Friday, January 07, 2011
ST. AUGUSTINE UNDERGROUND: Augustine’s History is A National treasure The time has come to bring out the big guns and protect our heritage
From the January 1, 2011 issue of St. Augustine Underground (published by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which also publishes the Ponte Vedra Recorder and Clay Today):
St. Augustine’s History is A National treasure -- The time has come to bring out the big guns and protect our nationally important local heritage with the
creation of The St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Coastal Parkway.
By Ed Slavin
A famous journalism professor said
that “if you’re going to tell a
story about a bear, bring on the
bear.”
Here’s how to protect St. Johns
County’s bears – and other endangered
and threatened species – while growing
our economy and making life better for
your grandchildren (and their grandchildren).
2011 is critical to reviving our local
economy, creating jobs and preserving
our city’s and our county’s environment
and history.
How do we revive our depressed local
tourist economy? How do we get “out
of the ditch,” which Wall Street and
local speculators created?
By persuading Congress to enact a
St. Augustine National Historical Park,
Seashore and Coastal Parkway.
Let’s donate 13 large tracts: the
Florida Department of Environmental
Protection’s Guana Tolomato Matanzas
National Estuarine Research Reserve,
Anastasia State Park, Faver-Dykes
State Park and Fort Mosé State Park;
Florida Department of Agriculture’s
Deep Creek State Forest and Watson
Island State Forest; St. Johns County
beaches and the Nocatee Preserve; and
St. Johns River Water Management
District ‘s Twelve Mile Swamp, Deep
Creek, Matanzas Marsh, Moses Creek
and Stokes Landing preserves.
Let’s donate them to the federal government
for the St. Augustine National
Historical Park and Seashore. These
vast tracts of government-owned land
are suitable for a National Park and
Seashore – more than 120,000 acres.
In Woodie Guthrie’s words, “This land
is our land” already – it is our county
beaches, state parks and forests and
water management district land. Combined
with the Castillo de San Marcos
and Fort Matanzas, this land will make
one glorious National Park and Seashore,
making us all proud and properly
celebrating St. Augustine’s 450th
birthday (2015) and Spanish Florida’s
500th (2013).
Donating the land can save more than
$33 million over 10 years for state and
local governments; revive our economy;
create better-paying jobs with real
futures; protect our historic and environmental
heritage; teach our children
about history, beauty and nature; better
preserve our beaches; protect homes
from erosion; raise our property values;
and protect wildlife.
Let’s put people to work and draw
environmental and historic tourists,
who National Trust for Historic Preservation
and other studies say spend
more and visit longer, putting more
proverbial “heads in beds.” How? By
empowering our National Park Service
– America’s favorite federal agency. Ken
Burns’ PBS documentary rightly called
our National Parks “America’s Best
Idea.” We need one here.
Let’s teach history and nature to
future generations with a National Civil
Rights museum here in St. Augustine
and by celebrating all our history
-- 11,000 years of indigenous Native
American, African-American, Spanish,
Minorcan, French, English, Civil War,
Roman Catholic, Greek, Jewish, Protestant,
nautical, military, Flagler-era and
Civil Rights history.
Let’s preserve our endangered and
threatened species -- including right
whales (only 350 left, reportedly the
most endangered whales on the planet)
-- as well as turtles, bears, bald eagles,
manatees, beach mice and butterflies.
This Park and Seashore will rival Cape
Cod National Seashore, the Everglades,
Philadelphia and other tourist “hot
spots,” giving teachers and parents
tools to teach children lessons that will
keep them coming back for life.
Our state’s economy has suffered so
much since the Deepwater Horizon
disaster. We look to British Petroleum
to pay for it all as part of its economic
and environmental remediation to the
State of Florida.
The first step is for our governor and
legislature to agree to donate this land
to the federal government for one “public
park or pleasuring ground for the
benefit and enjoyment of the people,”
as Congress said in 1872 in creating
Yellowstone National Park.
Here are some frequently asked questions:
1. Will this park legislation violate
private property rights? No. The draft
legislation provides for donations of
government lands and donations or
sales from willing sellers. Condemnation
lawsuits are authorized only to
“preserve [historic buildings and land]
from destruction.”
2. How would the park affect local
businesses, tourist attractions and
churches? Very positively. Historic and
environmental tourists spend more and
stay longer, studies show. This will create
more good-paying jobs, in the Park
Service, kayaking, tour-guide
companies, restaurants, hotels
and guest houses. There’s
a list of tourist attractions
and places of worship in the
legislation that the National
Park Service could assist with
historic interpretation. It
includes churches where Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev.
Andrew Young spoke, working with
local residents to create our 1964 Civil
Rights Act.
3. Will this legislation take over the
government of the City of St. Augustine?
No. But St. Augustine can donate
a few parks to the cause. Our city needs
help and cannot handle the 450th celebration
alone. A greater National Park
Service presence here will help better
guide and orient millions of visitors.
The Park will help make our city a
better place – just ask the residents of
Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras.
4. What positive changes will creation
of a St. Augustine National Park and
Seashore make?
A. Increase property values and local
tax collections. Property values
increase near National Parks and Seashores.
Bed tax and sales tax receipts
will increase.
B. Grow our economy. Our local
economy is stagnant. The National
Park Service will help get us out of the
ditch.
C. Reduce spending by our state, local
and water management district government
– savings of $33 million over ten
years.
D. Increase the quality of tourism
marketing -- greatly simplified by combining
all this land into one National
Park.
E. Improve the quality of historic and
environmental interpretation, preservation
and protection. Right now, tourists
learn very little about our African-
American and Civil Rights history, for
example, or the heroic history of the
Minorcans and other immigrants to our
shores, or the endangered species that
make this area a paradise. The National
Park Service is experienced at protecting
nature and interpreting history
while stimulating tourism. A National
Civil Rights museum here in St. Augustine
will attract more school groups
and minority tourists – Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. is known world-wide
and his legacy here will attract tourists.
5. How will this affect historic reenactors?
Good jobs await them at the
National Park Service.
6. Is this legislation family-friendly?
Yes. Residents and tourists will thank
you for creating a wholesome place to
take children where they learn about
history and our environment, with a
classroom that is as big as all outdoors,
embracing 11,000 years of human history
on these shores.
7. How will this affect beach driving?
The legislation does not address
it, either way. Elsewhere, as in Cape
Cod, residents are licensed to drive on
National Park Service beaches after
proper training and can take tourists on
beach tours.
8. Is there a potential downside?
One. Proper transportation planning
is required to avoid congestion. The
draft bill requires a plan for “cost-effective,
sustainable, carbon-neutral,
environmentally-friendly means of
transporting visitors and residents to
and through the park’s locations, using
trolley cars resembling those in use in
St. Augustine, Florida, in 1928, with
the goal of reducing hydrocarbon consumption,
traffic congestion, air pollution
and damage to historic structures.”
9. When was the National Park idea
first proposed? Some 70 years ago,
before World War II.
10. What are we waiting for? You tell
me!
Will you please help us celebrate
11,000 years of history and protect
what deserves protecting forever inviolate?
Will you please share your suggestions
about how to improve the first
draft of the legislation? Let us work together
to accomplish something we can
all be proud of for future generations
yet unborn who will say, “thank you.”
Please see www.staugustgreen.com
St. Augustine activist Ed Slavin
(B.S.F.S., Georgetown University, J.D.
Memphis State University) first proposed
the St. Augustine National Park and
Seashore Nov. 13, 2006.
St. Augustine’s History is A National treasure -- The time has come to bring out the big guns and protect our nationally important local heritage with the
creation of The St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Coastal Parkway.
By Ed Slavin
A famous journalism professor said
that “if you’re going to tell a
story about a bear, bring on the
bear.”
Here’s how to protect St. Johns
County’s bears – and other endangered
and threatened species – while growing
our economy and making life better for
your grandchildren (and their grandchildren).
2011 is critical to reviving our local
economy, creating jobs and preserving
our city’s and our county’s environment
and history.
How do we revive our depressed local
tourist economy? How do we get “out
of the ditch,” which Wall Street and
local speculators created?
By persuading Congress to enact a
St. Augustine National Historical Park,
Seashore and Coastal Parkway.
Let’s donate 13 large tracts: the
Florida Department of Environmental
Protection’s Guana Tolomato Matanzas
National Estuarine Research Reserve,
Anastasia State Park, Faver-Dykes
State Park and Fort Mosé State Park;
Florida Department of Agriculture’s
Deep Creek State Forest and Watson
Island State Forest; St. Johns County
beaches and the Nocatee Preserve; and
St. Johns River Water Management
District ‘s Twelve Mile Swamp, Deep
Creek, Matanzas Marsh, Moses Creek
and Stokes Landing preserves.
Let’s donate them to the federal government
for the St. Augustine National
Historical Park and Seashore. These
vast tracts of government-owned land
are suitable for a National Park and
Seashore – more than 120,000 acres.
In Woodie Guthrie’s words, “This land
is our land” already – it is our county
beaches, state parks and forests and
water management district land. Combined
with the Castillo de San Marcos
and Fort Matanzas, this land will make
one glorious National Park and Seashore,
making us all proud and properly
celebrating St. Augustine’s 450th
birthday (2015) and Spanish Florida’s
500th (2013).
Donating the land can save more than
$33 million over 10 years for state and
local governments; revive our economy;
create better-paying jobs with real
futures; protect our historic and environmental
heritage; teach our children
about history, beauty and nature; better
preserve our beaches; protect homes
from erosion; raise our property values;
and protect wildlife.
Let’s put people to work and draw
environmental and historic tourists,
who National Trust for Historic Preservation
and other studies say spend
more and visit longer, putting more
proverbial “heads in beds.” How? By
empowering our National Park Service
– America’s favorite federal agency. Ken
Burns’ PBS documentary rightly called
our National Parks “America’s Best
Idea.” We need one here.
Let’s teach history and nature to
future generations with a National Civil
Rights museum here in St. Augustine
and by celebrating all our history
-- 11,000 years of indigenous Native
American, African-American, Spanish,
Minorcan, French, English, Civil War,
Roman Catholic, Greek, Jewish, Protestant,
nautical, military, Flagler-era and
Civil Rights history.
Let’s preserve our endangered and
threatened species -- including right
whales (only 350 left, reportedly the
most endangered whales on the planet)
-- as well as turtles, bears, bald eagles,
manatees, beach mice and butterflies.
This Park and Seashore will rival Cape
Cod National Seashore, the Everglades,
Philadelphia and other tourist “hot
spots,” giving teachers and parents
tools to teach children lessons that will
keep them coming back for life.
Our state’s economy has suffered so
much since the Deepwater Horizon
disaster. We look to British Petroleum
to pay for it all as part of its economic
and environmental remediation to the
State of Florida.
The first step is for our governor and
legislature to agree to donate this land
to the federal government for one “public
park or pleasuring ground for the
benefit and enjoyment of the people,”
as Congress said in 1872 in creating
Yellowstone National Park.
Here are some frequently asked questions:
1. Will this park legislation violate
private property rights? No. The draft
legislation provides for donations of
government lands and donations or
sales from willing sellers. Condemnation
lawsuits are authorized only to
“preserve [historic buildings and land]
from destruction.”
2. How would the park affect local
businesses, tourist attractions and
churches? Very positively. Historic and
environmental tourists spend more and
stay longer, studies show. This will create
more good-paying jobs, in the Park
Service, kayaking, tour-guide
companies, restaurants, hotels
and guest houses. There’s
a list of tourist attractions
and places of worship in the
legislation that the National
Park Service could assist with
historic interpretation. It
includes churches where Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev.
Andrew Young spoke, working with
local residents to create our 1964 Civil
Rights Act.
3. Will this legislation take over the
government of the City of St. Augustine?
No. But St. Augustine can donate
a few parks to the cause. Our city needs
help and cannot handle the 450th celebration
alone. A greater National Park
Service presence here will help better
guide and orient millions of visitors.
The Park will help make our city a
better place – just ask the residents of
Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras.
4. What positive changes will creation
of a St. Augustine National Park and
Seashore make?
A. Increase property values and local
tax collections. Property values
increase near National Parks and Seashores.
Bed tax and sales tax receipts
will increase.
B. Grow our economy. Our local
economy is stagnant. The National
Park Service will help get us out of the
ditch.
C. Reduce spending by our state, local
and water management district government
– savings of $33 million over ten
years.
D. Increase the quality of tourism
marketing -- greatly simplified by combining
all this land into one National
Park.
E. Improve the quality of historic and
environmental interpretation, preservation
and protection. Right now, tourists
learn very little about our African-
American and Civil Rights history, for
example, or the heroic history of the
Minorcans and other immigrants to our
shores, or the endangered species that
make this area a paradise. The National
Park Service is experienced at protecting
nature and interpreting history
while stimulating tourism. A National
Civil Rights museum here in St. Augustine
will attract more school groups
and minority tourists – Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. is known world-wide
and his legacy here will attract tourists.
5. How will this affect historic reenactors?
Good jobs await them at the
National Park Service.
6. Is this legislation family-friendly?
Yes. Residents and tourists will thank
you for creating a wholesome place to
take children where they learn about
history and our environment, with a
classroom that is as big as all outdoors,
embracing 11,000 years of human history
on these shores.
7. How will this affect beach driving?
The legislation does not address
it, either way. Elsewhere, as in Cape
Cod, residents are licensed to drive on
National Park Service beaches after
proper training and can take tourists on
beach tours.
8. Is there a potential downside?
One. Proper transportation planning
is required to avoid congestion. The
draft bill requires a plan for “cost-effective,
sustainable, carbon-neutral,
environmentally-friendly means of
transporting visitors and residents to
and through the park’s locations, using
trolley cars resembling those in use in
St. Augustine, Florida, in 1928, with
the goal of reducing hydrocarbon consumption,
traffic congestion, air pollution
and damage to historic structures.”
9. When was the National Park idea
first proposed? Some 70 years ago,
before World War II.
10. What are we waiting for? You tell
me!
Will you please help us celebrate
11,000 years of history and protect
what deserves protecting forever inviolate?
Will you please share your suggestions
about how to improve the first
draft of the legislation? Let us work together
to accomplish something we can
all be proud of for future generations
yet unborn who will say, “thank you.”
Please see www.staugustgreen.com
St. Augustine activist Ed Slavin
(B.S.F.S., Georgetown University, J.D.
Memphis State University) first proposed
the St. Augustine National Park and
Seashore Nov. 13, 2006.
St. Augustine Record letter: Let's make St. Augusitne the most walker and bicycle friendly small city in America
Letter: Make city the most 'pedestrian, bike friendly' in U.S.
By PHILIP MCDANIEL
Created 01/07/2011 - 12:00am
Summary:
Editor: My four resolutions are one in the same: Make St. Augustine the most "pedestrian and bicycle friendly" small city in America.
St. Augustine
Editor: My four resolutions are one in the same: Make St. Augustine the most "pedestrian and bicycle friendly" small city in America.
