One result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a real degree of ideals being dashed. I am stunned that the Obama administration is sitting there with its hands tied; that this disaster has not been federalized weeks ago.
Elvis once asked where are the strong, and who are the trusted? From time to time connections surface between the big-biggie environmental groups and the corporations (and/or deeds) they are supposedly fighting.
Today this came in from the Washington Post:
In the days after the immensity of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became clear, some Nature Conservancy supporters took to the organization’s Web site to vent their anger.
“The first thing I did was sell my shares in BP, not wanting anything to do with a company that is so careless,” wrote one. Another added: “I would like to force all the BP executives, the secretaries and the shareholders out to the shore to mop up oil and wash the birds.” Reagan De Leon of Hawaii called for a boycott of “everything BP has their hands in.”
What De Leon didn’t know was that the Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years.
Thanks for the insider’s look at the Nature Conservancy….. I am certain that for probably all the big Enviro Orgs, this issue rears up: Given who is primarily impacting the environment, that is corporations such as BP, and given who has the big bucks and offers the big fat juicy carrot of negotiations that can seem to be providing a path to actual positive results, well then, like all good mature humans, shouldn’t we compromise? Try to find common ground? After all, BP is a human organization composed of human beings……. isn’t it?
The ones who are “pure of stain” — who have no truck with the big bad despoilers — groups like, for instance, at least in its inception as a movement, Earth First! — such efforts are so quickly marginalized and criminalized it makes my head spin.
Meanwhile, on the personal responsibility front, ever really tried to give up the use of plastic?
Ever really tried to reduce your personal waste stream to zero by recycling and composting and not buying stuff?
I did, and rather quickly learned that even for such efforts, being poor militates against success.
Not intending to be a total doomsayer here, just registering that the kinds of things that most often get recommended to individuals to do when those individuals wake up to the plight of the planet and their responsibility in that bigger picture are quite limited in how far they go toward addressing any root problems.
Which is why I keep feeling, if there is any hope in this mess right now at all it may be perversely in that “no hope at all” aspect of it: ultimately, denial may cease to be possible and then we are left with no choice but to, as Eric said, “get real.”
Whew! I’m really appreciating this thread.
Yeah, each of us needs to recognize and admit our part in all of this. Not only the petrochemicals we use, but also how we relate to our government, our natural and human community, ourselves.
I used to work for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). It’s a very large, very “corporate”-like environmental non-profit. Some good work gets done, and a lot of good people work there.
But in my opinion, it has become an institution that seeks to perpetuate itself, convinced of its own righteousness (aside from its stated mission). In addition to feeling a bit queasy about its corporate sponsors, I saw some policies, procedures, and decisions that left me feeling rather uncomfortable.
It maintains a veneer of a sort of corporate “together-ness” (meaning that it’s well organized and well managed), but it doesn’t live up to the hype. Not by a long shot. It prides itself of working as something as a non-confrontational mediator, behind the scenes. Sometimes this is what’s needed for a good environmental outcome. But this organization is so bureaucratic now that it has a hard time thinking outside the box or even seeing the box they’re in. This includes the fact that they’re not the most diverse (in race, ethnicity or thought) organization.
Some people who have questioned TNC’s dearly held beliefs have been drummed out. Frankly, I’m surprised there haven’t been publicized lawsuits brought by former employees. But as one disgruntled former employee told me, it just wasn’t worth the time and having her name & reputation dragged through the mud.
The Washington Post did some investigative reporting on TNC a few years back (2003, 4?). The reporters knew virtually nothing about non-profits or environmental work. They asked the wrong questions and, basically, slandered TNC to bolster their own sloppy reporting. Some of their reporting was flat-out wrong. I lost a lost of respect for their investigative reporting after this mess.
What they went after were actually the strengths of the organization — e.g., accounting records, conservation easements. At the time, the IRS was in the midst of a 2-year audit of TNC and no irregularities were found. TNC was able to produce every single document asked for, as far as I know. (I spent some of my time photocopying some of my records for this.) And at this time, TNC executives had to appear before Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation to defend TNC’s 501(c)(3) status. Turned out to be a lot of hullabaloo about not much other than the threat. And all the time and resources it took to produce thousands upon thousands of pages of records.
