Why the BP Disaster Didn't Happen in its British Home

The flip side of those stories about Brits defending hometown BP against American anger is that the the Brits have known for quite some time what malicious fuckers BP execs really are, and took measures to protect themselves.

From Down with Tyranny:

BEARD: But this was the company behind a string of American disasters. The Prudhoe Bay spill; the Texas City Refinery Fire, and now Deepwater Horizon. Critics say former chief executive Lord Browne created all these disasters with relentless cost-cutting. Tom Bower is author of "Oil Money Politics and Power."

TOM BOWER: Amongst the costs he dramatically cut were the costs of maintenance and safety and releasing many hundreds of engineers.

BEARD: Bower says a maniacal ambition drove Browne. He wanted to displace Exxon-Mobil and make BP the biggest oil company in the world. Instead, he says, Browne left behind a disaster zone.

How dare they, huh? This is very much the way U.S. corporations treat human beings in Third World countries. It's what I meant to convey earlier this morning when I quoted Thom Hartmann looking out into the not-too-distant future and spelling out for us that we either have to change or perish and that "The new economic structure must consider, in every transaction, the environmental cost to all human (and corporate, and governmental) behavior, and appropriately mitigate that cost." BP didn't give a hoot about that. As Beard's guest, Tom Bower went on the explain, "Amongst the costs he dramatically cut were the costs of maintenance and safety and releasing many hundreds of engineers." Browne was clearly a typical corporate sociopath-- and he left a predictable catastrophe for his former company, not to mention the Gulf of Mexico and the areas that border it. "BP," continued Bower, "was really always on a knife-edge, always cutting corners, and to an extent it was a maverick corporation, shooting from the hip." But these kinds of environmental disasters haven't happened in the U.K. Why? Well, that's where the Republican Party's love for banana republicanism comes into play. Beard again:

Twenty two years ago, a gas leak on an American platform off Britain's Coast caused the world's worst offshore disaster. One hundred and sixty seven workers on the Piper Alpha rig died in the fire. Much tougher regulation ensued. Malcolm Webb speaks for British offshore operators. He says Piper Alpha...

MALCOLM WEBB: ..took us into an entirely different direction as regards safety and the management of our resources in the offshore.

BEARD: Britain split up licensing of operators from safety monitoring, unlike in the U.S. And another critical difference. No drilling operator ever gets a license here now without a meticulous safety assessment showing.

WEBB: That he is operating that installation so as to reduce to the lowest extent practicable the risks to human life and to the environment through oil spill.

BEARD: BP admits it never performed assessments on any of its U.S. wells because the U.S. government never required that.

In fact, it was much cheaper for B.P. and the oil industry in general to just buy off conservative politicians-- much cheaper. Still sitting in the Senate are 10 members-- all conservatives, of course-- who have taken over half a million dollars in thinly veiled direct bribes from Big Oil and all have worked to make sure BP would never be required to undergo the expensive regulatory regime they are forced to endure back in their home country.

SNIP

And there are 10 House members, again all conservatives, in the same cozy little club: handmaidens for Big Oil who have taken at least half a million dollars each from Big Oil executives and lobbyists.

SNIP

They also belong in prison-- along with the BP executive and lobbyists. But that's not going to happen... not ever. Even now, as we mentioned earlier today, Republican conservatives, each with financial connections to Big Oil, are urging that oil companies be allowed to drill in the Great Lakes, the source of drinking water for 40 million Americans. The U.S. learned nothing from this, although England did:

Read the whole thing.