Put the needs of people and bicycles ahead of cars, trolleys and trains.
Urge city commissioners to upgrade our bikeways, crosswalks, and sidewalks.
Seek PR campaigns aimed at drivers. The message? Our economy, well-being and quality of life improves when we each make pedestrians our first priority.
Our Vistor and Convention Bureau could promote it as "one of the best new reasons to visit the nation's oldest city."
According to the CDC in Atlanta, American society has become "obesogenic," characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful foods, and physical inactivity. Policy and environmental change initiatives that make healthy choices in nutrition and physical activity available, affordable, and easy will likely prove most effective in combating obesity.
Consider the ominous trends over the past 25 years. In Florida, between 1985 - 1987, less than 10 percent of adults were classified as "obese" by the CDC. In 1988-1994, the rate increased to 10-14 percent. 1995-2003, 15-19 percent; 2004 -2008, 20-24 percent. In 2009 we "grew" (no pun intended) to 25 - 29 percent. Nearly one in three people are overweight. Alabama and Mississippi (bellwether states for obesity) lead the nation with more than 30 percent of adults overweight.
Therefore, a direct benefit of our being the nation's "most pedestrian friendly city" will be improved health because walking and biking are two proven ways to stay in shape.
Our scenic vistas (bayfront, brick streets, national parks, and neighborhoods) are unsurpassed. So let's make them accessible.
The health, safety and welfare of our residents and visitors are of utmost importance. As we plan for the 450th commemoration, let's make public safety, biking and walking our first priority.
Good for business and even better for building our community.
Philip McDaniel
St. Augustine
By PHILIP MCDANIEL
Created 01/07/2011 - 12:00am
Summary:
Editor: My four resolutions are one in the same: Make St. Augustine the most "pedestrian and bicycle friendly" small city in America.
St. Augustine
Editor: My four resolutions are one in the same: Make St. Augustine the most "pedestrian and bicycle friendly" small city in America.
Put the needs of people and bicycles ahead of cars, trolleys and trains.
Urge city commissioners to upgrade our bikeways, crosswalks, and sidewalks.
Seek PR campaigns aimed at drivers. The message? Our economy, well-being and quality of life improves when we each make pedestrians our first priority.
Our Vistor and Convention Bureau could promote it as "one of the best new reasons to visit the nation's oldest city."
According to the CDC in Atlanta, American society has become "obesogenic," characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful foods, and physical inactivity. Policy and environmental change initiatives that make healthy choices in nutrition and physical activity available, affordable, and easy will likely prove most effective in combating obesity.
Consider the ominous trends over the past 25 years. In Florida, between 1985 - 1987, less than 10 percent of adults were classified as "obese" by the CDC. In 1988-1994, the rate increased to 10-14 percent. 1995-2003, 15-19 percent; 2004 -2008, 20-24 percent. In 2009 we "grew" (no pun intended) to 25 - 29 percent. Nearly one in three people are overweight. Alabama and Mississippi (bellwether states for obesity) lead the nation with more than 30 percent of adults overweight.
Therefore, a direct benefit of our being the nation's "most pedestrian friendly city" will be improved health because walking and biking are two proven ways to stay in shape.
Our scenic vistas (bayfront, brick streets, national parks, and neighborhoods) are unsurpassed. So let's make them accessible.
The health, safety and welfare of our residents and visitors are of utmost importance. As we plan for the 450th commemoration, let's make public safety, biking and walking our first priority.
Good for business and even better for building our community.
Philip McDaniel
St. Augustine
Thursday, January 06, 2011
President’s Commission: Oil "Spill" Was No "Accident" – BP, Halliburton, Transocean Corporate Criminals Must Be Indicted/Tried/Convicted/Incarcerated
As the President’s Commission on the “spill” of oil in the Gulf of Mexico concludes, it was inevitable that there would be a spill like BP’s massive pollution of our Gulf of Mexico. See below.
I’ve seen corporate environmental crime in the suites first hand since the 1970s.
I’ve seen what strip-mining does to traditional communities in Appalachia, where the Tennessee Valley Authority virtually invented strip-mining and mountaintop removal through economic pressures designed to provide cheap power for industry.
In 1983, our Appalachian Observer newspaper won Department of Energy declassification of the world’s largest mercury pollution event (Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 4.2 million pounds emitted into workers’ lungs and brains). No one was never prosecuted.
I’ve seen Environmental Racism at its fiercest. I uncovered the fact that the U.S. Army moved the segregated Oak Ridge, Tennessee African-American community of Scarboro (Gamble Valley) to just downstream of the polluting Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant – the forced move was on U.S. Army orders in 1949-1950, just before the worst pollution started at Y-12.
I testified at and watched as two House of Representatives subcommittees held a July 11, 1983 investigative hearing on the mercury pollution (where I was the only witness to call for criminal prosecution of Union Carbide and Department of Energy managers). I asked then-Rep. Albert Gore, Jr. and Rep. Marilyn Lloyd (and their subcommittee staffs) to investigate environmental racism by the Army. Nothing ever happened.
I’ve seen environmental and nuclear whistleblowers harassed, hounded, intimidated, fired, blacklisted and hounded by government and business wrongdoers.
I’ve seen our Americans governments do precious little to help protect the people who speak up for us – environmental and nuclear whistleblowers. Some of those same governments (and government contractors) moved heaven and Earth to suspend/disbard me for zealous advocacy on whistleblowers’ behalf.
I’ve seen our City of St. Augustine dump 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste into our Old City Reservoir (which former EPA Regional Administrator John Henry Hankinson, Jr. told me was an “open sore going straight down into the aquifer and the groundwater”).
I’ve seen the longtime City of St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, and compliant City Commissioners, insult activists when we kept asking questions about the illegal dumping (2006-2009), until we won and got the problem solved. I watched and heard HARRISS smirk and laugh when we asked questions he knew City Commissioners would not ask.
I watched on November 13, 2006 as our outgoing Mayor (George Gardner) emitted perjoratives in my direction in retaliation for reporting the City of St. Augustine’s illegal dumping to federal and state law enforcement officials.
Then six days later, the St. Augustine Record defended my honor, in an editorial entitled “Always Important to Stick to Your Guns,” exaggerating just a wee bit (calling me “brilliant”) and defending the right of citizens to speak out.
In the illegal dumping case, I’ve seen the City of St. Augustine pay the corporate law firm of Akerman Senterfitt more than $200,000 to propose bringing that contaminated solid waste from one Environmental Justice community (West Augustine) to another (Lincolnville), where they planned to make the 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste into a “park” in Lincolnville
I’ve seen the City and Akerman Senterfitt rely on junk science and hired guns to justify the plan to make 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste into a “park” in Lincolnville.
Working with Judith and Tony Seraphin and other local activists, I’ve seen the City of St. Augustine and Akerman Senterfitt halted in their tracks. The 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste is now in a Class I landfill.
I watched as City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS, the fiend who deposited the 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste, was never indicted.
I’ve watched as a criminal defense lawyer partner in Akerman Senterfitt, BP’s law firm (ex-State Senator DANIEL SAUL GELBER) practice flummery and dupery, pretending he had not been a partner when his Martindale-Hubbell, state legislature and law firm profiles all said he was a partner/shareholder in Akerman Senterfitt. I watched in horror as GELBER was nominated for Attorney General by the Democrats, over the better-qualified candidate (Dave Aronberg). I then watched as GELBER was trounced in the general election by Pamela Bondi, who is now our State Attorney General.
I’ve watched as EPA and DEP refused to prosecute HARRISS and other city officials for what RFK would have called the “willful, heedless destruction of natural beauty and pleasures,” including the City’s criminal dumping in the Old City Reservoir and the City’s criminal emission of 611,294 gallons of raw sewage in the San Sebastian River (which was preventable had the City heeded the reports that Judith Seraphin and I made about visible sewage in the San Sebastian River some nine months before).
I’ve watched many cover-ups of environmental crimes. Enough.
I look forward in the New Year seeing British Petroleum (a/k/a BP) indicted for corporate homicide and environmental pollution over the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Of course, handing up criminal indictments of BP will no doubt mean more lavish legal fees for Akerman Senterfitt (BP’s defense counsel in Florida). More importantly, prosecuting BP will protect workers, the environment and governmental integrity.
It’s time for American juries --- which the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist wrote are a “bulwark against oppression” – to be empowered to punish wrongdoers.
As the late African-American Gay poet Langston Hughes said, “let America be America again.”
The President’s Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Disaster found that three mega-corporations – BP, Transocean and Halliburton – are culpable for the BP disaster. They committed corporate homicide and fouled our Gulf of Mexico.
Also culpable are government regulators in the Department of the Interior, whom the DoI Inspector General found shared sex, drugs and gifts with oil company executives they were supposed to regulate.
In the New Year, America shall continue to follow in the footsteps of our American Founders, who in our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain pledged “[their] lives, [their] fortunes and {their] sacred honor” to standing up for human rights.
As Charles Sumner’s favorite Latin legal maxim says, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” (Fiat justitia ruat caelum).
Associated Press: Oil findings boost chance of corp. criminal charge
Associated Press
Oil findings boost chance of corp. criminal charge
By HARRY R. WEBER and CURT ANDERSON , 01.06.11, 02:45 PM EST
NEW ORLEANS -- Months of investigation by a presidential commission and other panels reinforce the likelihood that companies involved in the Gulf oil spill will be slapped with criminal charges that could add to the huge fines they already face, legal experts said Thursday.
The reports don't blame a single person or group responsible for the series of mistakes. That means in the end no one may go to prison for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
BP ( BP - news - people ), Transocean ( RIG - news - people ) and Halliburton ( HAL - news - people ) should survive thanks to their financial arsenal, though charges would take another chink out of their armor.
"The evidence of negligence is too compelling and the harm is too great," said David Uhlmann, former chief of environmental crimes at the Justice Department. "The Justice Department is likely to believe that BP, Transocean and Halliburton were negligent and should be criminally charged. There's no question about that."
Uhlmann, now a law professor at the University of Michigan, cited excerpts released Wednesday from the presidential oil spill commission's report, saying it alone shows the standard for criminal charges has been met.
Among the panel's conclusions: decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable amount of risk that triggered the April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and led to the oil spill. The panel said another similar disaster could happen again without significant reforms by industry and government.
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But the panel also concluded that the mistakes were the result of systemic problems, not necessarily the fault of any one individual.
The blast killed 11 workers on the rig Deepwater Horizon and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP's well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, according to government estimates. BP disputes the figure, but has yet to provide its own.
Gregory Evans, a Los Angeles attorney who is an expert in environmental law, said prosecutors have wide discretion about whether to bring criminal charges.
"It appears that the panel has concluded that BP, Transocean and Halliburton and several subcontractors working for them took a series of very hazardous steps which appeared to be motivated by economic concerns or at least efficiency," Evans said. "This again can be seen by a prosecutor as evidence of an environmental crime."
Evans also noted, however, that the commission blamed government regulators in its report, which could mitigate culpability of the companies.
"Given the wide latitude they have, I think they could go either way on it," he said.
The Justice Department has an ongoing criminal investigation and has already sued some of the companies involved, seeking unspecified damages. Halliburton, the cement contractor for the well that blew out, was not named in the Justice Department lawsuit.
"We continue to aggressively investigate the causes of the spill, and will examine all evidence and facts that may be relevant to that investigation and all parties potentially responsible for the spill," Justice spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said.
The companies pointed fingers at each other - again - in statements after the presidential panel's conclusions.
BP PLC said the accident was the result of many causes, involving multiple companies. Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig being leased by BP to perform the drilling, said "the procedures being conducted in the final hours were crafted and directed by BP engineers and approved in advance by federal regulators." Halliburton Co. also said it acted at the direction of BP and was "fully indemnified by BP."
Robert Force, a Tulane University professor who is an expert in maritime law, said it is increasingly possible some of the companies will face charges. He did caution that the question of negligence is a tricky one.
And individuals involved with the rig and well may be able to rest easier.
"I haven't seen a revelation that said, 'we have found something really bad,' where there was an intentional violation of a regulation or improper conduct. Usually something like that would have been revealed by now," said Steve Yerrid, a Tampa, Fla. attorney who until Dec. 31 was oil spill counsel to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. "The likelihood of an individual or a group being indicted for a criminal offense has waned with time."
Big companies can usually survive criminal convictions, but not always.
Arthur Andersen, once one of the so-called "Big Five" accounting firms, was found guilty of obstructing justice in 2002 for the shredding of documents related to the Enron scandal. Although the conviction was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Chicago-based firm's reputation was damaged enough to put it out of business.
On the other hand, Hospital Corp. of America - the nation's largest private hospital chain - is thriving despite paying a record $1.7 billion fine for massive Medicare fraud involving guilty pleas to 14 felonies that occurred when the company was known as Columbia/HCA.
Besides possible criminal charges, the investigations also could play a key role in the outcome of the hundreds of civil lawsuits. In those cases, attorneys for the fishermen, businesses, property owners and others want to prove gross negligence by BP and its partners, which could lead to bigger payouts.
Anderson reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report from Washington.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Oil findings boost chance of corp. criminal charge
By HARRY R. WEBER and CURT ANDERSON , 01.06.11, 02:45 PM EST
NEW ORLEANS -- Months of investigation by a presidential commission and other panels reinforce the likelihood that companies involved in the Gulf oil spill will be slapped with criminal charges that could add to the huge fines they already face, legal experts said Thursday.
The reports don't blame a single person or group responsible for the series of mistakes. That means in the end no one may go to prison for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
BP ( BP - news - people ), Transocean ( RIG - news - people ) and Halliburton ( HAL - news - people ) should survive thanks to their financial arsenal, though charges would take another chink out of their armor.
"The evidence of negligence is too compelling and the harm is too great," said David Uhlmann, former chief of environmental crimes at the Justice Department. "The Justice Department is likely to believe that BP, Transocean and Halliburton were negligent and should be criminally charged. There's no question about that."
Uhlmann, now a law professor at the University of Michigan, cited excerpts released Wednesday from the presidential oil spill commission's report, saying it alone shows the standard for criminal charges has been met.
Among the panel's conclusions: decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable amount of risk that triggered the April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and led to the oil spill. The panel said another similar disaster could happen again without significant reforms by industry and government.
Related Stories
But the panel also concluded that the mistakes were the result of systemic problems, not necessarily the fault of any one individual.
The blast killed 11 workers on the rig Deepwater Horizon and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP's well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, according to government estimates. BP disputes the figure, but has yet to provide its own.
Gregory Evans, a Los Angeles attorney who is an expert in environmental law, said prosecutors have wide discretion about whether to bring criminal charges.
"It appears that the panel has concluded that BP, Transocean and Halliburton and several subcontractors working for them took a series of very hazardous steps which appeared to be motivated by economic concerns or at least efficiency," Evans said. "This again can be seen by a prosecutor as evidence of an environmental crime."
Evans also noted, however, that the commission blamed government regulators in its report, which could mitigate culpability of the companies.
