http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/2012/04/27/house-democrats-push-probe-oil-market-speculators

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Published April 26, 2012 | Your World Cavuto | Neil Cavuto
Special Guests: Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

This is a rush transcript from “Your World,” April 26, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Watch the latest video at FoxNews.com

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF “YOUR WORLD”: All this as House Democrats are demanding a vigorous inquiry into whether speculators are manipulating these markets — 42 Democrats led by Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen firing off a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
___________________

In it, they say — and I quote here — “We urge you to use every investigatory law enforcement tool at your disposal to ensure the proper functioning of our oil and gas markets.”

Congressman Van Hollen joining me right now.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, D-MD.: Good to be with you, Neil.
CAVUTO: Congressman, do you really think that it is speculators running amok here? Or is this just a convenient excuse to take the attention off the drilling critics of the president and all this other stuff?
VAN HOLLEN: Neil, I think a lot of factors go into the prices of oil and gas. The biggest driver, of course, are the forces of supply and demand. But there’s no doubt that a component of the cost of gas today, and one of the things that helped drive up prices to where they are, has to do with excessive speculation in the marketplace. That’s been found by…
CAVUTO: When you say it’s a component, how big of one?
VAN HOLLEN: Yes.
Well, the figures I’ve seen range from 50 cents to a dollar per gallon of the cost. And we just had a case, recently, as you probably know, where a company settled for having manipulated the price back during the last oil spikes we saw back in 2008.
CAVUTO: But they’ve done — as you know, Congressman, they’ve done an investigation. Believe me; I am not apologizing for the oil companies. Everyone says, oh, Neil, you must own oil stock. I don’t own any oil stock. I don’t care one way or the other. But I will say this, Congressman. The president’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, confirmed that the administration has gotten a lot more strict denying oil drilling permits since Deepwater Horizon. And he contended that the president is pursuing an effective all of the above energy strategy. But he did go on to say — and I quote here, sir — “We have new sets of regulations that have been put into place. I have been focusing on these reviews. And they are rigorous. We make sure that any company that is going to be operating in the waters of the United States complies with these rules that we set out.” In other words, he’s saying we have been cutting back. So, there’s your supply and demand thing going kablooey.
VAN HOLLEN: Well, a couple of things, Neil.
First of all, as you know, we are dealing with prices on the world market. Right?
CAVUTO: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: So, there are a lot bigger sources of supply in other parts of the world. And we should try and maximize the U.S. supply to the market consistent with environmental protection. After the huge oil spill in the Gulf, I think it’s very reasonable and I think the American people agree it’s reasonable that we should ensure that oil companies that are drilling in deep water comply with environmental regulations, so that we don’t have a big spill.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: You are absolutely right. I don’t think anyone will doubt that — how important that is.
But if we look at it in the aggregate stepping back, three years, these latest three years vs. the prior three years, it is down markedly, 37 percent. Now this speculator might be very germane, but then again it could be something far simpler. Right?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think it’s a combination of events. It is the world demand as well. So, for example, as the Chinese economy continues to chug along at about 8 percent growth, as you continue to have some growth in India and other markets, more and more people are using oil and gas. And you’ve got more people driving and that, obviously, creates a pull on demand.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But do you think you and your colleagues though are to blame? Not you specifically, congressman. But by not coming up with a budget better than three years, both sides playing this game, Republicans and Democrats, on never getting this financial house in order, that it’s walloped our dollar, oil is priced in dollars, and it costs more dollars to buy oil, that it might be as simple as you, in Washington, not getting your job done.
We look like a joke to the world. It cheapens our dollar. It cheapens our image. And it sends gas and oil prices soaring.
VAN HOLLEN: Neil, now, you’re mixing a couple of things. I totally agree that we should get our fiscal house in order. That’s why I support the approach that bipartisan groups have recommended. We’ve got to get our budget deficit down through a combination of cuts, but also through revenue, including a lot of big tax loopholes. But I do not think that the current budget situation in Washington is what’s setting the world oil prices. I think that is a big, big reach.
CAVUTO: Not at all, not at all. Oil is priced in dollars. If we had a normal, stable currency, oil would be 30 percent less than what it is now. Now, I’m not saying that’s the sole reason, as I told you at the outset, but I am saying that we overlook something that is right beneath our nose, that priced in dollars, as it is, and the dollar gets cheaper, and it costs more dollars to get — I readily agree with you that’s not the sole reason, but it is contributing to this. And it is setting in stages here an inflationary spiral that goes way beyond whatever speculators are doing.
VAN HOLLEN: Well, no, I disagree with you there. I think if you look at the number of folks who are speculating in the oil markets, it goes way beyond the people who are simply hedging for their own business reasons. So it goes way beyond, say, the airline industry.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: I don’t want to belabor this point, Congressman.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/26/1086617/-Gulf-Coast-Waters-Closed-to-Shrimping

