British Petroleum, otherwise known as BP, those wonderful people who run all the Sunday morning ads showing happy, laughing people enjoying the beautiful beaches along our gulf coast, the same gulf coast that they coated with oil and death in 2010 is now trying to worm its way out of paying the money it owes to residents, businessmen and the government for the felonious act of ruining our land and waters and killing our wildlife.
Robert Dudley, CEO of this serial ecological disaster creator that likes to call itself an oil company thinks “it’s not good for America” for BP to pay what it owes. What the hell would this clown know about what’s good for America, his company has done its best to destroy a good part of our southern coast.
Dudley claims that the company has been working hard to pay off all the claims against it but that’s a lie. BP has asked a federal judge to halt spill payments. The judge decided against them last week. BP made a $12 billion profit last year, which included a $300 million US tax break. Why the hell are we giving tax breaks to companies that make billions, then foul our coastline and then try to worn their way out of paying for the damage they did?
There are people who are filing unjust claims they whine. Really? Too damn bad. No claims would have been filed at all if they had not allowed shoddy workmanship to poison our land and waters. This disreputable oil giant is trying to worm its way out of more than half the $17.6 billion it owes the government in fines for creating the most monumental ecological disaster in history.
Not to be outdone on the personal side they are running ads in The Wall Street Journal looking for finks to rat out people who have filed false claims. We have never been on the side of cheaters but if there was ever a company that needed to be cheated it is definitely BP. The damage they caused is still appearing all along the coast where a 40,000 ton, matt of oil and sand has just surfaced even as sick and diseased fish and wildlife continue to appear.
BP should be banned from ever doing business in the Western Hemisphere again, and all its facilities and resources, should be seized by the government until full payment is made to any and everyone who has a legitimate claim. Let’s not let this thing go the way of the Exxon Valdes spill, where 25 years after the catastrophe Exxon still owes the state of Alaska and the Department of Justice for wildlife recovery over $92 million.
It’s time we started treating these outlaw companies like the degenerate crooks they are. When we bust a drug dealer the DEA or IRS seizes all their assets and puts them out of business until all damages are paid in full and they get out of jail. Our useless Attorney General doesn’t seem to be able to put these fossil crooks who recklessly endanger our people and our ecology in jail so maybe we should make it easier to just grab their assets until they come across with what they owe us.
It’s a pretty good strategy if you think about it. Exxon, for instance, owes the government $92 million for 25 years. First you calculate the interest on this sum and then you grab all Exxon interests in the United States until settlement. There have to be trillions in Exxon assets in this country. While it’s holding the assets, the government takes any profit that is made on them. Hell, Exxon could practically retire the national debt all by itself, just while the lawsuits were working their way through courts all over the nation. It would be a huge mess but all the government would have to do is win one of these deals and everyone else would line up to pay up before their property was seized.
Sure it’s intrusive and very much in the vein of a Banana Republic but our government has been acting very Banana Republicy toward it own citizens lately. Just check out the NSA mess. Maybe the fossil fuel industry and particularly Exxon and BP need some totalitarian ations against them just to get them to act like solid citizens.