The Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling disaster is still being litigated. They are still on the hook for billions of dollars in fines. As federal judge has said in his ruling—BP was grossly negligent. Unfortunately, yesterday, the string of defeats that BP has faced over the last few months came to an end when prosecutors and the judge in the case agreed to drop manslaughter charges against two supervisors who were on Deepwater Horizon when it exploded.
The government announced the legal move Wednesday in a New Orleans courtroom. Rig supervisor Donald Vidrine instead pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act, a misdemeanor that likely will result in 10 months of probation and 100 hours of community service. Robert Kaluza, the other supervisor who also was being charged with 11 manslaughter counts, is going to fight a single misdemeanor charge that he also violated the Clean Water Act.
The government's decision was a complete reversal from three years ago when then-Attorney General Eric Holder personally announced the manslaughter charges in New Orleans. While BP as a company has agreed to pay billions in record-high legal settlements, the latest move follows a string of other setbacks in which the government sought to hold individuals accountable.
Eleven men died as a result of British Petroleum’s greed and corner-cutting tactics. No one will see a day in jail now. We can argue that these two supervisors were getting scapegoated for the sins of their C-Suite overlords—and that would be true. But they were guilty, at the very least, of complicity in the deaths of the men they were charged to “supervise.”