"Given the wide latitude they have, I think they could go either way on it," he said.
The Justice Department has an ongoing criminal investigation and has already sued some of the companies involved, seeking unspecified damages. Halliburton, the cement contractor for the well that blew out, was not named in the Justice Department lawsuit.
"We continue to aggressively investigate the causes of the spill, and will examine all evidence and facts that may be relevant to that investigation and all parties potentially responsible for the spill," Justice spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said.
The companies pointed fingers at each other - again - in statements after the presidential panel's conclusions.
BP PLC said the accident was the result of many causes, involving multiple companies. Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig being leased by BP to perform the drilling, said "the procedures being conducted in the final hours were crafted and directed by BP engineers and approved in advance by federal regulators." Halliburton Co. also said it acted at the direction of BP and was "fully indemnified by BP."
Robert Force, a Tulane University professor who is an expert in maritime law, said it is increasingly possible some of the companies will face charges. He did caution that the question of negligence is a tricky one.
And individuals involved with the rig and well may be able to rest easier.
"I haven't seen a revelation that said, 'we have found something really bad,' where there was an intentional violation of a regulation or improper conduct. Usually something like that would have been revealed by now," said Steve Yerrid, a Tampa, Fla. attorney who until Dec. 31 was oil spill counsel to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. "The likelihood of an individual or a group being indicted for a criminal offense has waned with time."
Big companies can usually survive criminal convictions, but not always.
Arthur Andersen, once one of the so-called "Big Five" accounting firms, was found guilty of obstructing justice in 2002 for the shredding of documents related to the Enron scandal. Although the conviction was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Chicago-based firm's reputation was damaged enough to put it out of business.
On the other hand, Hospital Corp. of America - the nation's largest private hospital chain - is thriving despite paying a record $1.7 billion fine for massive Medicare fraud involving guilty pleas to 14 felonies that occurred when the company was known as Columbia/HCA.
Besides possible criminal charges, the investigations also could play a key role in the outcome of the hundreds of civil lawsuits. In those cases, attorneys for the fishermen, businesses, property owners and others want to prove gross negligence by BP and its partners, which could lead to bigger payouts.
Anderson reported from Miami. Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report from Washington.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
National Public Radio on When Environmental "Accidents" Become A Crime
When An Environmental Accident Becomes A Crime
December 21, 2010
Listen to the Story
Talk of the Nation
[30 min 19 sec]
Guests
David Uhlmann, director, environmental law and policy program, University of Michigan law school
Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and white collar defense practice group, Veneble LLP
David Guest, head of the Florida office of Earth Justice
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December 21, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing BP and other companies associated with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A criminal investigation is also underway. Many activists argue disasters like the BP spill are crimes. Others argue big fines in civil cases are more effective than jail time.
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced civil suits against BP and other companies associated with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The government hopes to recover billions in damages for clean-up costs and for damages to natural resources, and Attorney General Eric Holder made a point to note that a federal criminal investigation is also under way.
Many advocates say that environmental disasters like the BP spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster are clearly crimes, and that senior corporate officials should face felony charges and time in prison.
But even when thousands of birds and fish die, or when toxic sludge poisons the water we drink, the government usually responds with civil suits.
How should we hold corporations accountable for environmental violations? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Later in the program, an argument to take the word hate out of the debate on gay marriage. But first, prosecution of environmental crimes. We begin with David Uhlmann, who served as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007. He's now a director of environmental law and policy program at the University of Michigan Law School, and joins us from member station WUOM in Ann Arbor. And thanks very much for being with us today.
Professor DAVID UHLMANN (Director, Environmental Law and Policy Program, University of Michigan Law School): Thanks for having me on the show, Neal.
CONAN: And to a lot of people, the BP spill may seem like, very clearly, an environmental crime: millions of gallons of oil spilled into the ocean, countless birds and fish killed, livelihoods disrupted. Is it necessarily a crime?
Prof. UHLMANN: It is an environmental crime, and it will be prosecuted criminally by the Justice Department. It's just a matter of time before the announcement we heard last week about civil suits is followed by the announcement of an indictment and criminal charges against BP, against Transocean - and in all likelihood against Halliburton, who was left out of the civil suit.
CONAN: Yet we said in most cases, it does not rise to the level of crime, or at least federal prosecutors don't charge it as a crime.
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, I'm not sure that's correct. I mean, it's true that there has to be at least some wrongdoing for there to be a criminal prosecution. So in that sense you're right, and there have been terrible tragedies that have occurred in the past, that haven't resulted in criminal prosecution.
There was a pipeline explosion out in New Mexico a decade ago where - I think - 15 people died. There was a terrible mine slurry that burst in West Virginia and, you know, millions of gallons of waste flooded communities and streams. And neither of those were criminal cases.
But frankly, when the government sees a significant case of environmental harm, they almost always look to see whether there's a criminal case to be brought. And they're more likely to bring criminal charges in cases where there is significant harm.
CONAN: And under what laws, under what statutes are these charges brought?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, in the case of the Gulf oil spill, the lead statute is the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act makes it a crime if you either knowingly or negligently discharge oil into the exclusive economic zone of the United States without a permit, in amounts large enough to create a sheen on the water.
Now, in the Gulf, we've got an oil slick the size of the state of South Carolina. So we've certainly got a sheen.
CONAN: I think we can stipulate a prima facie case.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. UHLMANN: Yes, absolutely. So the only question in the Gulf, really, is: Was this intentional? I don't think it was. I don't think it's a felony violation. They didn't intentionally dump all of this oil into the Gulf.
So the question becomes: Was it negligent? And if it was negligent, then the government can bring criminal charges. And that's just not a very high threshold for them to cross - and one that I think will easily be met in the case of the Gulf oil spill.
CONAN: We're talking about when environmental disaster becomes environmental crime. We'd like to hear from you. How should corporations be held accountable; 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Jacob's(ph) calling us from Oklahoma City.
JACOB (Caller): Hi, thanks for having me.
CONAN: Go ahead, please.
JACOB: I totally disagree with the last guy. But you pretty much covered most of my - most of what I was going to say. You know, a crime - as far as I consider a crime - is willful, intentional acts, you know.
CONAN: So if a company - hypothetically - was dumping waste products into a river, that might be, you know, malice aforethought?
JACOB: Any individual, any entity. But then you brought up, you know, the actual law - as it actually is - bringing criminal negligence. And that -and you also said it pretty well there. That's a really low threshold to me. You're already - you already have a civil suit that's going to happen that's - I mean, it's pretty all-encompassing. A civil suit is not nearly the threshold for proving, you know, liability -is what's in a criminal suit.
CONAN: Preponderance of the evidence, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt.
JACOB: Right. So we already have this in the works. I feel like unless there's just overwhelming evidence that there was, you know, willful, criminal - somebody - you know, let's say the guy, let's say you could narrow it down to one guy responsible, and if the one guy responsible was drunk at the time, OK, criminal negligence. But other than that, you know, I don't think an accident, what by all measure that we can tell is an accident, should be prosecuted as a criminal charge. That doesn't make sense to me.
CONAN: David Uhlmann?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, it's a great point that the caller's making. We normally associate criminal liability with intentional misconduct. So that doesn't mean you have to know that you're breaking the law, but you have to at least act intentionally.
JACOB: Right.
Prof. UHLMANN: So in this case: Did they intentionally dump oil? That would be the question that I think your caller is raising, and I think it's a fair point.
But here's what the law says. The law says that that intentional act is a felony violation of the Clean Water Act. But the law then also says that if the same discharge occurs with negligence, it's a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act.
And so what the government's facing here is a law that says: If BP and the other companies were negligent, it's a crime. And if the government didn't prosecute, given the law that's available to the government, it would at least arguably send a very poor message about how we view this conduct.
And there is, I think, already in the public domain a fair amount of evidence that BP and the other companies involved were negligent - that they cut corners, that they took risks. And if they did that, and if the law says that's a crime, why shouldn't the Justice Department bring criminal charges?
CONAN: All right, Jacob, thanks very much for the call. Joining us now to share a defense attorney's perspective on the environmental crime is Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group at Venable LLP, where he defends clients charged with environmental violations. But from 1997 to 2001, he served on the other side, as chief of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. And nice to have you with us on the program today. He joins us here in Studio 3A.
Mr. WARREN HAMEL: (Co-chair, SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group, Venable LLP): It's a pleasure to be here, Neal.
CONAN: We should note that Transocean, one of the defendants in the Department of Justice's civil suit, is one of Venable's clients. So Warren Hamel will not be able to address the BP case today. He'd prefer to do that in court, I suspect.
But in any case, you've switched sides. I wonder: Has your view of criminal - the value of criminal charges changed when you went from being a prosecutor to being a defense attorney?
Mr. HAMEL: Well, I'm not sure I would say that the value has changed, but I think that my evaluation of when it's appropriate to bring criminal charges has certainly changed.
I think when you're on the prosecution side, you do tend to see the world more in black and white. Having now worked on the defense side for eight years, both representing individuals and companies, there are gradations of culpability.
And particularly in the environmental crimes arena, that really opens up a whole host of questions - unlike, say, bank robbery, where if you're in a bank with a gun and a note, that's a crime; everyone knows it's a crime; and there's only one thing that's going to happen there as a prosecution.
In environmental crimes, there's a whole host of things that can happen -or environmental violations. You can administrative penalty, civil penalty, criminal. And so criminal really should be reserved for the worst of the worst. And the question that comes up in most of these cases is: Is this the worst of the worst?
CONAN: It is the worst - the BP case, and again, I know you can't talk about that, but can you understand the outrage of the public in, for example, an Exxon Valdez situation, saying: This terrible thing happened. Somebody has to be held responsible. If we don't hold corporations criminally responsible, you're not going to make them behave better in the future.
Mr. HAMEL: I think that's fair, and you're certainly not going to hear me advocate that there should be no criminal prosecutions. The question is really when, and under what circumstances.
Certainly, massive damage to the environment is one factor that most prosecutors would take into account; knowing and deliberate conduct, which David mentioned earlier; a history of violations, where there have been administrative penalties, but it hasn't really changed the conduct of the individual or the company; deceptive conduct - lying, cheating, stealing.
All those things, I think, add into a prosecutor's and an agent's view of a case as it develops, to push it either in the direction of a crime -a criminal prosecution - or to say well, no, this ought to really remain in the civil context.
CONAN: And David Uhlmann, let me bring you back in. You noted in a piece for the New York Times that BP's previous practices may help prosecutors bring criminal charges in this case.
Prof. UHLMANN: BP has a terrible track record. They have had violations - were criminally prosecuted for violations on the North Slope in Alaska in the late 1990s. A terrible tragedy happened at one of their refineries in Texas, killing 15 people in 2005, which also led to criminal charges.
They had yet another spill up in Prudhoe Bay of Alaska, which also resulted in criminal charges in 2007. So the Gulf oil spill is the fourth major incident involving BP, where criminal charges are under consideration.
And while those prior incidents might not be evidence that the government could use if they were ever to take this case to trial, they certainly, as Warren has suggested, inform prosecutors when they're exercising their discretion about whether to bring a particular case as a criminal matter.
CONAN: And how much does public outrage play a part in decisions as to whether to file civil or criminal charges?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, you know, public outrage is a dicey proposition. I mean, we - I think we long ago disavowed the notion of - kind of mob rule or, you know, rounding people up in the square and putting them in the stockades.
On the other hand, one of the purposes of the criminal law is to express societal outrage, to condemn conduct that we feel is unacceptable. And clearly, this type of oil spill is unacceptable.
CONAN: We're talking about environmental crimes and punishment. How should we hold corporations accountable for environmental violations; 800-989-8255 is the phone number. Drop us an email; that address is talk@npr.org. In a few minutes, David Guest of Earth Justice will join us. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
And we're talking today about environmental crime and punishment. When does ecological disaster rise to the level of a crime? How do we hold corporations accountable; 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org.
Our guests are David Uhlmann, who is the director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan Law School, who served as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007.
Also with us, Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group at Venable LLP, where he defends clients charged with environmental violations. He served as chief of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Maryland, 1997-2001.
And I know, Warren Hamel, you wanted to reply to that point on when does public outrage - how much of a factor does that play?
Mr. HAMEL: Yes, thank you, Neal. The point I wanted to make on that is, I think one of the most important things that prosecutors do in carrying out their duties is to, in essence, ignore public opinion because it really is the job of the prosecutor to evaluate the facts of the case, evaluate what the evidence is, and see whether it fits, beyond a reasonable doubt, the statute that makes the conduct criminal - and then to see whether it makes sense for other reasons, whether it follows all the other guidelines that a prosecutor would want to follow: punishment, general deterrence, etc.
I think it's very difficult to do that, in many instances, but it is actually one of the most important things for a prosecutor to do - is to clear his mind - or her mind - of that, and to focus on the case.
CONAN: Let's get another caller in on the conversation, Ron(ph) joining us - Ron calling from Denver.
RON (Caller): Hi there. I think that the issue of civil versus criminal - civil's not enough. And the reason I say that is because look what happened with Exxon and all the appeals, and what they ended up paying versus what they were originally supposed to pay.
And as far as the criminal negligence goes - I mean, this was an item that broke. This was something that broke. And if you make something, it can be broken. And these companies knew that this steel could break. And none of them had a plan. None of them knew how to fix their own stuff. Who could say that isn't negligence or criminal negligence?
CONAN: Well, getting back to the Exxon Valdez case, David Uhlmann, I think that was, in the end - what, $125 million?
Prof. UHLMANN: A hundred and twenty-five million in criminal penalties and then also a very large -nearly a billion dollars - in what's called natural resource damages. So compensation to the government for harm to the environment.
CONAN: And was that - and that's, I think, in terms of the $125 million, the largest criminal penalty that anybody's ever had to pay in this country.
Prof. UHLMANN: The largest criminal penalty for violating the environmental laws was the $125 million paid in the Exxon case. The largest penalty ever paid for any violation, any criminal violation of U.S. law, was just over a billion dollars, paid by Pfizer last year for marketing fraud, for one of its chemicals. And I'd suggest that the criminal fine in the BP case is going to blow that number out of the water.
CONAN: And I wanted to ask you, Warren Hamel: The idea that if you make something, you ought to be able to fix it if it suffers disasters - is that part of the theory of negligence?
Mr. HAMEL: Well, it's certainly part of the theory, and I think therein lies the real danger of it. And I think one of the things that's important to this conversation is to step away, for a moment, from the Exxon Valdezes and the current matter with BP, and think about what are the vastly larger and more numerous instances of environmental violations that could, if pushed, be made into an environmental negligence criminal case but frankly, are just screw-ups.
Someone just did something, didn't pay attention to their job, didn't do the right thing. You could prosecute them criminally, but you really wouldn't want to. And you wouldn't want to for two reasons: one, because you don't want to criminalize sort of garden variety - just mistakes that people make; and secondly, having actually experienced this myself as a prosecutor, I did prosecute a criminal negligence case many years ago. And at the end, the jury was hung, and the jury came out afterwards and said: You proved your case, but we want to know why this is a federal criminal case. These people just made a mistake.
