Time to Prosecute Corporate Criminals at Massey, BP

Minuscule fines ,comparatively speaking, aren't  getting the job done. Maybe jail time will get corporate attention.

By Ruth Conniff, May 5, 2010

Nothing prevents the government from criminally prosecuting corporate CEOs who willfully ignore health and safety standards, killing workers, as in Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and causing environmental catastrophe, as in BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

For years, we haven't seen many corporate criminals prosecuted in the United States, thanks to the power of corporate lobbyists and the reluctance of government officials to take on business interests.

A PBS Frontline show "A Dangerous Business"—notes that, in the 32 years since OSHA was created, there have been over 200,000 workplace deaths. But OSHA has referred only 151 of these cases to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Of these, only eight have resulted in prison sentences for company officials.


There is a lot of political pressure not to seek prison terms for CEOs of unscrupulous companies, and little public sentiment pushing the government and prosecutors to get tough on corporate criminals.
But that may be changing.

The explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana that killed eleven people and led to an oil spill that will soon surpass Exxon Valdez in its size and destructiveness led Attorney General Eric Holder to announce a Justice Department investigation into health and safety protocol aboard the BP-leased the rig.

BP was involved in a Texas oil refinery explosion that killed 15 people in 2005. And the company seems to have foregone the safety systems that allow deep-water oil rigs off the coast in Northern Europe to avoid catastrophic accidents.

Public patience with accidents caused by lax safety and environmental standards is wearing thin.

This became clear after the Massey Energy mine disaster.

"I live in West Virginia, and my sense is the tide is turning politically [in the wake of the mine disaster]," Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter told me. "With the oil spill in the Gulf and with the deaths of the mine workers, there is fertile ground for a renewed social movement against corporate crime."

Mokhiber points to a raft of opinion pieces calling for criminal charges against Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.

Blankenship is a particularly odious character. A heavyweight in Republican politics in his state, he ran a justice off the West Virginia Supreme Court and installed his own coal-friendly judge. Under his leadership, Massey Energy has been cited for safety violations again and again-with 1,300 violations in the Upper Big Branch Mine alone since 2005, and 50 in the last month for poor ventilation--the apparent cause of the recent disaster.

After 29 people died at the Upper Big Branch mine last week, Bob Franken of The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC, wrote:

"Perhaps it's time for Don Blankenship to get involved with the courts again. This time, as a defendant. The charge: murder."

Franken points out that the sentence for involuntary manslaughter in West Virginia is one year in prison per case--or a possible 29 years for Blankenship.

It's not such a far-fetched notion. In a 2005 memo to deep mine supervisors, Blankenship ordered the miners not to work on anything but "running coal." They were not to "build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever." When a deadly fire broke out at Massey's Aracoma mine, killing two men, the memo became Exhibit A at a trial that ultimately resulted in a $2.5 million fine for the company.

That sort of direct complicity in flouting safety standards could form the basis for a criminal prosecution of Blankenship.

There is important legal precedent for bringing such charges.

Mokhiber cites the Ford Pinto case: In 1978, three teenage girls driving in a Ford Pinto were hit from behind on Highway 33 in northern Indiana. All three died from terrible burns after their car burst into flames. An Indiana grand jury indicted the Ford Motor Company for reckless homicide for making and selling the Pinto with an unsafe fuel tank.

"Although Ford was ultimately acquitted, the criminal prosecution of Ford Motor Company reestablished an important precedent: In certain cases involving human health and safety, corporations and their executives could be required to submit not only to the scrutiny and sanctions of traditional federal agencies, but to state criminal courts as well," The Corporate Crime Reporter notes.

Mokhiber sees parallels to the Massey Energy mine disaster.


Despite the intimidation factor of taking on a politically powerful figure like Blankenship and a big company like Massey, the Pinto case sets a precedent for an underfunded, public-interest-minded prosecutor to do just that.

"The Pinto case was brought by a Republican state prosecutor in Indiana," Mokhiber notes. "He was totally outgunned for resources by Ford. He relied on law students for support. Even thought the company was ultimately found not guilty, it set an important precedent."
Another role model Mokhiber cites is Ira Reiner, who was the LA County district attorney in the early 1980s. Reiner made it a practice to open an involuntary manslaughter investigation of a company every time there was a death on the job. This resulted in many criminal prosecutions and justice for the families of dead and injured workers.

The current political climate might produce more Ira Reiners.

Kristen Keller, the prosecuting attorney for Raleigh County, and the only prosecutor in West Virginia who has the power to press charges in the case, recently told Corporate Crime Reporter: “If there is evidence to support a homicide prosecution, I would not hesitate to prosecute."

