This is really shocking. A document obtained by The Daily Beast shows that BP, in a previous fatal disaster, increased worker risk to save money. Corporatists like BP have choosen profits over concerns and safety for workers or the environment. Big business interests run the economy and have corrupted the political process and the regulatory system with no small thanks to the Republican congress that has blocked passage of a bill holding BP more responsible for their damage and neglect.
From The Daily Beast:
This is a story about the Three Little Pigs. A lot of dead oil workers. And British Petroleum.
From the minute the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded, BP has hewed to a party line: it did everything it could to prevent the April 20 accident that killed 11 men and has been spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico ever since. Some critics have questioned the veracity of that position.
Now The Daily Beast has obtained a document—displayed below—that goes to the heart of BP procedures, demonstrating that before the company’s previous major disaster—at a moment when the oil giant could choose between cost-savings and absolute safety—it selected cost-savings. And BP chose to illustrate that choice, without irony, by invoking the classic Three Little Pigs fairy tale.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
A BP spokesman tells The Daily Beast that the company has “fundamentally changed the culture of BP” since the previous disaster, an explosion at a Texas refinery five years ago. But given that a $500,000 valve might have prevented the massive spill that is now threatening to devastate the Gulf of Mexico, one has to wonder.
Some context: In March 2005, BP’s Texas City Refinery caught fire. The explosion killed 15 workers, injured 170 plant employees and residents of nearby neighborhoods, and rocked buildings 10 miles away. Most of those who died were in trailers next to the isomerization unit, which boosts octane in gasoline, when it blew up.
Attorney Brent Coon represented families of the workers killed, and discovered internal BP documents that showed the oil giant had chosen to use trailers to house workers during the day, rather than blast-resistant structures, in order save money at the refinery.
Throughout his work on the case, Coon used a Three Little Pigs analogy to illustrate the cost/benefit analysis that he believed BP used to choose the less expensive buildings, with the trailers representing straw or sticks, versus stronger material the lawyer said should have been used. But whenever Coon brought up the fairy tale, he says that BP’s attorneys objected.
Using the BP chart, If pigs are worth $1,000 then people must be worth $1,000. This proves how little BP values it's workers and the environment. Republicans, stop filibustering the bill that enables the government to hold the oil companies responsible for more than $75 Million dollars and make them criminally responsible for the death of human beings, wildlife and the destruction of the environment...... CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE!