Posts Tagged ‘BP’
Fines vs. Penalties
Off to work they go…
So, today’s the day.
The big civil trial in New Orleans: BP vs. the world with all the lawyers, guns and money…all that kinda shit.
Course, both the government and British Petroleum been working hard, meeting and organizing and negotiating to try to find a settlement, a way out of this whole trial mess, come up with the exact amount of money BP will have to pay…a figure low enough that BP will finally just write a check but also high enough so the Feds can claim justice has been served.
Word is that amount is right around $16 billion dollars to cover the Clean Water Act fines and environmental penalties related to the spill.
Fines vs. penalties…
There’s a big difference between fines and penalties, such as the following: British Petroleum has to pay the fines assessed, but the environmental penalties? Well, those are tax deductible which essentially means they are paid by the taxpayers. Yes, as those negotiations commence, and will more than likely continue even as the trial begins, BP is pushing to have lower fines and higher environmental damage penalties. And if this were to be the case, this would mean BP essentially puts the money out there to pay the penalty, but then reduces their taxes by that same amount so BP again breaks even, leaving the people, the taxpayers to pick up the slack in the economy.
Well now, isn’t that just like an oil company?
Have a nice day.
The Deal: what BP/Feds know that you don’t…
Well, we know this bird’s dead…
“No one can bring those fathers, husbands and sons back, but I am here to express our apologies…We — and by that I mean the men and the women of the management of BP, its Board of Directors, and its many employees — are deeply sorry for the tragic loss of the 11 men who died and the others who were injured that day…our guilty plea makes clear, BP understands and acknowledges its role in that tragedy, and we apologize — BP apologizes — to all those injured and especially to the families of the lost loved ones. BP is also sorry for the harm to the environment that resulted from the spill, and we apologize to the individuals and communities who were injured.”
- Albert Keller, VP of BP America
These were the words, read in the court of US District Judge Sarah Vance, just before she accepted the agreement negotiated between the Feds and British Petroleum requiring the company to pay $4 billion dollars in fines to settle criminal charges from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.
$4 billion dollars is a lot of money…but is it enough?
Well, I suppose that would depend on who you are and what you know.
And what does BP know?
They know they will be paying $1 billion dollars a year for four years to settle this fine, just as they know they made $25 billion in profit last year. They know they’ve long since resumed paying dividends to stockholders. They know they continue to drill for oil in United States waters. They know their continued advertisements celebrating their version of renewed health in the Gulf reach far more people than the scientific studies indicating otherwise. They know how much money they will have to pay out, and how to plan for it, even with the coming clean water act fines and they know that when all is said and done, they’re going to be okay. They will be making money to replace the money they’ve had to pay, and then the following year, they will make more, then more…and on it goes, with none of the CEO’s seeing any jail time. Ultimately, BP knows they’ve weathered this storm.
Okay, and what do the people of the Gulf Coast not know?
The families of the dead do not know when their personal grieving will stop. They don’t know when life, if life can get back to normal. They don’t know if the marshes will completely recover. They don’t know how badly the environment’s been damaged, what the long term effects of all this will be. They don’t know what it means ultimately that the smallest organisms have been decimated by this spill, the organisms small fish feed on, which are in turn fed upon by birds and they don’t know where on this food chain the damage stops, or if it does. They don’t know what the long term health implications of oil and corexit exposure will mean to their families. They don’t know how many marriages have failed, how many businesses have been lost, how many people have died as a result of this spill. Ultimately, they don’t know if this storm will ever stop.
And finally, despite the statement by the VP of BP America, the people of the Gulf Coast don’t know how, or if this tragedy has personally affected the CEO’s and the board members of British Petroleum. They don’t know this because their apology has come in the form of television commercial, press releases and court statements. BP’s never had to look directly into the eyes of eleven families who lost their loved ones.
So, is $4 billion dollars enough?
I don’t know, what happened to British Petroleum stock when this deal was announced?
Have a nice day.
Not their fault, again…
What could go wrong?
How many years later?
Want to know how much oil remains in the Gulf, buried off the coast in Louisiana, how much that oil might still tarnish the sea life, how much oil, still remaining from the Deepwater Horizon could potentially come ashore as a result of the next hurricane?
