Gulf oil spill: Senators call for criminal, civil charges against BP

Eight senators urged U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric J. Holder on Monday to open up an inquiry of oil giant BP in connection with the April 20 well blowout that has been pouring an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude daily into the Gulf of Mexico.

The senators -- seven Democrats, including California's Barbara Boxer, and one independent -- asked Holder to examine whether BP "made false and misleading statements to the federal government regarding its ability to respond to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico."

The letter comes on the heels of last week's congressional hearings in which executives for the companies involved in the disaster were grilled by separate panels.

The letter noted that BP's exploration plan had assured the Minerals Management Service that an unanticipated blowout and spill "is unlikely to have an impact [on fish habitat], based on the industrywide standards for using proven equipment and technology for such responses."

The senators questioned the “proven equipment and technology” to respond to the spill, adding: "Much of the response and implementation of spill control technologies appears to be taking place on an ad hoc basis."

BP, the letter noted, issued a recent statement describing its methods to contain the oil "involve significant uncertainties because they have not been tested in these conditions before.”

The Justice Department already has sent a team to the gulf to investigate the spill.

The letter was signed by senators Boxer,  Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.); Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

There was no immediate response from BP.

-- Geoff Mohan

Comments

[Altal]

The ignorance and hypocrisy of you Americans is amazing.

You want a heads to roll and those reasonable for the accident to be accountable, that is a reasonable request, but before your President and Senators all start beating their chests and demanding people to be thrown into jail and to try and bankrupt BP, can I ask if you brave Americans are will to accept the same for the numerous environmental disasters that American companies and American citizens have been responsible for over the years, instead of them resorting to any underhand cheap way of getting out of their responsibilities?

I assume that you want BP to compensate everyone in the Gulf region to make up for the “dead zone” that exists off the coast an area the size of New Jersey, a zone that as been dead of all life for years. The reason for this the over use of fertilisers and pesticides used by your farmers that got into the water system and then out into the Gulf and killed all life in the waters of the “dead zone”

You seem to want, as usual take the moral high ground, pity you could not be bothered taking your own responsibilities for disasters that American companies and individuals have been responsible for, but of course the great American people never make any mistakes do they?

What about in 1988 and the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea, it blow up with the loss of over 100 British lives and resulting oil spillage, the reason for this, gross negligence by the American company and personnel who operated the platform. The companies response was to spend tens of millions in court to get away with paying the minimum they could in compensation to the relatives of those killed. And the oil spill? they did nothing.

Or maybe you should look at the disaster in Bhopal in India when the factory run by Union Carbide blow up and spread highly chemical toxins into the surrounding area, did the company take on its responsibilities and try to clean it up? No they paid off the local big wigs and walked away. The result, a conservative estimate is that at least 20,000 people have died and are still dying as a result of the incident.

If America as a nation what to be responsible for your actions how come you refuse to accept responsibilities for your friendly fire incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan in which dozens of UK soldiers lives have been lost, as a result of under trained and unprofessional American pilots. It’s common knowledge in the British army that if the Americans are in theatre the safest place is with the enemy!

As a nation you have a total lack of any understanding about the world that you seem to think revolves around you and you alone, this as resulted in untold millions of lives being lost because of your ignorance of what happens in other countries.

[Sierra Blanca]

The first order of business is for the feds to demand full access to the disaster sight so that there is an independent assessment of the flow rate and the effectiveness of BP's relief efforts. It's a joke to think that BP isn't lying about the damage. And yes, criminal prosecution going all the way BP's CEO is in order.

But the most important thing is for the American voters to quit voting for people (mostly Republicans) who would sacrifice American lands to help polluters make obscene profits.