02.04.08

This Is What Happens When Corporations Run The Government

Posted in Around The Nation, Around The State, Bad Government Republicans, Cronyism, Had Enough Yet? at 10:45 am by wcnews

Thanks to Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) for bringing this to our attention, Plea Deal For BP Explosion Under Increasing Fire.

Victims, legal scholars, safety proponents and consumer advocates are denouncing a pending plea deal between the Bush Justice Department and BP Products North America to settle criminal felony charges arising from a deadly explosion at the oil giant’s Texas City refinery. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal is scheduled to review the plea bargain at a Houston hearing on February 4. The 2005 BP explosion killed 15 workers and injured several hundred more.

Blast victims and their survivors say the proposed deal is ludicrously lenient. The victims are seeking a larger fine and assurances that BP will make good on its pledges to improve safety at the plant. Since the 2005 explosion, industrial accidents at the same plant have killed three additional workers.

From a fact sheet [.PDF] at TPJ we get this:

On February 4, 2008, Houston U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal will be asked to rule on a plea bargain that federal prosecutors negotiated with a division of British oil giant BP Global. The plea deal seeks to settle felony criminal charges stemming from the March 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and injured hundreds more.

Blast victims, public safety advocates and legal scholars oppose the plea deal because it amounts to insufficient punishment for a recidivist corporate criminal with annual profits of $23 billion. Only a much stiffer penalty and strict oversight will convince BP to obey U.S. law, they argue.

For anyone who might not know what the term recidivist means “repeat offender”. In other words this isn’t the first time, by a long shot, that BP’s had these kind of problems.Also part of the deal:

While BP pledges to comply with a host of EPA and OSHA rules, the deal does not impose any kind of outside monitoring or court oversight to insure that it makes good on its promises.

Well of course they’ll follow through, it’s obvious this repeat offender can be trusted to do what’s right. This is just another sad example of how the Bush Justice Department works at the behest of the corporations that bankrolled it’s elections and not in the best interest of the American people. The victims believe that a $50 million fine imposed on a corporation that makes more than $20 billion in profit annually amounts to little more than a parking ticket. EOW’s agrees 100%.

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