Tough.
Ed Overton, speaking at the three day “Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference” said, “NRDA has collected those samples but you can’t get folks to talk about it.”
Odd.
Would seem this would be good information for the public to have. It would seem that British Petroleum, with all their commitments to, and commercials for, the people of the Gulf Coast and this nation could call for this information to be released, quickly, to the public who could be so impacted and therefore would benefit from having that information, you know, because BP ain’t leaving until they’ve fixed each and every one of you.
Okay, so then what’s the problem?
Well, according to Ed Overton it’s simply because the National Resource Damage Assessment is meant to help determine how much British Petroleum will have to pay. And British Petroleum is trying to pay as little as possible and that would only make sense. They are a corporation after all and what corporation wants to just give anybody free money, especially when that corporation has a long history of fucking up environments and having accidents that kill people, meaning they’re used to these court cases and they know how it all works and yes, that’s what it all comes down to…courts.
Courts and money and the paying of as little of it as they possibly can. Still, so want to know how much oil still exists in the sediment in the Gulf?
Fine, stop trying to get money with your penalties and your suits from the oil company whose disaster put it there. Then, maybe the government won’t feel the need to protect that information in anticipation of going to court with British Petroleum who will try to contest each and every piece of that information.
Really people, BP’s just trying to be ready for their next appearance in court.
BP’s just trying to protect their own interests.
Not yours.
Again.
Have a nice day.
It’s a love/hate thing…now featuring GoatWhore!
“Oh hell to the no…”
I woke up this morning in San Francisco, stumbled to the coffeemaker and then to my desk…and after turning on the computer, I put on the latest release by GoatWhore, one of New Orleans finest metal bands and leaned back in my chair. Coffee was good, not chicory good, but certainly Peet’s good. I heard shouting from the street, then police sirens and I turned the music up. I hear shouting on the street and police sirens every day, so much so that a lot of the time, they don’t really register and usually, that’s okay…
Today, I love San Francisco and am alright with not living in New Orleans. But yesterday, I was really annoyed with San Francisco and wished I could be in New Orleans.
This is the spectrum I drift across.
Oh, and the GoatWhore CD is called “Blood for the Master,” and it is crazy fucking good and imagine my surprise to hear GoatWhore mentioned in a recent episode of Treme…figures it would be the journalist from the Bay Area who wanted to see their show. But back to my point, what was my point?
Indecisiveness, that and 2001. And Albuquerque, yes, that’s my point…Albuquerque sucks.
But first, 2001 was a pretty big year in my life. I decided to leave Seattle and travel the country, writing. I wound up in Portland, Las Vegas, New York, the Black Hills, Los Angeles, but most important, this is the year I visited both San Francisco and New Orleans for the first time…and now in 2012, I’ve spent time living in both places.
The span I lived in New Orleans was pre-Katrina so rents were cheap. I worked 26 hours a week tending bar and this was enough to pay all my bills and go out, often. I didn’t really leave the Quarter much, where I lived and worked and I had a good time. Met a lot of good people and some not-so-good, but that’s to be expected. I was a bartender and the people who make up the service industry, at least back then were all drama, all the time. Kind of like living in a soap opera of who’s sleeping with who, who’s getting fired from where and who got beat up last night. I remember getting tipped with Saints tickets, with LSD, all kinds of fun stuff. Good times really, I enjoyed it. Funny to me that I had to move away to begin exploring the city more, leaving the Quarter’s comfy confines and heading Uptown, Mid-City or to the Bywater, the Marigny…wherever. But what I remember most about my time living in New Orleans, besides the amazing food and plentiful booze was that I was glad to leave…not because of any real dislike of the city, it was simply because I missed social work. I was unable to find a social work gig while I was in town and bartending, though definitely fun, was feeling overall pretty meaningless to me. I wanted to get back to work helping people and so I left for the Midwest, with plans to stay for a year and build up a nest egg before relocating again to San Francisco, a place where I may not have liked the culture as much as New Orleans, but it had the social work gigs.
And that’s what I did.
Did I mention GoatWhore’s new release?
Really good…and they’re playing One Eyed Jacks on November 19th. Do yourself a favor…go, and make me jealous for going. I won’t hate you…
Much.
