BP Oil Spill

Not So Good At Safety But Great Lobbyists

It’s no surprise that the petroleum industry has political heft, but the number (courtesy of the Times) are impressive: The oil and gas industry is a formidable presence in Washington. It spent more on federal lobbying last year than all but two other industries, with $174.8 million in lobbying expenditures, according to the Center for …

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A Gateway to Information on the BP Spill

There’s getting to be too much material on the disaster in the Gulf to keep up with.  With the assistance of Aspen Publishing, we’ve posted a list of two-dozen key links here — just click on the “Related Links” tab on the left side of the page.  The Berkeley Law Library is working on a …

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We’ve Known the Risks in the Gulf for Forty Years

We’ve known all along that offshore drilling in the Gulf placed at risk exceptionally valuable and sensitive coastal areas.  We need look no further than a forty-year-old court decision on Gulf oil drilling, which made the dangers abundantly clear. In 1971, President Nixon announced a new energy plan involving greatly expanded offshore drilling.  In a …

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Blame and the BP Oil Spill

Like most observers, I suspect, I find myself so enraged by the  BP oil spill I don’t even know where to direct my anger.  Obviously, BP should be at the top — Dan was appropriately eloquent in his word choice by calling the company’s series of errors and negligent acts a cluster%#@*.   And the …

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Today’s Oil Spill News

BP is attempting the “top kill” method of stemming the leak with uncertain results as of yet.  Early results are encouraging, and we all hope for the best. In other developments: According to the White House, President Obama will announce six-month extension of moratorium on drilling new wells and will cancel new lease sales off …

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A Two-Word Phrase Beginning with “Cluster” and Rhyming with “Luck”

There’s a classic military term for the series of foul-ups that led to the BP oil spill.

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BP’s Disastrous PR Blowout

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZidQAf8epE] Even Fox News is berating BP for its callous and inapt public response to the oil blowout.  And for good reason.  As Newsweek says: This hasn’t been a good few weeks for Tony Hayward, the chief executive officer of BP. In the weeks since the huge oil spill in the Gulf began, he has …

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A Corporate Culture of Carelessness

Of course, if it’s true that BP is weak on accident prevention, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there were lapses in this instance or that the lapses were the cause of the blowout. But BP’s record is a reason for concern.

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Another Lesson from the BP Disaster: The Need for Better Risk Assessment

Apparently, the lease grant to BP was exempted from environmental review, according to the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin: The decision by the department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP’s lease at Deepwater Horizon a “categorical exclusion” from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 — and BP’s lobbying efforts just 11 …

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