Greg Palast’s BBC crew of journalist-detectives chase down British Petroleum bag men, CIA operatives, nuclear power con men — and “The Vultures,” billionaire financial speculators who, through bribery, flim-flam and political muscle, take entire nations hostage for mega-profits.
The action begins when the Deepwater Horizon explodes in the Gulf of Mexico and a confidential cable arrives on Miss Badpenny’s desk from a terrified insider. He has the real, hushed-up facts of the disaster — which can only be found hidden in the files of a Central Asian dictatorship.
Palast sets off for Baku to investigate the sexiest Muslim woman on Earth and the whereabouts of millions of dollars in a brown valise. Then he jumps the globe to an Alaska Eskimo village after receiving an extraordinary note from the Chief of Intelligence of the Free Republic of the Arctic.
NEW ORLEANS – The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued the initial group of violations today against the responsible corporations for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
The Joint Investigation findings resulted in a total of 15 Incidents of Non-Compliance violations against British Petroleum, Transocean and Halliburton.
“The issuance of INCs to BP, Transocean and Haliburton is an important step in addressing the regulatory violations found during the joint investigation,” the agency says in a press release.
“To ensure the safe and environmentally responsible conduct of offshore operations, companies that violate federal regulations must be held accountable,” Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Michael R. Bromwich said. “The joint investigation clearly revealed the violation of numerous federal regulations designed to protect the integrity of offshore operations; these INCs are the next step in vindicating the regulatory program designed to protect the interests of the public.”
On April 20, 2010, the BP Deep Water Horizon floating oil rig drilling on the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing eleven crewmen and injuring seventeen others.
The rig burned for three days and then sank in a mile of water fifty miles off the coast of Grand-Isle Louisiana. Over the next three months, the well gushed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into Gulf waters, spanning thousands of square miles, threatening hundreds of miles of coastal wetlands and an abundance of wildlife. It was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history.
While BP struggled to cap the spewing well, they began using unprecedented amounts of the controversial chemical dispersant Corexit, both on the surface and, for the first time, sub-sea injection at the broken well-head 5,000 feet below.
Many locals and a few officials feared BP was only using these chemicals to sink the oil, concealing the magnitude of the disaster.
Minnesota Tea Party Republican Michele Bachmann has taken over from Sarah Palin as the biggest dingbat in the presidential race, but I’m afraid a lot of conservative folks who are sympathetic to supporting the environment are not getting the message. Maybe that’s because the main stream media muddles the message on a daily basis.
So let’s be explicit and clear in case all those little old ladies in the Audubon Society over in Mountain Brook and other wealthy suburbs don’t get the message.
On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann actually came out and made another in a long line of ignorant statements. She said if she were elected president, she would consider drilling for oil and natural gas in the Everglades. The AP story reporting this included in the lead sentence this phrase: “if it can be done without harming the environment.”
But it is an absurd notion that you could drill for oil in a massive natural area of wetlands and not harm the environment. Ask the people of Louisiana, who have lost tens of thousands of acres of land because of oil and gas drilling.
Gulf Coast Citizens Head for Nation’s Capitol to Fight for the Gulf
Louisiana songwriter Drew Landry will play at the Cajun Experience Restaurant at 1825 18th Street NW in Washington D.C. on Thursday, August 25, beginning at 7:30 pm, with a press conference scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Joining Landry will be a delegation of Gulf Coast citizens who will speak about the long-term effects of the oil gusher and subsequent dispersant use.
Representatives from the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), one of several non-profit organizations supporting the delegation’s journey will also be available, as will representatives of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. The RFK Center recently toured the coastal states and is calling for access to treatment for Gulf communities sick from the BP disaster (see more here).
Landry is insistent that restoration efforts must require that the American people first hear the truth about what coastal citizens are facing. Gulf Coast residents are being denied their human right to health, he said in a press release.
The Obama administration’s mediator, Ken Feinberg, has denied 100 percent of health claims submitted, according to this report from Ada McMahon with Bridge the Gulf.
“People of the Gulf Region deserve the same treatment as people who received compensation for their toxic exposure-related illnesses from the Agent Orange Settlement Fund and the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, both administered by Kenneth Feinberg. Anything less denies their human right to health,” Landry says.
Cherri Foytlin and three Gulf Coast activists have been arrested in front of BP Headquarters in New Orleans.
“The time has come. We have exhausted our options, collected the facts, tried negotiation, gone from meeting to meeting,” Foytlin said in a press release. “The oil is still here. We are still here, and we will not wait! Take care of my people on the coast!”
Since last summer, when Foytlin reached out to President Obama (to no avail), she said in the press release. She has attended countless town hall meetings, community forums, and has walked from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., she says, in order to be sure federal officials are aware of the unresolved economic, environmental, and health devastation caused by the BP disaster.
Foytlin is one of several dozen Gulf Coast fishermen, BP clean-up workers, residents and community organizers who gathered in front of BP Headquarters in New Orleans to mark the one year anniversary of the date when the White House falsely claimed that 75 percent of the oil was gone from the Gulf of Mexico.
The group demanded BP and Kenneth Feinberg honor health claims and operate a transparent and fair claims process for those impacted financially. Feinberg has denied all health claims and has approved less than 40 percent of all claims submitted.
Ocean lovers around the world will join hands on beaches and in cities beginning at 12 noon local time Saturday, June 25, for the second annual “Hands Across the Sand” event, a demonstration of opposition to expanding offshore drilling and support for cleaner energy choices.
With the oil industry pushing for a dramatic expansion of offshore drilling in U.S. waters, “Hands Across the Sand” participants will show leaders like President Obama the breadth of opposition to new drilling and support for a clean energy future rooted in energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy solutions, such as wind, solar and geothermal.
“Offshore drilling will never be safe. Expanding offshore oil drilling is not the answer; embracing clean energy is,” said Dave Rauschkolb, a Florida restaurateur who founded Hands Across the Sand. “We’re here to say NO to offshore drilling, and YES to clean energy.”
According to BP ads and the lamestream media, including local newspapers and television news outlets that have taken millions of dollars in advertising money from BP, the Gulf of Mexico is now “clean” only a year after being polluted on a massive scale by the BP oil spill of 2010, the largest and worst mand-made environmental disaster in American industrial history.
The only problem is, it is NOT true. According to this video by Trisha Springstead with Captain Lori Deangelis of Dolphin Queen Cruises, the oil and chemicals are still showing up.
Louisiana charter boat captain Louis Bayhi discusses the severe health problems he’s experienced after serving on clean up crews in the wake of the BP oil spill.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