Anyways…
So I moved out to San Francisco and stayed for about five years. It doesn’t have the culture of New Orleans and which culture is better would purely be a matter of taste, but I find mine more suited to New Orleans ease and friendliness and whatnot. Out here, people are less friendly, more isolated and really don’t appear to be having all that much fun. One of the bigger myths you might encounter is this idea of a progressive, liberal San Francisco and sure, there is an element of that, but it is not predominant. This city is about money. Greed. All the artistic freedoms so championed hides a big lie, being that the city is so expensive to live in the people who do live here as musicians or artists or writers really have two choices: live in a studio with two to three roommates or live in Oakland. Everywhere you look…every retail position, server, all the people who make this city run, they don’t live in this city. They commute in to serve the hipster-techies, the financial types and the oh so professional class. Even myself, with a good job…only way I can afford to live here is to reside in a small studio in one of the worst parts of town (worse being relative..I actually like it). But, the work I love to do is here. I have a job where when I get home at night, I feel satisfied and fulfilled for the most part and I have the time and a few dollars to do partake in that which I do enjoy. In a way, San Francisco is kind of like how New Orleans has become for a lot of people, post Katrina. The rents are so high, people can’t afford it. Property companies in San Francisco are buying up as many of the buildings as they can in my neighborhood, sometimes even sitting on empty apartments while they watch the rental market rate climb, then they hold open houses and charge each person thirty dollars to run credit checks, and a week later they’ll do it again, and again. On average, 20-30 people apply for each of these apartments, each time there’s a viewing. Do the math…
Yes, love/hate it is…the arts out here are something to experience…the art museums, all the concerts within walking distance, the scenery of the Bay and the Pacific Ocean, all the hills with their huge, majestic views of downtown or North Beach. Man, it’s really beautiful, especially if you ignore the police brutality in my neighborhood, all the tax breaks given to all the tech start-ups while the city cuts funding to social programs. That, and the drinks’ll cost you ten bucks, plus if you go to a bar with “Mixologists,” you’ll get some goofy drink with bacon in it for twenty dollars while everyone in the joint, mixologists and clientele alike take themselves really, really seriously.
Really seriously.
So yeah…it’s a love/hate kind of thing.
Just ask the guy who lives on the sidewalk in front of my building.
When I come home at night, he’s sleeping on cardboard. When I leave for work in the morning, he smiles and wishes me a good day and I like him, he’s one of the friendliest people in the City, but he’s got no home and I get it. The home he could have is an SRO room filled with crack, bedbugs, roaches, and other assorted predators. This is usually the housing solution for too many low-income people here and I get that it is the same most other places, but when your city lives on a bullshit myth of being “so progressive,” it does make the reality that much more glaring.
The spectrum:
I love New Orleans culture, the music, the history, the food…I can picture myself sitting down to a steak at Adolfo’s right now, or maybe lunch at Mandina’s, but there’s few social work jobs in town paying a liveable wage, plus I would more than likely need a car…and I hate cars. Cars suck worse than the San Francisco Police Department, or the NOPD for that matter. Meanwhile…I love San Francisco work, but the culture of this place is so much status, cliques and competition: two worlds of strikingly disparate haves and have nots. Ever see the Hunger Games? Think of all the regular people and the artists being bussed into Capitol City in the Hunger games. Hell, there’s a blog round here which pretty much exists to attack the unfortunate and a particular Chronicle columnist who seems to feel the best way to improve Capitol City would be a Wal-Mart in every neighborhood, built on the ashes of any non-profit and publicly naked person because you know, that’s just common sense.
Really, what an asshole.
Maybe there is a happy medium somewhere, but when I look at a map, that happy medium puts me in New Mexico, somewhere around Albuquerque and I’ve seen Breaking Bad…Albuquerque doesn’t look like fun: blue meth, bleak deserts and the plot lines get real complicated. So yeah, much ongoing in the thought process. Hell, there’s worse things to wonder about. I got a place to sleep, enough to eat and a job I enjoy. I just think a lot, probably too much at times…and I do plan to be up online more often from here on out, get back to the BP Spill…what? That’s still an issue? And more about San Francisco and New Orleans…two best cities in the country, problems or not…and GoatWhore. Much more to come about GoatWhore, spectrums, and the Saints, who won this morning.
