I often stop at a gas station/convenience store near Breezewood PA for their chicken tenders and potato wedges. Sometimes I buy gas, too. After the Macondo blowout and Deepwater Horizon spill, they covered up their BP signs with Shell tarps. They eventually got permanent signage, but I wonder what sign will go up next.

Shell’s Lawsuit Against Environmental Organizations Invites Disaster

Shell is suing 12 environmental organizations to preempt legal challenges to exploration in the Arctic Ocean. The environmental groups include, among others, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Audubon Society, Oceana ... and the Sierra Club. Crazy isn’t it, Shell, a $378 billion company, attacking the National Audubon Society? It’s a bully image that can only hurt, and Shell should know better because it’s happened to them over and over again.

Legal Strategy Taken by Shell Is Rarely Successful

“We just got the spill plan and are reviewing it,” said Whit Sheard, a lawyer for Oceana, one of the environmental groups named in the Shell lawsuit. “It’s based on technology that doesn’t exist and on faith that a spill won’t happen. What we’ve seen in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, of course, is that spills do happen.”

Mr. Sheard said that Oceana and the other groups reserved the right to challenge the plan in court and would use every weapon at their disposal to ensure that drilling, if it ever takes place, is conducted in the safest possible way. He called Shell’s novel legal maneuver “frivolous.”

“It’s very unusual,” Mr. Sheard said. “I’d suggest it’s either desperate or abusive in terms of the American legal process. It’s not likely to prevail.”