Gulf oil spill: Senators call for criminal, civil charges against BP

[IScreamSundays]

Source: LA Times

Gulf oil spill: Senators call for criminal, civil charges against BP
May 17, 2010 | 3:36 pm
Eight senators urged U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric J. Holder on Monday to open up an inquiry of oil giant BP in connection with the April 20 well blowout that has been pouring an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude daily into the Gulf of Mexico.
The senators -- seven Democrats, including California's Barbara Boxer, and one independent -- asked Holder to examine whether BP "made false and misleading statements to the federal government regarding its ability to respond to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico."

The letter comes on the heels of last week's congressional hearings in which executives for the companies involved in the disaster were grilled by separate panels.

The letter noted that BP's exploration plan had assured the Minerals Management Service that an unanticipated blowout and spill "is unlikely to have an impact , based on the industrywide standards for using proven equipment and technology for such responses."

snip>

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-senators-call-for-criminal-civil-charges-against-bp.html

[drm604]

1. K&R

I have little hope of criminal charges but at least someone's making an effort. An example needs to be made.

They told the MMS that there were proven equipment and technologies to handle such an event, then when such an event actually occurs suddenly they say that there's no proven way to handle such a thing. Surely that kind of behavior is actionable in some way when the stakes are so high.

[saigon68]

44. Its just "Boat Smoke" for the rustics

nothing will come of this

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. LOL!

The train has already left the station.

You can safely bet your very last dollar that anyone going to the slammer will be an underling/sacrificial lamb. In cases like this, the buck will stop dozens of times before it remotely gets to the people truly responsible for the decisions that led to this situation.

[salazarmms]

35. Jail the Queen

[dipsydoodle]

38. Nope

If it came to that jail would be for all of the shareholders and 39% of BP's shares are US owned.

[axollot]

43. LAME.

[rambler_american]

65. Blame will be assigned

to one or more of the eleven who died in the explosion. End of story.

[Scuba]

3. Indictments. Siezure of assets. That would be a good start.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. My absolute opposition to the death penalty only applies to human beings.

I have no problem applying the death penalty to corporations.

BP no longer deserves to live.




Tansy Gold

[Politicub]

11. Agree

Right there with you!

[salguine]

23. But according to the Supreme Court, BP is a person now.

[Tansy_Gold]

26. BP may be legally termed a "person," but it is not a human being. n/t

[salazarmms]

33. BP claims to have “turned the corner” in battle against oil

Trying to lull people into a false sense of security is a crime!
http://www.landofthemarvelous.com/bp-claims-to-have-turned-the-corner-in-battle-against-oil/

Many people are not taking this seriously here in Southeast Florida.

[axollot]

45. Many people arent taking it seriously period. I'm in N. FL

I've been bitching since this started. And the UK will end up with this oil on THEIR COASTS TOO because we know it's entered into the Gulf Current. Everyone is going to get a piece of this, not simply Gulf States. Our entire fishing industry is in jeopardy. And that little weasel of a man that is CEO of BP in London recently said "this leak is relatively tiny". That's the bastard that needs to be taken down - start with his head and work on down rather than up from the bottom ranks.

Cheers
Sandy

[byrok]

51. I'm on the East coast ( Central Florida )...

and I'm scared shitless of this. Not just because I believe it's going to end up on our beach, but because of the destruction that is going to happen before it even reaches here. The destruction that it is doing right now is mostly being hidden from the public. This is a damn tragedy, and a bit frightening too. I agree with you Sandy, many people definitely are not taking this seriously enough.

[lark]

69. Hi, where in N. FL are you?

My name is Sandra too and I live in Jacksonville. Glad to see another N. FL. lib is alive and kicking on the board.

[lark]

68. With the news that tar balls washed up on the beach in the Keys

All Floridians better wake up to the fact that we are so very f**ked by this. I cried with grief for the reefs when I heard this. They are irreplaceable and probably now gone forever. I can't stand it!! BP is a terrorist and needs to have all it's top officials arrested with indefinite incarceration and maybe even rendition. That's what they'd do to a person and SCOTUS says corps are people, so jail away.

[JerseygirlCT]

5. Until and unless the boards and leadership of these companies

are held personally responsible for these things, "mistakes" will continue to be made.

I imagine if they're facing jail time when they decide whether to cut corners, we'd have a whole lot more corners around.

[closeupready]

19. For better or worse, that's the whole point of forming a corporation - to reduce

personal liability for stuff that happens.

[JerseygirlCT]

73. I know

I'm just saying that until motivation gets really personal, we're going to see crimes committed under cover of "corporation".