If WaPo had looked at human resource-type issues, they might have found some interesting things. If they had looked at TNC’s relationships with political lobbyists and state & local bond measures, they might have found some interesting things. If they had looked at some of TNC’s contracts….well, I’m just repeating myself here.
Put it this way, if a million dollars dropped into my lap, and I had to give it to an environmental organization, I would not give a cent of it to TNC. And I left TNC of my own volition on good terms.
That’s a good question. Another good question is, why would it be that those who already have unmeasurable power and wealth are so quick to risk so much in order to gain even more of what they already have?
Not in that comment referring to these guys, see below, but to the seemingly untouchable corporate manipulators…… heck, even if BP goes bankrupt from being held accountable for this one, it will not be the “deciders” who pay that price; they will slither away and quietly merge into some other boardroom somewhere, no doubt.
more about guv regs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052401974.html?hpid=topnews
……..
Minerals Management Service officials, who can receive cash bonuses in the thousands of dollars based in large part on meeting federal deadlines for leasing offshore oil and gas exploration, frequently changed documents and bypassed legal requirements aimed at protecting the marine environment, the documents show. …….
Well, we would start by admitting as much – though what exactly is the religion? Science? Commerce? Money? Greed?
I admit it: I deposit nearly my body weight in carbon into the atmosphere every time I drive round-trip to New York City. Oh, and this is with the smallest Nissan made; with a standard shift.
and by the way, using religion as the analogy, all references to the current state of the Catholic Church DO apply.
Eric:
I know where both you and Carol come from, and I can’t help but agree – but how do we get past the treatment of oil not as a commodity, but a RELIGION?
from Carol van Strum, half a moment ago. Apparently Goldman Sachs has a large holding in Nalco. So hello world, welcome to the One World Corporate Government of Fabulous Fabio.
“As for Goldman Sachs, I find it interesting that they have such a large stake in Nalco. It might be just another coincidence, like their short on TransOcean. I also question why the article singles out Exxon, which helped found the company that was bought out by Goldman Sachs, Apollo and the Blackstone Group. Why are the profits that Goldman Sachs is receiving from the sale of these toxic dispersants not part of the article? How much will GS lose if BP stops using Corexit? Is this not more relevant than Exxon?”
http://www.picassodreams.com/picasso_dreams/2010/05/media-ignores-goldman-sachs-ties-to-corexit-dispersant.html
In a recent email, Carol van Strum, author of “A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights,” wrote to me:
Hi Eric — I’m sure others can give you much more concrete material, but here is the flash impression I got reading your e-mail: Pompeii. 24th of August A.D. 79. Ten years before that fateful date, the town of Pompeii was flattened almost totally by a massive earthquake.
Land speculators swooped in and bought or stole much of the rubbled properties and built high-class villas for rich folks with great views of the Bay of Naples. Pompeii became an enclave of super-rich speculators and politicos, served by a huge slave population. Vast wealth accumulated from these construction projects totally corrupted local government.
With so many newcomers, by 79 A.D. there were very few who even remembered the earthquake, much less recognized the multiple small quakes and other portents — springs running backward, poisonous vapors from the earth, spouts of steam shaped like giants in the hills, fish kills in the bay from sulfurous discharges — that prefigured the eruption of Vesuvius. Had anyone listened to the few who tried to warn them, instead of heeding financiers whose only interest was preserving their wealth, many more might have survived.
So many lessons in history that we refuse to acknowledge!
Eric, that was sort of my point, right there.
The only correction now possible is whatever remediation can occur, priority one, and stopping this from happening again, priority two. I do not yet see either of those close enough to the top of the list.
I have no personal illusions that the “correction” will restore the Gulf or the systems destroyed by this.
So a realistic approach would indeed be, okay guys and gals, what do we do if we can never stop the oil gushing down there???
Just adding this story to the mix here…… And, Fe, I am sure there are many layers to this all that I do not understand…… but at the least I hope for much more clarity among many more people about the limits to the effectiveness of the protections and rules that exist…… as IMO they have never been remotely adequate even if they are followed, and we now are seeing the piper get paid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24moratorium.html?th&emc=th
Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead
By IAN URBINA
WASHINGTON — In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.
The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Asked about the permits and waivers, officials at the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf.
Department of the Interior officials said in a statement that the moratorium was meant only to halt permits for the drilling of new wells. It was not meant to stop permits for new work on existing drilling projects like the Deepwater Horizon.