And so there's an aspect of the program - you know, using the U.S. Department of Justice to criminalize negligent conduct - there is a little bit of pushback, even in juries in Maryland, against taking that kind of a very aggressive attitude.
CONAN: I wanted to - and Ron, thanks very much for the call. I wanted to read part of a note that we got from Jim Moore, currently general council, corporate compliance officer at a large, U.S.-based chemical company, Huntsman Corporation. It was convicted of environmental crimes, and two of its managers at an East Texas plant were charged and convicted.
And he wrote: Compliance with the very complicated system of environmental regulation we've adopted in the U.S. is extremely difficult. Operation of a single chemical plant can involve, literally, hundreds of thousands of compliance and non-compliance opportunities every day.
Many of those opportunities involve human activity, where employees either can do the right thing or not. Thus, a culture of compliance, of doing the right thing, is as essential as having a comprehensive compliance management program. Both are needed.
My personal view is that it's important to our regulatory system for regulators and prosecutors to have both civil and criminal penalties at their disposal to deal with violations in that respect.
In any case, let's bring another voice into the conversation. David Guest, he heads the Florida office of Earth Justice - a national, nonprofit environmental law firm - he joins us by phone from his office in Tallahassee. Nice of you to be with us today.
Mr. DAVID GUEST (Earth Justice): My pleasure.
CONAN: And we've talked a lot about the legal regime that most often determines how the government responds to pollution, other kinds of violations. Do those laws, do you think, go far enough?
Mr. GUEST: I definitely don't. One big, conceptual issue that I think people are missing is that our Supreme Court now treats corporations as individuals. They have free-speech rights. They can hand over unlimited political contributions. And in every respect, constitutionally, they seem to be treated as individuals.
And I don't understand why that context doesn't mean that for criminal penalty purposes, they should not also be treated as individuals so that when they commit a grave crime - which happens frequently - that they get their corporate charter removed for eight years, the same way that somebody who went to prison would lose their freedom for eight years.
CONAN: That would effectively put them out of business.
Mr. GUEST: Well, it would mean - the same way if somebody went to jail for eight years. I mean, if you were a doctor, you would have a hard time getting back into your practice. But if you want a criminal sanction that has some deterrence, and if you're going to treat corporations as individuals with individual rights, they should have individual responsibilities, too.
CONAN: I wonder, David Uhlmann, if you had a response to that?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, you know, I respect where David's coming from, and I understand the concern about holding corporations responsible for their misconduct. And I certainly agree that corporations should be vigorously prosecuted when they commit criminal violations of the law.
That said, I think David's wrong in two respects. First of all, corporations are prosecuted frequently for environmental violations. They are prosecuted criminally. In fact, there have been more criminal prosecutions for environmental violations than any other area of corporate crime.
And second, the idea that we put companies out of business, in effect, is advocating not jail time for corporations - we can't send corporations to jail. What David, intentionally or not, is advocating is the death penalty for corporations.
If you revoke a corporate charter, you've killed the corporation. And so that, I think, would go too far, although I certainly agree that we want to hold corporations responsible the same way we hold individuals responsible. And that's, in fact, what I think we do under the environmental laws today.
CONAN: I wanted to ask Warren Hamel to come in here. There's a point that a lot of people make - that sometimes, when corporations commit violations - and perhaps not rising to the criminal level, but violations and regular violations - they look at the cost-benefit analysis and say: You know, it's easier to pay $5,000 every time we do this thing rather than fix the cause. And they just budget that and so therefore - say, you know, there's no point, that the fining system is just simply not penalty enough.
Mr. HAMEL: Well, that's certainly something that one hears quite a bit. And I think if the circumstances are such that a company has a long history of committing environmental violations, maybe has been tagged with administrative fines - $5,000, $10,000 - and it becomes, in essence, cheaper for them to pay the fines than fix the problem, that - I think - is when government prosecutors will look at, for instance, going into a full-fledged civil case not only to get penalties, but also to bring injunctive relief and impose a consent decree on the companies so that the court, in essence, would supervise their environmental compliance.
And if that doesn't work, or perhaps if the violations are so egregious, then maybe they go directly to a criminal prosecution. I think that is a very common way of looking at, you know, sort of the system if it's not functioning properly in that first instance.
CONAN: And David Guest, we've been talking with somebody who was responsible for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland, and somebody who was responsible at the Justice Department. You're there, down in Tallahassee. Are similar policies pursued as vigorously on the state level?
Mr. GUEST: No, they aren't. You have, essentially, no criminal prosecutions at the state level. And what happens - that was alluded to earlier, by David - is that you have fines for offenders that are supposed to be deterrents. But when you look at the scale of the corporate assets and the scale of the fines, even criminal penalties, what you see is that they aren't really deterrents at all.
And the crispest example that you can think of is BP, where they have a series of repeat, major violations - one after the other after the other -and they don't ever get enough of a sanction so there's a real deterrent. BP was like the drunken driver that got convicted four times, paid the fine, and got back out on the road with a bottle. Our system isn't working.
CONAN: Well, David Uhlmann, again, Warren Hamel can't address the BP case, but we'll ask you to address it.
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, I think David makes a fair point that BP didn't get it after the first three felony prosecutions of the company. Or, I'm sorry, the first two were felonies; the third was a misdemeanor prosecution. So I think that point is well-taken. I also think David's right when he says that there's not an awful lot of environmental criminal prosecution at the state level. Most of the prosecution is at the federal level.
So it's a fair question to ask about BP, whether we've done enough in the past to get their attention. And I think, clearly, the answer is: We didn't. But I think the Gulf oil spill has gotten their attention. I mean, they're going to pay...
CONAN: Oh, I think you're right about that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. UHLMANN: Yeah. I mean, they're going to pay a multibillion-dollar criminal fine. They're going to pay a multibillion-dollar civil penalty. They've already agreed to pay $20 billion to victims of their misconduct. They'll pay a multibillion-dollar natural resource damage claim. I mean, these are numbers that are staggering, and that few companies in the world could afford to pay. BP can afford to pay those amounts, but they're going to hurt. And they're going to bring a change to how this company does business. They just have to.
CONAN: Warren Hamel?
Mr. HAMEL: Now, not speaking directly about BP, but I just wanted to say that I think that the issue of state enforcement of environmental crimes is sort of a state-to-state matter. And there are, certainly, states like Maryland, that have a long history of a pretty robust environmental enforcement program. And the thing to keep in mind is that the state can do things that the federal government can't do. The federal government does not have a general solid-waste statute.
So, for instance, if there's a tire dump that's burning, the feds really can't do anything about that, but the state can and the state will. There are, certainly, wetlands and waters that may not fall under the federal standard or under federal jurisdiction. And once again, the state certainly has jurisdiction over all of its waters and wetlands. And so I think there - for those who want to urge, you know, additional prosecutions, sort of supporting your state attorney generals in those actions is the way to go.
CONAN: Warren Hamel is with us, co-chair of the SEC and white collar defense practice group at Venable LLP. Also with us, David Guest, who heads the Florida office of Earth Justice; and David Uhlmann, who's now director of environmental law and policy program at the University of Michigan Law School. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. Let's go to Todd, Todd with us from Berkeley Springs in West Virginia.
TODD (Caller): Yes. My comment - the first part of it - is to the former prosecutor. One thing you keep saying is, you know, after so many violations, that maybe we should start looking into criminal charges. How many violations, you know, are we supposed to go to before we have another major disaster? How many times, you know, should these companies be able to get away with, you know, destroying, you know, the planet? I don't understand why, you know, your jury came back and said that the, you know, they didn't understand why you were, you know, pursuing charges against these people, criminal charges...
CONAN: Who just made a mistake. Yeah.
TODD: Yeah. Because they made a mistake, but, you know, we couldn't say our economy right now will just - you know, people making a lot of mistakes, but we know that it was greed. The penalties aren't enough, you know, to stop the actions.
CONAN: Well, as I - forgive me, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on the radio. But if a criminal charge were brought against an oil company for an oil spill, their previous actions in other cases would not be admissible in that case - am I correct, Warren Hamel?
Mr. HAMEL: That would depend. Certainly, the government would want very much to try and bring that evidence in to show that this - that the current spill was not a mistake or accident...
CONAN: But part of a pattern of...
Mr. HAMEL: It's part of a pattern, etc. - that's a particular kind of evidence that some courts will allow. And in certain cases, the defense would, obviously, vigorously oppose that evidence coming in. But stepping back from the court case itself, the point is: To what extent does that play into the decision of a prosecutor to bring criminal charges or not?
CONAN: As opposed to civil charges.
Mr. HAMEL: Yes. And, you know, the fact is - I mean, here's the problem. You simply can't prosecute every environmental violation as a criminal case. Far too many resources go into it. The standards are too high and frankly, not every violation is a criminal case. Many of them are, if not negligence, just bad luck. And so that happens. And if you look at the numbers and kinds of enforcement actions across the country, the vast, overwhelming majority are sort of low-level, small and not criminal. They do save the worst actors for criminal prosecution.
CONAN: David Guest - and, Todd, thanks very much for the call - I wanted to ask you another question, though. It seems when criminal charges - be they misdemeanors or felonies - are brought, it seems to be somebody who has taken an actual action, somebody on the oil platform, for example. These are not necessarily the corporate higher-ups - very rarely are.
Mr. GUEST: No, they're not. This is David Guest. And I think that in the criminal context, if you see an engineer of a freight train that's text-messaging his girlfriend, screaming down the tracks at 65 miles an hour, he's an underling, but he's an agent of the railroad. And the railroad needs to be made accountable for the conduct of its employees. If the railroad's a person, it's responsible for everybody that's working for it.
CONAN: David Frank - David Guest, rather, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate it.
Mr. GUEST: Thank you.
CONAN: David Guest heads the Florida office of Earth Justice. And our thanks as well - we mentioned Warren Hamel, who served as chair of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland in the past; and David Uhlmann, who served as the chief of the Environmental Crimes section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007. We thank you both very much for your time today. Appreciate it.
Prof. UHLMANN: Thank you, Neal.
Mr. HAMEL: You're welcome, Neal.
CONAN: Coming up, an argument that there's no room for the hate card in the debate over gay marriage. Stay with us for that.
I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
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December 21, 2010
Listen to the Story
Talk of the Nation
[30 min 19 sec]
Guests
David Uhlmann, director, environmental law and policy program, University of Michigan law school
Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and white collar defense practice group, Veneble LLP
David Guest, head of the Florida office of Earth Justice
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December 21, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing BP and other companies associated with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A criminal investigation is also underway. Many activists argue disasters like the BP spill are crimes. Others argue big fines in civil cases are more effective than jail time.
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced civil suits against BP and other companies associated with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The government hopes to recover billions in damages for clean-up costs and for damages to natural resources, and Attorney General Eric Holder made a point to note that a federal criminal investigation is also under way.
Many advocates say that environmental disasters like the BP spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster are clearly crimes, and that senior corporate officials should face felony charges and time in prison.
But even when thousands of birds and fish die, or when toxic sludge poisons the water we drink, the government usually responds with civil suits.
How should we hold corporations accountable for environmental violations? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Later in the program, an argument to take the word hate out of the debate on gay marriage. But first, prosecution of environmental crimes. We begin with David Uhlmann, who served as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007. He's now a director of environmental law and policy program at the University of Michigan Law School, and joins us from member station WUOM in Ann Arbor. And thanks very much for being with us today.
Professor DAVID UHLMANN (Director, Environmental Law and Policy Program, University of Michigan Law School): Thanks for having me on the show, Neal.
CONAN: And to a lot of people, the BP spill may seem like, very clearly, an environmental crime: millions of gallons of oil spilled into the ocean, countless birds and fish killed, livelihoods disrupted. Is it necessarily a crime?
Prof. UHLMANN: It is an environmental crime, and it will be prosecuted criminally by the Justice Department. It's just a matter of time before the announcement we heard last week about civil suits is followed by the announcement of an indictment and criminal charges against BP, against Transocean - and in all likelihood against Halliburton, who was left out of the civil suit.
CONAN: Yet we said in most cases, it does not rise to the level of crime, or at least federal prosecutors don't charge it as a crime.
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, I'm not sure that's correct. I mean, it's true that there has to be at least some wrongdoing for there to be a criminal prosecution. So in that sense you're right, and there have been terrible tragedies that have occurred in the past, that haven't resulted in criminal prosecution.
There was a pipeline explosion out in New Mexico a decade ago where - I think - 15 people died. There was a terrible mine slurry that burst in West Virginia and, you know, millions of gallons of waste flooded communities and streams. And neither of those were criminal cases.
But frankly, when the government sees a significant case of environmental harm, they almost always look to see whether there's a criminal case to be brought. And they're more likely to bring criminal charges in cases where there is significant harm.
CONAN: And under what laws, under what statutes are these charges brought?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, in the case of the Gulf oil spill, the lead statute is the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act makes it a crime if you either knowingly or negligently discharge oil into the exclusive economic zone of the United States without a permit, in amounts large enough to create a sheen on the water.
Now, in the Gulf, we've got an oil slick the size of the state of South Carolina. So we've certainly got a sheen.
CONAN: I think we can stipulate a prima facie case.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. UHLMANN: Yes, absolutely. So the only question in the Gulf, really, is: Was this intentional? I don't think it was. I don't think it's a felony violation. They didn't intentionally dump all of this oil into the Gulf.
So the question becomes: Was it negligent? And if it was negligent, then the government can bring criminal charges. And that's just not a very high threshold for them to cross - and one that I think will easily be met in the case of the Gulf oil spill.
CONAN: We're talking about when environmental disaster becomes environmental crime. We'd like to hear from you. How should corporations be held accountable; 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Jacob's(ph) calling us from Oklahoma City.
JACOB (Caller): Hi, thanks for having me.
CONAN: Go ahead, please.
JACOB: I totally disagree with the last guy. But you pretty much covered most of my - most of what I was going to say. You know, a crime - as far as I consider a crime - is willful, intentional acts, you know.
CONAN: So if a company - hypothetically - was dumping waste products into a river, that might be, you know, malice aforethought?
JACOB: Any individual, any entity. But then you brought up, you know, the actual law - as it actually is - bringing criminal negligence. And that -and you also said it pretty well there. That's a really low threshold to me. You're already - you already have a civil suit that's going to happen that's - I mean, it's pretty all-encompassing. A civil suit is not nearly the threshold for proving, you know, liability -is what's in a criminal suit.
CONAN: Preponderance of the evidence, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt.
JACOB: Right. So we already have this in the works. I feel like unless there's just overwhelming evidence that there was, you know, willful, criminal - somebody - you know, let's say the guy, let's say you could narrow it down to one guy responsible, and if the one guy responsible was drunk at the time, OK, criminal negligence. But other than that, you know, I don't think an accident, what by all measure that we can tell is an accident, should be prosecuted as a criminal charge. That doesn't make sense to me.