THU APR 26, 2012 AT 10:34 AM PDT

“We’re continuing to pull up oil in our nets. People who live here know better than to swim in or eat what comes out of our waters.”

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources acted this week to close waters along the Gulf Coast to shrimping due to [EDIT: amidst] widespread reports from scientists and fishermen of deformed seafood and drastic fall-offs in populations two years after the BP oil spill.

[‘Official’ reason is now reported to be smaller than average shrimp.]

All waters in the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay, and some areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon were closed to shrimpers. Reports of grossly deformed seafood all along the Gulf from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle have been logged with increasing urgency, but Alabama is the first state to actually close waters to the seafood industry.

And it’s not just the shrimp. Commercial fishermen are reporting red snapper and grouper riddled with deep lesions and covered with strange black streaks. Highly underdeveloped blue crabs are being pulled up in traps without eyes and clawsŠ

Commercial fishers Tracy Kuhns and Mike Roberts from Barataria, LA reported to Al Jazeera when showing samples of eyeless shrimpŠ
“At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these. Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets.”

And there’s no question that the leftover mess from BP’s disaster can affect human health. The dispersants BP used to ‘hide’ the extent of their blow-out contain solvents that are notoriously toxic to people and include known mutagens. Pathways of human exposure include inhalation, skin and eye contact as well as ingestion, and exposure causes headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, chest pain, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, CNS depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage. They also cause fetal deformities and cancer.

The FDA and EPA refused public comment, sending Al Jazeera to NOAA for comment. Which NOAA refused to do because its investigation for a lawsuit against BP concerning the spill is ongoing. BP, however, wasn’t so shy as not to deliver a statement on the presence of deformed and polluted seafoodŠ

“Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world, and, according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident.”

So there you have it. State officials in Alabama have taken action, and other states need to take action to keep dangerous seafood from the Gulf off the dinner tables of Americans. While the feds are busy helping British Petroleum cover up the damage they’ve done, even if it means poisoning innocent American citizens, deforming babies, causing cancers, etc.

Once again our government chooses to lie and do great harm to American citizens in order to protect a foreign gigacorp from the consequences of their criminal business practices. Who is surprised?

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO JOIEAU ON THU APR 26, 2012 AT 10:34 AM PDT.
ALSO REPUBLISHED BY GULF WATCHERS GROUP.

http://www.stuarthsmith.com/
Looming Crisis: Officials Close Gulf Waters to Shrimping As Reports of Deformed Seafood Intensify
Alarmed by widespread reports of visibly sick, deformed seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, state officials have closed area waters to shrimping this morning (April 23). The waters will be closed indefinitely as scientists run tests in an effort to get a handle on a situation that is fast becoming a full-blown crisis on the Gulf Coast.

The closures – including all waters in the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon – mark the first official step in responding to increasingly urgent reports from fishermen and scientists of grotesquely disfigured seafood from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle.

The move is yet another major setback for the once-legendary Gulf seafood industry as it continues to struggle under the devastating impact of the BP oil spill, which began in April 2010.

Two years later, reports of severely deformed shrimp with bulging tumors – and no eyes – have become common.

And it’s not just the shrimp. Commercial fishermen are reporting red snapper and grouper riddled with deep lesions and covered with strange black streaks. Highly underdeveloped blue crabs are being pulled up in traps without eyes and claws (see link at bottom to my previous post on seafood deformities).

For those who thought 205 million gallons of oil and 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant weren’t going to have an impact on Gulf seafood, you need to check back in with reality.