But critics say the moratorium has been violated or too narrowly defined to prevent another disaster. ……
Let’s get real. This will never be corrected. Like a murder, there is no real recompense to anyone. Punishment verges on meaningless: neither corrective nor deterrent to those who would do it again. You cannot restore a destroyed ecosystem. Everyone who says we can is either misinformed or lying; or they are attempting to buy nonexistent time. Or they are Fabulous Fabio – suck it up, fishies and birdies.
I have witnessed the depraved conduct of the chemical industry since the early 1980s when I wrote about Love Canal, NY for the first time as a college junior. Once the stuff is out, there is no getting it back. We appease ourselves with the idea that remediation is possible, and all that makes possible is the next disaster. We appease ourselves with the idea that “the oil executives will care” when in fact what they do dependably is lie.
What nobody is saying is that the flow of oil may never be cut off. This simply may be the way it is, and as the oil enters the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream, we will see what it means, in visceral terms, to foul our nest. As it is, a spill many times the Valdez is fouling the nests of our most precious wildlife sanctuaries and the food basket of the sea, as a third of American seafood comes from the Gulf. The emergency shrimping season is the final harvest.
The challenge is wrapping our minds, and our hearts, around the utterly conscienceless conduct of those who do this, all in the name of profits, veiled by the notion of progress. The pain must be inflicted on BP in the one language they speak: their stock value. The corporation’s duty to its stockholders is to make a profit. If the stockholders take a loos, for whatever reason, the corporation is remiss in that duty. That is why they cannot voluntarily clean up their usual mess, as they go. It would cost all the profits.
Other oil companies need to be made to see that severe losses will come their way if they make a mess like this, and then maybe they will be less inclined to act so irresponsibly.
Personally, after working with the full force of my mind and energy to get the PCB/dioxin message through to the parents of students in the dioxin dorms, I have little compassion for people who don’t know, don’t care or feign ignorance. If I have compassion for the perps, it is based on my religion.
I am aware that, in the words of Gary Null to me, speaking of the students and the parents of the dioxin dorms, “they have a different agenda,” one that is more in line with the oil companies than with the exceedingly few parents who would suffer a small inconvenience and save their young adult offspring a future of endocrine disease or early-life cancer. This is the mentality we are penetrating here. It is made of every form of psychological barricade, from denial to cognitive dissonance, and it is very nearly impenetrable. There is only one way to go through: you want to do it. And that is rare indeed. And that is the position that we are now in, all of us.
Kyla:
I don’t know if BP can or will be put on the hook yet. They still need to do the clean up. We (the Fed) are not prepared to do it, or equipped. BP is, or should be. Allen was probably spot on about Salazar’s statement:
“If we find that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” he said.”
The key word is “appropriately”. That’s where your metaphor is.
I’ve been in the public sector, administering the contractual side of a disaster cleanup where the actual perpetrators were also the ones responsible for the fix. The end result is, if done right, the fix is done, and liability is apportioned by percentage. That happens AFTER the fact.
We are still in the disaster management phase, not the litigation stage. I would imagine that will be if and when DHS and EPA seize not only documents but hard drives and emails. I think the Fed is also being careful about saying whether or not BP is guilty. Its like the police calling the perp guilty before trial begins, which would be ruled against in Court.
There’s alot more in that article you posted than it suggests.
Well believe me, I do not have any interest in letting BP off the hook, but I am wondering if they can actually be put ON the hook in any real terms.
the force of law is, it says here ” more of a metaphor”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100524/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
excerpt:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested over the weekend that the government could intervene aggressively if BP wasn’t delivering. “If we find that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” he said.
But asked about that comment Monday, Allen said: “That’s more of a metaphor.”
Allen said BP and the government are working closely together, with the government holding veto power and adopting an “inquisitorial” stand toward the company’s ideas. The commandant also said the government has the authority to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also took a more measured tone at a news conference Monday in Galliano, La., with Salazar and six U.S. senators who had flown over the coast to see the damage. “We continue to hold BP responsible as the responsible party, but we are on them, watching them,” she said.
BP said it is doing all it can to stop the leak. Its chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, made the rounds of network morning news shows to say that the company understands people are frustrated.
“Clearly Secretary Salazar is telling us that we need to do this as expediently as we can,” Suttles said. “And of course we are.”
