Spill here, spill now

[word]

Did anyone catch the snippet yesterday that Obama had sent SWAT teams to other rigs/platforms in the gulf.

SWAT teams ?

They still don't know how this explosion happened.

[boutons_deux]

- SpeakEasy - http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy -

Agency Postpones Awards Ceremony Celebrating Offshore Oil Drilling Safety

Posted By Amanda Terkel On May 1, 2010 @ 3:15 pm In Uncategorized | No Comments

Cross-posted from Think Progress.

Since the offshore oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico, federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service (MMS) have been coming under increasing scrutiny for whether they were negligent in overseeing the rigs owned by BP and others. At a press conference this morning, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) compared it to the SEC’s failure to enforce regulations leading up to the financial crisis. Ironically, MMS was all set to hold its annual “2010 Annual Industry SAFE Awards Luncheon” on May 3. Perhaps recognizing that now is not the time to applaud the oil industry for safety on the job, MMS postponed the event. From the agency’s website:

The LA Times notes that last year, BP “was among the luncheon’s winners, cited for ‘outstanding dedication and leadership in promoting improved medical care and evacuation capabilities for offshore facilities.’” During the Bush administration, MMS was embroiled in scandal over its employees being in bed (sometimes literally) with the oil industry it was supposed to be regulating.

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...illing-safety/

=======

oops!

[Wild Cobra]

BP will obviously be sued for deaths and damages, ....

You kidding?

Just proving your lack of information again. Damages, probably. Deaths, no way. The platform was a leased one and operated by employees of the owner. I forget the owners name at the time. I'll let you look it up.

[Wild Cobra]

They still don't know how this explosion happened.

Well, acertaining how it happened will be difficult after the massive damage. I brought up the possible eco-terrorist aspect of it because I can't imagine how such materials would be normally there to cause the degree of explosion in the first place.

Ideas how? Sure, there is likely natural gas as well picked off and used for power, but that was a huge explosion.

[Wild Cobra]

Since the offshore oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico, federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service (MMS) have been coming under increasing scrutiny for whether they were negligent in overseeing the rigs owned by BP and others.

The coal mine investigation for bribes of payoffs, now this, and you liberals want more government oversight over corporation...

[admiralsnackbar]

The coal mine investigation for bribes of payoffs, now this, and you liberals want more government oversight over corporation...

Heaven forbid people try to avert disaster.

[boutons_deux]

Heaven forbid a corporation actually be responsible for the welfare of their employees.

Mining disasters, and now the oil platform, prove that corporations criminally violate safety regulations, because security costs money.

[Winehole23]

Heaven forbid people try to avert disaster.

Left all on their own, corporations don't screw up. First the Massey mine explosion and now this: obviously, government regulation has failed us again.

[RandomGuy]

Still waiting on you to explain this one. I have asked you 3 times to explain this, but haven't got an answer.

Is it because you don't know what this fact means?

RG would hate to know how much oil seeps naturally each year.

As much as two Exxon Valdez' worth each year just in the Gulf of Mexico.

What exactly are you trying to say here? I don't understand. Please enlighten me.

What does this fact mean?

[RandomGuy]

You kidding?

Just proving your lack of information again. Damages, probably. Deaths, no way. The platform was a leased one and operated by employees of the owner. I forget the owners name at the time. I'll let you look it up.

Lawsuits will go for the "deep pockets". BP will be named as a defendant in the suits over the deaths.

[RandomGuy]

The coal mine investigation for bribes of payoffs, now this, and you liberals want more government oversight over corporation...

Yes, yes I do.

Because corporations have only one real aim:

To provide returns for shareholders.

This is not always compatible with public good.

It might benefit a corporation's quarterly profits to skimp on pollution controls, or endanger worker's lives, but in the end, society ends up subsidizing that through economic losses to others.

It is that pesky negative externality problem again.

Free-market systems require referees, just like basketball games. The referees have to be able to enforce penalties.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

This thing is getting out of control. What a huge disaster. It's in crazy to think about.

They're saying at least 3 months until they can stop it by drilling another well.

And some are saying the rate of the spill can be increasing, we might be looking at even 50K barrels a day. Mindblowing. Unbelievable in the year 2010 they don't have a reliable system of shutting the mother er off.

[Stringer_Bell]

Unbelievable in the year 2010 they don't have a reliable system of shutting the mother er off.

They should just put a cork in it! Or a giant dome.

This better not with Texas shores or I will be pissed.

