Some say money can’t buy everything. But for BP, money sure seems to be able to buy enough litigation and lobbying power to stay in business, even with its persistent, egregious safety violations that have led to more than one deadly disaster.

While BP’s older crimes may have been overshadowed lately by the more current and devastating Gulf oil spew, it should not be forgotten that the company is still litigating charges related to a 2005 blast at a Texas refinery that killed 15 workers. With the Gulf oil spill and the 40-day release of toxic chemicals from its Texas refinery, BP has its hands full with not one, but three environmental catastrophes. All three remain unresolved.

Regarding the refinery case, the Justice Department recently decided not to revoke the three-year probation it had imposed on BP due to the numerous safety violations (both criminal and civil) found during the federal investigation into the 2005 accident. Although the probation period allowed BP time to respond to violations, it has to date failed to properly respond to all safety issues or fully pay its fines. Although the government warned that it might revoke or renew the probation, it then backed off of its threat – presumably to avoid subjecting the company to further criminal prosecution. Of course, family members of those killed in the accident have been advocating for more, not less, prosecution.

Furthermore, a probe into safety issues at the refinery found that the initial violations noted by federal regulators only scratched the surface of a trove of (shock!) even more violations. This mirrors what we’ve seen in the Gulf – both in the spill itself as well as in the cleanup – where the information that has come forward continues to prompt yet more questions.

 

We now know that dangerous dispersants were being used in the cleanup and that BP was barring media access to oil-soaked sites. But why has the cleanup effort been shrouded in a veil of secrecy in the first place? What about the devastating ailments plaguing Gulf Coast residents, the reports of massive kill zones and dead marine life, and the widely disparate scientific studies on what’s happened to all that oil and dispersant? In light of a 1978 oil spill cleanup in Brooklyn, in which oil dating back to 1948 was found, somehow assurances that “75 percent of the oil is gone” don’t quite make sense. Let’s not forget that the initial (BP-backed) flow rate estimates of 1,000 barrels per day skyrocketed to over 60,000.

It seems that the more we continue to investigate BP, the more dark secrets we shall find. This is not a surprise. Yet, the question remains -- how far will it go before meaningful changes are enacted to protect those who have suffered from the carelessness of BP, and those courageous few insiders who have blown the whistle?

Lindsay Bigda is Communications Fellow for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.

In news regarding automaker Toyota’s continuing problems with “unintended acceleration” – a sudden increase in speed that may be linked to several accidents and deaths since 2001 – preliminary findings from federal officials seem to support the company’s claims that problems lie not in faulty electronics, but rather in other issues such as sticking pedals, floor mat entrapment, and driver error.

Government regulators are investigating this issue using data collected from Toyota’s ‘black box’ recorders – devices installed in vehicles that record data such as velocity and acceleration. Of course, keep in mind that federal regulators are reviewing the accuracy of Toyota’s electronic system with an electronic device made by… Toyota? On this note, a handful of safety consultants are asking similar questions, such as: Is the black box device a scientifically validated instrument?

This raises the bigger question of the government’s willingness to trust automakers’ claims. It also brings up the familiar catch of free markets versus government regulation. On the one hand, self-regulation has always been problematic (remember when BP assured us that most companies had voluntarily adopted safeguards to protect against oil spills?). On the other, government regulation is sometimes equally faulty. Toyota’s ongoing acceleration issue highlights both sides of the debate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on James Cole’s nomination for Deputy Attorney General tomorrow – Tuesday, July 20th. Serious doubts remain, however, about Cole’s role at AIG before, during and after the company’s financial collapse in September 2008. I posed him some questions prior to Cole’s hearing last month on GAP’s YouTube channel.

Over the past two weeks, a number of Senators have posed written questions to Cole about his role at AIG. His answers are troubling – particularly those he provided to Senator Charles Grassley.

On July 2nd, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) posed written questions to James Cole, the Obama administration’s nominee for the post of Deputy Attorney General. Many of these questions focused on Cole’s role as the Independent Consultant placed at AIG from 2005 through 2009 as part of two deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs). The first of these DPAs resulted from charges of aiding and abetting securities fraud in the AIG Financial Products subsidiary based in London, the AIG appendage that crashed the world economy in 2008 and required a $182 billion bailout courtesy of the US taxpayer. Some of Cole’s responses to Grassley’s questions were both puzzling and contradictory, and others we know to be misleading.

Under the terms of the 2006 DPA, Cole was asked to examine “the adequacy of whistleblower procedures designed to allow employees or others to report confidentially matters that may have a bearing on AIG’s financial reporting obligations.” In written questions Grassley asked Cole to provide a “discussion of the scope of your work under the 2006 DPA.” In response, Cole simply quotes from the DPA, which is, of course, available to Senator Grassley and the rest of the world on the DOJ website. A meaningful written discussion of whistleblower procedures at AIG would have to include an account of the layoff of ten compliance attorneys and officials in the aftermath of the corporation’s financial collapse in September 2008. Several of the ten were whistleblowers who had written to senior management at AIG about deficient compliance procedures. None of them was interviewed confidentially by Cole, who acceded to the demand of Suzanne Folsom, then Chief Compliance Officer, that Cole interview her staff only when she or her designee were present. As a result, the whistleblowers were summarily terminated under guise of a staff reduction.