Boycott Kerr-McGee

[quamp]

Story here

When veteran government auditor Bobby Maxwell learned oil giant Kerr McGee was not paying the $10 million he says it owed in oil royalties, he prepared an order to Kerr McGee to pay up. Making sure the government gets its money from energy companies was Maxwell's job in the Minerals Management Service (MMS), a division of the Department of the Interior. But Maxwell claims his bosses at the MMS quashed that order.

Kerr-McGee has a number of wells on federal lands that they are supposed to pay a royalty to have. They don't.

After filing a lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which protects and encourages whistleblowers, Maxwell lost his job.

It was called a "reorganization." However, the only one affected by this was Maxwell.

"I felt very strongly that the American taxpayers just had $10 million stolen out of their pocket," Maxwell tells NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa. "And that that needed to be remedied."

In the trial itself, Kerr-McGee's lawyers ducked the issue of not having paid the fees, but instead focused on how Maxwell would gain a small percentage of this if he won. They used numerous stall tactics and doubletalk. The jury took a total of two hours to find Kerr-McGee guilty. Kerr-McGee was fined $30 million ($10 million in back money owed plus $20 million in punative damages for knowingly doing this.) However, about two weeks later, the judge in the case, already working on another one, magically overruled the jury and found Kerr-McGee innocent. (Can you say coercion?) An appeal has been filed, along with a lawsuit under the whistleblower's protection act for Maxwell.

It's a crying shame that people think they can get away with anything just as long as they have the right connections. >_<

[Guest Yhitzak]

Word up, the whole of the article is cited in the post; don't bother waiting for it to load.

quamp, you seem to have information on this subject other than what was provided by the linked article; if you've a mind to share where that came from, please do. This article wasn't really remotely informative.

But you know... the crying shame isn't that people *think* they can get away with stuff because of their connections, it's a crying shame that they *can*. I've always wondered how to combat such blantantly wrong actions, but then it comes back to the question of how do you make people have integrity in the first place? Though I hate to keep coming back to this cheesy-ass statement, it still holds the most truth: change yourself and the world will change with you. Accountability (regardless of what for) in this country is a joke. This situation stands as yet another punchline.

[quamp]

That came from the video. I know it may take a while to download, but it's there.

You know, it's not like the US government couldn't use the money... to fight things like the national debt and fund their wonderful wars overseas...

[Guest echtrae]

Or maybe something a bit closer to home, like trying to keep schools and libraries open...just a thought.

[Guest Yhitzak]

Thanks, quamp. I'll check it out another day when I have a better connection. Dial-up blows total goats.

Yeah, the US government clearly needs more money. 'Cause, you know, they don't make enough off of the postal service (damned rate reallocation and increase is a freakin' crime), NASA, or any other civilian-run facilities. Not to mention the court system, all of its affiliates, the legalized bribery known as lobbying...the list is endless.

But again, how do you combat something that is as essentially ingrained in our social structure as the necessity to file law-suits?