Month After Oil Spill, Why Is BP Still In Charge?

"There's nothing that we think can and should be done that isn't being done. Nothing," Gibbs said Friday during a lengthy, often testy exchange with reporters about the response to the oil disaster.
 

Gibbs also said: " There are no powers of intervention that the federal government has available but has opted not to use"

So My question is:  If the Federal Government does not know who to deal with a disaster of this proportion WHY, WHY, WHY are they granting Oil Co. permits to drill in American waters?  

Test results on Deepwater Horizon samples will figure prominently in lawsuits and other judgments seeking to put a dollar value on the damage caused by the spill.

My 2nd question: What dollar value can be put on 'life'?  Oh, that's right, this is Corporate America we're talking about,  'life' unless it can be exploited for monitory gain is of no dollar value.....God Bless America - Land of Corporate Greed



Month After Oil Spill, Why Is BP Still In Charge?

by MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON — Days after the Gulf Coast oil spill, the Obama administration pledged to keep its "boot on the throat" of BP to make sure the company did all it could to cap the gushing leak and clean up the spill.

But a month after the April 20 explosion, anger is growing about why BP PLC is still in charge of the response.

"I'm tired of being nice. I'm tired of working as a team," said Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.

"The government should have stepped in and not just taken BP's word," declared Wayne Stone of Marathon, Fla., an avid diver who worries about the spill's effect on the ecosystem.

That sense of frustration is shared by an increasing number of Gulf Coast residents, elected officials and environmental groups who have called for the government to simply take over.

In fact, the government is overseeing things. But the official responsible for that says he still understands the discontent.

"If anybody is frustrated with this response, I would tell them their symptoms are normal, because I'm frustrated, too," said Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen.

"Nobody likes to have a feeling that you can't do something about a very big problem," Allen told The Associated Press Friday.

Still, as simple as it may seem for the government to just take over, the law prevents it, Allen said.

After the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, Congress dictated that oil companies be responsible for dealing with major accidents – including paying for all cleanup – with oversight by federal agencies. Spills on land are overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, offshore spills by the Coast Guard.

"The basic notion is you hold the responsible party accountable, with regime oversight" from the government, Allen said. "BP has not been relieved of that responsibility, nor have they been relieved for penalties or for oversight."

He and Coast Guard Adm. Mary Landry, the federal onsite coordinator, direct virtually everything BP does in response to the spill – and with a few exceptions have received full cooperation, Allen said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was even more emphatic.

"There's nothing that we think can and should be done that isn't being done. Nothing," Gibbs said Friday during a lengthy, often testy exchange with reporters about the response to the oil disaster.

There are no powers of intervention that the federal government has available but has opted not to use, Gibbs said.

Asked if President Barack Obama had confidence in BP, Gibbs said only: "We are continuing to push BP to do everything that they can."

The White House is expected to announce Saturday that former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and ex-EPA Administrator William K. Reilly will lead a presidential commission investigating the oil spill. Graham is a Democrat. Reilly served as EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush. The commission's inquiry will range from the causes of the spill to the safety of offshore oil drilling.

BP spokesman Neil Chapman said the federal government has been "an integral part of the response" to the oil spill since shortly after the April 20 explosion.

"There are many federal agencies here in the Unified Command, and they've been part of that within days of the incident," said Chapman, who works out of a joint response site in Louisiana, near the site of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

Criticism of the cleanup response has spread beyond BP. On Friday, the Texas lab contracted to test samples of water contaminated by the spill defended itself against complaints that it has a conflict of interest because it does other work for BP.

TDI-Brooks International Inc., which points to its staffers' experience handling samples from the Exxon Valdez disaster, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service helped audit the lab and approved its methods.

"A typical state laboratory does not have this experience or capacity," TDI president James M. Brooks said.

The company's client list includes federal and state agencies along with dozens of oil companies, among them BP, a connection first reported by The New York Times. TDI-Brooks said about half of the lab's revenue comes from government work.

Test results on Deepwater Horizon samples will figure prominently in lawsuits and other judgments seeking to put a dollar value on the damage caused by the spill.

Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, who traveled to the Gulf the day after the explosion and has coordinated Interior's response to the spill, rejected the notion that BP is telling the federal government what to do.

"They are lashed in," Hayes said of BP. "They need approval for everything they do."

If BP is lashed to the government, the tether goes both ways. A large part of what the government knows about the oil spill comes from BP.

The oil company helps staff the command center in Robert, La., which publishes daily reports on efforts to contain, disperse and skim oil.

