When an individual damages or destroys someone else’s property, they are made to compensate those whom they have caused financial loss, according to our laws.

     When an individual causes people to die as a result of their actions, even if it occurs unintentionally, they are prosecuted for manslaughter or even murder.

     When an individual, by their actions, causes someone else to be damaged financially, they are made to pay compensation for those losses.

     When an individual, tortures, maims or kills pets, or animals or sea life, particularly those which are endangered, they can be heavily fined and even put in jail.

     But when an oil company, by its own decisions;

      takes shortcuts and cut costs by eliminating important safety equipment and procedures;

      destroys tens or even hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean and coastline;

      causes the deaths and injuries of people directly or indirectly;

      causes the livelihoods of millions of people to disappear overnight;

      and kills hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, turtles, dolphins and countless other fish and wildlife,

      Apologists say, “It was just an accident.  We shouldn’t hold them accountable.  We shouldn’t fine them at a time when they are spending money to clean up their mess.  We shouldn’t boycott a company that is worth over a hundred billion dollars in cash and worth even much more in oil leases, drilling platforms, equipment, distribution networks, and other related businesses.  Let’s make the U.S. Taxpayer BAIL THEM OUT!” (as the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Minority Leader Representative John Boehner supported until he got word that his constituents weren’t too happy with him for taking that position).

     That is obscene.  It is unconscionable.  It is beyond common decency that any person, any organization, or any politician or part of any government could attempt to justify for or give a free pass to a company, which has perpetrated the greatest environmental catastrophic disaster to hit the United States in its entire history, and which will continue for years, if not decades to come.

     This is wiping out not just businesses, but entire industries in the region, and taking jobs with them.

     This is destroying a huge part of our country, and the ecosystem which used to live in it.

      If people or our government representatives somehow believe that this isn’t the time to be punishing them, in addition to making them clean up their mess, than just WHEN WOULD BE the right time?  Do they have to destroy MORE to qualify?  Do they have to destroy MORE OFTEN to qualify?  Does the COST to our economy and our environment have to meet a higher threshold – before we say “enough is enough”, and put a stop to it?

      I say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – PUT A STOP TO IT – AND DO IT NOW!”     

      By the way, even when a company’s stock price tanks, it doesn’t mean that the company is without assets.  In BP’s case, they still have substantial cash assets, and leases, and oil reserves, and refineries, and a distribution network with franchisees, and other assets.

     When a company’s stock value goes down, the people hit the hardest are the Corporate Executives and the big financiers and investors who have the biggest blocks of stock.  These are also the people who were most responsible for electing or hiring their board of directors and corporate officers.  These are the people who SHOULD BE taking the BIGGEST FINANCIAL LOSSES, NOT THE VICTIMS.

     And maybe, just maybe, if the stock price goes down far enough, people, investors and businesses who are more responsible, will step in and end up owning the company and can make better decisions than the last bunch of owners did!

      For weeks, Republicans have been tripping over each other as they rush to defend BP. They've apologized to the oil giant, accused the President of a shakedown, and called for deregulation of the oil and gas industry. It's as if they've forgotten that they have a responsibility to the PEOPLE of the Gulf who've seen their lives and livelihoods upended by this tragedy.

      We've put together a site to help get the story out and show in a very pointed way exactly how Republicans are standing with BP. Will you check it out and share it with five friends?

     While the site we've created is a parody, this isn't a laughing matter. We need to make sure voters know who was standing with BP throughout this crisis, and we need your help to do it. We've built the site to make it easy to share with friends, email to family, or post to Facebook and Twitter.

     We want folks to know this wasn't just a gaffe or slip of the tongue -- this is how the Republicans would govern. Rep. Joe Barton apologized to BP and called the victim relief fund a "tragedy." Rep. Steve King agreed, and went on talk radio to say "I think Joe Barton was spot on." Rep. Michelle Bachman said that BP shouldn't agree to be "fleeced." Rand Paul -- the GOP nominee for Senate in Kentucky -- said that President Obama's efforts to hold BP accountable were "un-American." And Sharron Angle -- the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada -- even said her solution to the energy crisis was to "deregulate" big oil.

