It’s about time. The White House announced that they would be holding BP and four other companies accountable for the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last April. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit in New Orleans for damages from the spill.
According to the New York Times, Attorney General Eric Holder said, “I have seen the devastation that this oil spill caused throughout the region, to individuals and to families, to communities and to businesses, to coastlines, to wetlands, as well as to wildlife.”
Who can forget the pictures of the pelicans covered in oil?
The defendants in the law suit are BP, Transpocean, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., MOEX and Lloyd of London’s, BP’s insurer.
Politico reported:
“We intend to prove that these defendants are responsible for government removal costs, economic losses, and environmental damages without limitation,” Holder said in a statement. “Even though the spill has been contained, the Department’s focus on investigating this disaster and preventing future devastation has not wavered. Both our civil and criminal investigations continue, and our work to ensure that the American taxpayers are not forced to bear the costs of restoring the gulf area and its economy is moving forward.”
The lawsuit falls under the Oil Pollution Act and the Clean Water Act. While the extent of the damages is unknown, the costs have been projected to surpass the $75 million cap in the Oil Pollution Act.
Disappointingly, Haliburton, the contractor recently blamed in a presidential commission for the sloppy cement work in the well, is not being sued at this time. However, Mr. Holder noted that the government is reserving the right to add any defendants to the suit as they see fit.
Watch the whole press conference here.
Tags: BP
BP: It’s not just the Gulf it’s been harming.
TEXAS CITY, Tex. — While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.
For 40 days after a piece of equipment critical to the refinery’s operation broke down, a total of 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including the carcinogen benzene, poured out of the refinery.
Rather than taking the costly step of shutting down the refinery to make repairs, the engineers at the plant diverted gases to a smokestack and tried to burn them off, but hundreds of thousands of pounds still escaped into the air, according to state environmental officials.
This plant has a history – in 2005, 15 people were killed and more than 170 injured in an explosion, and it’s been sued by the state for pollution violations.
Events like this show the interconnection of safety for workers on the job and families in their homes. Unsafe workplaces are also likely to be the ones that reach out and harm people for miles around by polluting the air and water; companies that profit by endangering their workers are likely to be the ones that don’t worry too much about the air their neighbors breathe.
Congress is considering improved workplace safety legislation. Its passage will benefit all of us.
Tags: BP, occupational safety and health
Congressman Darrell Issa on what he wouldn’t do with subpoena power if Republicans take the House of Representatives this November:
“I won’t use it to have corporate America live in fear that we’re going to subpoena everything.”
Greg Sargent says:
While that quote stops short of a full-fledged promise to never probe anything corporate America does, it’s nonetheless an extraordinary statement: It sounds like a pledge to go easier on big corporations.
Yeah, that’s what it sounds like. And it sounds like that in the context of the apology Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy Committee’s subcommittee for investigations, delivered to BP. And in the context of the fact that while he may have been the only one to come straight out and apologize, several other House Republicans delivered a similar message: The destruction of the Gulf and the economies of the Gulf states is not BP’s fault. This is the Republican agenda. And we have to fight it.
Because it’s not just BP, of course. It’s Massey Energy. It’s Halliburton. It’s Goldman Sachs. It’s hundreds of other corporations that haven’t made the headlines yet that put workers’ lives at risk, that put the environment at risk, that put our economy at risk.
We need more, not less, subpoenas and investigations and penalties for the damage they do.
Tags: BP