In the last week, several news outlets, including NPR, the Washington Post, and Reuters, have reported that a Federal criminal investigation is underway against Massey Energy.
NPR also reported that the government was looking into possible bribery of officials at the Mine Health and Safety Administration.

"Most people aren't familiar with the history of criminal prosecution for worker deaths," Mokhiber says. "There is a whole generation that has forgotten the Ford Pinto prosecution, and just thinks workers die on the job sometimes and no one is responsible"

But that is not the case "if the prosecution can make a case that Blankenship knew the situation at the mine and if it meets the legal definition of involuntary manslaughter."

Back in the 1980s, Mokhiber says, Congressman John Conyers proposed a "public endangerment" law that would have held corporate executives criminally liable if they knew of a product or process that could cause harm and failed to report it. But corporate lobbyists tied up the proposed legislation and it died.
Now is a good time for a renewed effort of that kind.
Meanwhile, prosecutors at both the federal and state level have the power to prosecute executives who have direct involvement in negligent practices by their companies that lead to worker deaths and environmental damage.
The only thing holding them back is politics. That's where the renewed social movement comes in.
Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive magazine.
Let The Sun Shine In......

May 6, 2010

Op-Ed Columnist

Congress, Up in Arms

By GAIL COLLINS

There seems to be a strong sentiment in Congress that the only constitutional right suspected terrorists have is the right to bear arms.

“I think you’re going too far here,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. He was speaking in opposition to a bill that would keep people on the F.B.I. terrorist watch list from buying guns and explosives.

Say what?

Yes, if you are on the terrorist watch list, the authorities can keep you from getting on a plane but not from purchasing an AK-47. This makes sense to Congress because, as Graham accurately pointed out, “when the founders sat down and wrote the Constitution, they didn’t consider flying.”

The subject of guns turns Congress into a twilight zone. People who are perfectly happy to let the government wiretap phones go nuts when the government wants to keep track of weapons permits. A guy who stands up in the House and defends the torture of terror suspects will nearly faint with horror at the prospect of depriving someone on the watch list of the right to purchase a pistol.

“We make it so easy for dangerous people to get guns. If it’s the Second Amendment, it doesn’t matter if they’re Osama bin Laden,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Graham wanted to make it clear that just because he doesn’t want to stop gun purchases by possible terrorists, that doesn’t mean he’s not tough on terror.

“I am all into national security. ... I want to stop reading these guys their Miranda rights,” he said.

The Obama administration has been criticized by many Republicans for having followed the rules about how long you can question a terror suspect before you read him his rights. These objections have been particularly loud since the arrest of Faisal Shahzad in the attempted Times Square bombing. No one seems moved by the fact that Shahzad, after being told that he had the right to remain silent, continued talking incessantly.

“Nobody in their right mind would expect a Marine to read someone caught on the battlefield their rights,” Graham said.

Terror threats make politicians behave somewhat irrationally. But the subject of guns makes them act like a paranoid mother ferret protecting her litter. The National Rifle Association, the fiercest lobby in Washington, grades every member of Congress on how well they toe the N.R.A. line. Lawmakers with heavily rural districts would rather vote to legalize carrying concealed weapons in kindergarten than risk getting less than 100 percent.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms,” concerned a modest bill sponsored by Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. It would allow the government to stop gun sales to people on the F.B.I. terror watch list the same way it does people who have felony convictions. Because Congress has repeatedly rejected this idea, 1,119 people on the watch list have been able to purchase weapons over the last six years. One of them bought 50 pounds of military grade explosives.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and his police commissioner, Ray Kelly, dutifully trekked down to Washington to plead for the bill on behalf of the nation’s cities. The only thing they got for their trouble was praise for getting the city through the Times Square incident in one piece. And almost everyone had a good word for the T-shirt vendor who first noticed the suspicious car and raised an alert. Really, if someone had introduced a bill calling for additional T-shirt vendors, it would have sailed through in a heartbeat.
Gun legislation, not so popular.

Lautenberg’s bill has been moldering in committee, and that is not going to change.

“Let me emphasize that none of us wants a terrorist to be able to purchase a gun,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who nevertheless went on to argue against allowing the government to use the terrorist watch list to keep anyone from being able to purchase, um, a gun.

“Some of the people pushing this idea are also pushing the idea of banning handguns,” said Graham, darkly. “I don’t think banning handguns makes me safer.”