     You might think that a company responsible for the worst environmental disaster in American history wouldn't have many friends in Washington. But for BP, that's just not the case.

     We need to make sure that the American people know which side the GOP is on. Will you check out our new site and share it with five others?

    http://www.bprepublicans.com/

      Thanks,

      Brad

      Brad Woodhouse

      Communications Director

      Democratic National Committee

Stop BP from drilling in the Great Lakes

      06/04/2010     

    In the 46 days since the worst oil disaster in American history began, many Wisconsinites have wondered if such a catastrophe could ever happen on our Great Lakes.
 
Oil behemoths like BP have been pressuring politicians for years to allow oil drilling in the Great Lakes. Thanks to the outcry of support from people like you, we've been able to stop them by securing bans on Great Lakes drilling.
 
Shockingly, the tragedy in the Gulf Coast still hasn't stopped right-wing extremists from maneuvering to lift these bans.
 
Just last week, a prominent leader of the far right-wing Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan called on state and federal officials to lift the ban on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes -- even as the devastation to the environment and people's livelihood in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow. This is an organization with deep ties to right-wing organizations in Wisconsin and other Great Lakes states.
 
We must make sure Great Lakes drilling bans remain intact. Click here to join me in calling for the renewal of bans on drilling in the Great Lakes today .
 
Our Great Lakes are home to thousands of miles of pristine shoreline and fragile ecosystems that also provide good-paying jobs to tens of thousands of Americans. Fisheries and outdoor recreation alone account for over $40 billion in economic activity annually for states in the region.
 
That is why I have always stood strong against attempts to drill for oil and gas in the Great Lakes. In 2001, I supported a federal ban on Great Lakes drilling, and in 2007 I stood up to BP when they were caught dumping tons of toxic sludge into Lake Michigan.
 
Will you join me in standing up again by clicking here to sign our petition to renew the bans on drilling in the Great Lakes?
 
Every year Wisconsin families and businesses send $16 billion to other states and other countries for energy. As governor, I'll bring clean energy reform to Wisconsin, providing thousands of new good-paying jobs and reducing our dependence on big oil companies like BP and their reckless drilling projects.
 
In the meantime, we need to redouble our efforts to prevent future disasters like the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico by renewing the bans on Great Lakes drilling now .
 

     Robert Reich
Former Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley, May 31, 2010

      Why Obama Should Put BP Under Temporary Receivership

     It's time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP's operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public will know what's going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP's strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the president is ultimately in charge.

     If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and the auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP's north American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

     The Obama administration keeps saying BP is in charge because BP has the equipment and expertise necessary to do what's necessary. But under temporary receivership, BP would continue to have the equipment and expertise. The only difference: the firm would unambiguously be working in the public's interest. As it is now, BP continues to be responsible primarily to its shareholders, not to the American public. As a result, the public continues to worry that a private for-profit corporation is responsible for stopping a public tragedy.

     Five reasons for taking such action:  

    We are not getting the truth from BP. BP has continuously and dramatically understated size of gusher. In the last few days, BP chief Tony Hayward has tried to refute reports from scientists that vast amounts of oil from the spill are spreading underwater. Hayward says BP's sampling shows "no evidence" oil is massing and spreading underwater across the Gulf. Yet scientists from the University of South Florida, University of Georgia, University of Southern Mississippi and other institutions say they've detected vast amounts of underwater oil, including an area roughly 50 miles from the spill site and as deep as 400 feet.

     Government must be clearly in charge of getting all the facts, not waiting for what BP decides to disclose and when.

     We have no way to be sure BP is devoting enough resources to stopping the gusher. BP is now saying it has no immediate way to stop up the well until August, when a new "relief" well will reach the gushing well bore, enabling its engineers to install cement plugs. August? If government were in direct control of BP's north American assets, it would be able to devote whatever of those assets are necessary to stopping up the well right away.

