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Sparsely Attended CPAC Ridiculed As 'Shell' What It Once Was

Sparsely Attended CPAC Ridiculed As 'Shell' What It Once Was

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — an annual summit of far-right activists, pundits and elected officials — used to be regarded as the beating heart of the conservative movement. However, one columnist recently said CPAC has now become a "joke" given its meager attendance.

According to Daily Beast senior columnist Matt Lewis, CPAC, which is hosted by the American Conservative Union in Washington, DC, has lost its luster as newer, hotter competitor conferences have emerged in recent years. Far-right group Turning Point USA, for example, attracted roughly 20,000 attendees for its "AmericaFest" event late last year. To further illustrate his point, Lewis linked to a tweet by 2024 CPAC attendee Steven Senski, who posted a photo of a sparsely attended CPAC forum featuring rows of mostly empty chairs.

"I've seen bigger Tupperware parties," Senski wrote.

2024 marked the 50th annual gathering for the American Conservative Union — which is led by far-right activist Matt Schlapp — yet the slim attendance numbers suggest that the summit no longer packs the punch it used to. This may be partially attributed to the sexual harassment allegations against Schlapp. In 2023, Carlton Huffman, an ex-staffer for former Georgia US Senate candidate Herschel Walker, accused Schlapp of grabbing his crotch and inviting him to his hotel room while he was visiting Atlanta. Huffman is seeking $9.4 million in damages for both alleged sexual battery and defamation.

"[J]ust as the Republican Party has become smaller (and weirder) in the Trump era, so too has the conservative movement," Lewis wrote. "Add all these things up, and CPAC is a shell of its former self. As Jimmy Kimmel put it, this year’s CPAC looks to be 'a who's who of who won’t accept the results of the election.' (Sadly, he was right.)"

Still, CPAC still played host this year to numerous high-profile Republicans who are seeking to become former President Donald Trump's running mate, assuming he wins the GOP's presidential nomination this summer. Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) spoke at this year's conference, along with Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R).

CPAC 2024 was also host to numerous election deniers. One booth featured a January 6-themed pinball machine that glorified disproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. CNN reported that the game "has seven different modes: 'Stop the Steal,' 'Fake News,' 'Peaceful Protest,' 'It's a Setup,' 'Babbitt Murder,' 'Have Faith' and 'Political Prisoners.' The conference ends today.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Shell Receives Final Approval To Drill In Arctic, But With New Conditions

Shell Receives Final Approval To Drill In Arctic, But With New Conditions

By William Yardley, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

SEATTLE — Royal Dutch Shell received final approval from the Obama administration Wednesday to begin exploratory drilling for oil in the Arctic this summer, but with new restrictions that will alter the company’s plans.

Shell, which has faced complications and challenges from environmentalists for years as it has pursued drilling in the Arctic, received initial government approval in May. Since then, it has deployed more than two dozen vessels to the drilling site in the Chukchi Sea, off the northwestern coast of Alaska.

The company could begin preparatory work as early as next week, but the new limitations will delay when it can drill in areas that contain oil. Wednesday’s decision also prevents Shell from its intended plan to drill in two areas at the same time.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is part of the Interior Department, issued the final permits. The bureau said Shell can initially drill only what are known as top holes, staying above oil-bearing areas, because a capping stack, a critical piece of safety equipment that is required to be nearby to help contain a potential spill, is on an icebreaking vessel that was forced to leave the area for repairs this month. The vessel, M/V Fennica, has a fracture in its hull and is to be repaired in Portland, Oregon.

The administration said Shell could submit a new application to drill into oil-bearing areas “if and when the M/V Fennica is capable of being deployed in the Chukchi Sea and Shell is able to satisfy the capping stack requirement.”

A spokeswoman for Shell, Kelly op de Weegh, said Wednesday the company expects to complete the repairs to the Fennica in time for it to return to the Arctic and drill for oil this summer. The company must be out of the area by the second half of September.

The last time Shell began exploratory work, in 2012, it was allowed to drill only top holes. That effort was plagued by problems, including the grounding of a drill rig, the Kulluk.

This year, Shell’s initial plan included drilling simultaneously in two parts of a section of the Chukchi known as the Burger Prospect. But the administration said Wednesday that the company can work in only one area at a time because the sites are within 15 miles of each other. Rigs working that close to one another create potential disruptions to protected walruses that live in the region.

The Chukchi is in the western Arctic Ocean, which is believed to hold more than 25 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Environmental groups have long cited the dangerous conditions of working in the remote Arctic, which is hundreds of miles from major cities and basic support services. They have said drilling for oil in the Arctic conflicts with the administration’s efforts to fight climate change.

Last week, in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, several groups said the problems with the Fennica and the 15-mile rule make it impossible for Shell to honor its environmental commitments under its drilling plan. They had called on the administration to deny final approval.

The groups were not pleased with Wednesday’s decision.

“The Department of the Interior has shown a willingness to bend rules and blur lines to accommodate Shell,” said Michael LeVine, a lawyer for Oceana. “We believe the permits approved today are unwise.”