CONAN: David Uhlmann?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, it's a great point that the caller's making. We normally associate criminal liability with intentional misconduct. So that doesn't mean you have to know that you're breaking the law, but you have to at least act intentionally.
JACOB: Right.
Prof. UHLMANN: So in this case: Did they intentionally dump oil? That would be the question that I think your caller is raising, and I think it's a fair point.
But here's what the law says. The law says that that intentional act is a felony violation of the Clean Water Act. But the law then also says that if the same discharge occurs with negligence, it's a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act.
And so what the government's facing here is a law that says: If BP and the other companies were negligent, it's a crime. And if the government didn't prosecute, given the law that's available to the government, it would at least arguably send a very poor message about how we view this conduct.
And there is, I think, already in the public domain a fair amount of evidence that BP and the other companies involved were negligent - that they cut corners, that they took risks. And if they did that, and if the law says that's a crime, why shouldn't the Justice Department bring criminal charges?
CONAN: All right, Jacob, thanks very much for the call. Joining us now to share a defense attorney's perspective on the environmental crime is Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group at Venable LLP, where he defends clients charged with environmental violations. But from 1997 to 2001, he served on the other side, as chief of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. And nice to have you with us on the program today. He joins us here in Studio 3A.
Mr. WARREN HAMEL: (Co-chair, SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group, Venable LLP): It's a pleasure to be here, Neal.
CONAN: We should note that Transocean, one of the defendants in the Department of Justice's civil suit, is one of Venable's clients. So Warren Hamel will not be able to address the BP case today. He'd prefer to do that in court, I suspect.
But in any case, you've switched sides. I wonder: Has your view of criminal - the value of criminal charges changed when you went from being a prosecutor to being a defense attorney?
Mr. HAMEL: Well, I'm not sure I would say that the value has changed, but I think that my evaluation of when it's appropriate to bring criminal charges has certainly changed.
I think when you're on the prosecution side, you do tend to see the world more in black and white. Having now worked on the defense side for eight years, both representing individuals and companies, there are gradations of culpability.
And particularly in the environmental crimes arena, that really opens up a whole host of questions - unlike, say, bank robbery, where if you're in a bank with a gun and a note, that's a crime; everyone knows it's a crime; and there's only one thing that's going to happen there as a prosecution.
In environmental crimes, there's a whole host of things that can happen -or environmental violations. You can administrative penalty, civil penalty, criminal. And so criminal really should be reserved for the worst of the worst. And the question that comes up in most of these cases is: Is this the worst of the worst?
CONAN: It is the worst - the BP case, and again, I know you can't talk about that, but can you understand the outrage of the public in, for example, an Exxon Valdez situation, saying: This terrible thing happened. Somebody has to be held responsible. If we don't hold corporations criminally responsible, you're not going to make them behave better in the future.
Mr. HAMEL: I think that's fair, and you're certainly not going to hear me advocate that there should be no criminal prosecutions. The question is really when, and under what circumstances.
Certainly, massive damage to the environment is one factor that most prosecutors would take into account; knowing and deliberate conduct, which David mentioned earlier; a history of violations, where there have been administrative penalties, but it hasn't really changed the conduct of the individual or the company; deceptive conduct - lying, cheating, stealing.
All those things, I think, add into a prosecutor's and an agent's view of a case as it develops, to push it either in the direction of a crime -a criminal prosecution - or to say well, no, this ought to really remain in the civil context.
CONAN: And David Uhlmann, let me bring you back in. You noted in a piece for the New York Times that BP's previous practices may help prosecutors bring criminal charges in this case.
Prof. UHLMANN: BP has a terrible track record. They have had violations - were criminally prosecuted for violations on the North Slope in Alaska in the late 1990s. A terrible tragedy happened at one of their refineries in Texas, killing 15 people in 2005, which also led to criminal charges.
They had yet another spill up in Prudhoe Bay of Alaska, which also resulted in criminal charges in 2007. So the Gulf oil spill is the fourth major incident involving BP, where criminal charges are under consideration.
And while those prior incidents might not be evidence that the government could use if they were ever to take this case to trial, they certainly, as Warren has suggested, inform prosecutors when they're exercising their discretion about whether to bring a particular case as a criminal matter.
CONAN: And how much does public outrage play a part in decisions as to whether to file civil or criminal charges?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, you know, public outrage is a dicey proposition. I mean, we - I think we long ago disavowed the notion of - kind of mob rule or, you know, rounding people up in the square and putting them in the stockades.
On the other hand, one of the purposes of the criminal law is to express societal outrage, to condemn conduct that we feel is unacceptable. And clearly, this type of oil spill is unacceptable.
CONAN: We're talking about environmental crimes and punishment. How should we hold corporations accountable for environmental violations; 800-989-8255 is the phone number. Drop us an email; that address is talk@npr.org. In a few minutes, David Guest of Earth Justice will join us. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
And we're talking today about environmental crime and punishment. When does ecological disaster rise to the level of a crime? How do we hold corporations accountable; 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org.
Our guests are David Uhlmann, who is the director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan Law School, who served as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007.
Also with us, Warren Hamel, co-chair of the SEC and White Collar Defense Practice Group at Venable LLP, where he defends clients charged with environmental violations. He served as chief of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Maryland, 1997-2001.
And I know, Warren Hamel, you wanted to reply to that point on when does public outrage - how much of a factor does that play?
Mr. HAMEL: Yes, thank you, Neal. The point I wanted to make on that is, I think one of the most important things that prosecutors do in carrying out their duties is to, in essence, ignore public opinion because it really is the job of the prosecutor to evaluate the facts of the case, evaluate what the evidence is, and see whether it fits, beyond a reasonable doubt, the statute that makes the conduct criminal - and then to see whether it makes sense for other reasons, whether it follows all the other guidelines that a prosecutor would want to follow: punishment, general deterrence, etc.
I think it's very difficult to do that, in many instances, but it is actually one of the most important things for a prosecutor to do - is to clear his mind - or her mind - of that, and to focus on the case.
CONAN: Let's get another caller in on the conversation, Ron(ph) joining us - Ron calling from Denver.
RON (Caller): Hi there. I think that the issue of civil versus criminal - civil's not enough. And the reason I say that is because look what happened with Exxon and all the appeals, and what they ended up paying versus what they were originally supposed to pay.
And as far as the criminal negligence goes - I mean, this was an item that broke. This was something that broke. And if you make something, it can be broken. And these companies knew that this steel could break. And none of them had a plan. None of them knew how to fix their own stuff. Who could say that isn't negligence or criminal negligence?
CONAN: Well, getting back to the Exxon Valdez case, David Uhlmann, I think that was, in the end - what, $125 million?
Prof. UHLMANN: A hundred and twenty-five million in criminal penalties and then also a very large -nearly a billion dollars - in what's called natural resource damages. So compensation to the government for harm to the environment.
CONAN: And was that - and that's, I think, in terms of the $125 million, the largest criminal penalty that anybody's ever had to pay in this country.
Prof. UHLMANN: The largest criminal penalty for violating the environmental laws was the $125 million paid in the Exxon case. The largest penalty ever paid for any violation, any criminal violation of U.S. law, was just over a billion dollars, paid by Pfizer last year for marketing fraud, for one of its chemicals. And I'd suggest that the criminal fine in the BP case is going to blow that number out of the water.
CONAN: And I wanted to ask you, Warren Hamel: The idea that if you make something, you ought to be able to fix it if it suffers disasters - is that part of the theory of negligence?
Mr. HAMEL: Well, it's certainly part of the theory, and I think therein lies the real danger of it. And I think one of the things that's important to this conversation is to step away, for a moment, from the Exxon Valdezes and the current matter with BP, and think about what are the vastly larger and more numerous instances of environmental violations that could, if pushed, be made into an environmental negligence criminal case but frankly, are just screw-ups.
Someone just did something, didn't pay attention to their job, didn't do the right thing. You could prosecute them criminally, but you really wouldn't want to. And you wouldn't want to for two reasons: one, because you don't want to criminalize sort of garden variety - just mistakes that people make; and secondly, having actually experienced this myself as a prosecutor, I did prosecute a criminal negligence case many years ago. And at the end, the jury was hung, and the jury came out afterwards and said: You proved your case, but we want to know why this is a federal criminal case. These people just made a mistake.
And so there's an aspect of the program - you know, using the U.S. Department of Justice to criminalize negligent conduct - there is a little bit of pushback, even in juries in Maryland, against taking that kind of a very aggressive attitude.
CONAN: I wanted to - and Ron, thanks very much for the call. I wanted to read part of a note that we got from Jim Moore, currently general council, corporate compliance officer at a large, U.S.-based chemical company, Huntsman Corporation. It was convicted of environmental crimes, and two of its managers at an East Texas plant were charged and convicted.
And he wrote: Compliance with the very complicated system of environmental regulation we've adopted in the U.S. is extremely difficult. Operation of a single chemical plant can involve, literally, hundreds of thousands of compliance and non-compliance opportunities every day.
Many of those opportunities involve human activity, where employees either can do the right thing or not. Thus, a culture of compliance, of doing the right thing, is as essential as having a comprehensive compliance management program. Both are needed.
My personal view is that it's important to our regulatory system for regulators and prosecutors to have both civil and criminal penalties at their disposal to deal with violations in that respect.
In any case, let's bring another voice into the conversation. David Guest, he heads the Florida office of Earth Justice - a national, nonprofit environmental law firm - he joins us by phone from his office in Tallahassee. Nice of you to be with us today.
Mr. DAVID GUEST (Earth Justice): My pleasure.
CONAN: And we've talked a lot about the legal regime that most often determines how the government responds to pollution, other kinds of violations. Do those laws, do you think, go far enough?
Mr. GUEST: I definitely don't. One big, conceptual issue that I think people are missing is that our Supreme Court now treats corporations as individuals. They have free-speech rights. They can hand over unlimited political contributions. And in every respect, constitutionally, they seem to be treated as individuals.
And I don't understand why that context doesn't mean that for criminal penalty purposes, they should not also be treated as individuals so that when they commit a grave crime - which happens frequently - that they get their corporate charter removed for eight years, the same way that somebody who went to prison would lose their freedom for eight years.
CONAN: That would effectively put them out of business.
Mr. GUEST: Well, it would mean - the same way if somebody went to jail for eight years. I mean, if you were a doctor, you would have a hard time getting back into your practice. But if you want a criminal sanction that has some deterrence, and if you're going to treat corporations as individuals with individual rights, they should have individual responsibilities, too.
CONAN: I wonder, David Uhlmann, if you had a response to that?
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, you know, I respect where David's coming from, and I understand the concern about holding corporations responsible for their misconduct. And I certainly agree that corporations should be vigorously prosecuted when they commit criminal violations of the law.
That said, I think David's wrong in two respects. First of all, corporations are prosecuted frequently for environmental violations. They are prosecuted criminally. In fact, there have been more criminal prosecutions for environmental violations than any other area of corporate crime.
And second, the idea that we put companies out of business, in effect, is advocating not jail time for corporations - we can't send corporations to jail. What David, intentionally or not, is advocating is the death penalty for corporations.
If you revoke a corporate charter, you've killed the corporation. And so that, I think, would go too far, although I certainly agree that we want to hold corporations responsible the same way we hold individuals responsible. And that's, in fact, what I think we do under the environmental laws today.
CONAN: I wanted to ask Warren Hamel to come in here. There's a point that a lot of people make - that sometimes, when corporations commit violations - and perhaps not rising to the criminal level, but violations and regular violations - they look at the cost-benefit analysis and say: You know, it's easier to pay $5,000 every time we do this thing rather than fix the cause. And they just budget that and so therefore - say, you know, there's no point, that the fining system is just simply not penalty enough.
Mr. HAMEL: Well, that's certainly something that one hears quite a bit. And I think if the circumstances are such that a company has a long history of committing environmental violations, maybe has been tagged with administrative fines - $5,000, $10,000 - and it becomes, in essence, cheaper for them to pay the fines than fix the problem, that - I think - is when government prosecutors will look at, for instance, going into a full-fledged civil case not only to get penalties, but also to bring injunctive relief and impose a consent decree on the companies so that the court, in essence, would supervise their environmental compliance.
And if that doesn't work, or perhaps if the violations are so egregious, then maybe they go directly to a criminal prosecution. I think that is a very common way of looking at, you know, sort of the system if it's not functioning properly in that first instance.
CONAN: And David Guest, we've been talking with somebody who was responsible for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland, and somebody who was responsible at the Justice Department. You're there, down in Tallahassee. Are similar policies pursued as vigorously on the state level?
Mr. GUEST: No, they aren't. You have, essentially, no criminal prosecutions at the state level. And what happens - that was alluded to earlier, by David - is that you have fines for offenders that are supposed to be deterrents. But when you look at the scale of the corporate assets and the scale of the fines, even criminal penalties, what you see is that they aren't really deterrents at all.
And the crispest example that you can think of is BP, where they have a series of repeat, major violations - one after the other after the other -and they don't ever get enough of a sanction so there's a real deterrent. BP was like the drunken driver that got convicted four times, paid the fine, and got back out on the road with a bottle. Our system isn't working.
CONAN: Well, David Uhlmann, again, Warren Hamel can't address the BP case, but we'll ask you to address it.
Prof. UHLMANN: Well, I think David makes a fair point that BP didn't get it after the first three felony prosecutions of the company. Or, I'm sorry, the first two were felonies; the third was a misdemeanor prosecution. So I think that point is well-taken. I also think David's right when he says that there's not an awful lot of environmental criminal prosecution at the state level. Most of the prosecution is at the federal level.
So it's a fair question to ask about BP, whether we've done enough in the past to get their attention. And I think, clearly, the answer is: We didn't. But I think the Gulf oil spill has gotten their attention. I mean, they're going to pay...
CONAN: Oh, I think you're right about that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. UHLMANN: Yeah. I mean, they're going to pay a multibillion-dollar criminal fine. They're going to pay a multibillion-dollar civil penalty. They've already agreed to pay $20 billion to victims of their misconduct. They'll pay a multibillion-dollar natural resource damage claim. I mean, these are numbers that are staggering, and that few companies in the world could afford to pay. BP can afford to pay those amounts, but they're going to hurt. And they're going to bring a change to how this company does business. They just have to.
CONAN: Warren Hamel?
Mr. HAMEL: Now, not speaking directly about BP, but I just wanted to say that I think that the issue of state enforcement of environmental crimes is sort of a state-to-state matter. And there are, certainly, states like Maryland, that have a long history of a pretty robust environmental enforcement program. And the thing to keep in mind is that the state can do things that the federal government can't do. The federal government does not have a general solid-waste statute.
So, for instance, if there's a tire dump that's burning, the feds really can't do anything about that, but the state can and the state will. There are, certainly, wetlands and waters that may not fall under the federal standard or under federal jurisdiction. And once again, the state certainly has jurisdiction over all of its waters and wetlands. And so I think there - for those who want to urge, you know, additional prosecutions, sort of supporting your state attorney generals in those actions is the way to go.