Did you know Saints games start here at 10am?
Been a long time since I had a beer in my hand at 10 in the morning and now that I think about it, the last time was when I lived in New Orleans.
Ah, spectrums can be such dilemmas.
Have a nice day.
What’s ten billion dollars between friends?
A thought on the negotiations: put this on the table between Eric Holder and Bob Dudley and then let them negotiate away…
Despite the continued insistence of public relations hacks employed by the oil company hell known as British Petroleum that all in the Gulf is either well, or quickly on the mend, troubles persist:
“Researchers are trying to determine whether more than 100 dolphins stranded on the Texas coast, most of them in Galveston, died because of the BP oil spill, a deadly algal bloom or some undetermined cause.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ruled last month that the dolphin deaths qualified as an “unusual mortality event,” said Blair Mase, NASA southeast region marine mammal stranding coordinator.
The strandings also come after a NOAA study found that dolphins in Barataria Bay on the Louisiana coast were in poor health because of exposure to oil. Dolphins in the bay, severely affected by the spill, had low weight and liver and lung ailments.”
And then there’s this:
“Gloom infects the hard-working shrimp and crab docks of this gritty fishing town as the second full year of fishing since BP’s catastrophic oil spill kicks into high gear.
Usually folks are upbeat and busy in May, when shrimpers get back to work in Louisiana’s rich waters. This spring, though, catches are down, docks are idle and anxiety is growing that the ill effects of the massive BP oil spill may be far from over.
An Associated Press examination of catch data from last year’s commercial harvest along the gulf — the first full year of fishing since the 2010 spill — reveals merit in the fishermen’s complaints. According to the analysis of figures obtained through public-records requests, seafood crops hit rock bottom in the Barataria estuary, the same place where some of the thickest waves of oil washed in when a BP well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.”
So color my less cynical side surprised to read this:
“BP is pushing for a $15bn (£9.7bn) settlement with the American authorities to resolve all civil and criminal claims relating to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, substantially less than the $25bn demanded by the US department of justice.”
Okay, so an immediate question springs to mind:
What the fuck is there to even be negotiating about?
This damned company, by way of error kills eleven people and screws an ecosystem, then goes about obscuring flow rates during the response…is in negotiations to lower the dollar amount on penalties they’ll incur as a result of their very costly shenanigans…nice. This is the company taking responsibility. This is the company with all them fancy television commercials. This is the company whose smiling (dick)head Bob Dudley looks on warmly to reassure everyone not living on the Gulf Coast just how righteous, humble and truly sorry he and his corporation truly are…while on the Gulf, where people continue to pay attention, the facts do not bear this out…this guy…I tell ya.
He’s in negotiations with the justice department and reports are these talks are “accelerating.”
Yeah, but accelerating to what?
One more screw-job for the Gulf? One more in a really long list of shenanigans shoved onto a region, poisoning its environment for decades and almost destroying New Orleans, one of this nation’s great cities?
Unlike the Corps, BP must be held accountable, completely.
Maybe for the first time in what, who knows how long anymore, it’s time for the government to stop listening to what’s good for a company and pay closer attention to the people said company screwed.
Idealistic?
Maybe.
But after watching these GOP fucks this past year…it would seem idealism is the only thing they want us to have anymore.
Have a nice day.
A couple of quick questions about oil induced political ignorance…
He's betting the House on the fact that you, dear reader, are a complete moron...
So, I was reading an article/book review in Time magazine about the Deepwater Horizon where the writer, a Mr. Bryan Walsh separates people into two camps…people who can’t forget about the oil spill and say the region still hasn’t recovered (Dead coral, dolphins, depleted shrimp catches, health problems, tar balls still and oil entering the food chain…etc…) and the people who just want to forget all about the oil spill, mainly people in the oil industry and Republicans who complain that offshore drilling has slowed under Obama.
And I just gotta ask, which I know puts me in that first group…forget about the oil spill? Seriously? You’d have to be pretty boiled over with distracted emotion to forget about millions of barrels of oil and millions of gallons of Corexit being dumped all over our nation’s main source of seafood, among other things…
Hmm, did I say anger?