How we fix that, I don't know.

[axollot]

46. Exactly. n/t

[guitar man]

6. Good

Now let's get on with it, let's see them in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits. :grr:

[jfkraus]

7. Yes! Go after them personally!

Put their stinking greedy asses in jail and confiscate their personal fortunes to pay for the cleanup! A person can go to prison for have 1 pound of weed, but these creeps get off!? No fucking way!

[salazarmms]

34. 1 pound?

That is what the 8" tar ball in the Keys weighed.

[polichick]

8. Great! nt

[Bragi]

9. Wait a minute. Think this through

Did individuals in this matter deliberately break criminal laws so as to cause harm to society and to people and to the environment, all for their own profit?

No it isn't what happened. What happened is that laws are so fucked up, politicians are so bought and paid for, and the public is more than happy to pretend that oil can be extracted safely from deep in the ocean without eventually fouling the waters and adjacent shorelines.

What we have here is an environmental catastrophe caused by idiocy on a society-wide level. The parasitical people who profit from this stupidity are not criminals, they are sociopathological opportunists, operating within the the law.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. the point of making criminal charges is that yes, there is at least

some suspicion that existing laws, however fucked up and pro-business, pro-corporation they may be, were still broken.

If there were specific laws on the books governing the appropriate safety measures and BP or their subcontractors broke those laws, then they should be held accountable.

We may as a society be addicted to cheap oil, and we may share in the blame because of our addiction, but that is an entirely different matter.

It may, in fact, turn out that neither BP or Transocean nor Halliburton broke any laws and in that case we can all just suck it up, pun sadly intended.

But there apparently is enough evidence of law breaking that some people are willing to go ahead with criminal charges.



Tansy Gold

[Bragi]

41. Tansy_Gold wrote:

there is at least some suspicion that existing laws, however fucked up and pro-business, pro-corporation they may be, were still broken.

This criminal investigation will be a waste of time because it will result in no prosecutions, let alone any convictions.

The real criminals are the people who voted to allow dangerous ultra-deep-sea oil extraction without even pretending to put in place any serious regulation of this activity.

If I was in the oil industry, I would totally support this bogus criminal prosecution because a) it is harmless and won't result in a conviction, and b) it actually reinforces the fiction that the right laws are in place, but "bad people" did not follow the law.

The reality is that this kind of oil extraction is not safe, never will be, and will inevitably result in more blowouts, and more despoiling of oceans and coastlines.

But we want to believe otherwise, don't we, we don't want to admit to the reality of our dilemma. We want to believe we can extract oil from deep down without fouling our oceans, and we want to believe we can produce and use unlimited amounts of fossil fuels without consequence.

Which is why we're doomed. Prosecuting BP officials would just be a sideshow to entertain us until the next blowout kills off another ocean ecosystem.

[Tansy_Gold]

47. Bragi wrote --

(essentially) We're all to blame, we should all go to hell immediately if not sooner. There is no hope, we're doomed, we might as well wrap our lips around the tailpipe of an idling Hummer and kiss the world good-bye.


sorry to disappoint you, but I still have enough faith in my fellow human beings to hope that there is hope.



The point I'm trying to make and which you obviously missed is that there ARE laws and SOMEONE thinks BP has broken them. That someone may end up vanguished in his/her hunt for justice, but at least there's someone out there trying.

Are you? Or are you just gloomily giving up?

If you're so convinced that nothing can or will be done, you know what to do.



Tansy Gold, who doesn't really want to play Ashton Pelham-Martyn to anyone's George Garforth

[Bragi]

48. I think you are cherishing a comforting myth

I believe it is a myth that "regulations" can be put in place so energy companies can drill and extract oil a mile below the ocean and never have a blowout.

I do share your expressed "faith in my fellow human beings", however, but I also know that we have developed a set of peculiar social, political and economic institutions that make it impossible for the wishes of the well-intended majority to prevail.

The evidence of this is all around us, but it is most apparent in the area of the environment and fossil fuels. It is not hard to show that our addiction fossil fuels is killing off the environment we need to survive.

As rational individuals, we know this is an insane thing to do, but as a collective group, we know we have no way of avoiding the very bad consequences for our environment that are already happening.

As for what the ethical and responsible person should do in this circumstances, there are people smarter than me thinking about this, but I think I share Bill McKibbon's view that the responsible thing to do now is to plan as best we can for a more gradual and "elegant" change to the new reality than will otherwise happen if we just ignore what we know is coming.

Honestly, I don't think pretending we can make deep ocean drilling and extraction "safe" through regulation is part of the answer. This activity should simply be stopped. If it isn't stopped, we know that we will eventually destroy what's left of our oceans.

