Better Late than Never:
CHICAGO (AFP) – BP agreed to pay a record 50.6 million dollar fine for safety violations at its troubled Texas City refinery, officials said in a settlement which could deepen the energy giant's legal woes.
The company is already liable for billions in fines and compensation payouts in the wake of the massive oil spill unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico after a deadly explosion sank the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April.
I didn'[t think a company as big and influential as BP, especially after 8 years of Bush-GOP interference with regulations and enforcements, would get so much as a slap on the wrist.
Though for a company like BP, which has about a fifth of the money in the Universe, $50 million is a slap on the wrist.
But wait, there's actually more!
BP is also currently on criminal probation following a 373 million dollar plea deal reached in 2007 over a series of probes into an oil pipeline leak in Alaska, price fixing in the propane gas market and a deadly 2005 explosion at the Texas City refinery.
So BP is a CRIMINAL organization.
Ok, ok, ok....I suppose they are considered "innocent" of the charges, which are rather huge and don't make me think this is just a test of our Democracy. I believe that BP did all these things and doubtlessly - DOUBTLESSLY - more.
Their Texas blast - also due to ignoring safety protocols (notice a pattern yet?) - killed 15 and injured 170. There is a siut against them and the lawyers are hoping that this fine and BP's 'admission of guilt' will result in this probationary status revoked and treated as real criminals (which they are).
BP is like most other massive corporations: they want profit, profit, profit and they do not care who they kill or what they destroy in order to get it. Hell, killing your workers because you bypassed safety regulations to make more money is probably considered 'good form' by the corporate elite, eliciting high-5's all around each time a worker dies but the company gets to stay in business.
$50 million fine? No problem. I'll bring a sack lunch tomorrow and then it's back to catered lunches and $50000 a month on flowers and napkins.
The fine isn't nearly as big a deal as getting BP officially labeled a criminal enterprise. That's in a just world.
We don't live in a just world.
My gut tells me they'll pay $50 million and their probation won't be revoked and the mess will just sort of go away, like so much oil underneath the surface of a polluted ocean.