Some of the information flowing into the command center comes from undersea robots run by BP or ships ultimately being paid by BP. When the center reported Friday that nearly 9 million gallons of an oil-water mixture had been skimmed from the ocean surface, those statistics came from barges and other vessels funded by BP.

Allen, the incident commander, said the main problem for federal responders is the unique nature of the spill – 5,000 feet below the surface with no human access.

"This is really closer to Apollo 13 than Exxon Valdez," he said, referring to a near-disastrous Moon mission 40 years ago.

"Access to this well-site is through technology that is owned in the private sector," Allen said, referring to remotely operated vehicles and sensors owned by BP.

Even so, the company has largely done what officials have asked, Allen said. Most recently, it responded to an EPA directive to find a less toxic chemical dispersant to break up the oil underwater.

In two instances – finding samples from the bottom of the ocean to test dispersants and distributing booms to block the oil – BP did not respond as quickly as officials had hoped, Allen said. In both cases they ultimately complied.

"Personally, whenever I have problem I call (BP CEO) Tony Hayward" on his cell phone, Allen said.

___

Associated Press writers Frederic J. Frommer and Ben Feller in Washington, Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans, Matt Sedensky in Marathon, Fla., Ray Henry in Atlanta and Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss., and Michelle Roberts in San Antonio contributed to this story.

Oil Rules -by Joe Conason

The more we learn about the BP oil  well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the more we ought to question the  basic assumptions that led us here. Like the explosion of the housing  bubble that ruptured the world economy, this human and environmental  tragedy resulted from a system that encourages reckless profiteering  without effective regulation.


It is impossible to understand why an  accident like the Deepwater Horizon disaster was inevitable without  looking back on an era when the energy industry dominated government.  The oil bidness, as it is known affectionately in Texas, could do no  wrong under the Bush-Cheney administration, which was run by former oil  executives and their lobbyists. Remember that among the top priorities  of the secretive energy task force run by Vice President Dick Cheney was  relief for Big Oil from “burdensome” environmental regulations.

As The New York Times reported recently,  the Washington zeal for deregulation let offshore oil drilling proceed  virtually without interference from government, even though scientists  and engineers repeatedly raised safety and environmental concerns over  the past decade. Warned specifically that the blowout-prevention  technology that drillers were relying on to avoid an explosive spill was  faulty as long ago as 2000, the oil industry did nothing except to  drill deeper.


As for the  Minerals Management Service,  the Interior Department agency responsible for overseeing the drilling  operations, it too did nothing—except to reduce its inspections of  safety equipment. Presumably, the MMS failed to act because it was  infested with crooked officials who took illegal drugs and engaged in  sexual relationships with oil industry personnel—and accepted bribes  from them, too. The oil industry was allowed to drill, baby, drill  wherever it wanted, often without even paying royalties to the federal  government. 
But the culture of American government,  from the executive branch to Congress and even the judiciary, has been  infected with a disease deeper than corruption: an ideological deference  to corporate power, in the name of “free markets” and efficiency, that  enriches a wealthy few at the expense of the nation. While this pattern  can be detected across many sectors of the economy, its effects are now  felt most acutely in the financial and energy sectors, whose power over  government is legendary. Such an imbalanced system encourages financial firms to take enormous  risks, pocket the profits and let the taxpayers, workers and communities  suffer the consequences. And the same system encourages oil companies  to take enormous risks of a different kind, resist strict environmental  requirements, book huge profits—and then let the rest of us cope with  the consequences of their devastating pollution (although we can hope  that BP will pay for at least part of the Gulf of Mexico cleanup).

Free-market ideologues and other corporate  shills insist that this is the most efficient way to do business, which  is true enough for a corporate manager or a stockholder. But it isn’t  very efficient for the nation whose public wealth, natural resources and  future prosperity are depleted by these ruinous practices.

In America, we have been told for more than  three decades that there is indeed no other way to run an economy—and  certainly not if we wish to preserve our traditional freedoms. But  looking around the world, it’s easy to see through those old platitudes.  

Countries that impose stronger regulation on their financial sectors  did not endure the same kind of disruption we did—and emerged more  swiftly from the recession. Countries that impose strict oversight on  their energy sectors, including offshore drilling, are exemplary in  protecting worker and environmental safety.

The world’s best record on offshore oil is  enjoyed by Norway, a free and democratic country where North Sea oil  provides not only a major source of employment, but the funding for  universal health care, education and a panoply of other important  benefits. In Norway, oil drillers are expected to implement the most  advanced systems of environmental protection. That’s because the  Norwegian people own the oil—and the oilmen answer to them.

Joe Conason writes for:  The New York Observer