Photo: Protesters at San Francisco’s Shell No rally get ready to take to the waters of the San Francisco Bay as a part of a national day of action to oppose Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic, July 18, 2015. Shell No via Flickr Credit: Peter W. Jackson

Arctic-Drilling Protesters Board Shell’s Oil Rig In Pacific

Arctic-Drilling Protesters Board Shell’s Oil Rig In Pacific

By James Paton, Bloomberg News (TNS)

SYDNEY — Arctic-drilling protesters from Greenpeace climbed aboard a Royal Dutch Shell Plc oil rig Monday as it was transported across the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii.

Six Greenpeace members approached the rig, the Polar Pioneer, in inflatable boats and scaled the platform, according to a statement from the group. The Transocean Ltd.-owned rig is traveling on the Blue Marlin vessel to Seattle before heading to the Chukchi Sea in the Alaskan Arctic, according to Greenpeace.

Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, has said it wants to resume drilling off Alaska this year even as a plunge in crude prices has led oil explorers to review their ambitions in Arctic regions, where operations are already challenged by high costs, environmental concerns, and technological obstacles.

Shell, which has spent six billion dollars searching for oil off Alaska in the past eight years, suspended drilling in 2012 after a rig ran aground and it faced legal challenges. The company could now resume operations after the U.S. government last week decided a lease sale in Alaska can go forward.

Shell said the Greenpeace protesters illegally boarded the rig, jeopardizing their safety as well as the crew’s. The company, based in The Hague, said it has met with critics of oil exploration off Alaska.

“We respect their views and value the dialogue,” Shell wrote in an e-mailed statement. “We will not, however, condone the illegal tactics employed by Greenpeace. Nor will we allow these stunts to distract from preparations under way to execute a safe and responsible exploration program.”

Shell faces opposition from environmental groups concerned that harsh conditions off Alaska make drilling unsafe. Greenpeace has in past years boarded rigs used by Statoil ASA in Norway’s Arctic and OAO Gazprom in Russia, arguing that a spill could cause irreparable damage.

Lower oil prices have already led oil companies to review Arctic plans as they tighten spending. Statoil in December relinquished three licenses off Greenland, and last month delayed the Johan Castberg development in Norway for a third time. It also said it won’t drill in the Barents Sea this year.

The Arctic accounts for more than 20 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources, including an estimated 134 billion barrels of crude and other liquids and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Photo: Greenpeace USA via Facebook

Shell Lawsuit Against Environmental Groups Ruled Unconstitutional

Shell Lawsuit Against Environmental Groups Ruled Unconstitutional

By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times (MCT)

SEATTLE — Two years ago, in a preemptive move, Shell sued a host of environmental and advocacy groups to prevent them from suing Shell over its plans to drill for oil in the Arctic.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court called Shell’s legal strategy “novel” and ruled it unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Shell could not sue environmental and Alaska Native advocacy groups on the chance that those organizations might challenge offshore drilling permits granted to the oil giant by the U.S. government.

“Shell may not file suit solely to determine who would prevail in a hypothetical suit between the environmental groups” and the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, one of several agencies overseeing offshore drilling, the panel wrote in its 12-page ruling.

Shell has spent more than $6 billion purchasing oil leases and pursuing exploration in Alaska’s environmentally sensitive Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

As part of the offshore drilling efforts, Shell was required to submit plans to the bureau detailing what the company would do in the event of an oil spill. The bureau approved Shell’s oil spill response plans in late 2011 and early 2012.

Arguing that 13 environmental and advocacy groups were certain to challenge those approvals, Shell filed three separate suits against them in federal court in Anchorage in 2012. Using the Declaratory Judgment Act, Shell wanted the court to rule that the government’s approvals of its spill response plans were legal.

On Wednesday, the three-judge panel ruled against the oil company in one of those three suits. A second suit was dismissed earlier. The third suit also was dismissed earlier, but that dismissal is under appeal.

“We believe this was a legitimate use of the Declaratory Judgment Act,” said Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell. “However, we respect the court’s ruling.”

Michael LeVine, Pacific senior counsel for Oceana, one of the groups sued by Shell, called the decision “good news for the oceans and for those of us who believe in the rule of law and our ability to speak out for what we believe in.”

“Shell’s waste of time, energy and money on these lawsuits further reinforces the problem with its Arctic Ocean exploration program,” he said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council was another of the organizations sued by Shell. Chuck Clusen, the group’s director of national parks and Alaska projects, said in a statement that the oil company was “attempting to quash dissent and circumvent due process” but failed.

“As multiple accidents have already shown, Shell’s drilling plans in the Arctic are severely flawed,” Clusen said. “Shell is not equipped to handle offshore drilling in some of the world’s most treacherous waters, and we’ll continue to do all we can to stop them from endangering the precious wildlife and local fishing economies that they’re putting at risk.”

Said Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, another defendant in the case: “Today David beat Goliath.”

Soon after its drilling rig ran aground on New Year’s Eve in 2012, Shell halted exploration plans for the following year. It withdrew drilling plans for 2014 after a federal court ruled that the government violated the law when it held Chukchi lease sale 193 in 2008. The company bought all of its leases in that sale.

Shell has submitted an expanded, multi-year drilling plan that it hopes to kick off in 2015. But the government cannot approve that plan until it completes the 193 lease sale process, which is expected in April.

Photo: Shell via Flickr