     BP's new strategy for stopping the gusher is highly risky. It wants to sever the leaking pipe cleanly from atop the failed blowout preventer, and then install a new cap so the escaping oil can be pumped up to a ship on the surface. But scientists say that could result in an even bigger volume of oil -- as much as 20 percent more -- gushing from the well. At least under government receivership, public officials would be directly accountable for weighing the advantages and disadvantages of such a strategy. As of now, company officials are doing the weighing. Which brings us to the fourth argument for temporary receivership.

     Right now, the U.S. government has no authority to force BP to adopt a different strategy. Saturday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his team of scientists essentially halted BP's attempt to cap the spewing well with a process known as "top kill," which injected drilling mud and other materials to try to counter the upward pressure of the oil. Apparently the Administration team was worried that the technique would worsen the leak. But under what authority did the Administration act? It has none. Asked Sunday whether U.S. officials told BP to stop the top-kill attempt, Carol Browner, the White House environmental advisor, said, "We told them of our very, very grave concerns" about the danger. Expressing grave concerns is not enough. The President needs legal authority to order BP to protect the United States.

     The President is not legally in charge. As long as BP is not under the direct control of the government he has no direct line of authority, and responsibility is totally confused. For example, listen for the "we" and "they" pronouns that were used by Carol Browner in response to a question on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday (emphasis added): "We're now going to move into a situation where they're going to attempt to control the oil that's coming out, move it to a vessel, take it onshore ....We always knew that the relief well was the permanent way to close this .... Now we move to the third option, which is to contain it. If [the new cap on the relief well is] a snug fit, then there could be very, very little oil. If they're not able to get as snug a fit, then there could be more. We're going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst." When you get pronoun confusion like this, you can bet on confusion -- both inside the Administration and among the public. There is no good reason why "they" are in charge of an operation of which "we" are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

    The president should temporarily take over BP's Gulf operations. We have a national emergency on our hands. No president would allow a nuclear reactor owned by a private for-profit company to melt down in the United States while remaining under the direct control of that company. The meltdown in the Gulf is the environmental equivalent.

     This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org

     OSHA reports 760 egregious, willful safety violations against BP.  Reported on News Room Live CNN May 30, 2010

     $5.6 - $6.1 Billion profits reported by BP for the first quarter of 2010, or $67 Million per day for the 1^st quarter of 2010.

      $930 million costs for oil spill as of Friday May 28, 2010.  This is only about 14 days of profit for BP.

      BP’s stock down nearly 30% since the rig explosion.

     26,000 claims for lost income.  $35 million paid so far.  (BP is shopping for a judge to throw all of the claims into one case in front of one judge, including all of the claims which have already been paid out.  If BP wins, they could have the original claims reversed.  The judge they are looking to have hear their case is a frequent guest to the oil producer’s conventions.  He isn’t paid for his appearances (supposedly), but all of his expenses are picked up by the oil industry.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38176034/ns/technology_and_science-science

Dead zone in Gulf linked to oil

Animals that can swim have fled; other smaller creatures have perished

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/7002/bigoilbailouts?code=dfa

     America's richest oil companies are shaking you down.

While reaping the largest corporate profits in history, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other Big Oil companies have shaken more than $35 billion in special subsidies and

      tax breaks out of the U.S. taxpayer. Then, when Big Oil dumps millions of gallons of oil into our oceans and waterways, they leave us with the cleanup bill.

BP and other Big Oil companies have been getting government hand-outs that fleece billions from taxpayers every year.

   ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in American history, avoided paying ANY income

taxes to the Federal Government last year and then pocketed an additional $46 million from the IRS.

Surprised? We were.

