BP: Billionaire Polluter
Less than a week after British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and unleashing what could be the worst industrial environmental disaster in U.S. history, the company announced more than $6 billion in profits for the first quarter of 2010, more than doubling profits from the same period the year before. Oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz notes: “BP is one of the most powerful corporations operating in the United States. Its 2009 revenues of $327 billion are enough to rank BP as the third-largest corporation in the country. It spends aggressively to influence U.S. policy and regulatory oversight.” The power and wealth that BP and other oil giants wield are almost without parallel in the world, and pose a threat to the lives of workers, to the environment and to our prospects for democracy.
Sixty years ago, BP was called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (AIOC). A popular, progressive, elected Iranian government had asked the AIOC, a largely British-owned monopoly, to share more of its profits from Iranian oil with the people of Iran. The AIOC refused, so Iran nationalized its oil industry. That didn’t sit well with the U.S., so the CIA organized a coup d’é tat against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. After he was deposed, the AIOC, renamed British Petroleum, got a large part of its monopoly back, and the Iranians got the brutal Shah of Iran imposed upon them, planting the seeds of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the subsequent hostage crisis and the political turmoil that besets Iran to this day.
In 2000, British Petroleum rebranded itself as BP, adopting a flowery green-and-yellow logo, and began besieging the U.S. public with an advertising campaign claiming it was moving “beyond petroleum.” BP’s aggressive growth, outrageous profit and track record of petroleum-related disasters paint a much different picture, however. In 2005, BP’s Texas City refinery exploded, killing 15 people and injuring 170. In 2006, a BP pipeline in Alaska leaked 200,000 gallons of crude oil, causing what the Environmental Protection Agency calls “the largest spill that ever occurred on the [Alaskan] North Slope.” BP was fined $60 million for the two disasters. Then, in 2009, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined BP an additional $87 million for the refinery blast. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said: “BP has allowed hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated. … Workplace safety is more than a slogan. It’s the law.” BP responded by formally contesting all of OSHA’s charges.
President Barack Obama said of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, “Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill.” Riki Ott is not so sure. She is a marine toxicologist and former “fisherma’am” from Alaska, and was one of the first people to respond to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster. Exxon deployed an army of lawyers to delay and defeat the legal claims of the people who were physically and/or financially harmed by the Valdez spill. “What we know is that the industry does everything it can to limit its liability,” she told me.
The (Mobile, Ala.) Press-Register reported that Alabama Attorney General Troy King told BP to “stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians.” Apparently, BP was requiring owners of fishing boats seeking work mitigating the spill to waive any and all rights to sue BP in the future. Despite a BP spokesperson’s pledge that the waivers would not be enforced, the news report stated, “King said late Sunday that he was still concerned that people would lose their right to sue by accepting settlements from BP of up to $5,000.”
Even if BP doesn’t trick victims into signing away the right to sue, the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, while requiring polluters to pay the actual hard costs of the cleanup, caps the additional financial liability of a spill at just $75 million. Given that millions of people will be impacted by the spill, by the loss of fisheries and tourism, and by the cascade of impacts on related industries, $75 million is small change.
That is why Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., introduced a bill to raise the economic-damages liability cap to $10 billion, calling the bill the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act. Riki Ott is touring New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, educating people about the toxic effects of the spill, and helping them prepare for the long fight ahead to hold BP accountable.
BP will surely continue its dirty practices, fighting accountability in the courts, in the press and on the oil-drenched beaches.
BP: be prepared.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Source: Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
© 2010 Amy Goodman
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the government would certainly push hard to assure BP paid for businesses and individuals for lost income with the oil spill.
That CEO of BP must resign at once. That remark about “wanting his life back” is inexcusable.
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They must cut free the failed bop tower to gain access to the 22 inch riser. The riser can easily be plugged using inflateable plug inflated with the heavy mud.
The only reason they have not done this yet is they actually believe they could still save this well for future production. BP does not care about the US or the gulf.
If they did they would never have operated this Rig in such an unsafe manner or state. As has been well documented buy all published accounts of the survivors.
The company officials should be charged with premeditated crimes. They clearly chose to operate the well knowing the Bop was in a damaged and failed state.
Everything that has published and testified too to date is well documented and clearly shows the BP operated this rig in an unsafe state. System safety analysis of these operation will clearly identify first a poorly designed system without fail safe design aspects, and second poorly maintained operationing procedures that allowed this well to continue operation without a fully operational EDS .
This company is clearly out of control and the
American People will be let holding the bag again by another foreign owned company who pays practically no federal income tax yet draggs billions of dollars out of our economy every year.
Seems to me we should nationalize this company in our territory until it is brought back in line. Get it out of washington and we will get what is ours instead of what we have coming to us for being so stupid.
The economy is so bad, a picture is only worth 200 words these days…lol we can still afford to laugh a little, right?
I can’t believe there are still mixed reports on whether BP’s top kill technique is to be blamed for this.
I’m so glad that BP is now beginning to get the spill under control.
Article from Las Vegas Review Journal:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/exxon-valdez-oil-risks-spur-warning-for-gulf-cleanup-crews-93258964.html
The workers who are cleaning up the oil in the Gulf need to be aware of the chemicals that will be used for the cleaning. Oil companies do not care about human health issues that arise from their toxic chemicals. I am one of the 11,000+ cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, who is suffering from health issues from that toxic cleanup, without compensation from Exxon.
There is an on going lawsuit with VECO’s insurance company, the company Exxon contracted for hiring employees. Please read my article below for more information.
The Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Leaves Exxon’s Collateral Damaged
My name is Merle Savage; a female general foreman during the EVOS beach cleanup in 1989, which turned into 20 years of extensive health deterioration for me and many other workers. Dr. Riki Ott visited me in 2007 to explain about the toxic spraying on the beaches. She also informed me that Exxon’s medical records and the reports that surfaced in litigation brought by sick workers in 1994, had been sealed from the public, making it impossible to hold Exxon responsible for their actions. http://www.rikiott.com
Dr. Riki Ott has devoted her life to taking control from corporations and giving it back to We The People. If corporations continue to control our legal system, then We The People become victims. http://www.MovetoAmend.org
Dr. Riki Ott has written two books; Sound Truth & Corporate Myth$ and Not One Drop. Dr. Ott has investigated and studied the oil spill spraying, and quotes numerous reports in her books, on the toxic chemicals that were used during the 1989 Prince William Sound oily beach cleanup. Black Wave the Film is based on Not One Drop, with interviews of EVOS victims; my interview was featured in the section; Like a War Zone.
http://www.blackwavethefilm.com
Exxon developed the toxic spraying; OSHA, the Coast Guard, and the state of Alaska authorized the procedure; VECO and other Exxon contractors implemented it. Beach crews breathed in crude oil that splashed off the rocks and into the air — the toxic exposure turned into chronic breathing conditions and central nervous system problems, along with other massive health issues. Some of the illnesses include neurological impairment, chronic respiratory disease, leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, liver damage, and blood disease.
Please view the 7 minute video that validates my accusations.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5632208859935499100
My web site is devoted to searching for EVOS cleanup workers who were exposed to the toxic spraying, and are suffering from the same illnesses that I have. Our summer employment turned into a death sentence for many — and a life of unending medical conditions for the rest of us.
http://www.silenceinthesound.com/stories.shtml
http://www.silenceinthesound.com/gallery.shtml