[Tansy_Gold]

66. And I think you are totally wrong

First of all, I have NEVER even come close to advocating additional off-shore drilling. I personally don't think it's safe or that it can EVER be made safe. Where you ever came up with the idea that I'm harboring any such myth is beyond me.

It's a little difficult for me to place any credibility in a person who says he/she/it shares my "faith in my fellow human beings" and in the same cyberbreath says it's impossible for the wishes of the majority to prevail.

And since I don't know you and you don't know me, allow me simply to say that I began preparing for an INelegant shift to a more sustainable way of life many many years ago. I haven't been "pretending" anything about deep-water drilling since about the time of the building of the Alaska pipeline, the Torrey Canyon disaster, the Santa Barbara blow-out, and that wonderful party-like-it's-1865 Exxon Valdez fiasco.

What you're basically saying is that you don't think lawsuits or criminal charges will go anywhere so we might as well not even try. Sorry, pal, but the fight isn't gone from THIS old gal yet. If you wanta curl up in corner and suck your thumb while you wait for the end of the world, feel free. But kindly stop telling the rest of us to give up.



Tansy Gold

[Bragi]

74. I think I'm totally wrong too

I'm totally wrong to have expressed myself in a way that suggested I was intending to offend you. As we probably agree on 99 per cent of reality, I realize that my writing was indeed very poor. Since I know I can write better, I apologize for that.

[Scruffy1]

52. Yes, there are such laws in all states

Willful criminal negligence and criminal recklessness both apply. The difference is that in recklessness one doesn't necessarily need to know that the outcome could be bad, but that applying the "reasonable person" standard there was willful ignorance.
of course a Johnny Cochran pointed out "In America you are innocent until you run out of money."
Besides our pro business courts are unwilling to convict the members of their club.
A better outcome would be Nationalization of the oil business. Why this assholes should be allowed to get rich by fucking us over is beyond me. They'll still have their mansions and jets and access to politicians as long as they have money. You can't have a just society with unequal distribution of wealth. No matter how many laws and rules you make money will find a way around them.

[lonestarnot]

15. Well it doesn't appear that you have all the facts here then.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lark]

70. Disagree - even heard of criminal negligence

Having a BOP altered and fail numerous tests but not replacing sounds like criminal negligence to me, especially when in their documents they state this is their device which ensures there will be no blowouts. So, they knew this was the ultimate back stop and they criminally didn't fix it - yep, sounds good to me.

[Politicub]

10. Yes! About time!

BP's leadership displayed criminal negligence and should be locked away for life for the devastation that they caused.

[Citizen Worker]

12. We need to look forward

Please, to go after BP and other mega-corporations serves no useful purpose. We need to be looking forward not backward. It is the same with investigating and prosecuting members of the Boy Emperor's administration. Laws apply only to the working class. Consider this: corporations are merely doing our bidding, that is their only motivation.

:sarcasm:

[salazarmms]

36. Get the Queen and the Emperor

[L0oniX]

14. ...and if you believe they will actually do something to Bp I have a used bridge for sale too.

[RC]

16. That bridge kit in Minnesota?

That's the one I'm trying to sell.

[flyarm]

29. + 1 million..plus a million dead fish and shrimp and dolphin and manatees and turtles and all sea

life in the gulf..and did I mention all the dead birds on my beach?????????? and all the awful air we have had to breathe???????? Air that burns your eyes and throat and stinks so bad at times you gag??????????

And the death of Oxygen in the Gulf???????

[Karenina]

40. Corexit 9500, the LEAST effective, most TOXIC dispersant

made by a company with financial ties to BP (and inventory) is being dumped into the Gulf this very minute. Never mind it's never been used under these conditions. It WAS used during Exxon-Valdez and is suspected of having contributed to the many long-term health problems of the residents.

[Bragi]

50. This dispersant is an excellent choice

I think one has to assess these moves as PR initiatives.

With the dispersant, I understand it will break up a surface oil slick and make blobs that will sink below the surface.

This means there will be little visible evidence of this catastrophe for television cameras.

It's therefore a good choice.

[Karenina]

54. For BP. And of course there's that little financial boost.

Their shareholders are making a KILLING! :bounce: Ramp up production! :bounce: Deplete that inventory! :bounce:

$$$$$ :woohoo: $$$$$ :woohoo: $$$$$

[defendandprotect]

17. Good -- very good -- !!

[FreshRocket]

18. We support the inquiry 100%.

And, maybe the U.S. government needs to bring in someone else to get this oil geyser stopped, since BP can't seem to do it!