Enough is enough. It's time to end federal subsidies and tax breaks to BP and other Big Oil companies. Instead of subsidizing the most profitable

dirty fuel companies on the planet, we could be supporting new startups that specialize in clean and green energy. We can break our addiction to

oil, create green jobs and make sure disasters like the one in the Gulf of Mexico never happen again.

But we need your support to make sure our leaders follow through.

Sign now to tell Congress and candidates for office nationwide to stop the shakedown, and stop taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil and all the other

Dirty Fuels.

Use this page to tell your friends to end big oil bailouts.

I can't believe our government just gave Big Oil (includes BP) $35 billion in tax breaks! Sign this growing petition to help get them repealed.

http://bit.ly/9LpuZZ

OMG! We just gave $35 billion in tax breaks 2Big Oil, inclu #BP. Help get them repealed now! http://bit.ly/9LpuZZ #p2 #oilspill

http://www.stopbigoilbailouts.com/

Map: Gulf oil spill trajectory

Want to see what the Gulf Oil Spill would look like if it was dumped on Milwaukee?

   Yup, that's right, it would cover half of Wisconsin, half of Lake Michigan, and one forth of Michigan.  If you want to see what it would look like in other regions, go to www.ifitwasmyhome.com and plug in another city.  And this is based on conditions on June 27, 2010.  IT IS STILL EXPANDING. A week and a half ago, it was covering 60,000 square miles.  Earlier that same week, it covered 29,000 square miles.

   This is the size of the oil spill as of July 8, 2010.  The BP oil spill is now covering over 81,000 square miles.

   The following piece has got nothing to do with "politics" per se, and everything to do with simple common sense.  It asks everyone to consider what risks we are willing to allow corporations to take, in making as much money as they possibly can, while risking the lives, safety and security of not only the people who work for them, but for everyone who lives in an area hundreds of thousands of square miles around.  How many people will have to die, before intelligent people are willing to stand up against this madness and put a stop to it?

    CRITICAL BREAKING NEWS

17 June 2010 - Helium.com - Terrence Aym
How the BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico

by Terrence Aym

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico ­something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

The same methane that makes coal mining operations hazardous and leads to horrendous mining accidents deep under the earth also can present a high level of danger to certain oil exploration ventures.

Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas ­compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)­could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.

According to some geological experts, BP's operations set into motion a series of events that may be irreversible. Step-by-step the drilling team committed one error after another.

Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-CA, and Bart Stupak, D-MI, in a letter sent to BP CEO Tony Hayward, identified 5 missteps made by BP during the period culminating with the explosion.

Waxman, chair of the Congressional energy panel and Stupak, the head of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said, "The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety."

The two Representatives also stated in the 14-page letter to Hayward that "Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense."

Called by some insiders investigating the ongoing disaster a "perfect storm of catastrophe," the wellhead blew on the sea floor catapulting a stream of mud, oil and gas upwards at the speed of sound.

In describing the events ­that transpired in a matter of seconds ­they note that immediately following the rupture the borehole pipe's casing blew away exposing a straight line 8 miles deep for the pressurized gas to escape. The result was cavitation, an irregular pressure variance sometimes experienced by deep diving vessels such as nuclear submarines. This cavitation created a supersonic bubble of explosive methane gas that resulted in a supersonic explosion killing 11 men and completely annihilating the drilling platform.

Death from the depths

With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.

As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.

The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock ­layer after layer­ past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.

The burgeoning methane gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour.

While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 150 to 200 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 100 feet above sea level with much of the coastline and lowlands and swamps near zero elevation. [Elevation map] A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia, states with no Gulf coastline ­would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Loss of property is virtually incalculable and the days of the US position as the world's superpower would be literally gone in a flash...of detonating methane.

Links

Evidence that methane gas catastrophe may be building

Video #1: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=xMEr4FctWAM&feature=player_ embedded #!

Video #2: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=xMEr4FctWAM&feature=player_ embedded #!   