CONAN: Warren Hamel is with us, co-chair of the SEC and white collar defense practice group at Venable LLP. Also with us, David Guest, who heads the Florida office of Earth Justice; and David Uhlmann, who's now director of environmental law and policy program at the University of Michigan Law School. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
And let's see if we can get another caller on the line. Let's go to Todd, Todd with us from Berkeley Springs in West Virginia.
TODD (Caller): Yes. My comment - the first part of it - is to the former prosecutor. One thing you keep saying is, you know, after so many violations, that maybe we should start looking into criminal charges. How many violations, you know, are we supposed to go to before we have another major disaster? How many times, you know, should these companies be able to get away with, you know, destroying, you know, the planet? I don't understand why, you know, your jury came back and said that the, you know, they didn't understand why you were, you know, pursuing charges against these people, criminal charges...
CONAN: Who just made a mistake. Yeah.
TODD: Yeah. Because they made a mistake, but, you know, we couldn't say our economy right now will just - you know, people making a lot of mistakes, but we know that it was greed. The penalties aren't enough, you know, to stop the actions.
CONAN: Well, as I - forgive me, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on the radio. But if a criminal charge were brought against an oil company for an oil spill, their previous actions in other cases would not be admissible in that case - am I correct, Warren Hamel?
Mr. HAMEL: That would depend. Certainly, the government would want very much to try and bring that evidence in to show that this - that the current spill was not a mistake or accident...
CONAN: But part of a pattern of...
Mr. HAMEL: It's part of a pattern, etc. - that's a particular kind of evidence that some courts will allow. And in certain cases, the defense would, obviously, vigorously oppose that evidence coming in. But stepping back from the court case itself, the point is: To what extent does that play into the decision of a prosecutor to bring criminal charges or not?
CONAN: As opposed to civil charges.
Mr. HAMEL: Yes. And, you know, the fact is - I mean, here's the problem. You simply can't prosecute every environmental violation as a criminal case. Far too many resources go into it. The standards are too high and frankly, not every violation is a criminal case. Many of them are, if not negligence, just bad luck. And so that happens. And if you look at the numbers and kinds of enforcement actions across the country, the vast, overwhelming majority are sort of low-level, small and not criminal. They do save the worst actors for criminal prosecution.
CONAN: David Guest - and, Todd, thanks very much for the call - I wanted to ask you another question, though. It seems when criminal charges - be they misdemeanors or felonies - are brought, it seems to be somebody who has taken an actual action, somebody on the oil platform, for example. These are not necessarily the corporate higher-ups - very rarely are.
Mr. GUEST: No, they're not. This is David Guest. And I think that in the criminal context, if you see an engineer of a freight train that's text-messaging his girlfriend, screaming down the tracks at 65 miles an hour, he's an underling, but he's an agent of the railroad. And the railroad needs to be made accountable for the conduct of its employees. If the railroad's a person, it's responsible for everybody that's working for it.
CONAN: David Frank - David Guest, rather, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate it.
Mr. GUEST: Thank you.
CONAN: David Guest heads the Florida office of Earth Justice. And our thanks as well - we mentioned Warren Hamel, who served as chair of the Environmental Crimes and Enforcement Office of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland in the past; and David Uhlmann, who served as the chief of the Environmental Crimes section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2000 to 2007. We thank you both very much for your time today. Appreciate it.
Prof. UHLMANN: Thank you, Neal.
Mr. HAMEL: You're welcome, Neal.
CONAN: Coming up, an argument that there's no room for the hate card in the debate over gay marriage. Stay with us for that.
I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
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TIME Magazine Ecocentric Blog: U.S. Govt Commission: The Gulf Oil Spill Was Avoidable—But Corporate & Regulatory Mistakes Made It Virtually Inevitable
Government Commission: The Gulf Oil Spill Was Avoidable—But Corporate & Regulatory Mistakes Made It Virtually Inevitable
Posted by Bryan Walsh Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Submit a Comment • Related Topics: Oil , BP, Gulf of Mexico, Halliburton, Minerals Management Service, Obama, offshore drilling, oil spill, regulation, Transocean
Fire boats battle a fire at the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon April 21, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard / Getty
Internal medicine training programs in hospitals have what are called morbidity and mortality conferences—known as M&Ms. The reviews usually take place after unexpectedly poor patient outcomes—like deaths, for instance—and investigate what medical errors might have been made that contributed to the failure. M&Ms are dreaded by medical residents—imagine the worst job review you've ever had, times a thousand—but they're a necessary part of a doctor's education. The only way to ensure a mistake isn't repeated is to ensure that you know why it happened in the first place.
That was the task of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, a panel of independent experts appointed by the President with the task of figuring out just what went wrong on that drilling rig on April 20, leading to a disaster that spilled some 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. After months of work, the panel has finished its final report, which will be released next week, but today the commission published an advance chapter that focuses on the immediate mistakes aboard the Deepwater Horizon in the days and weeks before the accident. (Download a PDF of the chapter here.) The result is a laundry list of errors by, both large and small, in the weeks leading up to the explosion, by both BP (which owned the rig, though it didn't directly control the drilling) and Halliburton (the energy services company responsible for cementing the well). But more than that, the commission found that there were root failures—by both industry and by government regulators—that ultimately made an avoidable accident all but inevitable. As the report concluded:
The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.
The panel didn't attempt to assign blame for the accident to specific companies or individuals; indeed, given the sheer number of things that went wrong aboard the Deepwater Horizon, we'll never know exactly what might have been the final cause. But there's no shortage of candidates, as the report details:
* BP decided to long string design in its well casing, which increased the difficulty of obtaining a reliable cementing job on the well—which was one of the primary causes of the Macondo well blowout.
* BP decided to use only six centralizers on its string, when safety would have called for using an additional 15.
* Halliburton never told BP that tests of the foam cement slurry that would be used on the final stages of the drilling process indicated that the mixture was unstable, and never reviewed the data itself. In fact, Halliburton personnel appeared to have modified the conditions of the test to assure that they would obtain a successful outcome, rather than fixing the mixture. As the report records: "If true, Halliburton pumped foam cement into the well at a time when all available test data showed the cement would be, in fact, unstable."
* BP's engineering team did not appear to conduct a formal, disciplined risk analysis on the final cementing jobs—despite mounting evidence of problems with the well.
* Personnel aboard the Deepwater Horizon failed to respond to a number of signs that a well blowout was imminent until it was too late.
* There were repeated communication failures between BP, Halliburton and Transocean (the company that ran the rig)—and within those companies as well. Data that could have revealed serious threats to the rig never made it to the right personnel.
But those are just the immediate causes. Deeper—and more worrying—are the root failures of industry and government that the report highlights:
The most significant failure at Macondo—and the clear root cause of the blowout—was a failure of industry management. Most, if not all, of the failures at Macondo can be traced back to underlying failures of management and communication. Better management of decisionmaking processes within BP and other companies, better communication within and between BP and its contractors, and effective training of key engineering and rig personnel would have prevented the Macondo incident. BP and other operators must have effective systems in place for integrating the various corporate cultures, internal procedures, and decisionmaking protocols of the many different contractors involved in drilling a deepwater well.
The commission's report also notes in detail that—purposefully or not—nearly every one of the decisions made by BP, Halliburton and Transocean saved those companies time and money. And what's scarier is that under the existing regulations, nearly all of those cost-cutting decisions were perfectly legal—indicating that the Deepwater Horizon was a regulatory failure as well. Unless systematic changes are made in the way the country drills for oil and gas—and regulates that practice—this could happen again:
Notwithstanding [the risks of drilling], the accident of April 20 was avoidable. It resulted from clear mistakes made in the first instance by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, and by government officials who, relying too much on industry's assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risks of deepwater drilling. It is now clear that both industry and government need to reassess and change business practices to minimize the risks of such drilling.
With a Republican-controlled House looking to free business from regulation—including the oil and gas industry—that reformation will only get harder. But the commission report should remind us—just in case we've forgotten—that those changes may be a matter of life or death. That's something any student doctor could tell you
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/01/05/government-commission-the-gulf-oil-spill-was-avoidable%e2%80%94but-corporate-regulatory-mistakes-made-it-virtually-inevitable/#ixzz1AHnYH3PP
Posted by Bryan Walsh Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Submit a Comment • Related Topics: Oil , BP, Gulf of Mexico, Halliburton, Minerals Management Service, Obama, offshore drilling, oil spill, regulation, Transocean
Fire boats battle a fire at the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon April 21, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard / Getty
Internal medicine training programs in hospitals have what are called morbidity and mortality conferences—known as M&Ms. The reviews usually take place after unexpectedly poor patient outcomes—like deaths, for instance—and investigate what medical errors might have been made that contributed to the failure. M&Ms are dreaded by medical residents—imagine the worst job review you've ever had, times a thousand—but they're a necessary part of a doctor's education. The only way to ensure a mistake isn't repeated is to ensure that you know why it happened in the first place.
That was the task of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, a panel of independent experts appointed by the President with the task of figuring out just what went wrong on that drilling rig on April 20, leading to a disaster that spilled some 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. After months of work, the panel has finished its final report, which will be released next week, but today the commission published an advance chapter that focuses on the immediate mistakes aboard the Deepwater Horizon in the days and weeks before the accident. (Download a PDF of the chapter here.) The result is a laundry list of errors by, both large and small, in the weeks leading up to the explosion, by both BP (which owned the rig, though it didn't directly control the drilling) and Halliburton (the energy services company responsible for cementing the well). But more than that, the commission found that there were root failures—by both industry and by government regulators—that ultimately made an avoidable accident all but inevitable. As the report concluded:
The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.
The panel didn't attempt to assign blame for the accident to specific companies or individuals; indeed, given the sheer number of things that went wrong aboard the Deepwater Horizon, we'll never know exactly what might have been the final cause. But there's no shortage of candidates, as the report details:
* BP decided to long string design in its well casing, which increased the difficulty of obtaining a reliable cementing job on the well—which was one of the primary causes of the Macondo well blowout.
* BP decided to use only six centralizers on its string, when safety would have called for using an additional 15.
* Halliburton never told BP that tests of the foam cement slurry that would be used on the final stages of the drilling process indicated that the mixture was unstable, and never reviewed the data itself. In fact, Halliburton personnel appeared to have modified the conditions of the test to assure that they would obtain a successful outcome, rather than fixing the mixture. As the report records: "If true, Halliburton pumped foam cement into the well at a time when all available test data showed the cement would be, in fact, unstable."
* BP's engineering team did not appear to conduct a formal, disciplined risk analysis on the final cementing jobs—despite mounting evidence of problems with the well.
* Personnel aboard the Deepwater Horizon failed to respond to a number of signs that a well blowout was imminent until it was too late.
* There were repeated communication failures between BP, Halliburton and Transocean (the company that ran the rig)—and within those companies as well. Data that could have revealed serious threats to the rig never made it to the right personnel.
But those are just the immediate causes. Deeper—and more worrying—are the root failures of industry and government that the report highlights:
The most significant failure at Macondo—and the clear root cause of the blowout—was a failure of industry management. Most, if not all, of the failures at Macondo can be traced back to underlying failures of management and communication. Better management of decisionmaking processes within BP and other companies, better communication within and between BP and its contractors, and effective training of key engineering and rig personnel would have prevented the Macondo incident. BP and other operators must have effective systems in place for integrating the various corporate cultures, internal procedures, and decisionmaking protocols of the many different contractors involved in drilling a deepwater well.
The commission's report also notes in detail that—purposefully or not—nearly every one of the decisions made by BP, Halliburton and Transocean saved those companies time and money. And what's scarier is that under the existing regulations, nearly all of those cost-cutting decisions were perfectly legal—indicating that the Deepwater Horizon was a regulatory failure as well. Unless systematic changes are made in the way the country drills for oil and gas—and regulates that practice—this could happen again:
Notwithstanding [the risks of drilling], the accident of April 20 was avoidable. It resulted from clear mistakes made in the first instance by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, and by government officials who, relying too much on industry's assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risks of deepwater drilling. It is now clear that both industry and government need to reassess and change business practices to minimize the risks of such drilling.
With a Republican-controlled House looking to free business from regulation—including the oil and gas industry—that reformation will only get harder. But the commission report should remind us—just in case we've forgotten—that those changes may be a matter of life or death. That's something any student doctor could tell you
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/01/05/government-commission-the-gulf-oil-spill-was-avoidable%e2%80%94but-corporate-regulatory-mistakes-made-it-virtually-inevitable/#ixzz1AHnYH3PP
Washington Post: Corporate Wrongdoers at Fault in BP Deepwater Horizon "spill" -- BP, Transocean, Halliburton
BP, Transocean, Halliburton blamed by presidential Gulf oil spill commission
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 6, 2011; 12:00 AM
The presidential oil spill commission on Wednesday blamed the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year on "missteps and oversights" by oil giant BP, rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton, saying those errors were "rooted in systemic failures" and could happen again.
The commission said that the April 20 blowout at BP's Macondo well was not inevitable, but rather a failure of management in which officials from all three firms ignored critical warning signs and failed to take precautions that might have delayed the completion of the well but also might have averted the environmental disaster.
In a chapter released from the final report due out next week, the commission said: "The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur."
The document provided a detailed account of the missteps that led to the spill, but most of the details have been revealed in other reports or investigations so far. It recounts fateful decisions by all three major corporate actors, including the failure to use enough centralizers to keep the pipe in the middle of the well, choices about the type of steel pipe used, and failure to heed or share test results suggesting that the cement used to seal the well could fail.
In the case of the failure to use enough centralizers, the report said that "the evidence to date does not unequivocally establish whether" that was a "direct cause" of the blowout, but the commission said that it "illuminates the flaws in BP's management and design procedures, as well as poor communication between BP and Halliburton."
The commission report also cited a Dec. 23, 2009, North Sea incident on one of Transocean's rigs, which the commission said was an "eerily similar near-miss" to what happened at the Macondo well. Though Transocean told the commission the incident was irrelevant, the commission said, "The basic facts of both incidents are the same. Had the rig crew been adequately informed of the prior event and trained on its lessons, events at Macondo may have unfolded very differently."
William K. Reilly, co-chairman of the commission appointed by President Obama, said that the commission had concluded that the blowout reflected "a more pervasive problem" within the oil industry.
"Given the documented failings of both Transocean and Halliburton, both of which serve the offshore industry in virtually every ocean, I reluctantly conclude we have a system-wide problem," Reilly said.
Former senator and commission co-chair Bob Graham stressed the failure of regulators. He said, "The Macondo blowout was the product of several individual missteps and oversights by BP, Halliburton and Transocean, which government regulators lacked the authority, the necessary resources and the technical expertise to prevent."
