Iman Jalali

As we all know on April 20th the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded killing 11 people and sending thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean every day. Since then we’ve seen a horrible response to the oil spill, finger-pointing by BP, Transocean and Halliburton and another case of the government being bullied by lobbyists. BP (British Petroleum) initially quoted an estimated 5,000 gallons being spilled into the ocean daily, but from what we’re learning everyday it’s far from the truth. An estimated 50-70,000 barrels of oil, roughly 2-3 million gallons of oil are closer to the true amount of oil being spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

As reported on 60 Minutes, Transocean and BP knew the safety measures to curtail an oil spill, including the blowout preventor, was damaged weeks before the explosion. Michael Williams, chief electronics technician on the oil rig reported that BP was pressuring them to speed up the drilling to unsafe levels. When the drilling was sped up multiple systems failed and the rig couldn’t control the amount of pressure in the well ultimately leading to the explosion and spill.

As BP is trying to slow down and stop the oil spill they’ve started using oil-dispersing chemicals to help break up the spill… sounds normal, except here comes the greed of BP again. Not only is the dispersant that BP is using more toxic than alternatives, it’s also known to be about half as effective as other dispersants. So why use this specific chemical oil-dispersant? Well the company who makes it, Corexit, is fully stocked with executives from BP and Exxon. Based on EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude. Source: NY Times

BP acted carelessly and put the environment at risk and now they should be held accountable and pay for the cleanup and the years of environmental damage. With over $6 billion in profits in just the first quarter of 2010 this shouldn’t be much of a problem. Except for the fact that BP, Transocean and Halliburton have so many Washington D.C. connections and so many lobby groups working in their favor that it wouldn’t surprise me if the taxpayers got stuck with part of the cleanup.

BP has acted without any regard to the environment so many times in the past and it’s time for the people to hold them accountable for their actions. We can’t leave it up to the government to hold them accountable, it’s our duty to speak up as citizens.

It’s time we boycott BP…