As for the impetus for the shrimping closures, consider this from an April 18 Al Jazeera report by Dahr Jamail, who has doggedly covered the BP spill since the early days of the disaster:
Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

“At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these,” Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: “Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets.”

Disturbing indeed. I am deeply saddened but not surprised by the shrimping closures. I applaud the courageous move by state officials to put consumer safety first. There’s no doubt in my mind – as I’ve said for months on end – that seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico is unfit for human consumption.

We will bring you updates on water testing and any word on when these areas of the Gulf will be re-opened to shrimping.

Read my April 20 post on seafood deformities here: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/a-taste-of-the-grotesque-in-the-gulf-eyeless-shrimp-clawless-crabs-and-lesion-covered-fish
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/223191-action-needed-on-drilling-reform

By Bob Graham and William Reilly – 04/23/12 06:52 PM ET
Every few months we seem to read about yet another offshore oil or gas rig leaking. Some have presented significant risks to the safety of the crews and even, in the case of the Total gas rig in the North Sea, to nearby rigs. Those of us who investigated the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which occurred two years ago on April 20, shudder when we see these reports. The fundamental problem continues to be good people making bad decisions. Have we not learned anything since Deepwater Horizon?

It appears at least some people have – the seven commissioners from the National Oil Spill Commission have completed an assessment of how well the administration, industry and Congress are doing in implementing the recommendations in our report, “Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling,” released at the start of last year. A few days ago we released our review, “Assessing Progress: Implementing the Recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission.”

Our assessment found that the administration and industry have made some significant advances. The Department of the Interior has issued new rules to improve the safety of offshore drilling and implemented a complete reorganization of their regulatory programs to separate, as we recommended, the conflicting functions of collecting revenues, leasing lands and regulating ongoing operations. The department is also beefing up its staff and has signed agreements with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard to improve the quality of the government’s leasing, regulatory and spill response programs. These other agencies also are progressing with their own reforms.

The oil companies, too, have taken a number of important steps. The industry has established two organizations in the Gulf of Mexico that have equipment ready to deploy that would cap a well experiencing a blowout. Two years ago not only was there no such equipment ready to be deployed, but it did not even exist. Other industry organizations established to clean up spilled oil have reportedly doubled the amount and substantially improved the efficacy of their equipment and supplies. And, perhaps most important, industry has established a new Center for Offshore Safety focused intently on the challenge of continually improving the quality and safety of offshore operations.

These reforms are definitely works in process, and much more needs to be done. But both the administration and industry can take pride in what they have accomplished. They each have made a good start and seem to be progressing toward a goal of minimizing the safety and environmental risks associated with offshore drilling.

The same cannot be said for Congress. Two years have passed since 11 crew members were killed in the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and the nation experienced one of its worst environmental disasters. The economic costs were immense – not just as measured by the billions of dollars that BP has paid out, but also in terms of the human and economic disruptions that many Gulf residents experienced and continue to experience. Congress has yet to enact any legislation, however, aimed at making offshore drilling safer. Bills have been introduced, but then largely ignored, in both houses. We do recognize that significant congressional reforms take time. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 took 18 months to pass, even with bipartisan support. We intend, however, to keep the pressure on.

The Senate did pass the 2011 Restore Act as part of a transportation infrastructure bill. As the commission recommended, Restore would make 80 percent of any fines paid as a result of violations of the Clean Water Act available for long-term restoration of the Gulf Coast’s seriously damaged environment. The House passed its version of the bill last week. We hope that this signals that an agreement will be worked out to support this commitment.

Congress’s inaction is not a result of uncertainty about what needs to be done. A number of different studies documented what happened two years ago in the Gulf and why. Our report was one of the first, and all those that the National Academy of Engineering, administration panels, and other investigators issued since then confirmed the commission’s findings and are consistent with the commission’s recommendations.

This is not a situation in which disagreement among experts provides an excuse for inaction. Everyone agrees something should be done. All that is needed is for Congress to show leadership and the political will to adopt the actions everyone agrees are necessary, from codifying Interior’s new organizational structure to ensuring that arbitrary limitations do not restrict the nation’s ability to effectively manage offshore drilling and respond to spills that may occur – either as a stand-alone act, as part of a more comprehensive energy bill or, like Restore, embodied in legislation moving through Congress. The time is now.