The Interior Department issued a statement saying that it has "already identified, acknowledged, and spent months working aggressively to reform" offshore drilling. It said it would "continue to make the changes necessary to restore the American people's confidence in the safety and environmental soundness of oil and gas drilling and production on the Outer Continental Shelf."
Last May, President Obama appointed Reilly and Graham to oversee the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and gave them a January 2011 deadline to submit a report. Unlike Congress, the Justice Department or other probes, the oil spill commission lacked subpoena power but still sought to uncover the reasons for the disaster. It also criticized federal regulators and some Obama administration members for their response to the spill.
But the most detailed descriptions in the chapter released Wednesday were of communications and decisions by BP, Transocean and Halliburton.
"The immediate cause of the Macondo blowout was a failure to contain hydrocarbon pressures in the well," the report said. "Three things could have contained those pressures: the cement at the bottom of the well, the mud in the well and in the riser, and the blowout preventer. But mistakes and failures to appreciate risk compromised each of those potential barriers, steadily depriving the rig crew of safeguards until the blowout was inevitable and, at the very end, uncontrollable."
The report highlighted a series of decisions that led to time-saving and cost-saving measures when alternatives were available. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the report showed "that the underlying profits-over-safety pathology may be in temporary remission, but not fully cured."
The report said, "Most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure - a failure of management."
BP said it supports the commission's efforts and "is working with regulators and the industry to ensure that the lessons learned from Macondo lead to improvements in operations and contractor services in deepwater drilling." It said that it has already "instituted significant changes designed to further strengthen safety and risk management."
Transocean, meanwhile, sought to place blame with BP and regulators. "Consistent with industry standards, the procedures being conducted in the final hours were crafted and directed by BP engineers and approved in advance by federal regulators," the company said in a statement. "Based on the limited information made available to them, the Transocean crew took appropriate actions to gain control of the well. They were well trained and considered to be among the best in the business."
Halliburton issued a statement sharply criticizing the presidential commission and BP. It blamed BP for failing to run a cement bond log test, which it called "the only means to test the integrity of the cement bond." It said "had BP properly interpreted the negative tests, the tests would have revealed any problems with the cement job." The company also reiterated disputes about the commission's description of February and April lab tests of cement mixtures as failures, and asserted that Halliburton's engineer on the Deepwater Horizon rig had received notice of satisfactory test results. Halliburton also accused the commission of having "selectively omitted information we provided to them."
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 6, 2011; 12:00 AM
The presidential oil spill commission on Wednesday blamed the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year on "missteps and oversights" by oil giant BP, rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton, saying those errors were "rooted in systemic failures" and could happen again.
The commission said that the April 20 blowout at BP's Macondo well was not inevitable, but rather a failure of management in which officials from all three firms ignored critical warning signs and failed to take precautions that might have delayed the completion of the well but also might have averted the environmental disaster.
In a chapter released from the final report due out next week, the commission said: "The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur."
The document provided a detailed account of the missteps that led to the spill, but most of the details have been revealed in other reports or investigations so far. It recounts fateful decisions by all three major corporate actors, including the failure to use enough centralizers to keep the pipe in the middle of the well, choices about the type of steel pipe used, and failure to heed or share test results suggesting that the cement used to seal the well could fail.
In the case of the failure to use enough centralizers, the report said that "the evidence to date does not unequivocally establish whether" that was a "direct cause" of the blowout, but the commission said that it "illuminates the flaws in BP's management and design procedures, as well as poor communication between BP and Halliburton."
The commission report also cited a Dec. 23, 2009, North Sea incident on one of Transocean's rigs, which the commission said was an "eerily similar near-miss" to what happened at the Macondo well. Though Transocean told the commission the incident was irrelevant, the commission said, "The basic facts of both incidents are the same. Had the rig crew been adequately informed of the prior event and trained on its lessons, events at Macondo may have unfolded very differently."
William K. Reilly, co-chairman of the commission appointed by President Obama, said that the commission had concluded that the blowout reflected "a more pervasive problem" within the oil industry.
"Given the documented failings of both Transocean and Halliburton, both of which serve the offshore industry in virtually every ocean, I reluctantly conclude we have a system-wide problem," Reilly said.
Former senator and commission co-chair Bob Graham stressed the failure of regulators. He said, "The Macondo blowout was the product of several individual missteps and oversights by BP, Halliburton and Transocean, which government regulators lacked the authority, the necessary resources and the technical expertise to prevent."
The Interior Department issued a statement saying that it has "already identified, acknowledged, and spent months working aggressively to reform" offshore drilling. It said it would "continue to make the changes necessary to restore the American people's confidence in the safety and environmental soundness of oil and gas drilling and production on the Outer Continental Shelf."
Last May, President Obama appointed Reilly and Graham to oversee the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and gave them a January 2011 deadline to submit a report. Unlike Congress, the Justice Department or other probes, the oil spill commission lacked subpoena power but still sought to uncover the reasons for the disaster. It also criticized federal regulators and some Obama administration members for their response to the spill.
But the most detailed descriptions in the chapter released Wednesday were of communications and decisions by BP, Transocean and Halliburton.
"The immediate cause of the Macondo blowout was a failure to contain hydrocarbon pressures in the well," the report said. "Three things could have contained those pressures: the cement at the bottom of the well, the mud in the well and in the riser, and the blowout preventer. But mistakes and failures to appreciate risk compromised each of those potential barriers, steadily depriving the rig crew of safeguards until the blowout was inevitable and, at the very end, uncontrollable."
The report highlighted a series of decisions that led to time-saving and cost-saving measures when alternatives were available. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the report showed "that the underlying profits-over-safety pathology may be in temporary remission, but not fully cured."
The report said, "Most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure - a failure of management."
BP said it supports the commission's efforts and "is working with regulators and the industry to ensure that the lessons learned from Macondo lead to improvements in operations and contractor services in deepwater drilling." It said that it has already "instituted significant changes designed to further strengthen safety and risk management."
Transocean, meanwhile, sought to place blame with BP and regulators. "Consistent with industry standards, the procedures being conducted in the final hours were crafted and directed by BP engineers and approved in advance by federal regulators," the company said in a statement. "Based on the limited information made available to them, the Transocean crew took appropriate actions to gain control of the well. They were well trained and considered to be among the best in the business."
Halliburton issued a statement sharply criticizing the presidential commission and BP. It blamed BP for failing to run a cement bond log test, which it called "the only means to test the integrity of the cement bond." It said "had BP properly interpreted the negative tests, the tests would have revealed any problems with the cement job." The company also reiterated disputes about the commission's description of February and April lab tests of cement mixtures as failures, and asserted that Halliburton's engineer on the Deepwater Horizon rig had received notice of satisfactory test results. Halliburton also accused the commission of having "selectively omitted information we provided to them."
Racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic white supermacist website operator convicted of soliciting violence against federal jury foreman
Department of Justice Press Release
white spacer
For Immediate Release
January 5, 2011 United States Attorney's Office
Northern District of Illinois
Contact: (312) 353-5300
Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist William White Convicted of Soliciting Violence Against Hale Jury Foreman
CHICAGO—A self-proclaimed white supremacist was convicted today by a federal jury in Chicago of soliciting violence to the foreman of a federal jury in Chicago that convicted another white supremacist, Matthew Hale, in 2004, federal law enforcement officials announced today. The defendant, William A. White, was found guilty on one count of solicitation, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
White, 33, also known as “Bill White,” of Roanoke, Va., faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Jurors deliberated several hours following a two-day trial before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, of Milwaukee, who was assigned to preside over the case in U.S. District Court in Chicago. A sentencing date was not immediately set.
Judge Adelman initially had dismissed the indictment against White but a federal appeals court in Chicago reinstated the solicitation charge last summer. Today’s verdict is White’s second federal conviction in little more than a year. He is currently serving a 30-month federal sentence that was imposed last April after a federal jury in Roanoke convicted him in December 2009 of three counts of communicating threats in interstate commerce and one count of witness intimidation.
“After one white supremacist was tried, convicted and sentenced for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago, White solicited his followers to retaliate against the foreman of that jury,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “While freedom of speech is among our most cherished rights, the First Amendment does not protect anyone who intends to induce others to kill or injure. It is critical to our system of justice that jurors and judges alike must be free to perform their duties without living in fear.”
According to the evidence at trial, White created and maintained a former website, “Overthrow.com,” which was publicly accessible on the Internet. The website purported to be affiliated with the “American National Socialist Workers Party” (ANSWP), and claimed the organization was comprised of a “convergence of former [white supremacy] ‘movement’ activists who grew disgusted with the general garbage that ‘the movement’ has attracted and who formed the ANSWP under the Command of Bill White.” Members of the ANSWP were described as “National Socialists... who fight for white working people.”
Between Sept. 11 and Oct. 11, 2008, White used the website to solicit another person to injure Juror A on account of Juror A’s role as the foreperson of the jury that convicted Hale, the leader of a white supremacist organization known as the World Church of the Creator, who was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago.
As part of White’s solicitation of violence against Juror A, White posted derogatory comments and personal information about Juror A, including Juror A’s home address and phone numbers, to be posted on the Overthrow.com website on Sept. 11, 2008. The solicitation occurred under circumstances strongly corroborating White’s intent that another person engage in criminal conduct using, attempting to use or threatening the use of force against Juror A.
White was aware that individuals associated with the white supremacist movement, who were the target audience of his website, at times engaged in acts of violence, directed at non-whites, Jews, gays, and persons perceived by white supremacists as acting contrary to their interests. Prior to the solicitation against Juror A, White on multiple occasions caused postings to the website which disclosed what purported to be the home address and/or personal identifying information of individuals who were targets of criticism on the Internet. Certain of these postings during the same time period expressed White’s desire that acts of violence be committed against these specific individuals, including author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, individuals known as the “Jena 6,” a Canadian civil rights lawyer, and syndicated newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ferrara and William Hogan.
white spacer
For Immediate Release
January 5, 2011 United States Attorney's Office
Northern District of Illinois
Contact: (312) 353-5300
Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist William White Convicted of Soliciting Violence Against Hale Jury Foreman
CHICAGO—A self-proclaimed white supremacist was convicted today by a federal jury in Chicago of soliciting violence to the foreman of a federal jury in Chicago that convicted another white supremacist, Matthew Hale, in 2004, federal law enforcement officials announced today. The defendant, William A. White, was found guilty on one count of solicitation, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
White, 33, also known as “Bill White,” of Roanoke, Va., faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Jurors deliberated several hours following a two-day trial before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, of Milwaukee, who was assigned to preside over the case in U.S. District Court in Chicago. A sentencing date was not immediately set.
Judge Adelman initially had dismissed the indictment against White but a federal appeals court in Chicago reinstated the solicitation charge last summer. Today’s verdict is White’s second federal conviction in little more than a year. He is currently serving a 30-month federal sentence that was imposed last April after a federal jury in Roanoke convicted him in December 2009 of three counts of communicating threats in interstate commerce and one count of witness intimidation.
“After one white supremacist was tried, convicted and sentenced for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago, White solicited his followers to retaliate against the foreman of that jury,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “While freedom of speech is among our most cherished rights, the First Amendment does not protect anyone who intends to induce others to kill or injure. It is critical to our system of justice that jurors and judges alike must be free to perform their duties without living in fear.”
According to the evidence at trial, White created and maintained a former website, “Overthrow.com,” which was publicly accessible on the Internet. The website purported to be affiliated with the “American National Socialist Workers Party” (ANSWP), and claimed the organization was comprised of a “convergence of former [white supremacy] ‘movement’ activists who grew disgusted with the general garbage that ‘the movement’ has attracted and who formed the ANSWP under the Command of Bill White.” Members of the ANSWP were described as “National Socialists... who fight for white working people.”
Between Sept. 11 and Oct. 11, 2008, White used the website to solicit another person to injure Juror A on account of Juror A’s role as the foreperson of the jury that convicted Hale, the leader of a white supremacist organization known as the World Church of the Creator, who was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago.
As part of White’s solicitation of violence against Juror A, White posted derogatory comments and personal information about Juror A, including Juror A’s home address and phone numbers, to be posted on the Overthrow.com website on Sept. 11, 2008. The solicitation occurred under circumstances strongly corroborating White’s intent that another person engage in criminal conduct using, attempting to use or threatening the use of force against Juror A.
White was aware that individuals associated with the white supremacist movement, who were the target audience of his website, at times engaged in acts of violence, directed at non-whites, Jews, gays, and persons perceived by white supremacists as acting contrary to their interests. Prior to the solicitation against Juror A, White on multiple occasions caused postings to the website which disclosed what purported to be the home address and/or personal identifying information of individuals who were targets of criticism on the Internet. Certain of these postings during the same time period expressed White’s desire that acts of violence be committed against these specific individuals, including author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, individuals known as the “Jena 6,” a Canadian civil rights lawyer, and syndicated newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ferrara and William Hogan.
Associated Press: Convicted Bribe-taker, Ex-Governor Edwin Edwards To Be Released from Federal Prison This Month
After more than eight years in federal prison, 83-year-old Edwin Edwards will be released to a halfway house sometime in January - but no one's saying precisely when that'll be. And now, word that Edwards has been picked to be the Grand Marshal of the Crowley Rice Festival in October of this year.
The four-term former governor's daughter, Anna Edwards, released a statement Monday saying Edwards' family looks forward to his release from the Oakdale prison. She says Edwards will to be assigned to a halfway house for six months, but would only say the transfer would be in January.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn't release transfer dates.
After Edwards' release from the halfway house, The Crowley Post-Signal reports his presence is requested in Crowley for the annual International Rice Festival, October 20-22. Edwards began his political career in the Crowley City Council in 1954.
Anna Edwards says her father won't be speaking to the media while in the halfway house, citing the Bureau of Prisons' rules.
Edwards went to jail in October 2002 for a bribery and extortion scheme to rig the riverboat casino licensing process.
The four-term former governor's daughter, Anna Edwards, released a statement Monday saying Edwards' family looks forward to his release from the Oakdale prison. She says Edwards will to be assigned to a halfway house for six months, but would only say the transfer would be in January.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn't release transfer dates.
After Edwards' release from the halfway house, The Crowley Post-Signal reports his presence is requested in Crowley for the annual International Rice Festival, October 20-22. Edwards began his political career in the Crowley City Council in 1954.
Anna Edwards says her father won't be speaking to the media while in the halfway house, citing the Bureau of Prisons' rules.
Edwards went to jail in October 2002 for a bribery and extortion scheme to rig the riverboat casino licensing process.
USDOJ Press Release: Virginia Ex-Legislator Indicted for Bribery and Extortion
Department of Justice Press Release
For Immediate Release
January 5, 2011 U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
(202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888
Former Member of Virginia House of Delegates Charged with Bribery and Extortion
WASHINGTON—A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned an indictment today charging Phillip A. Hamilton, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, with allegedly soliciting employees of Old Dominion University (ODU) for a paid position at the same time he was introducing legislation to fund the position, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Hamilton, 58, was charged with one count of federal program bribery and one count of extortion under color of official right. He will make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., tomorrow.
