Greg Palast Evicerates BP's crimes at Valdez and DeepWater

[merkins]

Greg Palast:

I've seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was ... British Petroleum. That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf over a week ago, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans

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And here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun. BP's CEO Tony Hayward reportedly asked, "What the hell did we do to deserve this?" It's what you didn't do, Mr. Hayward. Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP? Last year, CEO Hayward boasted that, despite increased oil production in exotic deep waters, he had cut BP's costs by an extra one billion dollars a year. Now we know how he did it.

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Americans want government off our backs ... that is, until a folding crib crushes the skull of our baby; Toyota accelerators speed us to our death; banks blow our savings on gambling sprees; and crude oil smothers the Mississippi. Then, suddenly, it's, "where was hell was the Government!" Why didn't the government do something to stop it? The answer is, because government took you at your word they should get out of the way of business, that business could be trusted to police itself. It was only last month that BP, lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn't needed.

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http://www.gregpalast.com/slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well/">Full Article Here

[JNelson6563]

1. Valdez is covered in his book

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Very enlightening. I recommend it highly. To all of you.

Julie

[glitch]

2. Second this. nt

[EFerrari]

3. K&R for Greg.

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!

:kick:

[amborin]

5. K&R

but why did Salazar let them get proceed without an environmental impact study?

[chill_wind]

6. K & R.

"This just in: Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews who therefore poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So it blew.

Why didn't Halliburton check? "Gross negligence on everyone's part," says Becnel. Negligence driven by penny-pinching bottom-line squeezing. BP says its worker is lying. Someone's lying here: the man on the platform – or the company that has practiced prevarication from Alaska to Louisiana?"