 I’m speaking now totally for myself. I’m not speaking for the Republican Party. I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself, but I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday.
I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown, with the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history, that’s got no legal standing, and which sets, I think, a terrible precedent for the future. If I called you into my office, and I had the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Stupak, with me, who was legitimately conducting an oversight investigation on your company and said, if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my congressional district, I could go to jail, and should go to jail. Now, there is no question that British Petroleum owns this lease. There is no question that British Petroleum – that B.P. – I’m sorry. It’s not British Petroleum anymore — that B.P. made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that B.P. is liable for the damages. But we have a due process system, where we go through hearings, in some cases court cases, litigation, and determine what those damages are and when those damages should be paid. So I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anybody else. But I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is – again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.
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“there is no question that British Petroleum owns this lease. There is no question that…B.P. made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that B.P. is liable for the damages.”
There is also no question that the deposits of petroleum beneath the surface of the sovereign nation of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico are the property of the people of the United States who have every reason to expect that the leaseholders will not create circumstances that will foul up the whole thing and render any advantage associated with awarding the lease into a huge financial and environmental catastrophe. Doubtless, there are plenty of apologies that can be made but the breath is wasted. Mr. Barton might begin with his own resignation for accepting money from an industry that has so perfectly trampled the opportunities he may have helped provide and left him looking the perfect dupe/idiot/clown. He is also disloyal – to his constituents, his office, his country and that is a bad thing fundamentally.
Just like BP having a “slush fund” to cover the expenses of the spill, our Interior should also have a “slush fund” of honest, competent and moral employees (who will strictly enforce the regulations that should have prevented this catastrophe) waiting in the wings to take the place of any MMS employee not willing to carry out their job to the fullest extent.
I don’t believe the source of this catastrophe – the corrupt MMS who didn’t insist on safety measures and environmental protections from BP (and who else for that matter) are getting raked over the coals enough. So far, Salazar has not done much – time will tell.