[faceit]

20. Link to petition to demand independent scientific oversight & measurement of spill - sign, pass on

http://environment.change.org/petitions/view/size_matters_-_tell_obama_congress_to_immediately_order_independent_measurement_of_oil_leak

[Citizen Worker]

27. Done

Thank you faceit

[paparush]

21. Red Alert - Incoming Sternly Worded Letters!

[Sherman A1]

31. Precisely

[Enthusiast]

55. That's all it will amount to.

The U.S. tax payer will pay for the damages, there will be no criminal charges and I predict BP will go on to cause another huge oil spill. Such is the state of corporate influence in the U.S.

[pscot]

22. The beaurocrats and the agencythat approved

the drilling are in easy reach of the senators who are calling for criminal charges. By all means hang BP from the highest tree, but don't neglect the public employees who failed in their oversight. Let's clean our own damn house first.

[lark]

71. All them little Shrub appointees need to go down

MF'ers - ruining our environment for drugs, money and political power - disgusting, totally disgusting.

[salguine]

24. Does anyone really believe that anybody will actually be held accountable for this? Or if

anyone is, that it will be more than a single person thrown to the wolves as the solitary sacrificial lamb? Gimme a break. Congress will probably find a way to give BP a couple of hundred billion dollars of taxpayers' money before the month is out.

[flyarm]

30. My back yard is the gulf..I don't believe one MTF of them! Not a one!

understand this............

dems are up to their eyeballs in BP as well as repigs!


ahhh the strange bedfellows.....remember Dashle who pushed Obama during our primaries..and was one of his top advisors...........working with Whitman..the lady who lied about the air quality at Ground zero in NY?? Can i tickle your memory..she lied and people died and keep dying!! And that is just one example..

Spill, Baby, Spill
By Michael Isikoff, Ian Yarett and Matthew Philips | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 10, 2010

BP has been trying hard to burnish its public image in recent years after being hit with a pair of environmental disasters, including a fatal refinery explosion in Texas and a pipeline leak in Alaska. One major step was to announce, in 2007, that it had hired a high-powered advisory board that included former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and Leon Panetta, who were each paid $120,000 a year. (Panetta left when he became President Obama's CIA director.) Two years ago the oil giant's chief executive, Robert Malone, flew board members out to the Gulf of Mexico on a helicopter to demonstrate the safeguards surrounding BP's advanced drilling technology. "We got a sense they were really committed to ensuring they got it right," Whitman told NEWSWEEK.

Now BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, finds itself blamed for what could prove to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. And only weeks after Obama announced an ambitious plan to open up more U.S. offshore waters to oil drilling, shunting aside environmental concerns from his own Democratic Party, his administration is facing a comeuppance from hell. "There was a lot of wishful thinking, I guess," says Villy Kourafalou, a scientist at the University of Miami's Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The new technologies were said to be so wonderful that we'd never have an oil spill again." Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who had sought to block the expanded drilling, says the oil and gas industry was pushing this idea hard. "They said, 'We'll never have a repeat of Santa Barbara,'?" referring to the 1969 rig explosion off the California coast. Both the Bush and Obama administrations "were buying the line that the technology was fine," Pallone adds.

BP pressed hard to make that point in D.C. Its PR efforts included payments of $16 million last year to a battery of Washington lobbyists, among them the firm of Tony Podesta, the brother of former Obama transition chief John Podesta. Last fall, after the U.S. Interior Department proposed tighter federal regulation of oil companies' environmental programs, David Rainey, BP's vice president for Gulf of Mexico exploration, told Congress that the proposal was unnecessary. "I think we need to remember," he said, that offshore drilling "has been going on for the last 50 years, and it has been going on in a way that is both safe and protective of the environment."

Read the full article at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237298



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Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf
Source: McClatchy

Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf

By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, or MMS, and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a British Petroleum exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.

"Is there a moratorium on offshore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, the conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration's continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred, and nothing appears to have changed."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/07/9376...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and never forget this..we Floridans won't!!!


YouTube - Barack Obama on Offshore Oil Drilling ( to Florida voters while asking for their votes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fkbEuCQss...

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Obama: “Oil Rigs Today Generally Don’t Cause Spills”

Obama Repeats Katrina Oil Spill Myth To Defend Offshore Drilling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm8gLmuTvJ4... ...


By: David Dayen Thursday April 29, 2010 1:42 pm

snip:

What a difference 18 days makes. Here was Barack Obama, on April 2, before the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming that oil rigs are safe to justify his position on offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

Not only does this quote look ridiculous in hindsight, it wasn’t true at the time, as Brad Johnson points out:

Obama’s claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.”

