Stop British Petroleum Now, Part 2
BP is scrawled in the oil-soaked sand in Louisiana. (photo: Jacqui Goddard, New Orleans)
Reader Supported News | Perspective
wrote 30 days ago that with all urgency British Petroleum had to be removed from command and control of the operation to save the Gulf of Mexico from the environmental catastrophe British Petroleum itself created.
That did not happen then, it still needs to happen now. In the time that has elapsed, millions of gallons of crude oil have gushed into the sea, devastating wildlife and wreaking economic ruin upon all the communities in the region.
The White House has largely replaced the BP spokespersons with government spokespersons, but command and control of the operation remains in the hands of BP. BP has inherent, fundamental conflicts of interest in addressing the disaster. Foremost is BP's obligation to its shareholders, rather than to the human communities and wild creatures laid to waste in pursuit of profit. Indeed, it was that very pursuit of profit that has led us to catastrophe.
These steps must be taken immediately:
- Declare a state of emergency in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding communities.
- Remove BP from command and control of the disaster relief effort in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Freeze - all - of BP's US assets, financial and operational, pending the outcome of the disaster relief effort.
- Commandeer whatever assets from BP that may be helpful in bringing the disaster under control.
- Make it clear that any relief well drilled to abate the flow of oil into the Gulf waters will not be assumed by BP as a revenue-producing asset. That only reinforces the conflict of interest.
- Get in place some apparatus for skimming the oil from the water's surface and seriously consider abandoning the use of dispersants that mask the scope of the problem. That may reduce BP's exposure to liability, but the oil is still there in a more insidious form.
- Look to practical methods of channeling the oil to collection points where tankers can skim the crude. Perhaps a sleeve made from nylon or other flexible material to a collection trough at the water's surface.
- Examine using explosives at the wellhead to collapse the opening to the sea floor. This has been used successfully in the past, and might well work in this situation.
- Charlotte Randolph, president of LaFourche Parish is, according to CNN, "pleading" with Obama not to restrict new oil ventures in the region because of the economic impact on her community. This leads to the primary origin of the disaster. Shall oil and industrialization take precedence over all other means of human sustenance? Yes, some oil industry-related jobs will be lost, but the current disaster stands to wipe out the livelihood of a thousand communities in the Gulf region. The White House must hold fast on the moratorium and take control of the safety of US coastal waters.
- Gulf region residents must take matters into their own hands. Show up at meetings, demand answers, file legal actions and unite to defend the Gulf region. As is their right.
BP has made clear their priorities. It's time for the American people to restore order.
Marc Ash was formerly the founder and Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
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True enough...and they should all be forced to pay, and BP should be dissolved. I don't really care what bundle of corporations are brought to their knees or where they are from. If they can't handle their business responsibly they shouldn't be in business in the first place.
BP is not only guilty of all you observed...but also of killing many American workers...11 in this one and 15 in the Texas City explosion. The BP CEO should be arrested and arraigned on negligent homicide charges.
BP was at first the British Iran Petroleum Company...a British/Shah partnership...that had its oil nationalized in 1953. The BIPC and the CIA overthrew that government and BP was born. They are world class criminals.
Ted Becker
Could it be that EXXon appealed and re-appealed the Exxon Valdes spill long enough until there where Republican (=oil-friendly) lawyers in the USDJ who didn't make the case strongly enough for a fair settlement?
BP contributed heavily to Obama's campaign but will they do the same next time if he goes after them diligently?
Like the Microsoft case that David Boyce won easily, he even claimed that MS didn't have much of a case, but then the Bush DJ quickly lost it on appeal?
2. Exploding the wellhead is not a solution as the reservoir fluid pressures will keep oil and gas seeping through the sea floor mud and fractured rock.
3. BP's assets must be attached to pay for the livelihood of folks dependent on the now damaged marine and estuarine environment for decades to come. Those whose economic displacement the oil spill has caused are now the ongoing social and economic responsibility of BP and not the government.
4. We need a full investigation of why BP has hundreds of industrial safety violations while other oil companies are in the single digits.
And if the GOP won't cooperate we need to turn our anger on them and all the anti-regulation idiots that put us in this cluster "you know what" in the first place.
No one, not BP and not the GOP, has a right to destroy the Gulf, to mismanage it and to leave us and the viability of our planet at their mercy. This belongs to all of us and surely, hopefully, the people of the world will tire of being continually raped by the corporations. Our survival depends on this.
I am not sure of my reading of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Deepwater site, which seems to be 50 miles in open water. What basis would be used to corral BP p.l.c. I am not sure what can happen, other than bad public relations.
After its merger with Amoco, formerly Standard Oil, in 1998, it was renamed BP Amoco. BP also merged with Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) and Burmah Castrol, and is as American a company as it is British. Members of the US administration and American journalists have been calling the company "British Petroleum" since the disaster, and apparently they are either ignorant as to the correct name, or, more likely, are using "British" to deflect this problem as far away from the US and themselves as possible. The sad reality is that this fourth largest oil company in the world is multinational and quite American, with headquarters shared between the UK and Houston, Texas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI
As stated previously, IMO, BP's primary objective is to attempt to salvage, from this spill, while also feigning concern about the ecosystem, as well as its victims'livelihood. This is why we must wait until August, for an alternative, long-term solution, so as to provide time to conserve as much oil as possible, from this well. It will not, IMO, consider the use of microbes to either dampen or curtail its profiteering.
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