Apparently, the Brits are calling Americans–including President Obama–xenophobic for referring to the company shitting up our Gulf  as “British Petroleum.” So for this installment of my now-regular reflection on how, fifty-some years ago, we overthrew a democratically-elected government for that company shitting up our Gulf, I’m going to call it the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. You [...]

BP and the US government have yet again been dishonest about the nature and size of the oil gusher leaking into the Gulf of Mexico water; it is over twice the highest estimates to date.

As you’ve likely heard, the Chamber of Commerce has officially endorsed government welfare to limit corporate risk. (Again.) The head of the United States Chamber of Commerce said Friday that his group is not yet lobbying against legislative efforts to raise BP’s liability cap, viewing the issue as not yet “ripe.” He signaled, however, that [...]

A bunch of hippie members of Congress noticed the same thing about Obama’s BP Commission that I noticed: it lacks subpoena power. So Lois Capps and Ed Markey in the House and Jeanne Shaheen and several of her colleagues are pushing legislation to give the Commission subpoena power. U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), along with [...]

Twenty-some years after one of the biggest industrial disasters in history, seven former Union Carbide executives have been sentenced to a few years in jail. A court in central India ruled Monday that seven top executives and the company they worked for are guilty for their role in the 1984 industrial disaster that killed thousands [...]

Senator Bill Nelson indicates the most horrific possible outcome is at hand in the BP Gulf Oil Spill, namely that basic well integrity is truly shot and oil and gas have breached the well casing and well bore and are escaping into the rock and out into the ocean through the sea floor.

As I’ve said before, one of the best ways to see the absurd nature of the relationship between our government and BP as they partner to try to fix BP’s disaster is to remember that fifty-some years ago, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran because it had nationalized BP’s facilities. I invite [...]

Obama has suddenly announced his determination to have an empathy fest with the family and friends of the deceased victims of the criminally negligent BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. they deserve much better, and more, than that.

A couple of interesting, tangentially related things happened today. First, in a bid to wall off the PR disaster of the Gulf spill from the rest of the company, BP has assigned someone–an American BP employee–to take charge of cleanup efforts. BP is to hive off its Gulf of Mexico oil spill operation to a [...]

I”m not aware of any studies before this spill, to follow up on those plumes. That’s what NOAA Director Jane Lubchenco claimed a week ago in response to a question from Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy. Elizabeth Birnbaum, who was fired last week because she wasn’t engaged enough with this issue (or maybe because they wanted [...]