Presidential Commission Whitewashes BP Disaster

On Monday, the chief counsel of President Obama’s commission on the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico claimed his investigators found no evidence the oil giant sacrificed safety to save money before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. The blowout killed 11 workers and led to the worst environmental catastrophe is US history.

"To date, we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety," Fred Bartlit, general counsel for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, asserted on November 8. Monday was the first day of a hearing in Washington to present the commission’s preliminary findings.

Bartlit’s statements underscore the fact that the commission’s inquiry is a whitewash aimed at protecting the assets of BP and covering up for the Obama administration’s own complicity in the disaster. Should the company be found criminally negligent, it could face fines of $4,300 for every barrel of oil spilled into the Gulf. If the disaster is determined to be the result of an accident, the fine is three times less. The difference amounts to billions of dollars of savings for BP.'

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