The EPA had the power to prevent British Petroleum from receiving or profiting from any government contract or grants or leasing any U.S. held territory, prior to the explosion of Deepwater Horizon.[1]
The EPA said in a statement that, according to its regulations, it can consider banning BP from future contracts after weighing "the frequency and pattern of the incidents, corporate attitude both before and after the incidents, changes in policies, procedures, and practices."[2]
VIDEO - Explosion and Fire on the Deepwater Horizon (if you have surround sound you will get a good understand of the magnitude of the fire) http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...
The term is called debarment and there are several options at their (EPA) disposal;
Brief History of EPA's Debarment Program[2]
EPA's Debarment Program officially began in 1982 in response to Congressional oversight hearings that revealed Government-wide inadequacies in the management of Federal contracts and assistance with regard to waste, fraud, abuse and poor performance. On the basis of those hearings, and subsequent task force studies conducted by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), the Office of Management and Budget developed a comprehensive Government-wide debarment and suspension system for all Federal contracts, assistance, loans and benefits extended by Executive-Branch agencies.
EPA, as an Executive Branch agency, is part of that Government-wide system. In addition to its discretionary authority to debar pursuant the above, it also has mandatory debarment authority under Section 306 of the Clean Air Act, and Section 508 of the Clean Water Act.
Suspension and Debarment Program[4]
SUSPENSION
May be based on indictments, information or adequate evidence involving environmental crimes, contract fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, poor performance, non-performance, or false statements.
Are temporary actions which may last up to one year and are effective immediately.
DEBARMENT
May be based on convictions, civil judgments or fact based cases involving environmental crimes, contract fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, poor performance, non-performance or false statements as well as other causes.
Results in the imposition of a set period of time decided on a case by case basis.
STATUTORY DEBARMENT
Occurs by operation of law following criminal conviction under Clean Water Act (Section 508) and Clean Air Act (Section 306).
Last until the Debarring Official certifies that "condition giving rise to conviction has been corrected."
List of Violating Facilities Incorporated into GSA - "Excluded Parties List System"
SUSPENSIONS & DEBARMENTS can be extended to include subsidiaries, parent companies & other individuals. All individuals and entities excluded from receiving government grants and contracts are listed on the GSA "Excluded Parties List System"
A History of British Petroleum's Operational Accidents in North America
British Petroleum has a long and storied history in this country. They have killed more workers in 10 years than most companies will lose during their entire history. The EPA was already in talks (excuse me, negotiations) trying to determine if they were going to ban 2 facilities that had accidents before the Deepwater Horizon exploded.
Accidents by the company over the last ten years, including the Texas City explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 others, all seem to have one consistent theme - profit over safety.
In that ten year period British Petroleum has had four convictions, 3 of which where felonies or misdemeanor violations of the Clean Air Act[1].
British Petroleum has one key asset that has prevented their death penalty, they are one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the United States military, but even that may not save them this time.
Multinational Monitor lists BP as one of the top ten worst corporations in 2005 and listed a few of their accidents;
In March (2005), 15 workers were incinerated, and more than 170 injured, following an explosion at BP’s sprawling refinery in Texas City, Texas.
It was the third fatal accident at the Texas City BP facility in the last four years.
In September 2004, two workers were burned to death and another was seriously injured.
In 2001, a maintenance worker at the facility died after falling into a tank that had been shut down. Nationwide, BP’s facilities have had more than 3,565 accidents since 1990, ranking first in the nation, according to a 2004 report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG).[5]
BP was also responsible for the largest oil spill on the North Slope of Alaska, a spill that BP didn't even detect for days and one that dumped 267,000 gallons of crude oil into Prudhoe Bay[6];
The Spill: First Reports
At 5:45 a.m. on the morning of March 2, 2006, a worker driving a deserted stretch of road in the Prudhoe Bay oil field – the nation’s largest – noticed a strong petroleum odor, stopped and discovered what turned out to be by far the biggest oil spill in nearly three decades of petroleum operations on Alaska’s North Slope. This analysis reviews initial spill reports in the context of Prudhoe Bay operator BP’s troubled North Slope history[8].
The leak was apparently coming from a 34-inch diameter pipeline next to the road that carries oil between the two operating gathering centers in the western half of the Prudhoe field. The gathering centers treat the oil produced from the Prudhoe Bay reservoir, 8,000 feet beneath the frozen ground surface, by removing gas, water and impurities to prepare the oil for shipment through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)[8].
In the bitter cold, workers began shutting down the leaking pipeline and more than 200 wells feeding the remote gathering center. Emergency crews were called in to start moving snow to find out how far the oil had spread. It turned out to be covering approximately two acres, extending over the edge of one of the many frozen lakes that dot the flat North Slope landscape. According to press reports, toxic fumes from the spilled oil also hampered response efforts.
At first, BP could not say how much oil was out there, exactly where the oil was coming from, how long the line had been leaking or what caused the leak. The source of the leak was not found for three days. Workers eventually reported a ¼-inch hole where the pipeline dips into a culvert to allow caribou to pass over.[8].