Hayward, BP’s chief executive, walked along oil-soaked Fourchon Beach and said he had underestimated the possible environmental effects.
~~~~~
So, BP says they understand (!!) that people are “frustrated” and the CEO says he is “devastated” (again I am quoting yet another piece than the one linked here….) and well, may his soul benefit from this lesson, but, meanwhile……… less lawyerly posturing and more rollie upie the sleevesie might be the ticket.
“Despite the continuing use of Corexit, BP is not in violation of the EPA directive, which said that should the company not be able to identify alternative products, “BP shall provide … a detailed description of the products investigated [and] the reason the products did not meet the standards” required by the agency.
“We will continue to review and discuss the science through the end of the 72-hour window on Sunday, and then we will reach a decision,” an EPA spokesman said Saturday.
This sounds alot like our Fed lawyers versus BP’s lawyers. The key operative terms are:
Yes, BP is trying to do the dance around the EPA guidelines, which most companies know how to do, particularly the last ten years — and save money. And the EPA appears (maybe not is, but APPEARS) to be hamstrung by the literalness of their language. Again, no one ever dreamed a gargantuan spill of epochal proportions would come like Deep Water.
Again, this CNN report looks like firemen playing cards while a three-alarmer is clanging in the firehouse, but this is their assholes (lawyers) versus our assholes (lawyers), and every legal challenge BP can muster they will.
We don’t want the murderer to get off on a technicality. So the problem is multi-fold: If I were the government, I would be keeping BP on track with the clean up and making sure they dot their I’s and cross their T’s with EPA standards while doing so. BP is pressing to find every legal loophole in EPA guidelines so they can to keep from drowning financially. Funny. It may actually be that we may not be able to let BP drown financially. Not just yet. They need to be solvent to pay up. That may be the reason why it all seems so slow and inconclusive. This is a tricky situation for the country (Fed) and BP.
kyla – In response to your 5:02 comment:
you’re not as naive as let’s say a mega-multinational oil corporation that had the hubris to imagine they could continue on a high-risk drilling project in waters so deep that they’re drilling UNDER the seabed, probably in a faultline near the continental plate where it was already unsteady due to volcanic activity further northward.
There are degrees of naivete, and there are degrees of naivete. 😉
….and here is an excerpt from that same CNN article I linked to which is now showing up on Google news headlines:
…
“Despite the continuing use of Corexit, BP is not in violation of the EPA directive, which said that should the company not be able to identify alternative products, “BP shall provide … a detailed description of the products investigated [and] the reason the products did not meet the standards” required by the agency.
“We will continue to review and discuss the science through the end of the 72-hour window on Sunday, and then we will reach a decision,” an EPA spokesman said Saturday.
John Sheffield, president of Alabaster Corp., which manufactures Sea Brat, took issue with BP’s response, saying Saturday that the company is “nitpicking my product because they want to use what they’ve always used.”
Sheffield told CNN that he discussed the nonylphenol issue with EPA officials earlier this week, saying the chemical makes up less than 1 percent of the Sea Brat dispersant.
“I’ve already diffused this issue with the EPA,” he said, adding the agency “accepted that response days ago.”
The EPA has not yet publicly issued a formal response to BP’s letter. EPA officials met with BP executives on Friday to discuss the issue and to explore alternatives.
The EPA said Saturday that it “will continue to work over the next 48 hours to ensure BP is complying with the directive,” but did not respond to requests for additional comment.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will lead a bipartisan Senate delegation to inspect the Louisiana coastline after globs of thick, heavy oil began washing into some of the state’s marshlands this week.
The delegation will meet with federal officials and BP representatives to discuss the ongoing response efforts.”
for what it’s worth. To me, this looks like shuck and jive, with very little actual reality mixed in, a few chemical terms tossed about to show somebody knows something, but mostly? Posturing.
I also read that the administration (US) is saying, hey, we have neither the expertise nor the equipment to “take over” from BP….
Fe, thank you. And I am aware it is uncharted territory in terms of effectiveness; what I mean is, how many of the hundreds or thousands of people involved at various levels with this now are responding on that basis of “okay, we fucked up bigtime, now what can we do to make it good or at least make it the best we can?” ? And how many are not even thinking about that yet, or enough, or at all?