Graham and Reilly co-chaired the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling appointed by President Obama. Graham represented Florida as a senator from 1987 to 2005, and Reilly served as Environmental Protection Agency administrator from 1989 to 1993.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/22/v-fullstory/2762927/exploratory-oil-drilling-off-cuba.html

Posted on Sunday, 04.22.12

Fears are renewed as a search for oil begins near Cuba. But some think chances of a spill hitting the Keys is low

BY CAMMY CLARK

CCLARK@MIAMIHERALD.COM
KEY WEST — In Cuba’s North Basin, the Spanish company Repsol has begun risky exploration for oil and natural gas on a semi-submersible rig, now just 77 nautical miles from Key West and even closer to the ecologically sensitive Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. In a month or so, Repsol expects its drilling through 5,600 feet of seawater and about 14,000 feet of layered rock will reach the reservoir.

That’s frightening for many who live and work along the island chain.

Here, the memory is still fresh of the psychological hysteria and economic havoc caused two years ago by the explosion of Deepwater Horizon – despite the reality: No oil from the 4.9-million-barrel spill reached the Keys. For just the scare, British Petroleum has paid out more than $200 million in claims filed by businesses and residents of South Florida, the bulk of them in Monroe County.

“I had actual visions of oil covering Florida Bay and the mangroves and all the fish being completely devastated,” said Richard Stancyzk, longtime owner of Bud N’ Mary’s Marina, where 45 fishing captains dock their boats in Islamorada. “We were hurt financially, but I’d really like to sue BP for pain and suffering. It actually made me sick and nauseous.”

That vision of oil-slicked beaches, coral reefs and marine habitat was shared by many after some scientists and government officials predicted strong currents would bring the toxic crude oil to the Keys, more than 450 miles from the site of the spill. The Today show aired a scary graphic provided by the federally funded National Center for Atmospheric Research that showed the oil traveling around Florida and all the way to the North Atlantic Ocean.

Fear set in. Keys residents and business owners took hazardous-materials classes, learned to clean oil off wildlife, picked up debris on beaches and complained there was not enough protective boom. They learned about the Loop Current and an eddy named Franklin. And they prayed.

The situation was made worse when national media broadcast the arrival of tar balls in Key West, leading to the misperception that the spill had reached the subtropical paradise. Visitors canceled weddings, conferences, fishing trips and diving vacations.

LESSONS LEARNED

Since then, many lessons have been learned from the devastating spill, whose true environmental effects will not be known for years.

Science has advanced. Coordination of federal, state, local and private agencies has improved. And communication of information will be a more critical part of future responses.

“We joke about it now, but even if we have the greatest response in the world, if we are not getting the word out accurately, it doesn’t matter,” said Capt. John Slaughter, chief of planning and force readiness for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Seventh District, based in Miami.

The Coast Guard has incorporated all the lessons learned into a comprehensive offshore response plan to deal with the new threat of a major spill in waters controlled by Cuba.
“We’re certainly more ready than a year ago,” Slaughter said. “We’re not as ready as we’ll be in six months and in a year. Planning for this will never end.”

Coast Guard Sector Key West also has spent the past two years updating its more than 1,000-page area contingency plan, which now includes responding to the potential near shore and landfall issues of a massive spill coming from Cuba. Before Deepwater Horizon and the exploration of oil offshore of Cuba, the worst-case scenario for the Keys’ emergency drill was an oil tanker grounding on a reef.

KEEPING CALM

Capt. Pat DeQuattro, commander of Sector Key West, agreed with Slaughter that communication is a huge part of the plan.

“Equally as challenging as anything we’ll do on the water or on the shorelines is trying to keep folks calm and let them know there is a plan – a very detailed organization we will be following with a very large group of responders,” DeQuattro said. “If we don’t communicate that well, we’ll run into a similar situation [to Deepwater Horizon], where folks are confused and angry.”

Despite the proximity of the Keys to the Cuban rig site, the statistical probability of significant oil reaching Keys shorelines is low, even in the event of a massive spill in Cuban waters, according to three scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They say geography is in all of Florida’s favor because of the powerful Gulf Stream, which flows between northern Cuba and the Keys, several miles from any land, before heading north.