The terrorist watch list is huge, and some of the names on it are undoubtedly there in error. The bill would allow anyone denied the right to purchase a firearm an appeal process, but that would deprive the would-be purchaser some precious gun-owning time. Before we subject innocent Americans “to having to go into court and pay the cost of going to court to get their gun rights back, I want to slow down and think about this,” said Graham.

Slow is going to be very slow, and the thinking could go on for decades.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Let The Sun Shine In......

Reid suppports breaking up of large banks

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Tide Is Turning: Call Your Senator NOW!

The tide is now turning towards real financial reform:

• In a major development, Senator Harry Reid is now supporting breaking up the giant banks and auditing the Fed

• Number two Senate majority leader, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), came out Tuesday in favor of a far-reaching amendment that would break up big banks and cap their size (the Brown-Kaufman amendment)

• Senator Feingold has announced that he will filibuster and financial regulation which does not include serious banking reform

I asked a friend on the hill - a top aide to a very important Congress member - whether people would be wasting their time by calling their Senator. I explained that many people called and demanded that the U.S. not invade Iraq, but that Congress just ignored us. I said that many people feel that traditional political activism, like phonecalls, can't work, as the level of political corruption is too high.

He responded that given the bipartisan support of many congress people and the American people for financial reform, this is very different from Iraq.

He urged everyone to call their Senators and demand the giant banks be broken up and the Fed be audited.

Senator Sanders' bill to audit the Fed will probably be voted on today. Please call your Senator now.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Lieberman supports stripping of citizenship for anyone ....

...suspected of terrorist ties.

Joe Lieberman is independent of everything except Israel. One can expect him to say something insane anytime terrorism or Israel is involved. In his mind the two are forever linked.

by Meg White

Quick. Someone strip Joe Lieberman of his citizenship before he causes actual damage to the country. Oh, wait. I forgot; we don't engage in that kind of Orwellian nonsense in this country.

Yet.

You probably heard about the latest idea from the "independent" senator from Connecticut (who seems to be independent of nothing more than reality) to strip citizenship from people who are accused of having ties to terrorism. Somehow this incredibly stupid idea got codified into an actual bill, which was introduced yesterday. The fact that this knee-jerk response is now present in the Congressional Record is an anathema to our justice system.

Countless questions have been raised about this ridiculous notion advanced by Lieberman. Like, for one: "Why?"

After all, what good does this actually accomplish? The ability to try someone in a military tribunal comes easier when the accused is not a U.S. citizen, but then again, what's the problem with criminal court? And apparently the Miranda rights argument advanced by Lieberman is erroneous as well.

So why would a graduate of Yale Law, who should know better, introduce such a legally fraught, Draconian law?

Oh, of course! I should have known. Thanks for spelling this one out, Rep. Charlie Dent:

Stripping U.S. citizenship from terror suspects is not only the moral thing to do - it will make it easier to kill them, legislators argued Thursday.

"I suspect it would be easier to launch a Hellfire missile at a noncitizen than a citizen," said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.). He rolled out a proposal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and others giving the State Department power to yank the citizenship of Yanks who join up with Al Qaeda or similar groups.

Yeah, just killing U.S. citizens whom the State Department suspects of having terrorist ties would be wrong. Instead, we should strip them of their citizenship then bomb them to smithereens. Neat and tidy.

But here's another nagging question: What if they're wrongfully accused? After all, it's happened before. Richard Jewell, anyone?

Of course, Lieberman probably has no interest in stripping citizenship from white Christians accused of terrorism. You didn't see Lieberman all over FOX News suggesting that the Hutaree militants -- who were recently arrested under the suspicion of planning to wage war on this country from within -- be stripped of their citizenship or denied their Miranda rights or tried in a military tribunal.

Nope. It took fellahs with scary names suchas Faisal Shahzad, Umar Faoruk Abdulmutallab and Khalid Sheik Mohammed to arouse such despotic ire in Lieberman.

The scariest part is that Lieberman has bipartisan support for the measure, and by "bipartisan" I don't mean independent Lieberman plus the GOP. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) is introducing companion legislation in the House with the aforementioned Pennsylvanian who likes bombing people. And Greg Sargent is predicting that there are more spineless Democrats "than you might think" who are afraid to deny the State Department the right to deny you your citizenship. Awesome.

I can't wait to hear psychopath-at-large Glenn Beck try to rationalize this to his Big Gubmint-fearing audience.

Not only is this proposal downright offensive to the very idea of American citizenship, it is also downright frightening that people with the grave responsibility of holding national elective office would propose or support it. And that is why we need to act to stem this sudden rush of fascism.

But since we are lawful U.S. citizens who have faith in the American system of justice, I'm not proposing that we strip Lieberman of his citizenship, or toss him in jail or even bug his phone line.

Instead, let's get him disbarred. He clearly has forgotten everything he learned about American justice while in law school. Any Yalies out there who can help me out with this one?

Let The Sun Shine In......

The (Almost) Crash of Wall Street

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Ninety minutes before the end of the trading day today, the U.S. stock market almost melted down The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 1,000 points. The market regained ground before the end, like a giant 747 narrowly averting a crash landing, but the questions of the day are: What happened? And What does it mean?

At this point no one knows why. Some say it was sudden burst of worries about Greece’s debt and the increasing possibility of a default that might cause a run by global investors. Others point to a “trading error.” Giant high-speed computers generate millions of trade based on instructions embedded in computer programs designed to move fast enough to beat everyone else. So when there’s a glitch in one of them it can immediately spread to all the other programs designed to move just as fast. Some say it was an erroneous trade entered by someone at a big Wall Street bank who mistyped an order to sell a large block of stock, and that the big drop in that stock’s price (Procter & Gamble?) triggered “sell” orders across the market.

Regardless of why it happened, it’s further evidence that the nation’s and the world’s capital markets have become a vast out-of-control casino in which fortunes can be made or lost in an instant — which would be fine except for the fact that most of us have put our life savings there. Pension funds, mutual funds, school endowments — the value of all of this depends on a mechanism that can lose a trillion dollars in minutes without anyone having a clear idea why. So much of the market now depends on computer programs and mathematical models that no one fully understands, so much trading is in the hands of a few people whose fat thumbs or momentary carelessness might sink the economy, so much of global wealth now depends on who can move their money quickest at the slightest provocation — that we are toying with financial disaster every day. The luck or foolishness of a few traders, and inside knowledge and information that some possess and others don’t, combined with ultra high-speed computers, put us all at the whim of a system whose risk is way out of proportion to any public benefits.

The financial reforms being considered on Capitol Hill are steps in the right direction. But the “systemic risk” now embedded in our capital markets is higher than ever, and will require far greater understanding and vigilance than now being considered.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Journalists Must Donate To Anti-Choice Organization In Order To Cover Palin’s Speech

Today, Sarah Palin will be speaking at a fundraiser for the Austin-based Heroic Media, a “faith-based” anti-choice organization that seeks to reduce the number of abortions “by creating a Culture of Life through television, billboard and internet advertising.” As part of its anti-choice media strategy, Heroic Media airs television commercials that “encourage viewers to learn more about and rethink the Life issue.” The group’s Internet strategy tries to direct Google users to an anti-choice website:

Heroic Media utilizes an online strategy to purchase top listings on search engines, such as google, so when teens “google” the word “abortion,”… “I think I’m pregnant,” … or “terminate pregnancy,” one of the top web sites they’ll see is our partner web site http://www.teenbreaks.com
Teenbreaks.com provides information about abortion, communicating with parents, adoption, cutting and more.

As Indecision Forever notes, the fact that Teenbreaks.com provides “information” on “cutting” is a giveaway that it isn’t interested in providing women with the best possible facts about their reproductive rights: “Cutting, that’s right, because self-mutilation has everything to do with handling an unplanned pregnancy.”
But in order to cover Palin’s speech, the Austin-American Statesman reports that journalists will have to make a contribution to Heroic Media:

Restrictions: Heroic Media will try to prohibit video and audio recordings of Palin’s appearance, and news organizations wishing to cover her speech must buy a ticket, the proceeds of which will go to Heroic Media.

Denying media access has become Palin’s standard operating procedure. After the debacle that was her interview with CBS’ Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin made sure she wouldn’t step into any embarrassing interviews — often demanding that reporters submit their questions “ahead of time” to guarantee a one-on-one. And as a private citizen, the former Alaska governor requires that any questions asked at her speaking engagements be pre-screened. Just last week at an event in Eugene, OR, media were “not…allowed to ask her questions and take still pictures… [or] videotape or record it in anyway.”
Earlier this year, after conservatives criticized Palin’s $100,000+ fee to speak at the Tea Party convention, she said she would donate the proceeds to “the cause.” Perhaps that’s what she is trying to get the media to do as well.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf

Friday 30 April 2010

 

by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: futureatlas.com, US Coast Guard)

A former contractor who worked for British Petroleum (BP) claims the oil conglomerate broke federal laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firms other deepwater production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, according to internal emails and other documents obtained by Truthout.

The whistleblower, whose name has been withheld at the person's request because the whistleblower still works in the oil industry and fears retaliation, first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world's largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008. Atlantis, which began production in October 2007, has the capacity to produce about 8.4 million gallons of oil and 180 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

It was then that the whistleblower, who was hired to oversee the company's databases that housed documents related to its Atlantis project, discovered that the drilling platform had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved documents it needed to run safely, leaving the platform vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster that would far surpass the massive oil spill that began last week following a deadly explosion on a BP-operated drilling rig.

BP's own internal communications show that company officials were made aware of the issue and feared that the document shortfalls related to Atlantis "could lead to catastrophic operator error" and must be addressed.

Indeed, according to an August 15, 2008, email sent to BP officials by Barry Duff, a member of BP's Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Atlantis Subsea Team, the Piping and Instrument Diagrams (P&IDs) for the Atlantis subsea components "are not complete." P&IDs documents form the foundation of a hazards analysis BP is required to undertake as part of its Safety and Environmental Management Program related to its offshore drilling operations. P&IDs drawings provide the schematic details of the project's piping and process flows, valves and safety critical instrumentation.

"The risk in turning over drawings that are not complete are: 1) The Operator will assume the drawings are accurate and up to date," the email said. "This could lead to catastrophic Operator errors due to their assuming the drawing is correct," said Duff's email to BP officials Bill Naseman and William Broman. "Turning over incomplete drawings to the Operator for their use is a fundamental violation of basic Document control, [internal standards] and Process Safety Regulations."

BP did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. Despite the claims that BP did not maintain proper documentation related to Atlantis, federal regulators continued to authorize an expansion of the drilling project.

Last May, Mike Sawyer, a Texas-based engineer who works for Apex Safety Consultants, voluntarily agreed to evaluate BP's Atlantis subsea document database and the whistleblower's allegations regarding BP's engineering document shortfall related to Atlantis. Sawyer concluded that of the 2,108 P&IDs BP maintained that dealt specifically with the subsea components of its Atlantis production project, 85 percent did not receive engineer approval.

Even worse, 95 percent of Atlantis' subsea welding records did not receive final approval, calling into question the integrity of thousands of crucial welds on subsea components that, if they were to rupture, could result in an oil spill 30 times worse than the one that occurred after the explosion on Deepwater Horizon last week.

In a report Sawyer prepared after his review, he said BP's "widespread pattern of unapproved design, testing and inspection documentation on the Atlantis subsea project creates a risk of a catastrophic incident threatening the [Gulf of Mexico] deep-water environment and the safety of platform workers." Moreover, "the extent of documentation discrepancies creates a substantial risk that a catastrophic event could occur at any time."

"The absence of a complete set of final, up-to-date, 'as built' engineering documents, including appropriate engineering approval, introduces substantial risk of large scale damage to the deep water [Gulf of Mexico] environment and harm to workers, primarily because analyses and inspections based on unverified design documents cannot accurately assess risk or suitability for service," Sawyer's report said. He added, "there is no valid engineering justification for these violations and short cuts."

Sawyer explained that the documents in question - welding records, inspections and safety shutdown logic materials - are "extremely critical to the safe operation of the platform and its subsea components." He said the safety shutdown logic drawings on Atlantis, a complex computerized system that, during emergencies, is supposed to send a signal to automatically shut down the flow of oil, were listed as "requiring update."

"BP's recklessness in regards to the Atlantis project is a clear example of how the company has a pattern of failing to comply with minimum industry standards for worker and environmental safety," Sawyer said.

The oil spill blanketing roughly 4,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed eleven workers, was exacerbated, preliminary reports suggest, by the failure of a blowout preventer to shut off the flow of oil on the drilling rig and the lack of a backup safety measure, known as a remote control acoustic shut off switch, to operate the blowout preventer.

Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent a letter Thursday to BP Chairman and President Lamar McKay seeking documents related to inspections on Deepwater Horizon conducted this year and BP's policy on using acoustic shut off switches in the Gulf of Mexico.

The circumstances behind the spill are now the subject of a federal investigation.

Profits Before Safety

Whether it's the multiple oil spills that emanated from BP's Prudhoe Bay operations in Alaska's North Slope or the March 2005 explosion at the company's Texas refinery that killed 15 employees and injured 170 people, BP has consistently put profits ahead of safety.

On October 25, 2007, BP pled guilty to a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and paid a $20 million fine related to two separate oil spills that occurred in the North Slope in March and August of 2006, the result of a severely corroded pipeline and a safety valve failure. BP formally entered a guilty plea in federal court on November 29, 2007. US District Court Judge Ralph Beistline sentenced BP to three years probation and said oil spills were a "serious crime" that could have been prevented if BP had spent more time and funds investing in pipeline upgrades and a "little less emphasis on profit."

Also on October 25, 2007, BP paid a $50 million fine and pleaded guilty to a felony in the refinery explosion. An investigation into the incident concluded that a warning system was not working and that BP sidestepped its own internal regulations for operating the tower. Moreover, BP has a prior felony conviction for improperly disposing of hazardous waste.

The incident involving Deepwater Horizon, now the subject of a federal investigation, may end up being the latest example of BP's safety practices run amuck.

The issues related to the repeated spills in Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere were revealed by more than 100 whistleblowers who, since as far back as 1999, said the company failed to take seriously their warnings about shoddy safety practices and instead retaliated against whistleblowers who registered complaints with their superiors.

In September 2006, days before BP executives were scheduled to testify before Congress about an oil spill from a ruptured pipeline that forced the company to shutdown its Prudhoe Bay operations, BP announced that it had tapped former federal Judge Stanley Sporkin to serve as an ombudsman and take complaints from employees about the company's operations.

That's who the whistleblower complained to via email about issues related to BP's Atlantis operations in March 2009 a month after his contract was abruptly terminated for reasons he believes were directly related to his complaints to management about BP's failure to obtain the engineering documents on Atlantis and the fact that he "stood up for a female employee who was being discriminated against and harassed." The whistleblower alleged that the $2 million price tag was the primary reason BP did not follow through with a plan formulated months earlier to secure the documents.

"We prepared a plan to remedy this situation but it met much resistance and complaints from the above lead engineers on the project," the whistleblower wrote in the March 4, 2009, email to Pasha Eatedali in BP's ombudsman's office.

Federal Intervention

Additionally, he hired an attorney and contacted the inspector general for the Department of the Interior and the agency's Minerals Management Service (MMS), which regulates offshore drilling practices, and told officials there that BP lacked the required engineer-certified documents related to the major components of the Atlantis subsea gas and oil operation.

In 2007, MMS had approved the construction of an additional well and another drilling center on Atlantis. But the whistleblower alleged in his March 4, 2009, email to Eatedali in BP's Office of the Ombudsman that documents related to this project needed to ensure operational safety were missing and that amounted to a violation of federal law as well as a breach of BP's Atlantis Project Execution Plan. The ombudsman's office agreed to investigate.

MMS, acting on the whistleblower's complaints, contacted BP on June 30, 2009, seeking specific engineering related documents. BP complied with the request three weeks later.

On July 9, 2009, MMS requested that BP turn over certification documents for its Subsurface Safety Valves and Surface Controlled Subsea Safety Valves for all operational wells in the Atlantis field. MMS officials flew out to the platform on the same day and secured the documents, according to an internal letter written by Karen Westall, the managing attorney on BP's Gulf of Mexico Legal Team.

But according to the public advocacy group Food & Water Watch, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, which became involved in the case last July, BP did not turn over a complete set of materials to MMS.

"BP only turned over 'as-built' drawings for [Atlantis'] topsides and hull, despite the fact that the whistleblower’s allegations have always been about whether BP maintains complete and accurate engineer approved documents for it subsea components," Food & Water Watch said in a 19-page letter it sent toWilliam Hauser, MMS’s Chief, Regulations and Standards Branch.

During two visits to the Atlantis drilling platform last August and September, MMS inspectors reviewed BP's blowout preventer records. Food & Water Watch said they believe MMS inspectors reviewed the test records and failed to look into the whistleblower's charges that engineering documents were missing. The blowout preventer, however, is an issue at the center of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

An MMS spokesperson did not return calls for comment.

Last October, Food & Water Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for expedited processing, seeking documents from MMS that indicate BP "has in its possession a complete and accurate set of 'as built' drawings ... for its entire Atlantis Project, including the subsea sector." "As-built" means lead engineers on a specific project have to make sure updated technical documents match the "as-built" condition of equipment before its used.

MMS denied the FOIA request.

"MMS does not agree with your assessment of the potential for imminent danger to individuals or the environment, for which you premise your argument [for expedited response]. After a thorough review of these allegations, the MMS, with concurrence of the Solicitor's Office, concludes your claims are not supported by the facts or the law," the agency said in its October 30, 2009, response letter.

In response, MMS said that although some of its regulatory requirements governing offshore oil and gas operations do require "as built" drawings, they need not be complete or accurate and, furthermore, are irrelevant to a hazard analysis BP was required to complete.

Unsatisfied with MMS's response, Food & Water Watch contacted Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), a member of the Committee on Natural Resources and chairman of the subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, about the issues revolving around BP's Atlantis operations and provided his office with details of its own investigation into the matter.

"Unsubstantiated" Claims

On January 15, Westall, the BP attorney, wrote a letter to Deborah Lanzone, the staff director with the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals, and addressed the allegations leveled by Food & Water Watch as well as indirect claims the whistleblower made.

Westall said BP "reviewed the allegations" related to "noncompliant documentation of the Atlantis project ... and found them to be unsubstantiated." But Westall's response directly contradicts the findings of Billie Pirner Garde, BP's deputy ombudsman, who wrote in an April 13 email to the whistleblower that his claims that BP failed to maintain proper documentation related to Atlantis "were substantiated" and "addressed by a BP Management of Change document." Garde did not say when that change occurred. But he added that the whistleblower's complaints weren't "unique" and had been raised by other employees "before you worked there, while you were there and after you left."

Westall noted in her letter that "all eight BP-operated Gulf of Mexico production facilities" received safety awards from MMS in 2009.

"Maintenance and general housekeeping were rated outstanding and personnel were most cooperative in assisting in the inspection activities," MMS said about BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling facilities. "Platform records were readily available for review and maintained to reflect current conditions."

Westall maintained that the whistleblower as well as Food & Water Watch had it all wrong. Their charges about missing documents has nothing to do with Atlantis' operational safety. Rather, Westall seemed to characterize their complaints as a clerical issue.

"The Atlantis project is a complex project with multiple phases," Westall said in her letter to Lanzone. "The [August 15, 2008] e-mail [written by Barry Duff, a member of the Atlantis subsea team] which was provided to you to support [Food & Water Watch's] allegations relates to the status of efforts to utilize a particular document management system to house and maintain the Atlantis documents. The document database includes engineering drawings for future phases, as well as components or systems which may have been modified, replaced, or not used."

But Representative Grijalva was not swayed by Westall's denials. He continued to press the issue with MMS, and in February, he and 18 other lawmakers signed a letter calling on MMS to probe whether BP "is operating its Atlantis offshore oil platform ... without professionally approved safety documents."

Grijalva said MMS has not "done enough so far to ensure worker and environmental safety at the site, in part because it has interpreted the relevant laws too loosely."

"[C]ommunications between MMS and congressional staff have suggested that while the company by law must maintain 'as-built' documents, there is no requirement that such documents be complete or accurate," the letter said. "This statement, if an accurate interpretation of MMS authorities, raises serious concerns" and requires "a thorough review at the agency level, the legal level and the corporate level. The world's largest oil rig cannot continue to operate without safety documentation. The situation is unacceptable and deserves immediate scrutiny.

"We also request that MMS describe how a regulation that requires offshore operators to maintain certain engineering documents, but does not require that those documents be complete or accurate, is appropriately protective of human health and the environment."

On March 26, MMS launched a formal investigation and is expected to file a report detailing its findings next month.

Zach Corrigan, a senior attorney with Food & Water Watch, said in an interview Thursday that he hopes MMS "will perform a real investigation" and if the agency fails to do so, Congress should immediately hold oversight hearings "and ensure that the explosion and mishap of the Horizon platform is not replicated."

"MMS didn't act on this for nearly a year," Corrigan said. "They seemed to think it wasn't a regulatory or an important safety issue. Atlantis is a real vulnerability." 

 
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

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Jim Hightower; A Very Funny Man

MICHAEL WINSHIP FOR BUZZFLASH

I first became aware of Jim Hightower more than 20 years ago, during the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. The Democrats were nominating Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis to run for president against Reagan's vice president, George H.W. Bush, and at the time Dukakis looked like he had a pretty good chance at the White House.

This was before a series of events did him in, including the notorious Willie Horton ad that attacked Dukakis for a Massachusetts weekend furlough prison program that allowed a convicted murderer back on the street, where he robbed and raped.

And it was before Dukakis bobbled a harsh debate question about what he would do if his own wife Kitty was raped and murdered. And it was before he was photographed atop an Abrams tank wearing a helmet that made him look like he was starring in Snoopy III: This Time It's Personal.

All of that misery lay ahead. The Democrats were still in giddy spirits during the convention and had a high old time poking fun at Bush, Sr.That was when the late Ann Richards, then the Texas state treasurer, famously lamented, "Poor George! He can't help it - he was born with asilver foot in his mouth!"

But it was the convention speech by Hightower that I especially remember. He was the Texas agriculture commissioner in those days - an important job in the Lone Star State - and described Bush as a "toothache of a man," a cruel but remarkable metaphor. And he said that Bush behaved like someone who was "born on third base and thought he hit a triple... He is threatening to lead this country from tweedle-dum to tweedle-dumber."

Maybe Hightower didn't originate those lines (as Milton Berle used to say, "When you steal from me, you steal twice"), but he delivered them with a gusto akin to genuine authorship and over the years has come up with enough original material of his own to absolve him - mostly -  from the sin of occasional joke-filching. Now others steal from him.

It was Jim, I believe, who came up with the notion that all elected officials be required to wear brightly colored, NASCAR-like jumpsuits with the corporate logos of their biggest campaign contributors, an idea I've heard appropriated by several others without proper attribution. And I think it was Jim who first said of George W. Bush, "If ignorance ever reaches $40 a barrel, I want the drilling rights to his head." (On hearing that another politician was learning Spanish, Hightower is supposed to have remarked, "Oh good. Now he'll be bi-ignorant.")

These days, Jim Hightower broadcasts daily radio commentaries and edits "The Hightower Lowdown," an invaluable monthly newsletter. With the passing of both Ann Richards and Molly Ivins, he has became the funniest person in Texas politics - intentionally, that is. But it is his steadfast advocacy of progressive politics, his unyielding embrace of the old time gospel of populism, that made him an especially appropriate guest on the final edition of the PBS series, Bill Moyers Journal.

"Here's what populism is not," he told my colleague Bill Moyers. "It is not just an incoherent outburst of anger. And certainly it is not anger that is funded and organized by corporate front groups, as the initial tea party effort [was], and as most of it is still today - though there is legitimate anger within it, in terms of the people who are there.
But what populism is at its essence is just a determined focus on helping people be able to get out of the iron grip of the corporate power that is overwhelming our economy, our environment, energy, the media, government.

"...One big difference between real populism and... the tea party thing is that real populists understand that government has become a subsidiary of corporations. So you can't say, 'Let's get rid of government.' You need to be saying, 'Let's take over government.'"

As Hightower's fond of saying, the water won't clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek. "I see the central issue in politics to be the rise of corporate power," he reiterated.
"Overwhelming, overweening corporate power that is running roughshod over the workaday people of the country. They think they're the top dogs, and we're a bunch of fire hydrants, you know?"

Of President Obama he said, "It's odd to me that we've got a president who ran from the outside and won, and now is trying to govern from the inside. You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force... Our heavyweight is the people themselves.  They've got the fat cats, but we've got the alley cats..."

This weekend, Jim is being honored at Texas State University-San Marcos with an exhibition celebrating his life's work as a populist journalist, historian and advocate. They're calling the event "Swim Against the Current" because, as Moyers says, "That's what he does." In fact, "Swim Against the Current" also is the title of Hightower's most recent book, subtitled, "Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow." He comes from a long history of flow resisters, a critical, American political tradition. "I go all the way back to Thomas Paine," he said.

"I mean, that was kind of the ultimate rebellion, when the media tool was a pamphlet." The men who wrote the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence "didn't create democracy. [They] made democracy possible.

"What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies.  Tough, in your face people... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie... Martin Luther King and CaesarChavez.  And now it's down to us.

"These are agitators.  They extended democracy decade after decade.  You know, sometimes we get in the midst of these fights.  We think we're making no progress.  But... you look back, we've made a lot of progress... The agitator after all is the center post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out. So, we need a lot more agitation.... "We can battle back against the powers.  But it's not just going to a rally and shouting. It's organizing and it's thinking. And reaching out to others. And building a real people's movement."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

With this week's edition, Bill Moyers Journal goes off the air. But
we'll be continuing the conversation via our Web site at PBS.org/moyers.
These weekly columns will be continuing for the foreseeable as well. It
has been a delight and honor collaborating with Bill - and the entire
production team - so intensely over the last two years. I am always
improved in their presence and thank them all, especially Bill and
executive editor Judith Davidson Moyers, executive producers Judy
Doctoroff and Sally Roy and Diane Domondon and Jesse Adams, the two of
whom every week have made sure these scratchings make it out alive, with
alacrity and accuracy.


       Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs
program Bill Moyers Journal, which concludes Friday night on PBS.
Watch online or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

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