There are currently, over 250 "burns" going on, on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, in an effort to get rid of the spilled oil and methane which has already reached the surface.  THEY ARE BURNING THE OCEAN.  What do you think would happen, if a giant Methane gas bubble suddenly surfaced and hit one of those "burns"?

   By itself, BP has managed to cause the worst economic and environmental disaster upon us, more than bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and all other terrorist groups could have ever hoped to accomplish COMBINED!

    So, how does the Republican "Drill, Baby, Drill" philosophy sound now?

    Sound more like "Spill, Baby, Spill"?

    Most corporations won't do anything until they have a financial incentive or disincentive to do so.

    Two refineries owned by oil giant BP account for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows. Most of BP's citations were classified as "egregious willful" by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and reflect alleged violations of a rule designed to prevent catastrophic events at refineries.
 

    BP accounted for 829 of the 851 willful violations among all refiners cited by OSHA during the period analyzed by the Center.

   BP is also the most heavily fined energy company in the United States. 

    BP was one of Mother Jones’s 10 Worst Companies of 2005.  

    “Nationwide, BP’s facilities have had more than 3,565 accidents since 1990, ranking first in the nation, according to a 2004 report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG).”  (That was from 2004.)

   BP had $740 MILLION in fines over the last ten years for thousands of OSHA violations, (including an over $353 million fine for price fixing, and $373 million in fines over the last 5 years alone to avoid prosecution).  Obviously, almost 3/4s of a BILLION in losses didn't have any effect in their behavior.  That is why the DPW just passed a resolution supporting a BOYCOTT of BP.      

   BP posted profits of $6.1 Billion for the first quarter of 2010, or $67 million per DAY.  (It is also reported that Transocean made a whopping $270 million profit on their over-insured drilling rig. In addition to its operation of the Deepwater Horizons drilling rig, it operates 15 other rigs in the Gulf, yet has managed to avoid paying a single royalty to U.S. taxpayers!)

   Piggly Wiggly has a "pig points" program which gives you a few pennies off each gallon of gas you buy, but requires you to redeem those points with BP stations.  You might want to let them know what you think about their program.  Ask them to change it, and work with a different oil company.  You can contact them at  http://www.shopthepig.com/forms/contact.php .

   Independent gas station operators are just that, INDEPENDENT.  If they don't like the flak that BP is getting (and they are getting for associating with BP), they can and should switch over to A DIFFERENT OIL COMPANY.  If your favorite restaurant continued to sell e-coli contaminated meat from a favored supplier, would you continue to do business with them? 

I pledge to buy my gas from anyone but British Petroleum until the spill is stopped and the disaster is cleaned-up.

ADD YOUR NAME NOW

The oil catastrophe caused by British Petroleum in the Gulf isn't even close to being cleaned up. And BP continues to not allow anyone other than themselves the access to fully investigate the extent of the problems. Why? Because, it's likely the smaller the official estimates, the lower BP's liability could be when it comes time to pay for the clean up.

Clearly, BP's bottom line is more important to them then cleaning up the damage they've caused. Enough is enough. It's time to speak to them in a language BP will understand.

Pledge to buy your gas from anyone but BP until the disaster is cleaned-up. These brands are a part of the BP network.

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PLEDGE NOW -- AND WE'LL RUSH YOU A FREE "BOYCOTT BP" BUMPER STICKER RIGHT AWAY

     If this link doesn't work, go to www.anyonebutbp.com   

    If anyone who believes that the deep drilling moratorium which President Obama enacted, and which the New Orleans Federal Judge, (who is owned by the Oil Industry), struck down, is actually shutting down all oil production or taking away income from oil workers, here are the facts:

   The deep drilling moratorium only affects deep drilling rigs which are in deep water and currently drilling.  That is only 33 out of the 3,600 wells in the Gulf region affected by the moratorium.

    In addition, those well workers who lose their jobs under the moratorium, will continue to be paid under the $20 Billion BP escrow agreement, which has $100 million set aside specifically to pay for those wages. 