“The currents are like a conveyor belt at the grocery store,” said Doug Helton, NOAA’s operations coordinator for the office of response and restoration. “Oil moves at 2 to 3 percent of the wind speed. It moves at 100 percent of the current speed. It would take a strong wind and a persistent wind to move oil out of the current.”

NOAA scientists recently completed new computer tracking models to evaluate the threat. They chose 20 potential drilling sites off Cuba and used 200 different spill scenarios based on six years of current information of water and weather conditions, including hurricanes, said Brad Benggio, a NOAA scientific support coordinator.

ONLY A DRILL

To create the scenario of oil reaching the shorelines of the lower or middle Keys for the recent Coast Guard-led tabletop drill, conditions included winds of 30 knots out of the southeast that continuously blew for “days and days and days.” That would mean the oil would take a week or more to reach land.

“That would allow for a lot of natural weathering,” said Jim Jeansonne, a NOAA scientific support coordinator. “We won’t have a lot of black oil coming ashore or threatening the resources of the reefs. What we will have are tar balls, which are of much less a threat, but not a zero threat.”

Although the chance of oil slicks reaching the Keys or the east coast of Florida was even more remote during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, that probability was not communicated well. Fears that the Keys were in for a big mess prevailed. The bigger unknown of what damage oil and dispersants to break it up would do if any of it did reach Keys fisheries and habitat also was a big concern.

THE SETTLEMENTS

On the same day Sector Key West held its tabletop oil spill drill, two lawyers from Miami were at the Harvey Government Center across town to solicit clients for the BP settlement, approved last week.

“You are going to have a floodgate of attorneys here, I promise,” attorney Gabrielle D’Alemberte told a handful of business owners in Key West.

Despite not having any oil arrive, the settlement includes all of the Florida Keys. Miami-Dade and Broward counties are not part of the settlement.

The oil spill that began as a nightmare for the Keys will end up having a silver lining, said Stancyzk, the marina owner.

“It rained oil up north but down here it ended up raining money,” he said. “BP threw money at everybody. There were some inequities, but it was an economic boom.”

Commercial fishermen, dive companies, vacation rental businesses and even a locals’ watering hole called the Brass Monkey sued BP and the other companies involved with the spill.

With a public relations disaster on its hands, BP set up three claims offices in the Keys and even paid law enforcement officers $40 an hour to guard them.

To date, BP has paid out nearly $181 million to nearly 11,000 claimants in the Keys, an average of about $16,450 per claim. One fishing captain based at Bud N’ Mary’s marina received $150,000.

BP paid $21.5 million for 1,895 claims in Miami-Dade County and another $15.7 million for 433 claims from Broward County.

DeQuattro, the Coast Guard commander, said the massive response to the spill, called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, still is vivid in his memory.

Deepwater Horizon also was a semi-submersible rig that was exploring in deep waters for oil, similar to the $750 million rig now being used by Repsol.

“That response employed 40 to 50,000 responders, over 200 aircraft, thousands of vessels and technical specialists from around the country if not the world,” he said. “To say that we are perfectly prepared for that today is not the case. Š But we’ve come a long ways and are progressing towards having a better plan.”

The Coast Guard now routinely patrols by boat and air in the vicinity of the Repsol oil rig, always keeping a lookout for any signs of oil despite a good relationship with the Spanish company.

Said DeQuattro: “We do have a good feeling it’s not leaking.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Published: April 19, 2012

TWO years after a series of gambles and ill-advised decisions on a BP drilling project led to the largest accidental oil spill in United States history and the death of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, no one has been held accountable.

Sure, there have been about $8 billion in payouts and, in early March, the outlines of a civil agreement that will cost BP, the company ultimately responsible, an additional $7.8 billion in restitution to businesses and residents along the Gulf of Mexico. It’s also true that the company has paid at least $14 billion more in cleanup and other costs since the accident began on April 20, 2010, bringing the expense of this fiasco to about $30 billion for BP. These are huge numbers. But this is a huge and profitable corporation.

What is missing is the accountability that comes from real consequences: a criminal prosecution that holds responsible the individuals who gambled with the lives of BP’s contractors and the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico. Only such an outcome can rebuild trust in an oil industry that asks for the public’s faith so that it can drill more along the nation’s coastlines. And perhaps only such an outcome can keep BP in line and can keep an accident like the Deepwater Horizon disaster from happening again.

