Justice is needed for the workers who were killed and their families, the people of the Gulf states, wildlife, marine life and for all Americans. Justice takes many forms, including debarment, civil penalties, criminal penalties, compensation and a proposed Gulf Recovery Fund to balance the injustice of a nation that benefits from offshore drilling, yet leaves the Gulf states to deal with the pain, costs and risks. Justice also means that we fight harder for a climate bill that moves away from fossil fuels. When you look at the issues that arise from this disaster --- such as corporate greed, reckless policies, deregulation, special interest legislation, indifference to humanity and environment, lack of transparency, etc --- they all make the case that we need a real climate change bill that addresses real reform.
In criminal investigation of BP, who'd go to jail? The historical pattern in most high-profile environmental cases is to file criminal charges against the company, allowing corporate executives to escape accountability. If criminal charges are filed against BP, experts believe that potential sanctions include criminal fines, civil penalties and debarment. However, experts also recognize that this Gulf gusher is "unlike any other disaster in the past" and thus the Justice Department might seek to hold individuals accountable.
One strategy investigators will likely follow will be to determine whether BP or its contractors submitted false information to the government, either in drilling permits or safety documents, Sarachan said.
Federal prosecutors followed a similar path after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. The operator of the plant, Metropolitan Edison Co., was charged with 11 felonies, including counts for allegedly falsifying safety records and destroying other records in the months before the accident.
The company ultimately pleaded guilty to one charge. No individuals were charged.
One obstacle to justice is the corporate money escape hatch: BP And Halliburton Build Legal Teams, Attempt To Buy Off Government Officials.
Facing possible jail time for their roles in the largest oil spill in American history, BP and Halliburton are building high-powered legal teams with "deep Department of Justice and White House ties." But the companies are pursuing other means to defend themselves as well.
Halliburton’s campaign donations have spiked as it tries to curry favor with key members of Congress investigating the disaster.
Another form of justice proposed by the Center for American Progress last week Focuses on Life after the BP oil disaster: Why we need a Gulf Recovery Fund.
The pain of each oil spill or related disaster is concentrated in the gulf, while the gains from oil exploration are funneled past the gulf to oil company shareholders, stock traders, and car drivers. The gulf states carry the costs and risks, while others reap the gains. As a Times-Picayune editorial put it just last week: "The nation benefits from the oil extracted by BP and others off our coast. But we are the state that bears the brunt of the oil industry’s collateral damage."
...We at the Center for American Progress recommend a different approach. We believe a new nongovernment economic development fund would enable the Gulf Coast region to collect its fair share of historical gains by the oil and gas companies without depending on future profits from oil and gas royalties to fund its operation. This is a new idea-- one that we have not yet fully fleshed out. But we do strongly recommend that this new Gulf Recovery Fund be financed primarily by the major oil and gas companies engaged in offshore drilling in the region.
...Over the past 25 years, these companies have collected nearly $60 billion in profits, according to CAP estimates based on U.S. Energy Information Administration data on oil production, oil prices, and profit margins to producers. We recommend that these same companies place a small fraction of this amount --perhaps $3 billion, representing just 5 percent of those historical profits -- into a long-term economic development account to be administered by the Gulf Recovery Fund. Private industry contributions could be matched by state or federal dollars or used to leverage further private investments.
The important thing is that these companies would be putting profits earned doing business in this region into a fund to secure the long-term health and growth of that same region. Just as the tobacco settlement of 1998 used some of the money from Big Tobacco to attack the long-term problem of youth smoking and smoking-related health problems, and to help tobacco farmers diversify into new crops, so would this new fund use resources from Big Oil to attack the long-term economic and environmental consequences of years of U.S. addiction to oil and gas extracted from the gulf.
This approach makes sense because the Gulf damage will last 'for years if not decades': Oil spill will have ripple effects far into the future, scientists warn.
And because a BP hydrogeologist expresses an attitude underlying this whole mess that we've heard stated by other BP officials: The Gulf can take it:
Because that bounty is out there, there have been numerous studies to say, "What can the Gulf of Mexico take?"... To make it short, there's enough oxygen in the Gulf right now that if all the oil that we've discovered to date -- about 10 billion barrels were released at once, we'd use less than one percent of the available oxygen.
