Bill Reilly, co-chair of the Presidential Commission to investigate the oil spill, released prepared remarks to be given at an oil and gas conference conference in New Orleans writing “There is virtual consensus among all the sophisticated observers of this debacle that three of the leading players in the industry made a series of missteps, miscalculations and miscommunications that were breathtakingly inept and largely preventable.”

Oh yes he did…and he went on:

“There is also no question…that certain companies were well known within the industry to be laggards when it came to a safety culture. Yet the industry stood by and let disaster happen.”

Mr. Dudley? CEO of BP Bob? Your ears ringing yet?

No?

Okay, how about this:

New findings from scientists at the University of South Florida and from a broad government effort have confirmed that not only is there a layer of oil on several spots of the Gulf’s seafloor spreading out over thousands of miles, but that oil is British Petroleum’s oil…not Chevron’s Mr. Dudley, not Shell, not washed off suntan oil, but your oil.

And in these spots, all the worms and other creatures that crawl across the seafloor…yeah, they’re all dead, killed by your oil and whereas nobody can go on record as to the extent of damage this might cause for years to come yet, still speaking in your preferred language of legalese, common sense would strongly indicate that if you destroy the lowest level of the food chain, the results are going to be bad, very bad. Even worse, this would appear to be a direct result of BP, with the government and the Coast Guard’s permission, using Corexit dispersants. As you know Bob, oil typically rises to the surface, but when you (admit to) using over 1.8 million gallons of toxic, chemical dispersants? That dispersed oil, it sinks.

All over the sea floor.

In other words, this whole mess is far from over, this mess is just beginning and discoveries of new damage, Bob, will be the gift you’ve left to the Gulf Coast, the gift that keeps on giving for decades to come, all while you spend the next decades trying to pay as little as possible to all parties concerned.

Maybe you meant, “Making you right?”

In any case, you might want to give Mr. Reilly a call, he appears to have gone off script, especially when he warned you and your ilk by saying, “If this should happen again…the public and governmental response will be disproportionately severe,” Reilly said. “Because the American people are not going to forget the Deepwater Horizon.”

Here’s hoping.

Have a nice day.