I am sure some are, but the structures seem to militate against that being the overall response whenever there is a corporate/government relationship involved. Instead, it is a political blame trade that goes on endlessly and takes everyone’s energy from the real situation……
Perhaps I am only expressing a frustration with the insane depth of the problems, but it seems to me I have seen this for years, an across the board inability to simply go, okay, we fucked up, how do we correct this? So so much gets in the way of that…..
perhaps I am just incurably naive.
would not surprise me one bit.
kyla:
In answer to your question – we are in uncharted territory as far as this spill goes. No one knows how much, how long and how deep they have to go to stem the mess. You’re dealing with seabed depth and a pressure situation that even the DoD has neither technology or transport (not even our submarines) can manage. So even if they stem the leak and clean it up, what will stop this hole from erupting in the future?
I read early on that oil drilling since the beginning, has always been a high-risk adventure — there’s much to gain from the big stakes gamble, drilling into the dark.
But Deep Water may be the one oil gambling binge that pulls these guys off their rocker. If its the death of a trillion cuts by holding them physically and fiscally accountable for every last minute of the clean up well into the middle of the 21st century, then so be it. How else can you get that kind of cash and adrenaline junkie off the drugs?
“so apparently what EPA “ordered” was that BP find a less toxic alternative dispersant or find reasons why they could not. BP says they did comply because, in fact, there is, according to their response, no less toxic alternative available.”
kyla:
I would dearly love to get my hands on EPA’s guidelines for BP and for offshore drilling and spill management for oil companies in general, because those are the details in which the devil is found.
BP may have been in compliance with those guidelines as far as they were concerned, but as you’ve read, no one at BP bet on an event as significant as the Gulf spill and Deep Water. Or if they did, they had a team of lawyers working for them round the clock parsing the “shalls”, “may” and “will” in their contract to worm their way out of legal ramifications for blatant disregard of what you and I consider sound operational safety practices.
ps – I know your intentions were the best. We need to buoy each other with both facts about the procedures as well as the emotional and spiritual costs, which there will be many for generations to come, of despoiling our home. This is the environmental equivalent of aggravated assault, if not worse. And the anger over the lack of accountability for corporations in general is cresting to a new high.
In my estimation, BP is not going to get off easy, or at all. With the anti-corporate sentiment rising, what are the bets for the corporate world to send off BP as their sacrifical lamb for corporate miscreance when all is said and done? They seem to be doing it anyway, at least in the news.
My Ceres and Node in Capricorn in the 10th savors the thought, but I am getting ahead of myself.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/22/gulf.oil.spill/index.html
so apparently what EPA “ordered” was that BP find a less toxic alternative dispersant or find reasons why they could not. BP says they did comply because, in fact, there is, according to their response, no less toxic alternative available.
Fe, sorry, I did not mean to sound as though I was belittling your efforts or research.
Still the question remains in my own mind, on the very ground and in the very water, what is an effective response, physically?
there may not be one, and at the same time, I observe that very often that question becomes obscured for too long by all the legal and bureaucratic and financial iterations and underpinnings and negotiations and all that.
Which do need to be seen through, no question.
thanks for all your work.
Kyla
“and let their corporate heads on a pike be a warning in the future.”
Uhm… non-violent, pro peace, love wins… but hey, I like this image!!! When it’s necessary, it’s necessary.
EPA is keeping a hold on BP’s contract as one would hold someone’s testicular hairs.”
seems to me the “by-the-balls” hold is going entirely the other way. If EPA ordered BP to cease using the toxic dispersant, which they did, and BP basically said to EPA, neener neener we won’t so there, which THEY did…….. then who has whom by whose testicular hairs?
kyla:
Then if that’s so, that’s one more suspension-or debarment transgression BP will have ruling against it in the courts. BP has other suspension-worthy transgressions from the last ten years, that this current one is just one more for the beltloop. Its the trajectory of transgressions that will lead to the level of disbarment. They have two cases pending now – one of which is for Prudhomme Bay in Alaska for the spill in 2006, where BP was also lax in its safety practices. Then, there was no political will in the government, or sense of urgency to move it agressively, and BP, under a Cheney Administration, had plenty cover in the courts to stall it as long as possible.
There are also many levels of de-barment, starting from single to multiple agency, and from one division of a corporation to the total corporation, which is the ultimate death penalty. That will also include BPs leases to drill on federal lands – which effects most of their North American operations. That’s on top of their current revenues from the military contracts to provide oil for the wars.