... But a co-author of that study disagrees with the relatively sanguine picture Bruce projects. Steve DiMarco says the research, funded by the Bush-era Minerals Management Service, wasn't designed to consider the direct impact from toxic oil on wildlife -- let alone to say it would be OK to dump all the known oil in the Gulf straight into the water. "I would think it's a little bit self-serving to say it that way," says DiMarco, a professor of oceanography at Texas A&M. "Releasing all that oil that way, we weren't looking at the biological implications of that. You're essentially poisoning their environment."
Tonight's Climate Change News Roundup includes more news about the Gulf oil gusher:
Sea Creatures and Wildlife
- Tide of oil threatens to wipe out the iconic pelican. We've seen the horrible pictures of pelicans. Even if the pelican recovers, there is the danger of it returning to nesting colonies.
NOAA confirms 236 turtles dead, 21 found alive, and 31 dead dolphins. Here is a picture of a pod of dolphins swimming under the oiled water.
In addition to prior recovery rates from Exxon Valdez that were a small percent of the injured and dead wildlife, there is also a report of the found Dead Wildlife We'll Never Know About.
All up and down this shoreline angry and scared people told me some scary and infuriating stories in the past few days. I heard about the the dead and dying wildlife we're never going to see because the victims are being carted away to early responder ships and to inaccessible buildings onshore.
Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. It all seems like a bad Hollywood script. Except it isn't. I've seen some of those photographs which can't be shown (according to BP's new orders) of dolphins swimming through thick gunky oil, struggling sperm whales trailing wakes a mile long in thick gunky oil, dead jellyfish in gunky oil.
- Federal panel of 50 experts recommends continued use of oil dispersant "despite its harm to plankton, larvae and fish" on grounds that "animals harmed by the chemicals underwater had a better chance of rebounding quickly than birds and mammals on the shoreline."
- Yet, there are also the dangers of the unknowns of what the oil and dispersant will do to underwater life.
"I’m not too worried about oil on the surface," says chemist Ed Overton of Louisiana State University. "It’s going to cause very substantial and noticeable damages --marsh loss and coastal erosion and impact on fisheries, dead birds, dead turtles—but we’ll know what that is. It’s the things we don’t see that worry me the most. What happens if you wipe out all those jellyfish down there? We don’t know what their role is in the environment. But Mother Nature put them there for a reason," and many are in the plumes’ paths.
Should BP profit from its recklessness?
- BP, feds could make millions from runaway well's oil.
If the current containment effort works -- and BP and the government say they're optimistic that it will — the oil giant will salvage much of the oil that's now spewing from the crumpled pipes on the ocean floor. That captured oil, McClatchy estimates, could generate more than $1.4 million in revenue for BP each day.
Once the oil is piped to the surface to the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, it will be processed and sent by tanker to a refinery to be sold.
"It's exactly the same as if it's normally produced oil," BP spokesman Graham MacEwen said.
Based on government estimates of the flow rate, the mangled well could produce oil valued at as much as $85 million over the next 60 days, until a relief well is complete and the well is capped permanently.
- Why is Salvaged Oil Going to BP Instead of U.S. Reserves?
Along with all of its other obligations and penalties, perhaps BP should be required — if only for symbolic value — to contribute to the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve an amount of oil equal to every barrel now being salvaged from the seabed gusher at its Macondo Prospect well.
Special Announcement from rb137
Tomorrow night, Suzan DelBene is going to guest blog at EcoJustice. She is running for Wa-08 -- the same district where Darcy Burner ran in elections past. This district has never had a Democrat seated in it, but the red/blue balance is close to even.
She matches this district well. Her background in business is extensive. She's held VP positions at Microsoft, lead two successful tech startup companies, and she's spent the last few years of her career working in non-profit to create microcredit opportunites in Nicaragua and Peru to help them through hard economic times.
Suzan thinks the root to addressing economic recovery, climate change, and our dependence on oil are the same, and it is building green technology and a green economy from the ground up. She is determined that we can take the lead in sustainable technology and development. What sets her apart from others is that she knows how make it work.
I believe the time has come to elect a representative for the 8th Congressional District who will place people above politics and push for policies that enable our citizens to transform their talents, hard work, and creativity into new opportunities.
We need a leader who values innovation and expertise over partisanship; someone with the real world experience needed to solve problems and get things done.
After spending more than 20 years building innovation-based businesses that create good jobs for talented, hard working men and women, I understand the role that government can play in fostering sustainable economic growth. I also believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to build a better life.
--Suzan, at DelBene for Congress
EcoJustice is Monday at 7:00p PDT.