While some Republicans are claiming that Obama’s action to form a contract with BP that puts $20 Billion into an escrow account (so that those who have suffered financially from the Gulf oil spill actually have access to funds so that they can survive this catastrophe - $100 million alone is set aside to pay for oil workers wages as a result of the drilling moratorium – so the moratorium isn’t “kicking oil workers when they’re down” either), is some kind of “shakedown”, here’s some facts to help put things into perspective:

The Exxon Valdez disaster took place in 1990, and some of the claims against the company for damages, weren’t settled until 2008, 18 years later.  Most of the amounts provided to those damaged didn’t amount to much, in comparison to what people lost.  And the fishing still hasn’t returned to normal.  Entire villages have been destroyed because of the lost income and their lost way of life, which still hasn’t returned.

The Bhopal, India disaster, where a valve which was stuck open and didn’t have an automatic backup to shut it down, resulted in a leak of cyanide gas which caused the deaths of 4,000 people in a nearby village.  That was 21 years ago.  A verdict was announced only within the last week.  Seven of the top executives of Union Carbide held responsible for the disaster were each given 2 years in prison. 

Financial damages which were awarded, to those who were still alive for the verdicts, amounted to nothing in comparison to the cost, effort and time expended over the last 21 years trying to get reparations.

The only way to keep these claims out of the courts for DECADES, and to make sure that they pay for the damages NOW, so that those who have been injured can pick up their lives and start again with even a minimal amount of restitution for starters, without the victims getting screwed over by the attorneys and the courts, was to take the action which he did take.

This wasn’t one sided.  The law requires that BP take responsibility for and pay for all damages.  What this action did, was to make a contract to insure that payments to the victims would start immediately, rather than be tied up in the courts and go through the appeals process for the next several decades.  And, in order to make sure that BP will live up to its obligations, the U.S. Government put a lien on their assets in the Gulf to make sure that the money would be there to pay those damaged, even if BP should go bankrupt (which is highly unlikely, given the size of their company).  And even if BP should go bankrupt, there are other companies which hold financial interests in the building and operation of the Deepwater Horizon rig.  So, BP can go after THEM to get them to pay for part of the damages, a course which BP is already pursuing.

If anything, this action makes sure that the money that BP has is going towards clean up and reparations to those who were affected, rather than going to high priced attorneys.  (You’d think that that would make Republicans happy.  They are always upset about the costs of lawsuits and demanding tort reform.)

http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-has-been-fined-by-osha-760-times-has-an-awful-track-record-for-safety-2010-6

BP has long had the reputation of taking unnecessary chances to get higher profits at the expense of safety and environmental concerns.  The have been cited 760 times over the last five years for OSHA violations, (in contrast, Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had eight, Citgo had 2, and EXXON has only had one), and has paid $740 million in fines over the last ten years ($353 Million was for price fixing of propane).  Obviously, the fines they paid weren’t enough to provide motivation for them to comply with the rules and regulations, and insure that safety and environmental concerns were more than just an after thought or lip service.

Over the last three years alone, BP Refineries in Ohio and Texas have been responsible for 97% of all of the “egregious, willful” violations handed out by OSHA.   

A quick Google search shows you the extent to which BP blew off their responsibilities.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SNNT_enUS334US357&q=BP+history+of+accidents%2c+negligence+and+fines

BP was one of Mother Jones’s 10 Worst Companies of 2005.

“Nationwide, BP’s facilities have had more than 3,565 accidents since 1990, ranking first in the nation, according to a 2004 report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG).”

http://www.recreatingtampa.com/2010/05/03/politics-monday-bps-history-of-criminal-negligence/

In March 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a tower at BP’s refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring 170 others. Investigators later determined that the company had ignored its own protocols on operating the tower, which was filled with gasoline, and that a warning system had been disabled.

The company pleaded guilty to federal felony charges and was fined more than $50 million by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (Actually, it was more than $87 million, a record fine at the time.)