BP has already tested the effectiveness of lesser consequences, and its track record proves that the most severe punishments the courts and the United States government have been willing to mete out amount to a slap on the wrist.

Before the gulf blowout, which spilled 200 million gallons of oil, BP was convicted of two felony environmental crimes and a misdemeanor: after it failed to report that its contractors were dumping toxic waste in Alaska in 1995; after its refinery in Texas City, Tex., exploded, killing 15, in 2005; and after it spilled more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil from a corroded pipeline onto the Alaskan tundra in 2006. In all, more than 30 people employed directly or indirectly by BP have died in connection with these and other recent accidents.

In at least two of those cases, the company had been warned of human and environmental dangers, deliberated the consequences and then ignored them, according to my reporting.
None of the upper-tier executives who managed BP – John Browne and Tony Hayward among them – were malicious. Their decisions, however, were driven by money. Neither their own sympathies nor the stark risks in their operations – corroding pipelines, dysfunctional safety valves, disarmed fire alarms and so on – could compete with the financial necessities of profit making.

Before the accident in Texas City, BP had declined to spend $150,000 to fix a part of the system that allowed gasoline to spew into the air and blow up. Documents show that the company had calculated the cost of a human life to be $10 million. Shortly before that disaster, a senior plant manager warned BP’s London headquarters that the plant was unsafe and a disaster was imminent. A report from early 2005 predicted that BP’s refinery would kill someone “within the next 12 to 18 months” unless the company changed its practices.

Such explicit flirtation with deadly risk was undertaken as part of Mr. Browne’s effort while chief executive to expand BP as quickly as possible. Mr. Browne relentlessly cut costs, including on maintenance and safety. Then he hastily assembled a series of acquisitions and mergers between 1998 and 2001 that added tens of thousands of employees, blurred chains of command and wrought chaos on his operations. His methods – and the demands of Wall Street – became overly dependent on quantitative measures of success at the expense of environmental and human risk.

After each disaster, Mr. Browne pledged to refresh his focus on safety, investment in maintenance and commitment to the environment. His successor, Mr. Hayward, followed suit, saying that BP’s culture had to change. But the Deepwater Horizon tragedy – which bears many of the same traits as the company’s past accidents – shows how difficult it has been for the company’s leaders to shift BP’s corporate values and live up to their promises.

The question becomes, did they try hard enough, and did the mechanisms of oversight, regulation and law enforcement work sufficiently to provide a recidivist organization the deterrent that could guarantee its compliance?

After its previous convictions, BP paid unprecedented fines – more than $70 million – and committed to spending at least $800 million more on maintenance to improve safety. The point was to demonstrate that the cost of doing business wrong far outweighed the cost of doing business right. But without personal accountability, the fines become just another cost of doing business, William Miller, a former investigator for the Environmental Protection Agency who was involved in the Texas City case, told me.

The problem then (and perhaps now) is that it is the slow pileup of factors that causes an industrial disaster. Poor decisions are usually made incrementally by a range of people with differing levels of responsibility, and almost always behind a shield of plausible deniability. It makes it almost impossible to pin one clear-cut bad call on a single manager, which is partly why no BP official has ever been held criminally accountable.
Instead, the corporation is held accountable. It isn’t clear that charging the company repeatedly with misdemeanors and felonies has accomplished anything.

At more than $30 billion and climbing, the amount BP has paid out so far for reparations, lawsuits and cleanup dwarfs the roughly $8 billion that Exxon had to pay after its 1989 spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska. And BP will very likely still pay billions more before this is finished.

And yet it is not enough. Two years after analysts questioned whether the extraordinary cost and loss of confidence might drive BP out of business, it has come roaring back. It collected more than $375 billion in 2011, pocketing $26 billion in profits.

What the gulf spill has taught us is that no matter how bad the disaster (and the environmental impact), the potential consequences have never been large enough to dissuade BP from placing profits ahead of prudence. That might change if a real person was forced to take responsibility – or if the government brought down one of the biggest hammers in its arsenal and banned the company from future federal oil leases and permits altogether. Fines just don’t matter.

Abrahm Lustgarten, a reporter for Pro Publica, is the author of “Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter