tagged w/ BP Gulf spill
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Manslaughter and perjury are among possible charges that Justice Department investigators are exploring in the early stages of their probe into the Gulf oil spill, people familiar with the inquiry said Tuesday.
These people said the Justice Department is not ruling out the possibility of bringing manslaughter charges against companies or managers responsible for the explosion aboard the rig that killed 11 workers.
The department also is examining congressional testimony by company executives, including former BP CEO Tony Hayward, to determine whether their statements were untruthful, these people added.
They cautioned that the investigation is still far from complete and spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing investigation.
Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department reorganized its oil spill investigation. It created a unified task force so investigators from Justice's criminal and environmental divisions and from the U.S. attorney's office in New Orleans can coordinate overlapping work of looking into civil violations and criminal culpability, if any.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole ordered the move to avoid duplication of effort. Criminal division senior counsel John Buretta is leading the task force, and criminal division chief Lanny Breuer is supervising it.
The Deepwater Horizon rig explosion occurred on April 20, 2010. A month and a half later, Attorney General Eric Holder announced criminal and civil investigations of the disaster.
"We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill. If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response," Holder said in New Orleans.
Bringing a manslaughter charge against a corporation is unusual but not unprecedented.
Two weeks after Holder announced the probe, Cole told Congress that prosecuting individual executives is the best deterrent when there is corporate misconduct.
Cole did not oppose charging corporations criminally, but added that doing so can unfairly penalize innocent shareholders and employees.
He added that charging any corporation is a sensitive subject within the Justice Department and that doing so can affect "thousands and thousands" of employees and shareholders with no role in the misconduct.
In the Enron scandal, Cole counseled Arthur Anderson LLP on revamping its document retention policies, then watched the accounting firm collapse after the Justice Department brought a criminal case.
In December, the Justice Department sued BP, oil rig owner Transocean and several other companies in the government's effort to recover billions of dollars for economic and environmental damage.
In January, a presidential commission found that the spill was caused by time-saving and money-saving decisions by BP, Halliburton and rig owner Transocean that created unacceptable risk.
According to an ongoing lawsuit in Houston, Kevin Lacy, BP's former senior vice president for drilling operations for the Gulf of Mexico, reached a mutual agreement with the company to resign in December 2009 because Lacy believed the company was not adequately committed to improving safety protocols in offshore drilling operations to the level of its industry peers.
The suit said Lacy, an experienced drilling engineer who had implemented a rigorous drilling safety program while at Chevron, had been recruited to join BP in 2007 to improve and standardize its drilling policies and protocols.
http://www.wwl.com/AP-sources--Manslaughter-charge-explored-in-spill/9503202Manslaughter and perjury are among possible charges that Justice Department... more
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The Wall Street Journal reports that BP’s lawyers helped prepare its internal investigation into its Gulf of Mexico drilling disaster, according to the report's lead author, raising questions about the study's impartiality.The Wall Street Journal reports that BP’s lawyers helped prepare its internal... more
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Propublica’s Marian Wang reports that even as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls for more research into the long-term effects of the chemical dispersants BP used in the Gulf, representatives of BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been dispatching public relations officials to local schools to do what they refer to as dispelling myths about dispersants and subsurface oil.Propublica’s Marian Wang reports that even as the U.S. Environmental Protection... more
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Levels of some cancer-causing oil compounds rose significantly in the waters off the Louisiana coast during the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Oregon State University researchers.Levels of some cancer-causing oil compounds rose significantly in the waters off the... more
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A White House commission appointed to investigate the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico found that the Obama administration lost the public trust and may have sabotaged clean-up operations by grossly underestimating the amount of oil gushing from BP's broken Macondo well.A White House commission appointed to investigate the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf... more
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An environmental whistleblower group charges in a lawsuit that the Obama administration is withholding documents that would reveal why it issued an estimate on the gravity of the Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout that later was proved to be far too low.An environmental whistleblower group charges in a lawsuit that the Obama... more
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US officials recorded a big jump in the numbers of dolphins, endangered brown pelicans and sea turtles injured or killed by the BP oil geyser over the past week, at the same exact time as officials were proclaiming that the oil was rapidly disappearing from the Gulf.US officials recorded a big jump in the numbers of dolphins, endangered brown pelicans... more
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BP says it is no longer using toxic dispersants to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Gulf Coast residents claim otherwise, and say they have the sicknesses to prove it.BP says it is no longer using toxic dispersants to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil... more
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The federal government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money to a joint venture involving oil giant BP to build a power plant near the tiny California town of Tupman, even as the company faces heavy government pressure and a criminal probe into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.The federal government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money to... more
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The Obama administration is accused of spinning a government scientific report into the amount of oil left in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spew which had officials declaring that the vast majority of the oil had been removed. Environmental groups and scientists – including those working with government agencies to calculate the scale and effects of the spill – say White House officials are painting a far too optimistic picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency into the fate of the oil.The Obama administration is accused of spinning a government scientific report into... more
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Last month Matt Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, talks with Bloomberg's Mark Crumpton, Lizzie O'Leary and Julie Hyman about BP Plc's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Matthew Simmons, an international oil expert who most recently focused on developing renewable energy from the waters off Maine.
Now according to CNBC local News channel WLBX2 : The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.Last month Matt Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, talks with... more
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Scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico, the first clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the food chain.Scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of blue crab... more
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The Gulf of Mexico was carpet-bombed with the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit for months on end, breaking official guidelines issued in the aftermath of April's Deepwater Horizon disaster, which stated that BP should use the substance only in "extremely rare" cases.The Gulf of Mexico was carpet-bombed with the highly toxic chemical dispersant Corexit... more
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Just as BP began celebrating a proclaimed success in its Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, the company now finds itself in the woeful position of facing a $10 billion lawsuit over a 40-day toxic chemical release in Texas City, Texas earlier this year.
A $10 billion class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of 2,000 claimants against oil behemoth BP after the company engaged in a 40-day upset during April and May that released at least 538,000 pounds of known toxins into the Texas City skies. The event began just two weeks before the company became very well-known over its Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tony Buzbee, a Texas attorney who also represents Gulf coast residents impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, filed the suit on Tuesday for his clients seeking compensation for “health effects including all symptoms associated with acute benzene exposure,” according to The Telegraph(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7925565/BP-hit-with-10bn-lawsuit-over-Texas-City-chemical-leak.html).
As reported earlier by Digital Journal(http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/294675), the toxic leak, or upset, occurred at BP’s Texas City refinery from April 6 to May 16, releasing hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxins into the air, including benzene, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides.
In a ProPublica(http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-texas-refinery-had-huge-toxic-release-just-before-gulf-blowout) report of the incident, company officials were aware of the situation, underestimated its severity, and kept the plant in production to allay the chance of investors’ worries. It notes “the company’s corporate culture favors production and profit margins over safety and the environment. The 40-day release echoes in several notable ways the runaway spill in the Gulf. BP officials initially underestimated the problem and took steps in the days leading up to the incident to reduce costs and keep the refinery online.”
Buzbee, already involved in legal action against BP as he represents 15 Deepwater Horizon rig workers, dozens of fisherman, dock workers, and restaurants - all impacted by the Gulf of Mexico debacle - is a prominent Houston lawyer with a solid record in winning settlements from oil companies, Mother Jones reports(http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-happen).
The lawsuit over the Texas City incident alleges “tens of thousands of individuals were injured and had his or her long-term health put in jeopardy after being exposed to extremely high levels of Benzene and other toxic chemicals while working at the BP Texas City Refinery or by simply living or working in Texas City,” according to Yahoo News(http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100803/bs_yblog_upshot/bp-faces-10-billion-suit-over-refinery-leak). The lawyer is seeking “punitive damages against BP in excess of $10 billion.”Just as BP began celebrating a proclaimed success in its Gulf of Mexico catastrophe,... more
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BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation. BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university.BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from... more
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While the BP oil gusher has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" the size of New Jersey that scientists say could be every bit as harmful to the gulf.While the BP oil gusher has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent... more
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An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed that the Gulf of Mexico is packed with abandoned oil wells from a host of companies, including BP. The AP describes the area as "an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades." There are more than 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico, of which 600 belonged to BP.An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed that the Gulf of Mexico is... more
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At the start of this month, the United States Coast Guard put new restrictions in place across the Gulf Coast that prevent the public - including news photographers and reporters covering the BP oil gusher - from coming within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the water or on beaches. According to the Unified Command, violation of the "safety zone" rules can result in a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony.At the start of this month, the United States Coast Guard put new restrictions in... more
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In the 80 plus days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.In the 80 plus days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into... more
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BP gas station franchises across the United States are anxious to distance themselves from the British oil multinational as the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe has led to a spike in vandalism, a drop in business and sometimes hate from customers.BP gas station franchises across the United States are anxious to distance themselves... more
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