??Today environmental attorney Mike Pappantonio appeared on an MSNBC show Hardball, and said that there is no $20 billion escrow account funded by BP for the Gulf Coast victims. Repeat. There is no account. The account does not exist except as a version of a ‘moral promise’. Unfortunately, corporations have no morals. They exist to make money, and that is their only purpose. A moral promise from a corporation is impossible.
Pappantonio also said BP is also in talks with bankruptcy attorneys. BP is not putting money into an escrow account, and their agreement with the Obama administration is not worth the paper it’s not written on, because there is still a legally binding $75 million dollar cap on what they legally have to pay to “clean up” the entire Gulf of Mexico. They have already spent more than that, and BP has said they would not be bound by that cap, but they have given us little reason to trust them. What does this all mean? This means that the American taxpayer, proud American oil and gas addicts, will be footing the bill for this disaster, after the bankruptcy occurs. There is no ethical or economic justice on the horizon for anyone in this mess.
Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico continues to suffer from a slow, agonizing death at the hands of BP, and Transocean (whatever happened to them?). The A Whale ship (seen below in video) has been at least partially deployed and they are testing its effectiveness. They report they are about a week ahead of schedule on the relief wells, which may not work. Today there was also more talk of “imploding” the well via a very large explosion.
The oil continues to gush into the water. Fish and other life continue to die. The environmental impact has all gotten worse instead of better, because BP is adding immense amounts of air pollution to the disaster by burning everything they are capturing. They are destroying everything they possibly can, including evidence of oil by their enormous use of dispersants (which continues) and by reportedly hiding the workers who have gotten sick from the clean up work, and by trucking in sand to cover up oily beaches. BP has been hiding the scope of this disaster from the beginning. Remember, there is no ethical or moral obligation on the part of corporations to do anything when they F up whatever, and BP so far has done what they have done due to political pressure. The political pressure urging them to do the right thing has been strongly counteracted by the right-wing politicians screaming about losing jobs.** (see below for a parallel story).
It’s no surprise that scientists are finding growing evidence of oxygen-starved “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico near the BP oil spill area. In some areas, methane presence is as high as 100,000 times normal levels, sucking oxygen out of the water and killing off marine species, and forcing surviving animals to move from their traditional habitats. [...]
