Never ones to pass up a free hand out, Todd and Sarah Palin on list of claimants to Exxon Valdex spill fund.

"Look purse carrier, you better come up with some new ways we can get some cash, and I mean right now!"

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, are among 947 claimants qualified for a piece of about $1 million in remaining settlement funds from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in the waters of Prince William Sound. 

The Palins are claimants No. 655 and 656. How much of a claim they may be due is unknown. 

Their place on that list is colored by the former governor's assertions in the 2009 book "Going Rogue: An American Life" that her administration helped those impacted by one of the country's worst environmental disasters. 

In 2009, a lawyer for the Exxon Valdez plaintiffs told Reuters that the former governor's claims of aid were mostly "cockamamie bullshit." 

That lawyer, Dave Oesting, remains lead attorney for Exxon Valdez plaintiffs, and may soon find Palin among those claimants who come calling to collect.

You know there are people who really suffered, or lost their livelihoods completely, due to that spill. The Palins are not among those people.

The fact that this millionaire couple's name is on this list is indefensible.

It will ultimately not really be that muhc money, and it just reinforces what Alaskans have known about the mall along. They are NOTHING but lowlife grifters.

In Alaska nobody is surprised that BP's shoddy safety practices resulted in this mishap.

From the Alaska Dispatch:

Compared to the Gulf, the Alaska spills -- in March and August 2006 --were far smaller, occurred on land and were contained within days. Corroded pipelines have since been replaced, but three years later the consequences of the spills linger, spreading from northern Alaska to the halls of justice hundreds of miles away in Anchorage.

In fall 2007, BP pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and was hit with a $20 million fine and agreed to be placed on three years probation, with an option for early release if it demonstrated significant progress making improvements to its problem pipes and oversight programs. More than a year and half later, in March 2009, the feds went a step further and the Justice Department, acting on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, sued BP for a string of violations in connection with the spills.

At stake for BP are tens of millions of dollars in alleged federal violations -- fines sought in addition to those BP already agreed to pay in resolving its criminal case. The month before BP's guilty plea, an EPA investigation uncovered numerous problems with BP's operational practices at Prudhoe Bay, according to the Justice Department's complaint filed in Anchorage's federal court. In addition to leaking oil into the environment, the company failed to implement an acceptable spill-prevention and control plan and was delinquent in repairing pipelines it was under federal orders to fix, according to court filings.

It should come as a surprise to no one that BP is using it's vast legal department to fight this every step of the way.

The 20th Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster and the words of Shannyn Moore.

I sat down probably a half dozen times yesterday to write something about this painful anniversary, but found myself unable to put into the words all that it meant to the oil companies, the Alaskan fishermen, and the citizens of our state.

In some ways I felt like a fraud trying to write about something that I had not experienced directly in my life.

Sure I had watched the coverage and been angered by the devastation that I saw on my television screen, but essentially my life remained untouched by the oil that coated the rocky coast of Prince William Sound. Over the years I have met a handful of fishermen who talked bout how the court case was a joke and the oil companies were doing everything they could not to pay the people affected for their stupid mistake, and I recognized their anger and pain over that fact.

Still I did not know how to put that into words with any real depth of feeling.

Then I visited Shannyn's site today. And realized I did not have to.

Please click the header and read Shannyn's powerful words. I am sure that when you finish you will really understand how badly hurt Alaskan fishermen were by the negligence and indifference of the Exxon oil company, and why today their very name is used as a curse word by many of those who make their living on the seas.