(Legal actions filed in connection with the Texas Oil Refinery explosion ended up costing BP $1 Billion in claims.)

Almost a year after the refinery explosion, technicians discovered that some 4,800 barrels of oil had spread into the Alaskan snow through a tiny hole in the company’s pipeline in Prudhoe Bay. BP had been warned to check the pipeline in 2002, but hadn’t, according to a report in Fortune. When it did inspect it, four years later, it found that a six-mile length of pipeline was corroded. The company temporarily shut down its operations in Prudhoe Bay, causing one of the largest disruptions in U.S. oil supply in recent history.

BP faced $12 million in fines for a misdemeanor violation of the federal Water Pollution Control Act. A congressional committee determined that BP had ignored opportunities to prevent the spill and that “draconian” cost-saving measures had led to shortcuts in its operation.

(BP had also stopped using devices called “pigs” to clean and inspect the pipes for corrosion as a cost cutting measure.)

Other problems followed. There were more spills in Alaska. And BP was charged with manipulating the market price of propane. In that case, it settled with the U.S. Department of Justice and agreed to pay more than $300 million in fines.

Families of workers who died in the accident have already filed lawsuits accusing BP of negligence. Congress, as well as the Minerals and Management Service, the federal agency that regulates drilling in the Gulf, were already separately investigating allegations that BP has failed to keep proper documents about how to perform an emergency shutdown of the Atlantis, another Gulf oil platform and one of the largest in the world.

There are also indications that BP and Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that burned and sank, could have used backup safety gear — a remote acoustic switch that would stanch the flow of oil from a leaking well 5,000 feet underwater — to prevent the massive spill now floating like a slow-motion train wreck toward the Mississippi and Louisiana coastline. The switch isn’t required under U.S. law, but is well-known in the industry and mandated in other parts of the world where BP operates.

In the year before the accident, BP once again aggressively cut costs. A reorganization stripped 5,000 jobs from its payroll, saving BP more than $4 billion in operating costs, according to a report sent to ProPublica by Fadel Gheit, an investment analyst for Oppenheimer.

On April 27, as the U.S. Coast Guard worked with BP engineers to guide remote control submarines nearly a mile underwater in a futile effort to close a shut-off valve, BP told investors that its quarterly earnings were up more than 100 percent over the last year, beating expectations by a large margin. After underperforming its competition throughout the last decade, Gheit wrote, BP was the only major oil company to perform better than the S&P 500 last year.

Write to Abrahm Lustgarten at Abrahm.Lustgarten@propublica.org.

http://industry.bnet.com/energy/10004340/bps-history-of-oil-spills-and-accidents-same-strategy-different-day/

More close calls

BP avoided any major accidents since Texas City and Prudhoe Bay, until now. However, concerns over safety persist. Three BP gas and oil pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope clogged or ruptured  between September 2008 and November 2009, according to a letter sent two congressmen and obtained by Propublica. The letter also describes other near misses, including the failure of equipment meant to prevent gas buildups and an improperly installed warning system for workers.

BP had another spill in December 2009 when a pipeline broke from its well housing during an inspection. The spill was tiny in comparison to previous incidents, but still left six acres of Alaskan tundra contaminated.

The Feds are now launching a criminal probe into BP’s spill in the Gulf, and BP could face $4.6 Billion in civil penalties for Clean Water Act violations alone, with a total of $63 Billion according to the New York Times and a CBS report on June 17, 2010.

As it is, the costs continue to escalate as the oil continues to pour into the Gulf.  Some are estimating that the cost of damages and rebuilding are approaching $70 Billion.  There is no cap to the damages that BP is expected to pay.  $20 Billion is nothing but a down payment.

And for those who blame Obama for this oil spill, here’s something to think about as well:

It wasn’t his oil pipeline,

The hole, he did not drill.

He did not write the waiver,

Which allowed BP to spill.

But when BP blew up its well,

Just See Who Catches Hell!