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/29/oba... ... ’t-cause-spills/

[ima_sinnic]

32. +1 million -- thanks for keeping this info out front

I've noticed the usual crew usually rushes in to point out some convoluted "technicality" about those 27 waivers, that they "don't mean anything"--but I ain't buying. With the greed-heads, it's always Business As Usual, no matter how far advanced in terminal illness the planet becomes.

[Bragi]

42. Agreed, this is a sideshow

It's actually an industry=friendly sideshow because a) no charges will ever be laid, and b) it reaffirms the comforting fiction that this catastrophe resulted from "bad people" not following regulations that are in place.

It basically helps to distract people from the reality that ultra-deep oil extraction cannot be done safely, and will inevitably result in the despoilation of our oceans and shorelines, and that there are real consequences to our insane addition to fossil fuels.

[flyarm]

28. Have they told BP to stop all actions and called in real experts ..like top scientists from

throughout the world...or is this just more bullshit??????????

Experts from many other nations have offered help and yet our government told them stay away..BP is in charge..so what is it just another false flag operation?

Look over there>>>>>>>>>>>>>

no there<<<<<<<<<<<<

opps..not keep looking over there>>>>>>>>>>>

well you can look over here<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Until they get BP out of the operation we will get nothing but lies and bullshit!

[Karenina]

37. Let's hope Ken Abbott wins hus suit to shut down BP's Atlantis

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37199423#37199423

[Hubert Flottz]

39. They hanged Saddam for shit like BP did.

[Jester Messiah]

58. No, they hanged him for taking a shot at GHWB.

Any other justification was a thin, thin fig leaf over G-Dub's familial indignation.

[grahamhgreen]

49. We need criminal charges against particular people in the corporation.

[Romulox]

53. I'll begin holding my breath in 3...2...1... nt

[freebrew]

56. So, here's a question...

if anyone is found guilty or complicit or even negligent in their actions, does the $75 million limit still apply?

I mean, if this were a criminal act, then to me, the arbitrary limit imposed now, would be null and void.

Right? Right?

[Jester Messiah]

57. It'll never happen.

That would mean holding corporations accountable, and that's just not something we do in America.

[G_j]

59. so Holder needs to be pushed?

I guess so, since his MO seems to be letting all the largest criminals remain free.

[polly7]

60. BP and every one of these huge companies need to be held

legally responsible for every bit of damage they've caused around the world for decades. My BIL worked for BP overseas for a few years and told us stories of what they got away with, and how they treated the local people. It was f*ing disgusting.

[pjt7]

61. If this were China people responsible for the mess would already

be killed. if the ocean gets as damaged as people say it will, I am 100% in favor of the death penalty for those involved with this much damage to our Nation.

I know that's not the "democratic" party line,but it's what I believe.

[flyarm]

62. Yeah yeah yeah..while they shut up truth tellers and scientists about what is really going on!

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up | The Seminal

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816#

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up
By: Jim White Tuesday May 18, 2010 6:06 am


The research vessel Pelican. (photo: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

On Saturday, the New York Times brought the world’s attention to the discovery by a team of researchers on the the vessel Pelican that there are large underwater plumes of oil emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Remarkably, the response of the government to the attention focused on this discovery has been to tell the researchers to stop granting interviews with the press. At the same time, the blog on which the researchers had been providing updates has also fallen silent since Saturday.

Pensacola television station WEAR filed a report (video at the link) on the oil plume and broke the news about the scientists being muzzled by the government:

Over the weekend, a research crew from the University of Southern Mississippi found evidence that there are 3 to 5 plumes… About 5 miles wide, 10 miles long and 3 hundred feet in depth.

But after giving that information to the press, the lead researcher now says he has been asked by the federal government… Which funds his research… To quit giving interviews until further testing is done.

What an interesting change of course for the government. Even the government’s website on the Deepwater Horizon response had been touting the mission of the Pelican as recently as May 6:

[lark]

72. This is so sickening

I've said for awhile that Obama is acting like Bush lite, but with this he is firmly joining with the repigs and demonstrating what a bill of goods he sold us. Does it seems likely "government officials" would do this without vetting it up the chain? So either Obama is behind this, or he's allowing people in HIS administration (MMS folks, probably) to tar him as the oil industry lackey and doing absolutely nothing about it. Is he complicit or negligent - it's one or the other, based on his total inaction so far.

[amborin]

63. K&R

[pundaint]

64. Calling for action is good. Taking action earns credit towards a vote.

[Earth_First]

67. They'll be fined a record 250 million dollars...

which is a mere 25% of 1Q profits...

:eyes: