BP Oil Spill
And Caldron Bubble
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Or in this case, vast quantities of natural gas bubbled into the Gulf of Mexico: A vast majority of the natural gas that billowed out of BP PLC’s failed well in the Gulf this summer did not escape to the surface and atmosphere. Instead, the …
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CONTINUE READINGDisturbing Video of Oil Spill Effects on Whales and Dolphins
[youtube=] This video contains some of the most compelling and disturbing footage I’ve seen of the Gulf oil spill. It demonstrates the vastness of the spread of oil; the effects on marine mammals including whales and dolphins; and the magnitude of the burning BP is doing to try to clean up the oil. The video …
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CONTINUE READINGNews Flash: Richard Lazarus to be Executive Director of Deepwater Horizon Team
DOE has announced: The co-chairs of the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling have selected a highly regarded Georgetown University law professor to serve as the commission’s executive director. Richard Lazarus, the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law at Georgetown, will lead the staff of the …
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CONTINUE READINGValuable New Resources on the Oil Spill
Given the speed with which this story is unfolding and the overwhelming number of voices being heard, it’s very hard to keep up or to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Berkeley Law Library has created a new database of carefully selected resources relating to the BP spill — government reports and hearings, white …
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CONTINUE READINGNewsHour Segment: Can Obama Require BP to Form an Escrow Fund?
Steve Yerrid, a Florida trial lawyers, and I discuss this with Ray Suarez on the NewsHour. Bottom line: the answer isn’t very clear, although OPA sec. 1005(a) does require BP to establish a process for “the payment or settlement of claims for interim, short-term damages” that might encompass an escrow and independent decision-makers. It will …
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CONTINUE READING“Facing Catastrophe”: A Roadmap to a Safer Future
Rob Verchick’s new book, “Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World,” might help avoid future disasters like the Deepsea Horizon blowout. Verchick views wetlands, lakes, forests, and rivers as a kind of infrastructure, providing ecosystem services that are just as important as the services provided by other infrastructure such as roads and dams. For …
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CONTINUE READINGA Corporate Culture of Criminal Recklessness?
Could the Gulf blowout have been prevented if BP had been prosecuted for some of its earlier reckless conduct?
CONTINUE READINGThree Ingredients of Disaster
The organizational failures that led to the Gulf blowout were similar to those that resulted in the failure of the New Orleans levees during Katrina.
CONTINUE READINGA Picture Speaks a Thousand Words
Do we now have the iconic image of the BP oil spill? The photo above — of a laughing gull soaked in oil — appeared in newspapers, on line and on the air yesterday. It seems to capture, as no words can, the tragedy we face as millions of gallons of oil continue to spew …
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CONTINUE READINGUp-to-the-Minute Oil Spills News
Yesterday, I posted a link to websites that are providing good information about the spill. Those sites provide rich sources of information, but they won’t necessarily tell you what’s happened in the last half hour. Talking Points Memo has a really helpful “news wire” if you want the very latest news. TPM is a “progressive” …
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