Same Criminal Corporation, Different Oil Spill

Remember the Exxon Valdez spill? BP was the company that was responsible for being prepared for oil spills in Alaska. BP cheaped out and they had neither the equipment nor the crews that they told everyone that they had. Because being ready for emergencies is expensive.

Before the Exxon Valdez grounding, BP's Alyeska group claimed it had these full-time, oil spill response crews. Alyeska had hired Alaskan natives, trained them to drop from helicopters into the freezing water and set booms in case of emergency. Alyeska also certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound. Alyeska also told the state and federal government it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island.

But it was all a lie. On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.

BP is still cheaping out and cutting corners in Alaska:

In congressional hearings after the 2006 Prudhoe Bay spill, BP management was accused of making "draconian" budget cuts that affected safety and health, including limiting the use of a corrosion inhibitor inside the pipeline, a step that could have prevented the deterioration that led to the 2006 spill.

Note that BP has amassed a track record of ignoring safety rules and having to pay large fines after being found out.

The company is a corporate felon, following an explosion that killed 15 workers at a BP refinery in Texas City because of flagrant disregard of safety protocols. But unlike people, where a felony conviction inflicts lasting legal limitations, BP just carried on, doing whatever the hell they thought was the cheapest. "Safety be damned" seemed to be their motto.

It is also expensive to tell the truth and do what is right, things that BP also has a track record of not doing.

The BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews, who, therefore, poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So, it blew.

Everyone who has been an believer in the philosophies of Ayn Rand that businesses will do the right thing because their good names are on the line should head down to the Gulf Coast and start cleaning up oil. Every teabagger who has been spouting the "we don't want government to do anything" line should join them.

And the Bureau of Prisons should be repainting a cellblock for the BP retirement plan.