THE BP BASH – AT 8:45 P.M. ET:  We're no great fans of BP here.  They've made mistakes, are probably negligent, and their image is zero.  But BP bashing, while popular in left field, is of no value right now.  Will someone please tell Nancy Pelosi?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her sharpest rebuke yet of the oil industry, said Friday that BP should not make dividend payments to stockholders until those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are made “whole.”

“I’m saying that they should not be paying dividends until they make these people whole and make a better effort to do it in a timely fashion,” Pelosi told reporters. “These people are coming to us and saying ‘I have to take out a loan,’ . . . . which I can ill-afford to repay because BP is not, you know, is not paying. BP has the money, it made $17 billion last year. They went up, what, 12 points on the stock market yesterday?”

BP’s paying dividends to stock holders has grown controversial in recent days, as Gulf shore residents have complained about the speed in which the company has responded to loss of income claims.

The Times of London reported Friday that BP was preparing to defer payment of its next dividend and instead put the money in an escrow account until the full scale of the company’s liabilities from the spill can be determined.

COMMENT:  Oh, grow up, Nancy.  You're right to demand that BP pay up, and it should move faster to settle legitimate claims.  But wrecking the company, or depriving shareholders, including many British pensioners, of their dividends will accomplish what? 

The idea is to demand BP go all out to stop that gusher, help people now, and leave the lawsuits for later.  But the left can never resist bashing the oil guys.

And, by the way, maybe Congress should start looking into the slow response of the Obama White House, and whether the feds have resources that are yet unused.  Apparently, there is some valuable foreign equipment that can be brought in, but accepting it runs afoul of something called the Jones Act, passed in the 1920s.  Requires a waiver, but the unions are against the waiver.   So once again we have a situation where union demands may trump effective action.  Gee, where have we seen that before?

Obama's leadership on the spill has been laughable.  But I'm sure Hollywood won't make a movie about it.

June 11, 2010