[Bartleby]

This better not with Texas shores or I will be pissed.

It will. Count on it.

[Winehole23]

210,000 gallons/day.

[jack sommerset]

It's really no big deal. It will all work itself out. Obama needs to continue his fight on offshore drilling.

[boutons_deux]

You Lie

Current Timeline to Shut Down Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Three Months

http://www.truthout.org/current-time...ths59096?print

.

[boutons_deux]

AlterNet

Here's How Exxon Tried to Avoid Paying for Its Massive Oil Spill -- Let's Not Allow BP to Do the Same

By Riki Ott, Reuters
Posted on May 3, 2010, Printed on May 3, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146700/

I remember the words, “We’ve had the Big One,” with chilling clarity, spoken just over 21 years ago when a fellow fisherman arrived at my door in the early morning and announced that the Exxon Valdez had run aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and was gushing oil.

For the small fishing community of Cordova, Alaska, where I lived and worked as a commercial fisherma’am, it was our worst nightmare.

That nightmare is reoccurring now with BP’s deadly rig blowout off the Gulf Coast – with haunting parallels to the Exxon Valdez.

I was not at all surprised when officials reported zero spillage, then projected modest spillage, and then reported spill amounts five times higher than their earlier estimates.

As the spill continues, I imagine that even the newly reported amounts will continue to vastly underestimate the actual spillage.

Underreporting of spill volumes is common, even though lying about self-reported spill volume is illegal – and a breach of public trust.

Still, penalties are based on spill volume: Exxon likely saved itself several billion dollars by sticking with its low-end estimate of 11 million gallons and scuttling its high-end estimate of 38 million gallons, later validated by independent surveyors.

Sadly, it’s a foregone conclusion that BP’s promise to “do everything we can” to minimize the spill’s impact and stop the oil still hemorrhaging from the well nearly one mile under the sea off Louisiana’s coast will fade as its attention turns to minimizing its liability, including damaged public relations.

BP will likely leverage the billions of dollars it will spend on the cleanup to reduce its fines and lawsuit expenses, despite later recouping a large portion of the cleanup cost from insurers or writing it off as a business expense as Exxon did.

Such tactics saved Exxon billions of dollars in the civil settlement for damages to public lands and wildlife (in which damages were estimated at up to $8 billion; but for which Exxon paid just $900 million) and in the class action lawsuit filed by those whose livelihoods were curtailed by the spill (for which the original jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages; but which Exxon fought for 20 years until the Supreme Court lessened its burden to just $507 million).

That Supreme Court decision strictly limited corporate liability and essentially removed the ability of future oil spill victims to hold corporations accountable to the people and the law.

A friend in New Orleans is concerned about the oil fumes now engulfing the southern part of town. He says it “smells pretty strong–stronger than standing in a busy mechanics shop, but not as bad as the bus station in Tijuana.”

State health officials are warning people who are sensitive to reduced air quality to stay indoors, but anyone who experiences the classic symptoms of crude oil overexposure–nausea, vomiting, headaches, or cold or flu-like symptoms–should seek medical help.

This is serious: Oil spill cleanups are regulated as hazardous waste cleanups because oil is, in fact, hazardous to health. Breathing oil fumes is extremely harmful.

After the 2002 Prestige oil spill off Galicia, Spain, and the 2007 Hebei Spirit oil spill in South Korea, medical doctors found fishermen and cleanup workers suffered from respiratory problems, central nervous system problems (headaches, nausea, dizziness, etc.), and even genetic damage (South Korea). I have attended two international conferences the past two years to share information with these doctors.

During the Exxon Valdez spill, health problems among cleanup workers became so widespread, so fast, that medical doctors, among others, sounded warnings. Dr. Robert Rigg, former Alaska medical director for Standard Alaska (BP), warned, “It is a known fact that neurologic changes (brain damage), skin disorders (including cancer), liver and kidney damage, cancer of other organ systems, and medical complications–secondary to exposure to working unprotected in (or inadequately protected)–can and will occur to workers exposed to crude oil and other petrochemical by-products. While short-term complaints, i.e., skin irritation, nausea, dizziness, pulmonary symptoms, etc., may be the initial signs of exposure and toxicity, the more serious long-term effects must be prevented.”[1]

Unfortunately, Exxon called the short-term symptoms, “the Valdez Crud,” and dismissed 6,722 cases of respiratory claims from cleanup workers as “colds or flu” using an exemption under OSHA’s hazardous waste cleanup reporting requirements.[2]

Sadly, sick Exxon cleanup workers were left to suffer and pay their own medical expenses. I know of many who have been disabled by their illnesses – or have died.

