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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (77240)	6/3/2010 11:25:44 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

"The costs are growing by the day, the spill is worsening every day, and BP's reputation is declining by the day," said Bruce Bullock, executive director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. "Clearly, this is an issue that threatens BP's existence," Bullock said. "The longer it goes on, the more they are threatened."

To: koan who wrote (77240)	6/3/2010 11:41:19 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

Why has the Obama Administration allowed BP to use close to a million gallons of the toxic dispersant Corexit...?? Dr. Seth Forman on the Health Risks of Corexit, the BP Oil Disaster Dispersant youtube.com _______________________ "The dispersant is a toxic pollutant that has been applied in the volume of millions of gallons and I think has greatly exacerbated the situation. I think the whole idea of using a dispersant is wrong, and I think it’s part of the whole pattern of BP trying to cover up and hide the body. They don’t want us to see how much oil, so they’ve taken this oil that was concentrated at the surface and dissolved it. But when you dissolve it, it’s still there, and it actually gets more toxic, because instead of being in big blobs, it’s now dissolved and can get across the gills, get into the mouths of animals. The water below the floating oil was water. Now it’s this toxic soup. So I think that in this whole pattern of BP trying to not let people know what’s going on, the idea of disperse the oil is a way of just hiding the body. But it actually makes the oil more toxic, and it adds this incredible amount of toxic pollutant in the dispersant itself." ~Carl Safina, president of Blue Ocean Institute and author of many books about marine ecology ________________________________________ IMO, this Corexit dispersant will make it impossible to gather all the oil at the surface. We would be better off with the clumps of oil that skimmers and tankers can deal with. BP is trying to break up the oil so that it will spread out faster undersea making it appear like less of a problem at any single location. They say this is the right thing to do. They are lying through their teeth. STOP it now. BP doesn't have the worst safety record in the petroleum industry by accident...In the last decade BP has had over $730 Million in safety fines...Hmmm....Wake up Obama administration and show that you actually have the leverage to get BP to STOP USING COREXIT in our Gulf of Mexico....the president tells us that the government is in control of everything -- I don't believe that for a minute.

To: koan who wrote (77240)	6/3/2010 11:59:19 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Seize BP Week of Action seizebp.org

To: koan who wrote (77240)	6/4/2010 12:08:53 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

BP Toolpusher Jason Anderson Feared for His Life seminal.firedoglake.com By: Watt4Bob Thursday June 3, 2010 8:24 am Proving that even a blind dog occasionally finds a bone, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, last night aired a poignant interview with the wife of Jason Anderson, toolpusher with Transocean, the company in charge of drilling on the Deepwater Horizon which blew-up and sank in the GOM, killing 11 men and initiating what is probably destined to be the biggest environmental disaster in our country’s history. Jason’s wife Shelly says the last time he was home, he was very concerned to put his affairs in order, he wrote a will and gave her instructions regarding things to do if anything were to ‘happen to him’. Jason told his father that BP was pushing the rig operators to stray from proper procedures to speed up the drilling, and that he thought this was unsafe. In Jason’s last telephone calls with his wife Shelly, he told her he could not talk about his concerns because the ‘walls were too thin’ but that he would tell her about it later when he got home. Jason never got home, he was killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosions, some of the survivors, his fellow workers have since told Shelley that he died trying to save them. You can view the NBC interview here: seminal.firedoglake.com

To: koan who wrote (77240)	6/4/2010 1:12:32 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

Whistle-Blower: BP Is 'Serial Environmental Criminal' aolnews.com (June 3) -- The oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico was a "disaster waiting to happen" because BP is a "serial environmental criminal" known for cutting corners, a former federal investigator said in an interview with AOL News today. "They are known as the bad boys of the oil industry in the U.S., and I don't mean 'bad boys' in a flattering sense," said Scott West, a former top investigator with the Environmental Protection Agency who spent years dealing with a BP disaster in Alaska during the late 1990s. "They are criminals -- they have been convicted of several environmental crimes. They are serial environmental criminals, and that phrase comes out of the mouth of a federal prosecutor." West, who retired from the EPA in 2008 after 18 years, said he has seen BP skirt the law and cut corners for years. When the oil company's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six weeks ago in the Gulf of Mexico, West immediately thought of criminal wrongdoing, he said. Federal EPA statutes allow for misdemeanor and felony prosecutions of corporations and individuals stemming from hazardous materials seeping into the environment. "If I was still on the job and had the area of the gulf, the day I heard this I would've started a criminal investigation just because of the fact that it was BP," West said. "If it was Shell or anyone else, I would've monitored it. But the fact that it's BP, I would have assumed it's criminal and started an investigation before evidence disappeared." BP officials did not return several phone calls seeking comment. West now works as an agent for the oceanic environmental organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. His wife, Suzanne, runs a Facebook page titled "BP Beyond Prosecution," designed to monitor the British oil company, which is the fourth largest firm in the world. West said he first learned about the company's practices in 1999 when it was convicted of dumping hazardous waste down an Alaskan well. Six years later, an Alaskan pipeline burst and West gathered intelligence from workers who said they complained to supervisors about the faulty pipe, but were told to ignore it. Knowing about a disaster in advance would normally constitute a felony, but West said the Department of Justice shut down his probe into the pipeline incident. BP pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Then in 2005, a Texas refinery exploded, killing workers and releasing toxic fumes into the air. "It infuriated me and disgusted me," West said of the halt to the earlier investigation. "At first I thought it was [President] Bush's connection to oil. But now that this administration hasn't done anything, I think it's something even more nefarious. I can't even speculate what it might be." West doesn't buy the attorney general's recent statements that an investigation is under way. If it were, he said, people would be talking about getting grand jury subpoenas and visits from a task force of EPA and FBI agents. None of that appears to be happening, West said. The whole episode has given the oil industry a black eye, West said, adding that he has talked to oil company insiders who are furious at BP. "BP is notoriously known for cost-cutting and putting dollars ahead of worker safety," he said. "Personally, in 19 years, I've never investigated other companies like Shell or Mobil. I haven't had to." 2010 AOL Inc.