After first denying culpability, BP eventually turned over internal e-mails to investigators that implicated the company. Instead of sending cylindrical probes called pigs through the pipeline to clean and inspect the pipes for corrosion, BP virtually abandoned the practice to cut costs[7].
That accident alone -- which led to congressional investigations and revelations that BP executives harassed employees who warned of safety problems and ignored corrosion problems for years -- was thought by some inside the EPA to be grounds for the more serious discretionary debarment[6].
Brent Coon, who was the lead lawyer that sued BP on behalf of the families of the workers who were injured and killed (at the Texas City refinery), says that at the time of the accident in Texas City, the company's safety record in the U.S. was poor[7].
"The reality is that BP has a long history of underinvesting and reinvesting in their infrastructure," Coon says. "Deferred maintenance causes things to just wear out and not be replaced. And they're just a fix-it-as-it-breaks type company."[7]
BP knew corrosion was a problem throughout the Alaskan pipeline system but had not even inspected the section of leaking pipe since 1998[8]. In 2002 BP was fined $300,000 for failing to comply with corrosion detection policies.
BP believes the pipeline linking the gathering centers may have been leaking for five days prior to the discovery of the leak. In making this disclosure 12 days after the leak was discovered, BP senior vice president and manager of Prudhoe Bay operations Maureen Johnson said the performance of the field pipeline leak detection system was "not acceptable" to BP. Her comment stands in marked contrast to the documentary history of BP’s resistance to regulatory agency efforts to require BP to improve the field pipeline leak detection system.[8]
It seems to be the same story with most, if not all, of BP's accidents. They do not seem to follow the rules and regulatory structure that defines oil recovery operations in the United States. BP seems to have taken the position that it is more profitable to pay the fines than to properly and safely operate their facilities.
Although BP’s skirmishes with regulators over North Slope pipeline leak detection system requirements generated little public notice, worker safety issues in BP-managed North Slope fields have garnered occasional headlines. For example, in July U.S. News & World Report wrote about BP employee complaints that corporate budget cuts were forcing them to work with worn-out and dangerous equipment; in that article, BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell insisted BP’s operations were safer than ever.20 Early in 2002, through the auspices of worker safety advocate Chuck Hamel of Alexandria, Virginia, veteran North Slope workers expressed similar complaints to Congress. According to the testimony of one BP worker, "If you look at the direction BP and the state of Alaska are going -- with exposed outdoor well-pad modules, breakdown maintenance and a skeleton workforce -- there is no doubt that cost-cutting and profits have taken precedence over safety and the environment."[8]
In the Texas City refinery investigation, OSHA charged BP with 5 different categories of "Egregious Willful Violations" with a total of 273 infractions (Willful violations are those committed with an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to, the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and regulations).
They were also charged with 5 "Willful Safety Violations" and 12 "Serious Safety Violations" ( A serious violation is defined as one in which there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result, and the employer knew or should have known of the hazard).
SUMMARY OF PROPOSED PENALTIES:
EGREGIOUS WILLFUL
$20,720,000
WILLFUL
490,000
[$350,000 for Safety & $140,000 for Health]
SERIOUS
156,500
[$86,500 for Safety & $70,000 for Health]
OTHER THAN SERIOUS
2,000
[Health]
TOTAL FOR ALL VIOLATIONS:
$21,361,500
In 2009, Hilda Solis, Sec. of Labor*, then levied an additional $87 million fine for failing to correct the conditions that lead to the explosion at Texas City;
BP fined record $87m for 'life-threatening' safety failings
BP has been handed a record $87m fine for "outstanding life-threatening safety problems" at its Texas City refinery where an explosion killed 15 workers and injured 170 in 2005.
Hilda Solis, the US Labor Secretary, said authorities had found 439 current "wilful and egregious" safety violations which "if unaddressed could lead to another catastrophe".[9]
The EPA, in weighing its decision to debar BP, will affect American workers and possibly affect our national security, at least in the short term, but given the track record of BP it's hard to see how any other decision short of a total ban on operations in the United States could be made.
Sources:
[1] EPA Officials Weigh Sanctions Against BP’s U.S. Operations by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - May 21, 2010
http://www.propublica.org/...
[2] Grants and Debarment - Brief History of EPA's Debarment Program
http://www.epa.gov/...
[3] Clean Air Act
http://www.epa.gov/...
[4] Grants and Debarment - Suspension and Debarment Program
http://www.epa.gov/...
[5] Multinational Monitor - The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/...
[6] triplepundit - BP’s Long History Of Greenwashing and Accidents by Gina-Marie Cheeseman May 18th, 2010
http://www.triplepundit.com/...
[7] NPR -Previous BP Accidents Blamed On Safety Lapses by Wade Goodwyn
http://www.npr.org/...
[8] BP North Slope Spill Reveals A History of Substandard Environmental Performance
A Preliminary Report to the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility by Richard A. Fineberg March 15, 2006
http://www.alaskaforum.org/...
[9] Telegraph.co.uk - BP fined record $87m for 'life-threatening' safety failings By Rowena Mason, City Reporter
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
*Correction - Hilda Solis in the current current Sec. of Labor, not the Bush administration Sec. of Labor as stated above and the date of the fine was 10/30/2009 not 2008, sorry for the confusion.