The lawsuits continue to pile up against BP in the wake of their Gulf spill. Now they’re filing their own lawsuit to transfer blame.
We all know the modern, industrialized world lives and dies by its oil production, even as digital technologies rise to the fore. Even those of environmental leanings understand the fact that the electricity they use to power their computer, or the clothes they wear all arrived because of the black gold.
People seem to be willing to deal with such contradictions, but they do so with the expectation that when an oil giant creates a disaster, they pay for it. And if the free market–which everyone loves with such religious reverence–dictates that clean-up costs bankrupt the corporation, then so be it. This is a Darwinian world, is it not?
If they want to preserve their profits, perhaps they shouldn’t take such risks and spend money on preventative measures so that they aren’t hit with billions of dollars in loss all due to carelessness.
And as BP’s Gulf spill impacts the livelihoods of its fisherman by devastating the ocean and coastal ecosystems, BP is tying up the payouts to Gulf businesses in bureaucratic paperwork that would make Terry Gilliam’s characters in Brazil feel as though they were in another regime.
One of the groups involved against BP, the Centre for Biological Diversity, is suing the oil giant for $19 billion, to ensure that they make good on their promise to make the Gulf “whole” again.
But, in this continuing corporate Theater of the Absurd, BP has filed its own $40 billion lawsuit against Transocean (owner of the Deepwater Horizon platform) and Cameron International Corp., to spread the cost of their malfeasance. More probably there will be a settlement, which will work to BP’s advantage as well, since it will symbolically spread the blame to others, and will–in their mind–help rehabilitate their corporate image.
BP has also pledged $1 billion in cleanup, but in another fine example of cognitively dissonant absurdity, the Department of Justice released the following statement:
“The agreement in no way affects the ultimate liability of BP or any other entity for natural resource damages or other liabilities, but provides an opportunity to help restoration get started sooner.”
Translation: BP’s pledging money for cleanup, but legally their liability in the oil spill hasn’t been established.
But, we all know that this was BP’s well and is thus BP’s responsibility.
April 23, 2011 at 5:14 pm, john charles webb jr said:
The Gulf of Mexico Oil spill 2010. Shocking new pictures :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6W3YoisZ0o
April 23, 2011 at 5:26 pm, john charles webb jr said:
BP acknowledged in a September internal report that its engineers and employees of Transocean Ltd., the company running the rig, misinterpreted the negative pressure test.
But on Thursday, Halliburton came under increased scrutiny when investigators from the president’s oil spill commission revealed that tests performed by the company before the deadly blowout showed the cement to be unstable. Independent tests conducted for the commission by Chevron on a nearly identical mixture also concluded that the cement mix was unstable.
In a statement Thursday, Halliburton said it was unable to give the presidential commission the cement mix used on the Deepwater Horizon rig because that batch was being held as evidence for the ongoing federal investigation. Barbier’s order released Halliburton to hand over some of the mix to federal investigators.
from : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/29/halliburton-gulf-oil-spill_n_775784.html
Halliburton is (it seems) a “SUB-CONTRACTOR” for BP : leaving the ultimate-responsibility squarely upon British Petroleum .
BP is ‘locked-in’ because of ‘admissions’ :
NO WAY OUT : unless they try to claim (ex post facto) and then serendipitously ‘repeat’ (@ another well) a ‘fake terrorist attack’ caused the catastrophe :
they will do ‘anything’ to attempt to avoid accepting their full-responsibility .
THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE .
April 23, 2011 at 5:45 pm, john charles webb jr said:
The U.S. Department of Justice
is making soft-statements (wisely , my opinion)
to avoid having BP stock drop through the floor
and go out of business :
THEN WE WOULD BE SCREWED PERMANENTLY .
NO MONETARY RECOVERY FROM A BANKRUPT CORPORATION.