Look. While researching this over the weekend, even the environmental lawyers said this is a complicated relationship between the government — the DoD and the EPA, and BP — which has been off and on cozy for decades. We can all benefit from learning about these processes and the legal remediations available to the government
We are reacting emotionally to this spill–you, and I and just about everyone in the country who cares. But emotions can only go so far with people like BP who don’t care. Puncture their pocketbook, death by a trillion cuts to their bottom line, or nationalize the motherfucker–after they’ve cleaned it up thoroughly–and let their corporate heads on a pike be a warning in the future.
I am stunned that the Obama administration is sitting there with its hands tied; that this disaster has not been federalized weeks ago.
Is that really desirable? (Federalizing.) It seems to reinforce the wrong behavior – i.e., letting corporations privatize profits while socializing risk.
Let the feds step in, and before you know it, the oil spill will be spun as Obama’s fault and Republicans will have more grist for their “Democrats will raise your taxes”/ Obama is a communist” mill. (Yes, I actually heard that one from my own mom yesterday – that Obama is a communist. Of course, no appeal to facts and reason made any difference.)
“EPA is keeping a hold on BP’s contract as one would hold someone’s testicular hairs.”
seems to me the “by-the-balls” hold is going entirely the other way. If EPA ordered BP to cease using the toxic dispersant, which they did, and BP basically said to EPA, neener neener we won’t so there, which THEY did…….. then who has whom by whose testicular hairs?
maybe it is mutual but I kinda think BP has the greater pull goin on here.
Also the question of “who pays” is where these conversations always go and seem to bog down (not meaning PW conversations, you understand, but in general) — when the issue is clearly, we all pay, so how do we actually accomplish anything here?
If EVER the human race and this nation and guv get the point of actually looking at that level, I shall surely celebrate.
meanwhile….. it continues to be largely theater.
except to the animals of course, and the animal within each and everyone of us.
cmassey:
The government would have a contingency plan. There would be back-up competition for fueling the DoD waiting in the wings.
The shut-down happens on the military’s time, not the EPA’s, and according to Obama in his speech last week at West Point cadet graduation ceremonies, Iraq military operations begin to close and troops start coming home July 2010.
Afghanistan, sadly, is another matter.
Fe –
I’m curious to know your take on something.
As you said, I learned on DK over the weekend that the gov’t. relies heavily on contracts to supply our overseas military misadventures with fuel. If the gov’t. goes ahead with the de-barment, does that effectively shut down operations in Iraq/Afghanistan or can the gov’t. just turn to other suppliers to make up the loss? Would the de-barment put our military in some horribly precarious position (yeah, other than the ones they’re already in)?
Could this scenario be another reason why they’re not coming out front and center?
I’ve been looking at this over the weekend, blogging with environmental lawyers on Kos, checking over a lead I found last Friday on ProPublica. There is a reason the government seems to not be doing anything. It is doing something, but not being public about it. The slowness is not due to anything untoward. The EPA is mulling de-barment of BP, which is a fiscal “death penalty”. BP stands to lose an estimated $4-5 billion annually from its DoD contracts–supplying oil to the military.
Once a federal agency de-bars your company, you cannot contract with ANY agency of the Fed.
If they de-bar NOW, however, the cost of the clean up would go directly to the taxpayers, and given this economy – not feasible. EPA is keeping a hold on BP’s contract as one would hold someone’s testicular hairs.
There are numbers of violations that BP has not addressed from previous spills which occurred the last 10 years. Any one of these violations are grounds for suspension and termination of contract if not redressed. Needless to say, these violations were largely overlooked during the Halliburton Administration. If the government takes over the spill management and the bill for the clean up, it will lessen the likelihood for BP to take responsibility and picking up the tab, and they may turn around and sue the government for interfering in their clean-up effort. Seems laughable, but given the audaciousness of corporations, anything is possible and probably has happened.
From a legal vantage point, the government may have everything to gain by keeping BP under contract while BP pays mega dollars to cap the leak and cleans up its mess. It should pay for it, and the best way to do it is while under contract. Threat of de-barment is the stick and carrot.
Under contract, the government has the EPA in a “wary partnership” relationship with BP’s clean-up group, so the “close cooperation” doubles as observatory and reminder to not “fuck this up”.