Yeah, the GOP, they’re really, really angry…at Obama and the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOERME) with it’s new (kind-of) safety regulations and (kind-of) oversight.
GOP Rep. Doc Hastings is beside himself pissed, issuing subpoena’s every chance he gets…but with all that anger, being so focused and all…I gotta ask, “Hey, GOP, what about BP?”
Can you spare a bit of your angry jackassery for the dipshits at British Petroleum?
As this article points out, by way of a review of Abrahm Lustgarten’s book, Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon:
“What had been a company with a history of safety—even dullness—was turned upside down. And while profits and market share increased, the accidents started piling up. In 2005 a major explosion occurred at BP’s Texas City refinery, killing 15 workers. Employees had complained for months of the dangerous conditions at the refinery, but nothing was done. The next year a major spill occurred in BP’s Prudhoe Bay, Alaska facilities, resulting in more fines for the companies. Even before Deepwater Horizon, BP was cited far more often by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration for safety violations than any other company. As Scott West, a former EPA official who had investigated the company in Alaska, told me after the spill, BP was a “serial environmental criminal.”
A “serial environmental criminal…”
So, Obama and BOERME play it safe, a move necessitated by the fact that British Petroleum played it anything but and thus caused the United State’s worst environmental disaster of all time and now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the oil industry and the GOP are maintaining that it is Obama who’s the asshole in all this?
Huh…
Well, in my opinion, you guys should all go and kind of eat some shit…and that goes double for you, Vitter, you self righteous-hypocritical prick. Maybe you might listen to reason at the next BOERME meeting if they bring you a pair of diapers and a bible, ass.
Read the article:
Nearly Two Years On, Did the BP Oil Spill Have to Happen to BP?
Have a nice day.
Lawyers, guns and money…now featuring the Feds!
The door to Eric Holder's office...
In the Gulf of Mexico, the government serves two fundamental roles:
1. They are the protective savior, providing certain corporations and clean-up contractors legal cover for any consequences that might arise from the manufacture and use of poisonous products.
or…
2. They are an overprotective savior, goose-stepping boogeymen who don’t know shit about marine life, and waste everyone’s time getting in the way of big oil and natural gas.
Man…it’s a damned if you do situation that’s almost enough to make one sympathetic towards the Obama administration…almost, but not quite.
Anyways…
Nalco, the makers of “safe as dish soap” Corexit, and other companies involved in cleaning up the oil filed a motion in Judge Barbier’s court asking the judge to dismiss them from liability because their product is safe they were operating on behalf of the feds, and therefore feel they are entitled to immunity from any later health claims.
You see, Nalco only manufactured the stuff, it was the government and BP who actually used it, and that is not Nalco’s fault.
And you see, the clean-up companies only didn’t provide proper protective gear to cleanup workers, it was the government and BP who actually…uh provided…who uh, what, no? Look damnit, the clean-up contractors were working for the government and therefore feel they too should be given immunity from the consequences of all their bullshit money saving, PR working tactics to score contracts and make everyone happy, well, everyone except the actual workers.
You know?
Jesus…
Thank God that Plaintiff Steering Committee is in place to put a stop to this kind of corporate dodge. I mean, after the actions of the banks in ’08, what with their causing, then benefiting from the recession at the expense of so many, you just know the attorneys aren’t going to sit still and let yet another group of companies screw the people for their own financial benef…wait, what?
“In mid-February, the plaintiffs steering committee filed a motion saying that it believed that BP would ultimately be responsible for any health issues associated with responding to the spill, so it asked the court if it could remove the clean-up, responder and dispersant defendants from its complaint so it could concentrate on BP. The plaintiffs said that such a move would dismiss the companies from the litigation, but not let them entirely off the hook.”
The PSC filed to remove Nalco and the clean-up companies because going after all these companies would be too hard? Because they just wanted to focus on BP? What, are they not getting paid enough to handle such complexities?
Okay…okay…now true, the PSC did ask for dismissal without prejudice, meaning they can re- file against these companies later, but in doing so…didn’t they just help Nalco and the cleanup companies bolster their case for getting themselves dismissed “with prejudice,” or in other words, dismissed for real? It sure would seem so…the PSC takes a half-step and Nalco sees that half-step and raises them a full, all the while arguing they were just following orders, man…it ain’t them, it was the government. We didn’t tell the Feds to dump two million gallons of this poison into the Gulf, we just brought it in on tanker trucks. They asked. We delivered. Yes, right, and the banks were just trying to turn a profit under the law, they didn’t do anything wrong either.
