While the opposition is mulling possible legal action over Speaker Manzoor Nadir’s proposed amendments to Member of Parliament David Patterson’s motion on full liability coverage for ExxonMobil’s operations in Guyana, former Speaker Ralph Ramkarran has said that the Standing Orders do empower the Speaker to reject or proposed amendments to a motion.
Patterson, who is now the lead opposition spokesman on oil and gas, submitted a motion to the House in early February to call on the PPP/C government to reverse its decision to end negotiations with ExxonMobil affiliate Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd (EEPGL) to have its parent company provide unlimited liability insurance for possible oil spills.
Observers and environmentalists have been consistently calling on the government to demand full liability insurance from EEPGL’s parent company – ExxonMobil – since EEPGL is a limited liability company.
PNCR leader Aubrey Norton has indicated that his party would be pushing for legal action against the Speaker’s decision.
“First of all, the approach of the Speaker and the government, the approach is not new. They do everything to ensure that democracy is undermined and the position they took on that motion is clearly to degut it so that it is defective.
“One cannot talk about a resolution in this sense anymore because the real intent of it has been destroyed. But there will be consultations on the way forward. Remember, this is an APNU+AFC motion. But as a party, the PNC will be one that will be pushing in the direction of taking legal action on this matter. But like I said, it’s an APNU+AFC and I would prefer to engage and we arrive with a unified position on the matter and then give you a clear vision as to where are,” Norton said at his party’s weekly press conference on Tuesday.
He added that civil society should now be calling for the resignation of Nadir since he “virtually remov-ed it’s [the motion] efficacy.”
Patterson’s originally-worded motion argued that not only did the government end those negotiations but also failed to finalise a guarantee agreement mandating EEPGL’s parent company, ExxonMobil, to provide unlimited liability oil spill coverage from the Liza-2 oil field development.
“Be it Resolved that the Government recants its decision to cancel the process already established in 2017 for obtaining unlimited liability coverage by EEPGL’s parent companies – a process that was agreed upon by Exxon and made a condition of the Liza 2 Permit, and was close to being finalized when the PPPC took office in 2020,” the motion stated.
Additionally, it contended that EEPGL agreed to the urgent purchase of the maximum available private insurance prior to signing the Permit in 2019.
The agreement was reportedly made during the tenure of Dr Vincent Adams as the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to Adams, the companies were allowed time to review the unsigned guarantee agreement and decide on how they would cover the liability.
However, Patterson argues that when the PPP/C government entered into office, Adams was fired and the “almost finalised” agreement seems to have been set aside.
Instead, Patterson said the government chose to settle for a $2.5 billion coverage for Liza-2 and has plans to pursue an additional $2 billion for Exxon’s fourth major development project, Yellowtail – monetary value he sees as insufficient of covering the full cost of a major oil disaster such as the British Petroleum Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is said to have cost more than USD [$60] billion.
The Speaker reportedly disallowed 13 of the 20 whereas clauses in Patterson’s motion and proposed that it be amended before it can be deemed acceptable. However, Patterson has remained adamant that his motion is in perfect order and that Speaker Nadir’s proposed removal of the clauses weakens it.
However, during a brief conversation with Sunday Stabroek, former Speaker Ramkarran said that while he did not wish to comment on the Speaker’s execution of his duties, the Standing Orders empowers the Speaker to reject or propose amendments to motions.
“There are rules for motions in the Standing Orders…and the Speaker is empowered to reject motions. I don’t know how Speakers before me used to operate but what I used to do is if a motion is salvageable, I would instruct the Clerk to call in the MP and to show him/her what kind of amendment would become necessary for the motion to become acceptable.
“If the MP accepts the recommendation which he or she would do, we then accept the motion. If the MP does not accept the recommendation, we reject the motion. So the Speaker has the power to reject motion or suggest amendments,” Ramkarran explained.
He added that the Speaker cannot amend a motion submitted to him.
Observers have said that the length of Patterson’s motion is responsible for its gutting.
Standing Order 26 outlines the criteria for a motion to be deemed admissible to the Speaker. It states, among others, “…it shall satisfy the following conditions, namely:- (a) it shall raise substantially one definite issue; (b) it shall not contain ironical, unbecoming or offensive expressions or words that would not be permitted in debate; (c) it shall not contain the names of persons unless they are strictly necessary to render the motion intelligible; (d) it shall not refer to the conduct or character of persons except in their public capacity…”
Unilateral removal
Apart from suggesting the removal of clauses 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 of the motion, Speaker Nadir also suggested that Patterson amend an additional three clauses.
At a press conference on Thursday, Patterson said that the motion calling for full coverage insurance is the fourth in a series of oil and gas motions submitted to the parliament. The others addressed flaring, location of shore bases and review of the gas to shore to energy project.
“All four were severely diminished by the Speaker. One has not been debated, which is flaring. Another took over 80 days to be approved [and] that was the gas to shore project and on that occasion, when questioned on the removal of clauses, the Clerk on behalf of the Speaker responded stating that the Speaker is under no obligation to explain his actions,” Patterson said.
Patterson argued that the removed clauses were all factual and simple Google searches would confirm the facts. He pointed to the removal of the clause where it was stated that Guyana’s oil spill response plan is grossly inadequate and another which spoke about the increased risk of an oil spill owing to increased production offshore Guyana.
“Here the Speaker removed all clauses relating to the recent oil spill in Peru, obviously, meaning to say that that that oil spill in Peru may or may not have been factual. The Speaker has removed words such as economic bankruptcy in relation to the costs for cleaning up after an oil spill we had included in our motion, seeking to ensure that in the event of an oil spill and ensuing lawsuits that the country would not be bankrupt in dealing with it,” Patterson said.
He added since the PPP/C assumed government, it has removed, without explanation, several good governance mechanisms that were put in place to govern the oil and gas industry. He said that when the APNU+AFC was in power it mandated ExxonMobil and other operators to engage the Opposition (then PPP/C) regularly on its operations. Now, this has been removed according to Patterson.
“Our motions on the oil and gas sector should not be seen as anti-industry or give the mistaken impression that the Opposition is not supportive of our petroleum sector but as a last resort, [to] ensure that our concerns are raised and addressed hence, it completely diminishes our efforts when the Speaker unilaterally removes 80% of the clauses in a motion,” Patterson told reporters.
“We would like our motions to be a record of the position of the opposition. We would like to take our motions and forward them on to the international community…we would like these motions to be a record of all positions so that we can send it to the world so they can know these are the issues [that] the PPP voted down and voted in opposition to,” he added.
