Saturday, June 26, 2010
Three strikes and you are out
Now that corporations have the same rights as persons, they should be subject to the same responsibilities/liabilities. The case against BP is an excellent opportunity to apply the 3 strikes rule against a serial offender.
The federal government should consider barring oil giant BP from drilling on federal land or holding onto its existing leases, says a recently retired federal attorney who spent years dogging BP's operations in Alaska.If you can throw a guy in jail for life because he steals some shampoo, imagine what BP should get for fucking up the Gulf of Mexico, even if it will be overturned by the Supreme Court.
"There comes a point in time where we say enough is enough," said Jeanne Pascal, who worked for 18 years as a Seattle-based attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency. "Because BP has definitely turned into a major serial environmental criminal."
Pascal said that BP has been convicted of environmental violations three times since 2000 — twice in Alaska — and that the April 20 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that sparked what President Barack Obama calls the biggest environmental disaster in the nation's history fits a pattern of behavior. She said BP got off too easy when it was allowed to plead guilty in 2007 to a misdemeanor for a record North Slope spill in 2006. No individual was charged.
Scott West agrees. He was the EPA special agent in charge of the criminal investigation division in Seattle that investigated BP Alaska's operations.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment