who is responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of
Mexico
The U.S. regulators who were responsible for oversight of
drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals, tickets to
sporting events and gifts from at least one oil company. A
new report offers further evidence that the Minerals
Management Service has what has been described as a culture
of lax oversight and cozy ties to industry.
You can click on The Star link below to see some of the
devastating effects the oil spill has had on wildlife.
The problem was not confined to the MMS. In 2007, a British
Petroleum refinery in Indiana was allowed to continue to
dump mercury into Lake Michigan by the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management. A permit exempted a BP plant from
a federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the
Great Lakes.
The New York Times
reports:
"In mid-2008, a minerals agency employee conducted four
inspections on drilling platforms when he was also
negotiating a job with the drilling company ... And an
inspector ... may have been under the influence of [crystal
methamphetamine] during an inspection."
But there are even more downright criminal activities taking
place right now. According to a government panel, new
calculations suggest that "an amount equivalent to the
Exxon Valdez disaster
could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10
days," the New York
Times reported on June 10.
In addition, the CNN video above discusses the health
problems suffered by the clean-up workers, and the fact that
BP is strongly discouraging any type of protective gear,
such as respirators and even rubber gloves! In the video,
Kerry Kennedy mentions that the average age at the time of
death of workers who cleaned up after the 1989 Exxon Valdez
spill was 51!
Today, all those clean-up workers are DEAD!
Seems BP is far more worried about their PR, buying up
search terms on Google and other search engines, than
protecting the health and welfare of their clean-up crews...
Meanwhile, another
New York Times article reports that the "U.S. EPA has quietly
released a full list of ingredients in the two controversial
dispersants BP PLC is using to combat the Gulf of Mexico oil
spill, following weeks of complaints from members of
Congress and public health advocates that the dispersant
manufacturer had kept its complete formula a secret from the
public."
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