A shrimper from the Gulf has interrupted British Petroleum's head honcho during his lies at this week's congressional hearings. She demanded that he be "charged with a crime." All the British Petroleum executives should be charged with lots of crimes, including charges for the deaths of the employees on the oil rig that were easily preventable by not engaging in the negligent and greedy practice of offshore drilling.



Just when you thought things were bad enough, the reprehensible nature of British Petroleum's context is even worse than we previously thought.

From Bloomberg 6/17/10: (Hat Tip: Citizens for Legitimate Government)

BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

Just think how much farther ahead both the cleanup and containment efforts would have been if this was released to the public at the time. This kind of corporate secrecy should be punished very severely.

But, it gets worse... (same article)

While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells if they determine the risk is too high. When a Gulf well known as Blackbeard threatened to blow out in 2006, Exxon Mobil Corp. shut the project down.

That's right. British Petroleum was even more reckless and negligent than the infamous Excon Mobil. (It should also be noted that British Petroleum played a major role in the infamous "containment effort" for that oil spill too.)

That makes it even more sickening when corrupt Republicans suck up to British Petroleum. There really isn't any low to which a Republican wouldn't sink to go after big money campaign contributions.