One hundred days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded creating the worst environmental disaster in the world’s history, those who live down along the Gulf coast in the areas that have been most impacted are standing strong and reminding the world that, while the well gushing oil may have been capped and while BP CEO Tony Hayward may be going to Siberia, the disaster is not over.

Tony Hayward talks up his own brilliant safety record and blames the disaster on “multiple equipment errors.”

So, in addition to giving Tony “I want my life back” Hayward his life back, the BP Board of Directors this week reported a $17,000,000,000 loss for the quarter and announced that they would set aside $32,000,000,000 to pay claims in their Gulf of Mexico fiasco.

Discussion of CEO Salaries

Tony Hayward will exit BP, possibly as soon as this week. Reports of his likely exit package show him leaving the company while retaining wealth beyond the dreams of the average person. If so, Hayward will become the embodiment of the concept of moral hazard.

Adm. Thad Allen has issued a directive further restricting media access. This comes days after the ACLU of Louisiana wrote a letter urging an end to blocking of the press and censorship of information.

Gulf Coast law firms filing a series of civil RICO actions in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama against BP.

For all that the BP Oil Disaster is in fact a disaster there is a little ray of sunshine in the oil clouded waters (if you’ll allow me to mix a metaphor or two). One of the things which have been missing in our nation for too long has been effective oversight by the Congress. The magnitude of the disaster has finally woken our legislators up to fact that they can and must call those who are damaging our nation to testify and to testify over and over if that is what it takes to get to the truth.

From the start of this catastrophe BP has obfuscate, soft peddle, and generally (if you will pardon the pun) muddy the waters around what led up to the disastrous explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig. As the information from the Congressional investigation has come to light the reasons are fairly clear why BP took the actions it did. For all of their protestations of “safety first” the reality is that BP has a culture that values the bottom line over all things. Worse the culture at BP is all about the current quarters bottom line, with no ability to balance the potential long term costs of cutting corners to save money right now.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

One of the powerful effects of Congressional hearings is to give those who are part of the company or industry under scrutiny a chance to really see who they work for and with. For the most part we all know of things that are done in our work place that make us vaguely uncomfortable. Most of the time we just shrug and think “I can’t really do anything to change this, and if I speak up too much I could lose my job” and go on, hoping that our small acts of cowardice don’t result in disaster.

Don’t worry, small people, your troubles are few.
The BP oil execs care about you. Truly. They do.

They said so….

As I offer my services to BP as a replacement for Mr Tony Hayward.