The BP oil rig disaster is quickly becoming one of the worst environmental catastrophes of our time. The parties involved are pointing fingers...but did someone have foresight into this type of event happening? A whistleblower from a different BP oil rig has been trying to expose critical safety lapses for years, but his efforts seem to have fallen on deaf ears. The group representing the whistleblower filed a lawsuit in May against the federal government, attempting to force it to shut down this other rig. They say this rig could turn into an even worse disaster than the first.
What are the similarities between the problems of this rig, and the problems with the one that exploded? Why wasn't more oversight performed? Could this event have been avoided? What is the track record of the agencies in charge?
Our guests include Wenonah Hauter, the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, a non-profit organization that advocates for common sense policies that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable drinking water, and Mandy Smithberger, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
For our second segment, we go to the first day of the National Whistleblower Assembly on May 24, 2010, where legendary NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico, whose story is memorialized by the classic film that shares his name, gave the opening remarks.
