In the midst of the hand-wringing, the confusion, the anger, and the destruction of BeePee's "we brought it on ourselves with greed and stupidity but you're going to pay for it, not us" environmental catastrophe, Jim Hightower points out that a couple of minor, though collateral, issues have been, I guess you could say, overlooked.
The corporate-friendly GOP-run states that border the Gulf are allowing BP to use public utilities like police forces to prevent reporters from seeing what they've done or independently assessing the damage. (PS. Obama has helped, too.)
[BP] has studiously avoided mentioning...the corporation's aggressive effort to keep reporters and photographers away from the story. Journalists trying to do their job of informing the public - free of the self-serving bias in BP's ads - have repeatedly been denied access to the well site, public beaches, and other areas affected by the spewing and spreading oil.
Incredibly, government officials have aided the cover-up. For example, when Sen. Bill Nelson scheduled a visit to some oil slicked areas, he was to be accompanied by a few reporters. But at 10 pm the night before the trip, Nelson's office was called by a Homeland Security official and told no journalists would be allowed. Why? "No further elaboration" was offered, said Nelson's perplexed aide.
Likewise, when a New York Daily News reporter and photographer approached a public beach in Louisiana, a private contractor for BP told them to leave. Asked why, the contractor summoned the sheriff, who said journalists had to fill out paperwork for permission to enter, even though it is a public area, and then they would have to be escorted by a BP official.
The Nelson episode kind of explains what Homeland Security turned into when you weren't looking. They're no longer protecting you from terrorists (if they ever were). Under Obama they're protecting you from nosy journalists asking inconvenient questions about criminal corporations. It's, like, the sort of thing Bush would do, no? So is this:
Despite the disaster in the Gulf, the $billions$ in damage to businesses and the environment, and BeePee's now-clear responsibility for same due to greed and a lack of interest in the welfare of people not on BeePee's BOD, the Obama Admin is allowing BeePee to continue an even riskier project off Sarah Palin's beloved Alaskan coast. Not that you're going to hear about it from her.
While our attention has been riveted on BP's disastrous blowout in the Gulf, the British oil giant has been quietly and quickly drilling another risky offshore well three miles off of Alaska's north coast. Dubbed "Liberty," this project requires a technique called "extended reach," which is even more prone to explosions than the Gulf process. First, BP is drilling down two miles under the Beaufort Sea, then going sideways for up to eight miles to tap into one of our national oil reserves.
But wait - didn't Obama impose a moratorium on such offshore drilling? Yes... BUT: When Liberty was planned in the Bush years, it was magically declared by his devil-may-care regulators to be an "onshore project." How can that be? Because the rig sits on a tiny artificial island that BP built, so - voila! - it's "onshore" even though it's three miles offshore.
Also, just as in the Gulf, industry-cozy regulators let BP write its own environmental impact statements for Liberty. And - guess what? - BP's 2007 statement said BP would cause no environmental problems. A-OK, said the winking regulators, as they rubber-stamped the project. And what about a disaster response plan, just in case, you know, something bad does happen? Not to worry, BP assured everyone, because the likelihood of a blowout is very remote.
Doncha luv it? Unfortunately BeePee's little fake island ploy won't help much if, you know, something BAD happens.
What's inportant to notice here is that not only is NO ONE taking BeePee to task for its profits-before-planet decisions, they're enabling them to go right on doing what they do best: rape resources and burn the globe while they're doing it.
But hey, that's business.
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