Recession? What recession?
Cancer cluster? What cancer cluster?
Dolphin deaths off the Louisiana coast?
Huh? What dolphin deaths?
“From February 2010, NOAA has reported 180 dolphin strandings in the three parishes that surround Barataria Bay — Jefferson, Plaquemines and Lafourche — or about 18 percent of the 1,000 estimated dolphins in the bay. Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had found 32 dolphins in the bay underweight, anemic and showing signs of liver and lung disease. Nearly half had low levels of stress hormones that help with stress response, metabolism and immune function.
Lori Schwacke, a NOAA scientist, said the dolphins’ hormone problems could not definitely be tied to the oil spill but were “consistent with oil exposure.” Over the same period of time, NOAA says 714 dolphins and whales have been found stranded from the Florida Panhandle to the Texas state line, with 95 percent of those mammals found dead. Normally, the region sees 74 reported dolphin deaths a year.”
So then, it would appear that something is not only wrong in the courthouse, something is very wrong with the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, especially around Louisiana where the oil spill flowed the heaviest…and in response to all this death and dying, the feds stepped in to ban the seismic equipment used by oil and natural gas companies to find geologic deposits for drilling. These seismic surveys are done with air-guns that emit pulsing sounds known to disturb marine mammals and could also disrupt mother and calf bonding for the dolphins. Okay…government being cautious…good and how long is the ban in effect for? Just until the beginning of May when calving season ends.
Again…good, so everybody’s happy, right?
Of course not…
Global Geophysical Services Inc. the company being paid to do these surveys and therefore having no conflict of interest dispute the dangers of their testing, saying, “We see no hazard to them (the dolphins) whatsoever.”
Oh, okay…well there you have it then. The company also notes that since the government has stepped in with their new unnecessary regulations, they have had to lay off thirty people…so there. Man, just give it a day until Jindal’s giving a speech somewhere to talk about what a rat bastard Obama is…
What a drag to be a fed these days.
Not only should the government provide immunity to companies that manufacture poisons or perhaps lack proper cleanup gear, thus causing health problems for untold amounts of people, but the government should stop enforcing regulations that protect marine life in the same Gulf where all those toxic poisons were dumped.
Total drag, these two roles of government in the Gulf:
You exercise a lack of caution, companies demand you provide legal immunity.
You exercise any caution, companies demand you get out the way of big business because you’re costing money and jobs.
It’s gotta almost be enough for Obama to grab a seismic air-gun, march into Barbier’s courtroom and point it at not only the defendants, but the entire Plaintiff Steering Committee and I for one, wouldn’t mind if he did.
Hell, I might even meet him there to see if he’d let me pull the trigger.
That’s the one role I think I’d like to play.
Read the articles:
Should Gulf oil spill dispersant, clean-up companies stay in the litigation?
Feds stop oil company’s tests in Gulf amid concerns over dolphins
Have a nice day.
The documents are confidential because everything is fine…or not.
This was a horrible tragedy, or it wasn't, which spawned terrible human and environmental consequences...maybe.
The word is out.
The National Marine Fisheries Service have prepared a number of documents, data about Gulf fisheries and fishers to help the legal types better determine the status of fishing in the Gulf both before and after the spill. Involved lawyers will now be able to read over these documents and answer, for themselves perhaps, a number of questions: the fisheries are okay, or they’re not. The seafood is safe to eat, or it’s not. The water is clear of oil, of toxins, of dispersant residue, or it’s not…or worse yet, maybe the fisheries haven’t been okay for a long time and now they’re just a hell of a lot worse…
Or they’re not.
Good information to have, answers to questions many of us have been waiting for – so the data from the report, it indicates what?
I don’t know.
Nope.