I have repeatedly warned Congress in letters and in person to strike that loophole because it exempts the very work-related injuries–chemical induced illnesses–that OSHA is supposedly designed to protect workers from.

Remember the “Katrina Crud” and the “911 Crud?” Standby for the “Gulf Crud” because our federal laws do not adequately protect worker safety or public health from the very real threat of breathing oil vapors, including low levels typically found in our industrial ports, our highways during rush hour traffic, and our urban cities.

Oil is not only harmful to people, it is deadly to wildlife. I am sickened to think of the short-term destruction and long-term devastation that will happen along America’s biologically rich coastal wetlands – a national treasure and a regional source of income.

In Alaska, the killing did not stop in 1989. Twenty-one years later, buried oil is still contaminating wildlife and Prince William Sound has not returned to pre-spill conditions – nor, honestly, will it. The remnant population of once-plentiful herring no longer supports commercial fisheries and barely sustains the ecosystem.

While local efforts to boom Louisiana’s fragile coasts to keep the oil out will help people feel productive and empowered (and this is important), it is an unfortunate truth that the booms have limited utility and effectiveness. In even mild sea conditions, oil will wash over and under boom. Further, underneath the visible oil slick, there is an invisible cloud of toxic oil dissolved into the water column and this dissolved oil is deadly to shrimp and fish eggs and marine life.

Still, the Gulf spill has one advantage over the Alaska spill – hot weather and the relatively warm ocean will speed the work of bacteria to degrade the Louisiana crude. Even so, the initial toxic hit is likely to harm generations of wildlife, similar to what happened in Prince William Sound.

The oil industry has had over 40 years – since the 1967 Torrey Canyon tanker spill in England – to make good on its promise to cleanup future oil spills. This latest spill highlights the harsh truth that the industry has failed to live up to its promise. It is time for Americans to demand of our leaders accountability and closure of fossil fuel industries – as we transition to new energies.

[1] City of Cordova Fact Sheet, 1989 1[29]: Robert Rigg, MD, Letter to Cordova District Fishermen United, 13 May 1989.

[2] U.S. Dept. of Labor, OSHA 29 CFR Part 1904.5(b)(2)(viii): “Colds and flu will not be considered work-related.”

Riki Ott, PhD, is a community activist, a former fisherm'am, and has a degree in marine toxicology with a specialty in oil pollution. She is also the author of Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
© 2010 Reuters All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146700/

=======

Heavily taxpayer-subsidized/tax-break corps and the conservative-packed/pro-ins ution courts conspire to protect the corps and over the taxpayers, in the very same way the Catholic Church bureaucracy conspired within itself to protect itself while ing over victims of priests' pederasty.

While the Conservatives and their teabagging dupes keep blowing the smokescreen that government is the sole problem with civilization (unless the govt is transferring taxpayer wealth to conservative recipients)

[Wild Cobra]

Lawsuits will go for the "deep pockets". BP will be named as a defendant in the suits over the deaths.

You're right about BP being one named, but they will be one of several named. I'll bet when the dust settles, blame will be places on TransAtlantic. I think that was the name of the platform owner. If the information I gathered thus far is accurate, I don't see how BP will be found at fault.

[Wild Cobra]

The coal mine investigation for bribes of payoffs, now this, and you liberals want more government oversight over corporation...

Yes, yes I do.

Because corporations have only one real aim:

To provide returns for shareholders.

This is not always compatible with public good.

It might benefit a corporation's quarterly profits to skimp on pollution controls, or endanger worker's lives, but in the end, society ends up subsidizing that through economic losses to others.

It is that pesky negative externality problem again.

Free-market systems require referees, just like basketball games. The referees have to be able to enforce penalties.

Wow...

I see that went right over your head.

The solution is to enforce the regulations already in place. Not make more. If inspectors can be "paid off," then what what makes you think more regulations will help?

If anything, the penalty for such crimes need to be increased to the point it will happen less.

[boutons_deux]

U.S. Law Limits Oil Company Liability — Will BP Weasel Out of Its Debt?

Posted By jedlewison On May 3, 2010 @ 7:40 am In Environment | 1 Comment

This post originally appeared on Daily Kos.

