Tag: BP

The Gulf Disaster Engineered To Fail

I’ve been in the workforce for forty years. It’s not like shortcuts are a surprise to me. However, none of my jobs involved pumping dangerous/poisonous fluids up a straw

I have avoided talking about the BP spill. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been with me on a constant basis. I am incensed by what has happened in the Gulf. I am just as incensed, maybe more, that this is a case where shortcuts were taken to make more money. The Gulf disaster was engineered to fail.

I’ve been in the workforce for forty years. It’s not like shortcuts are a surprise to me. However, none of my jobs involved pumping dangerous/poisonous fluids up a straw.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is a clusterf**k. It is so complex a project there were myriad ways to cut corners–and most were cut.

Pick your poison–literally. There was outsourcing which decentralized responsibility. Each subcontractor had an incentive to save money on their piece of the project without, by design, seeing the full picture

There was “convenience flagging” which allowed many of the projects largest parts to escape proper US inspection by being “flagged” as foreign vessels. There was a cavalier attitude toward safety when safety cost money.

It’s no wonder our government is powerless to fix this problem. We were assured… No, we were lied to by the companies doing the drilling they had all the technology necessary to solve any problem that might arise in this incredibly complex problem. Make no mistake, they lied and we believed them.

Nowadays industries often work in areas so technologically complex we have no choice but to believe them. Oil isn’t alone here. Over the past few years airlines have been fined for flying planes with unfixed maintenance problems. Hospitals have had their problems too. Here’s a Google search for the phrase, “hospital fined.”

Fines are not enough. They become another calculation–a cost of doing business. If you’re lawyered up well crime can pay.

I am now vindictive. People in suits need to spend long periods of time in prison. Rich, powerful, well connected people need to take perp walks.

Over the long run masters of industry need to be fearful that their actions will have real world downsides for them.

That probably won’t happen. It should.

Drudge Teaches How To Poison Public Discourse

Is Drudge’s twenty minute headline reasonable? Even if it was posted before the meeting, was it valid three hours later? The problem is some people will see Drudge’s headline and stop there

“If it upsets you so much, why do you look?” The words were from Ann Nyberg. She was referring to the Drudge Report which I check a few times daily when I want my blood pressure elevated.

I cannot not look because every time I think I’ve seen the depths of his deceit he dives lower! And, of course, there are people who read his words and believe him without question.

This is not about the job the president is doing. There’s a lot to be upset by there. This is about passing fiction as truth.

20 MINUTE MEETING?!

That’s the headline right now under a photo of what seems to be oil executives leaving the White House. I see “seems to be” because I can’t identify any of these players by sight. The setting of the photo is enough to make the point.

As with most of Drudge’s posts it’s stark black type on a white page. The slug linked to a story on Politico.com, a political site with a right-of-center slant.

Of course I expected to be livid that the administration had been so smug as to only meet with BP for twenty minutes.

The six BP executives arrived at the White House around 10 a.m. and were still inside after noon.

Obama was scheduled to spend 20 minutes in the meeting.

Before the all-caps scream at 10:56 AM Drudge had posted a smaller though still inflammatory headline.

Obama meets with BP execs — for 20 minutes…

At 11:14 AM the larger headline went up, though as Politico reported the meeting was still in progress at that time. When the president spoke at 2:27 PM He said, “I just left a meeting.”

Is Drudge’s twenty minute headline reasonable? Even if it was posted before the meeting, was it valid three hours later? The problem is some people will see Drudge’s headline and stop there.

The president has finished speaking, but the headline’s still there! My blood pressure is spiking again.

Why Is BP Being Called Out?

There’s good reason to be suspicious. In the case of the Exxon Valdez, Exxon paid pennies on the dollar.

If you’ve been following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill story you have heard BP called out by President Obama and other members of the administration. It seems harsher and more focused than what I’ve heard a president say about a corporation before.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, as I type this, just said it was the government’s commitment BP would pay all the costs and damages associated with this tragedy. Again, there was no vacillating. BP was called out.

There’s good reason to be suspicious and wary. When the Exxon Valdez broke up in Prince William Sound Exxon paid pennies on the dollar and took years to do even that.

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). – Riki Ott, PhD

In the meantime the oil continues to gush and move toward shore.