But what I do know is US Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan has determined this information is not for you, the public to know, not right now, maybe not ever…why? Because you are not a member of the Plaintiff Steering Committee, BP’s legal team or the Justice Department. So even though your tax dollars paid for the study…and even though that study could be a pretty good indicator of the Gulf’s health, and the health of the fish from the Gulf you’re presently eating…
You are on a need to know…
And just like way too much else in this catastraphuk, from the spill’s flow rates to the amount of dead wildlife to a real understanding of Corexit dispersant – it’s health effects and the amount that was used: you don’t need to know…
Really.
And your happiness may just depend on it.
Read the article:
Oil spill documents must stay confidential, judge rules
Have a nice day.
Everybody to blame, but me…
How could they make it any more clear, I mean...who the hell is this O'Rourke guy? I wouldn't hire him either...
So, in determining guilt and any possible fines under the Clean Water Act, welcome to another day in court, another episode of the 3 Stooges, starring BP, Transocean and Anadarko…Please, follow along and keep in mind that of course, no one is to blame except for everybody else.
Duh…
First, allow me to introduce Department of Justice Senior Attorney Steven O’Rourke who explained how simple this all should be under the Clean Water Act – “Any person who is the owner, operator, or person in charge of any vessel … or offshore facility from which oil is discharged” will face Clean Water Act fines.
Okay, so British Petroleum is part owner of the lease to the well, and operator of the Deepwater Horizon, Anadarko is also part owner of the lease while Transocean owns the rig.
And, O’Rourke continued, “Each defendant admits that the oil came out of the well through the blowout preventer riser and was discharged into the Gulf of Mexico. They’ve admitted they were owners and they’ve admitted the discharge from the well.”
Well, that was easy enough…all three, guilty as fuck – so moving on to the amount of the fines…
Uh…what? Not that easy? Who says its not that easy?
Oh right…
The lawyers…
David Salmons, lawyer for Anadarko said no way, man…Anadarko can’t be held liable because they are part owner of the well and the oil, it discharged from the Deepwater Horizon and since they had no control over operations onthe rig, and since the oil can’t come from both the vessel and the well, it obviously came only from the vessel.
Not guilty!
Andrew Langan, lawyer for British Petroleum said no way, man…the oil couldn’t have come from both the well and the vessel, we agree with Anadarko about that and the oil, it definitely came from the vessel and Transocean owns all that shit.
Not guilty!
Kerry Miller, lawyer for Transocean said no way, man…they are only liable for the oil that made it to the surface and all that subsea oil, you know, almost all of the oil unleashed into the Gulf…it all belonged to both British Petroleum and Anadarko who leased the well, so send them the bill, not us.
Not guilty!
And there you have it…4.9 million gallons of oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico and the only person anyone can say for sure did it, was anyone else but me.
But wait, Mr. O”Rourke then decided to try again, do his best to summarize it for the Judge: “Transocean is saying it came from the well so BP and Anadarko are liable; Anadarko and BP are saying it came from the vessel so Transocean is liable. The government says all of them are correct. They’re all liable.”
Sigh…
I know!
It’s like he didn’t hear a single thing the other lawyers said at all…
No wonder he works for the government, obviously way too dim to work for any of these plaintiffs.
Read the article:
Gulf Oil Spill Could Bring Up to $20B in Fines
Have a nice day.
New Years Day…
Back…at…it…
“Willing To Fight”
The windows of my soul are made of one way glass
don’t bother looking into my eyes
if there’s something you want to know, just ask
I got a dead bolt stroll, where I’m going is clear
I won’t wait for you to wonder, I’ll just tell you why I’m here
’cause I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands
say this has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can
you got to look outside your eyes, you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside your life to where the neighborhood changes
tell me who is your boogieman, that’s who I will be
you don’t have to like me for who I am
but we’ll see what you’re made of by what you make of me
I think that it’s absurd that you think I am the derelict daughter
I fight fire with words…words are hotter than flames, words are wetter than water
I got friends all over this country
I got friends in other countries too
I got friends I haven’t met yet
I got friends I never knew
I got lovers whose eyes
I’ve only seen at a glance
I got strangers for great grandchildren
I got strangers for ancestors
I was a long time coming, I’ll be a long time gone
you’ve got your whole life to do something, and that’s not very long
so why don’t you give me a call when you’re willing to fight
for what you think is real, for what you think is right
Hear hear…
See you tomorrow…
Have a nice day
