face value and quote me in a future article. But if there were ever false charges filed against you, you'd want a lawyer, proof behind the claims, and all the rest of it. Innocent until proven guilty, you'd cry.
07-06-2007 | USER: armchair261