While the federal and Gulf Coast governments have largely ceded the role of stopping and cleaning up the huge environmental disaster caused by the explosion and eventual sinking of the Deep Horizon well, British Petroleum also spent the weekend pursuing a different agenda with locals: stopping lawsuits and cleaning up their PR image.
This effort comes at a critical time. The oil slick, currently the size of Puerto Rico, is beginning to paint local coastlines. Communities that make their money from the water face “minimum” 10-day fishing bans, and the mood from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle is angry—and scared.
So BP has dispatched a litigation mitigation team, which held public information meetings in small towns along the Gulf Coast this weekend. The pitch to local fishermen, business owners and local officials, based on one such meeting in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a small commercial fishing village: You don’t need to hire lawyer. Instead, call a BP hotline, and claim total damages for yourself and your businesses of up to $5,000. The damaged individuals and businesses would be required to sign BP paperwork, company officials said.
The exact nature of that paperwork wasn’t made clear. (A local BP representative referred questions to a national spokesman, who wasn’t available for comment last night.) But Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright told the hundreds that packed the community center that he feared it would require them to forfeit their right to sue in the future. “Let me say this as your friend,” the mayor told the attendees. “If you take one penny from BP make sure you don’t sign a release form….if this thing lasts 10 years, you can forget about it.”
He received applause when he told the fishermen to work through their trade associations and “don’t work through BP.”
And so the arse covering begins…
Doesn’t matter anyway.
Federal law sets a $75 million cap for economic damages in offshore spills.
So if the spill results in the complete destruction of all economic activity (fishing, restaurant, vacationing, etc), BP is only on the hook for $75 Million total.
Care to guess what party had the Presidency when that fabulous limitation was passed? Yep, Republicans, the great protectors of business, under Reagan and Bush the Senior.
For more info:
http://politico.com/news/stories/0510/36716.html
Perhaps in a world devoid of ambulance chasing tort lawyers, such behavior would be unneeded.
Innocence is no excuse in tort law.
Fact: This oil spill is due to Barack Obama’s willful neglect. He’s been in office for almost 1 1/2 years, Democrats have been in charge of Congress for 4 years, and look at what’s happened.
This is could get very bad! and the webbot predicted something called coastal disease would strike.
Just mark your calender May 6th is going to be the starting day for the pressure to build.
#3 huh? You wanna give some reasons that might actually make sense?
I thought after the Exxon Valdez that this kind of thing would never happen again.
A shame for sure.
CNN reports (HT: Drudge):
BP, now under federal scrutiny because of its role in the deadly Gulf of Mexico explosion and oil spill, is one of three finalists for a federal award honoring offshore oil companies for “outstanding safety and pollution prevention.”
The winner of the award – chosen before the April 20 oil rig incident – was to be announced this coming Monday at a luncheon in Houston. But the U.S. Department of Interior this week postponed the awards ceremony, saying it needs to devote its resources to the ongoing situation resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and fire.
I understand that there is uncertainty in the world. It’s possible that BP deserves the award but bad luck yields a negative outcome. But why can’t they just admit that’s it’s lousy PR? Why do they have to pretend the reason the ceremoney is being “postponed” is because of a need to focus on the spill?
British Petroleum… down 18% since April 20
Transocean Ltd., the company that BP had hired to drill the well.
… down 20% since April 20
Cameron International Corporation, the company that manufactured the blowout preventer… down 17%
Haliburton Company, one of the subcontractors on the drilling project when the blowout occurred… down just 6%
Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc., an example of effect on oil drilling industry… down 15%
… etc., etc.
#1 and #3 is why democracy will never work. One side blames the other and vice versa, and nothing changes.
The wells were not owned or operated by BP but by a US based exploration company subcontracted on a lowest bid tender. When the oil reaches the surface it becomes the property of BP who are then responsible for the damage it does. I am not a lawyer but I guess the environmental limitation of liability afforded to the oil industry by the US Federal Government probably does not protect BP from private and class action suits for lost wealth and income and endangerment and personal injury.
Just to put things in perspective, the 18% BP has lost in stock value represents $30 billion and almost a year’s worth of growth.
In light of that, I’m surprised their offer is so cheap. 200 fishermen x $5M = just $1 million. Chicken scratch for much needed good PR.
Darn it BmoreBadBoy. I was just about to remind Awake that congress was run by the Democrats in 1990 and its congress that makes the laws. Then I read your comment. 🙁
Wow, you critics look at this the wrong way. I was able to get my 5k settlement and I live in Michigan.
Just heard a news report that BP is being investigated for bribing inspectors to give them a pass. No link. No confirmation.
Enterprise Liability. No reason to limit it==ever. All the risk and damage remains and is real.
All part of the subsidies that transfer wealth from the poor to the rich so that the rich can feel they “made it all on their own.”
Take away ALL the subsidies, and Nuke would never be affordable and solar would be competitive with oil right now. Coal too depending on how you fudge the numbers.