Matthew Wald of The New York Times reports the details of the previously obscure Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a $1.6 billion fund financed by a minuscule tax on oil — eight cents per barrel, which Wald says is roughly 0.1%. According to Wald, the fund is designed to pay damage claims resulting from oil spills, though not cleanup and containment costs. But that’s not all it does. It also limits the liability of oil companies like BP.

Under the law that established the reserve, called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for the damages that might be claimed by individuals, companies or the government, although they are responsible for the cost of containing and cleaning up the spill.

The fund was set up by Congress in 1986 (boutons: REAGAN!!) but not financed until after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989. In exchange for the limits on liability, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 imposed a tax on oil companies, currently 8 cents for every barrel they produce in this country or import.

The tax adds roughly one tenth of a percent to the price of oil. Another source of revenue is fines and civil penalties from companies that spill oil.

According to Wald’s report, there have been 51 instances in which damages under the $75 million liability cap has been exceeded. That figure will certainly be exceeded with BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill. Up to $1 billion from the fund can be used for any single accident, but in this case, $1 billion is likely to be peanuts.

In other words, it was a pretty sweet deal for oil companies: they agreed to a tiny tax which they can pass on to consumers, and in exchange their liability is limited to $75 million. Because they can pass the oil tax along to consumers, it’s like they got the liability caps for free.

If this law does indeed carry the final word, and there isn’t another way to hold BP accountable for the damage it has caused, then you can chalk up another victory for corporate socialism. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the right won’t shed a tear over it.

Update (6:56AM): Today’s NYT reports that there is a push to amend the law:

Mr. Obama met with Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana upon the arrival of Air Force One in New Orleans. Then he went to Venice for two hours — by road, rather than helicopter, because of inclement weather — to look at the response.

He stopped to speak to several fishermen, assuring them that BP would reimburse them for lost earnings. But reimbursement may be one of the largest battles to come, given that federal law sets a limit of $75 million on BP’s liability for damages, apart from the cleanup costs.

“It’s going to be extremely tricky” to reimburse fishermen and others if economic damages tally above $75 million, said Stuart Smith, a New Orleans-based lawyer who is pushing for Congressional action to amend the law. “They may not be obligated to pay more than that unless they agree to do it.”

There is a federal fund, generated from a tax on oil, that may cover as much as $1 billion in damages.

Obviously, at the moment, much of the focus on the ground is stopping the spill and cleaning it up, but dealing the economic damages resulting from it will be a huge deal. And it’s enormously important that the administration and Congress do everything within their power to ensure that BP is held accountable. It’s not just politics, though the politics of this are obvious. It’s also policy: if oil firms can ‘earn’ unlimited profits without accepting responsibility for the damages caused by their operations, there will be an endless cycle of environmental disasters like the one unfolding in the Gulf.

Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...-cleanup-debt/

[RandomGuy]

You kidding?

Just proving your lack of information again. [BP will be sued for] Damages, probably[, but] Deaths, no way. The platform was a leased one and operated by employees of the owner. I forget the owners name at the time. I'll let you look it up.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...xico-oil-spill

families of workers killed in the explosion have sued not only Transocean, the company that operated the rig, but BP as well.

Toldja.

[1369]

If things off shore run anything like the industry I work in, I'd bet that BP is indemnified by Transocean and is also named as additional insured per their subcontract/lease agreement.

[SnakeBoy]

This thing is getting out of control. What a huge disaster. It's in crazy to think about.

They're saying at least 3 months until they can stop it by drilling another well.

And some are saying the rate of the spill can be increasing, we might be looking at even 50K barrels a day. Mindblowing. Unbelievable in the year 2010 they don't have a reliable system of shutting the mother er off.

Relax, it's BP's responsibility. Nothing for us to worry about. Let me be clear, BP is responsible.

[xrayzebra]

BP will obviously be sued for deaths and damages, but, like Exxon in Alaska, BP will fight in courts for years, even decades like Exxon, and finally the pro-business courts, 20 years later?, will reduce damages to a wrist slap compared to BP's profits.

It's just like BigPharma, writing off the fines from 10s of 1000s killed and sickened by their ty drugs, as simply an unavoidable cost of doing business. AstraZeneca just got hit with $500M+ fine for corrupting doctors. A wrist slap. Business as Usual, and the corruption will continue unabated.

If I were you, I would teach them, BigPharama, just don't take anymore
that the doctor orders for you. You just show them.

If BS was money, you would be a rich person. I was going to say man
but I don't think you fit the bill.