Nice how Obama and the democrats in Congress get the blame for the spill happening. When it was the GOP and Sarah Palin who were championing the phrase “Drill Baby Drill”. Odd how we’ve not been hearing a peep out of her, during this crisis. Is the GOP so afraid she’ll totally blow it, that they’ve sequestered her for the time being? The same could be said for Bush and Cheney. Hmmm. Kind of nice, not hearing them rant for awhile. We should have more disasters, that they’d get in dutch, if questioned about. Just kidding. Yeah, only Obama is answerable to these problems, that developing just as he assumed office. I guess the naysayers expect him to play God, wave a magic wand, and right all the wrongs their heroes created, over night. Then they’d be complaining that Obama was a power hungry madman. You just can win with the party of No.
You can bet that as BP is visiting the states, to PR their way out of trouble. They’re also lobbying Congress extra hard, to limit their clean up costs even more. And it’s interesting that the news hasn’t mentioned the $75 million limit. Surely this spill will easily exceed that. But all we’ve heard is that BP will pick up the cost. At some point I think they’ll bail on that. And Congress, mainly the Republicans, will oppose any change in the liability limits, for this and future spills. But the democrats can be bought as well.
#9
“1 and #3 is why democracy will never work. One side blames the other and vice versa, and nothing changes.”
Close but no cigar.
Our two party system encourages nutballs on both sides with ridiculously revisionist history and blame aversion.
If we had 5 or 6 political parties, the nutballs on each side would be part of some fringe permanent 8% vote minority party and not part of a mainstream one.
You don’t see anywhere near as much this kind of nutballism in Europe, for instance, where people have mega-wacko points of view.
If we had a decent political system with true democracy, the birthers and equivalent would be in some Neanderthal far-right cave-man party and the truthers and equivalent would be in some zany loonie-toons lefty party.
Be glad I’m not in charge. I’d assign at least $500 Billion in ecological damages (for starters) and assign the cost to non-commercial oil consumption uses.
Yeah, that be you. When you haul your fat asses to the mall on your SUV, it’s gonna cost you more.
# 5, I am applying the very same rules libtards used from 2002-2008. It happened on Obama’s watch, so it’s Obama’s fault.
18,
wow,
someone gets my point..
About the USA is the only country that has 2 parties, as the rest have MANY..
The problem with 2 parties is that THEY CANT KICK PEOPLE OUT…they NEED THEM. AS SHEEP.
Over the many years after 1900, ALL the other groups, were BASICALLY blackballed.
And if you REALLY know the politics of OUR PAST… These 2 groups are/were/WILL BE the ones that ruin this country.
#20, on the plus side that would mean you would not be in charge long after that :p .
#10 sargasso “The wells were not owned or operated by BP ”
Yes but every exploration rig has a “company man” on board at all times to oversee the operation.
Dallas # 20 “Be glad I’m not in charge”
I am!!!!! But sometimes I wish you were so your loony thinking could finally destroy the country and we wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
#3 , #21 Lou Minatti,
You make jokes and use fallacy to draw attention away from the truth.
The truth is that millions of people will be affected by this, the coastal ecosystem will be completely destroyed and it will be another nail in the coffin of an already distressed area.
and IT IS ALL COMPLETELY THE FAULT OF RIGHT WINGERS, NEO CONS AND REPUBLICANS who feel that research, science, safety precautions and simply doing things correctly are things that stand in the way of allowing corporations to rape the land and the American people.
You can make all the jokes you want, but people are wising up as the mountains of evidence pile up and up and up – all the failed wars, all the failed policies, all the corruption, all the pocket lining, all the cheating, all the lying – it all ads up to one thing: right-wingers are bastard scum who will have a special place in burning hell reserved for them.
@Hmeyers, #18
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about foreign political systems, except that all governments are based on a monopoly on force and coercion. But from what little I do hear, it seems like a hot mess when you have 5, 6, or more parties. Then you have hung parliaments and defunct governments for long periods of time, not to mention ungodly coalitions who make mark of the beast type deals to form majorities.
I caught some footage of a BP rep on BBC and he was pretty much blaming everyone else aside from BP. I just smirked.
Guy on the tube says Dick Cheney deregulated the requirement of using acoustic shut off valves as required in Norway but not the USA.
More dumb ass free market BS on demonstration.
BBoy===explain yourself.
Uh, 18 and 22, there are more than 2 political parties in the United States. The smaller parties are of course, much smaller than is typical in say Europe, but they also attract those even farther to the fringe. As a result, they don’t win elections, but they can and sometimes do influence elections. (Nader in Florida, 2000)
Gerrymandering, the primary system, winner take all voting, the Electoral College, and the simply wrong granting of human rights to corporations are much bigger problems.
30,
I cant think of them as groups.
They do not even have 1/2 the number of Either of the other 2 groups. All they need is 50 million. They will NOT get any acknowledgment AS a GROUP.
Also, AT LEAST these other small groups KNOW what they stand for.
@bobbo, #29
You really need to read “A Market for Liberty”. You have no idea what a free market is. How can I put this as simply as possible? It isn’t the free market if there is LEGISLATION involved. This is an example of corruption in government. In a free market society without government, BP would be drilling in waters that belonged to it, and would be held responsible by the owners of the waters, coastline, etc that was affected by the spill. And BP wouldn’t have government to protect it with tort limitations, etc.