According to the indictment, Hamilton began representing the 93rd District, which includes Newport News and James City County, Va., in 1988. As part of his duties, Hamilton sat on the Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee of the Virginia House Appropriations Committee.
The indictment alleges that from August 2006 through February 2007, Hamilton solicited employees of ODU for a position as director for the ODU Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership. The center’s objective was to train teachers for success in urban school environments. According to the indictment, during this period, Hamilton simultaneously introduced legislation that would establish and fund the center, including his salary as the director.
According to the indictment, in an e-mail to an ODU official on Dec. 21, 2006, stating that the current budget did not include any funding for the center, Hamilton also allegedly indicated that his retirement payments from another source were being reduced in May 2007 and that he would need to supplement his current income. According to the indictment, an ODU official assured Hamilton in December 2006 and January 2007 that if ODU obtained funding from the Virginia General Assembly for the creation of the center, then Hamilton would have a job at the center. During this same period, in January 2007, Hamilton introduced a budget amendment in the House of Delegates to appropriate $1 million in fiscal year 2007-2008 (July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008) for a “Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership.” According to the indictment, Hamilton purposely kept ODU’s name out of the amendment so that it would be assigned to the Elementary & Secondary Education Subcommittee on which he served. The amendment passed the subcommittee and committee unanimously.
On Feb. 24, 2007, after a conference between the Virginia house and senate that resulted in an amendment to appropriate $500,000 to ODU for the center—for which Hamilton voted in favor—the budget bill was passed. The next day, according to the indictment, Hamilton and ODU officials exchanged e-mails about Hamilton receiving the director job. According to the indictment, approximately three people applied in response to a job posting for the position; however, none of them were interviewed. Hamilton, who was awarded the job, never submitted an application.
In June 2007, Hamilton and an ODU official signed an employee contract indicating, among other things, that Hamilton would direct the center and seek continual funding for the center. The contract also stated that Hamilton would be paid $40,000 per year. From approximately July 2007 through July 2009, Hamilton collected approximately $80,000 from ODU.
The indictment also alleges that Hamilton took numerous steps to conceal this arrangement, including telling ODU officials not to mention his name in connection with the center to members of the Virginia Senate Finance Committee; allegedly advising an ODU official to tell a Virginia senate staffer that the official, and not Hamilton, was the director of the center; and, unsuccessfully attempting to persuade ODU leadership not to release incriminating e-mails in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that ODU had received.
If convicted, Hamilton faces maximum penalties of up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge, and up to 20 years in prison on the extortion charge. The indictment also seeks forfeiture.
An indictment is merely an allegation and a defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney David V. Harbach II of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Seidel Jr. of the Eastern District of Virginia. The case was investigated by the FBI.
For Immediate Release
January 5, 2011 U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
(202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888
Former Member of Virginia House of Delegates Charged with Bribery and Extortion
WASHINGTON—A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned an indictment today charging Phillip A. Hamilton, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, with allegedly soliciting employees of Old Dominion University (ODU) for a paid position at the same time he was introducing legislation to fund the position, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Hamilton, 58, was charged with one count of federal program bribery and one count of extortion under color of official right. He will make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., tomorrow.
According to the indictment, Hamilton began representing the 93rd District, which includes Newport News and James City County, Va., in 1988. As part of his duties, Hamilton sat on the Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee of the Virginia House Appropriations Committee.
The indictment alleges that from August 2006 through February 2007, Hamilton solicited employees of ODU for a position as director for the ODU Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership. The center’s objective was to train teachers for success in urban school environments. According to the indictment, during this period, Hamilton simultaneously introduced legislation that would establish and fund the center, including his salary as the director.
According to the indictment, in an e-mail to an ODU official on Dec. 21, 2006, stating that the current budget did not include any funding for the center, Hamilton also allegedly indicated that his retirement payments from another source were being reduced in May 2007 and that he would need to supplement his current income. According to the indictment, an ODU official assured Hamilton in December 2006 and January 2007 that if ODU obtained funding from the Virginia General Assembly for the creation of the center, then Hamilton would have a job at the center. During this same period, in January 2007, Hamilton introduced a budget amendment in the House of Delegates to appropriate $1 million in fiscal year 2007-2008 (July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008) for a “Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership.” According to the indictment, Hamilton purposely kept ODU’s name out of the amendment so that it would be assigned to the Elementary & Secondary Education Subcommittee on which he served. The amendment passed the subcommittee and committee unanimously.
On Feb. 24, 2007, after a conference between the Virginia house and senate that resulted in an amendment to appropriate $500,000 to ODU for the center—for which Hamilton voted in favor—the budget bill was passed. The next day, according to the indictment, Hamilton and ODU officials exchanged e-mails about Hamilton receiving the director job. According to the indictment, approximately three people applied in response to a job posting for the position; however, none of them were interviewed. Hamilton, who was awarded the job, never submitted an application.
In June 2007, Hamilton and an ODU official signed an employee contract indicating, among other things, that Hamilton would direct the center and seek continual funding for the center. The contract also stated that Hamilton would be paid $40,000 per year. From approximately July 2007 through July 2009, Hamilton collected approximately $80,000 from ODU.
The indictment also alleges that Hamilton took numerous steps to conceal this arrangement, including telling ODU officials not to mention his name in connection with the center to members of the Virginia Senate Finance Committee; allegedly advising an ODU official to tell a Virginia senate staffer that the official, and not Hamilton, was the director of the center; and, unsuccessfully attempting to persuade ODU leadership not to release incriminating e-mails in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that ODU had received.
If convicted, Hamilton faces maximum penalties of up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge, and up to 20 years in prison on the extortion charge. The indictment also seeks forfeiture.
An indictment is merely an allegation and a defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney David V. Harbach II of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Seidel Jr. of the Eastern District of Virginia. The case was investigated by the FBI.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Science Line re: Cleanup of Uranium Mines on Native American Indian Reservations
Abandoned Uranium Mines: An “Overwhelming Problem” in the Navajo Nation
A look at one uranium mine shows how
difficult it will be to clean up the reservation’s
hundreds of abandoned Cold War-era mines
by Francie Diep, posted in "Environment" on Science Line,
December 30 2010
http://www.scienceline.org/2010/12/an-%E2%80%9Coverwhelming-problem%E2%80%9D-in-the-navajo-nation/
There’s an old uranium mine on rancher Larry Gordy’s grazing land near Cameron, Arizona. Like hundreds of other abandoned mines in the Navajo Nation, the United States’ largest Indian reservation, it looks as if it might still be in usetailings, or waste products of uranium processing, are still piled everywhere, and the land isn’t fenced off.“It looks like Mars,” said Marsha Monestersky, program director of Forgotten People, an advocacy organization for the western region of the vast Navajo Nation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embroiled in a massive effort to assess 520 open abandoned uranium mines all over the vast reservation. (Forgotten People says there are even more mines on Navajo land: about 1,300.) Earlier this month, the cleanup got a boost from a bankruptcy settlement with Oklahoma City-based chemical company Tronox Inc., which will give federal and Navajo Nation officials $14.5 million to address the reservation’s uranium contamination.
During the Cold War, private companies like Tronox’s parent company, Kerr-McGee Corp., operated uranium mines under U.S. government contracts, removing four million tons of ore that went into making nuclear weapons and fuel. When demand dried up with the end of the era, companies simply abandoned their mines as they were.
The remediation work started ten years ago, when the EPA mapped the mines by investigating company records and surveying the land with helicopters equipped with radiation detectors. They are now halfway through visiting mines to determine their radiation levels. “It’s an overwhelming problem,” said Clancy Tenley, EPA assistant director for the region.
The mines expose Navajo Nation residents to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated drinking water. Many residents’ homes were built using mud and rocks near mines, and some of that building material is radioactive. There are few published studies on the effects of uranium mines on nearby residents, but researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of New Mexico are working on health assessments, according to EPA officials. Researchers have known for decades that uranium exposure increases the risk of lung and bone cancers and kidney damage.
In July, the leaders of Forgotten People began pushing the EPA to begin cleanup in Cameron because they were worried about the effects of the mines there on ranchers like Gordy, whose cattle drink and graze on uranium-contaminated land. Their tussle with the agency highlights the difficulties the EPA faces in all stages of its cleanup, which will likely take decades. The uranium mine Gordy found wasn’t even included in the EPA’s original atlas. “We’re grateful to [Monestersky] for pointing that out to us,” said Tenley, the agency spokesman. He initially said the EPA would visit the site within six months but publicity over conditions there apparently prompted a change of heart.
Instead, EPA contractors assessed the site November 9. A scientist who participated wouldn’t discuss what he found without EPA officials present, and agency officials couldn’t be reached for comment. However, Lee Greer, a biologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, California, was part of a conference call about the assessment’s results. Greer has been working with Forgotten People to record radiation levels at sites that interest the advocacy group. He said the EPA contractors found radiation levels at the mine that were higher than the EPA’s Geiger counters could measure.
The accelerated assessment of Gordy’s ranch came six days after Greer presented his radiation results from the site to the Geological Society of America. A geologist who was present at the society meeting said that, based on Greer’s findings, a cleanup of the mine should be a high priority. “The sooner, the better,” said Michael Phillips, a professor at Illinois Valley Community College. Because the uranium at this mine is on the surface of the land, people and animals are more likely to come in contact with it, he added.
But the preliminary assessment of the site is just the first step on a long road to a cleanup that is years and possibly even decades away. The time lag between an assessment and a remediation job depends on what scientists find at a particular mine, said Andrew Bain, EPA remediation project manager. The U.S.’s five-year plan for the Navajo Nation’s uranium mines only covers assessment, not cleanup. The EPA started remediating the reservation’s largest mine, the Northeast Church Rock Mine in New Mexico, in 2005, and doesn’t expect to finish until 2019. “We have no estimate for how long it’ll take to clean up all the mines,” Tenley said.
As for the price tag, the recent Tronox settlement will only cover a fraction of the overall cleanup. Just assessing the uranium mines in the Navajo Nation costs the EPA about $12 million every year, said Tenley. Remediation would cost more, he added. How much more? “In the hundreds of millions,” he said.
All this means a long wait for residents like Gordy, though they’ve already waited more than twenty years since the close of the Cold War. “It’s taking forever to get it cleaned up,” said Don Yellowman, president of Forgotten People. “It seems like everyone’s aware but nobody’s taking notice. We don’t understand.”
A look at one uranium mine shows how
difficult it will be to clean up the reservation’s
hundreds of abandoned Cold War-era mines
by Francie Diep, posted in "Environment" on Science Line,
December 30 2010
http://www.scienceline.org/2010/12/an-%E2%80%9Coverwhelming-problem%E2%80%9D-in-the-navajo-nation/
There’s an old uranium mine on rancher Larry Gordy’s grazing land near Cameron, Arizona. Like hundreds of other abandoned mines in the Navajo Nation, the United States’ largest Indian reservation, it looks as if it might still be in usetailings, or waste products of uranium processing, are still piled everywhere, and the land isn’t fenced off.“It looks like Mars,” said Marsha Monestersky, program director of Forgotten People, an advocacy organization for the western region of the vast Navajo Nation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embroiled in a massive effort to assess 520 open abandoned uranium mines all over the vast reservation. (Forgotten People says there are even more mines on Navajo land: about 1,300.) Earlier this month, the cleanup got a boost from a bankruptcy settlement with Oklahoma City-based chemical company Tronox Inc., which will give federal and Navajo Nation officials $14.5 million to address the reservation’s uranium contamination.
During the Cold War, private companies like Tronox’s parent company, Kerr-McGee Corp., operated uranium mines under U.S. government contracts, removing four million tons of ore that went into making nuclear weapons and fuel. When demand dried up with the end of the era, companies simply abandoned their mines as they were.
The remediation work started ten years ago, when the EPA mapped the mines by investigating company records and surveying the land with helicopters equipped with radiation detectors. They are now halfway through visiting mines to determine their radiation levels. “It’s an overwhelming problem,” said Clancy Tenley, EPA assistant director for the region.
The mines expose Navajo Nation residents to uranium through airborne dust and contaminated drinking water. Many residents’ homes were built using mud and rocks near mines, and some of that building material is radioactive. There are few published studies on the effects of uranium mines on nearby residents, but researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of New Mexico are working on health assessments, according to EPA officials. Researchers have known for decades that uranium exposure increases the risk of lung and bone cancers and kidney damage.
In July, the leaders of Forgotten People began pushing the EPA to begin cleanup in Cameron because they were worried about the effects of the mines there on ranchers like Gordy, whose cattle drink and graze on uranium-contaminated land. Their tussle with the agency highlights the difficulties the EPA faces in all stages of its cleanup, which will likely take decades. The uranium mine Gordy found wasn’t even included in the EPA’s original atlas. “We’re grateful to [Monestersky] for pointing that out to us,” said Tenley, the agency spokesman. He initially said the EPA would visit the site within six months but publicity over conditions there apparently prompted a change of heart.
Instead, EPA contractors assessed the site November 9. A scientist who participated wouldn’t discuss what he found without EPA officials present, and agency officials couldn’t be reached for comment. However, Lee Greer, a biologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, California, was part of a conference call about the assessment’s results. Greer has been working with Forgotten People to record radiation levels at sites that interest the advocacy group. He said the EPA contractors found radiation levels at the mine that were higher than the EPA’s Geiger counters could measure.
The accelerated assessment of Gordy’s ranch came six days after Greer presented his radiation results from the site to the Geological Society of America. A geologist who was present at the society meeting said that, based on Greer’s findings, a cleanup of the mine should be a high priority. “The sooner, the better,” said Michael Phillips, a professor at Illinois Valley Community College. Because the uranium at this mine is on the surface of the land, people and animals are more likely to come in contact with it, he added.
But the preliminary assessment of the site is just the first step on a long road to a cleanup that is years and possibly even decades away. The time lag between an assessment and a remediation job depends on what scientists find at a particular mine, said Andrew Bain, EPA remediation project manager. The U.S.’s five-year plan for the Navajo Nation’s uranium mines only covers assessment, not cleanup. The EPA started remediating the reservation’s largest mine, the Northeast Church Rock Mine in New Mexico, in 2005, and doesn’t expect to finish until 2019. “We have no estimate for how long it’ll take to clean up all the mines,” Tenley said.
As for the price tag, the recent Tronox settlement will only cover a fraction of the overall cleanup. Just assessing the uranium mines in the Navajo Nation costs the EPA about $12 million every year, said Tenley. Remediation would cost more, he added. How much more? “In the hundreds of millions,” he said.
All this means a long wait for residents like Gordy, though they’ve already waited more than twenty years since the close of the Cold War. “It’s taking forever to get it cleaned up,” said Don Yellowman, president of Forgotten People. “It seems like everyone’s aware but nobody’s taking notice. We don’t understand.”
IN HAEC VERBA: Dan Yurman's Proposal for Nuclear Industry to Give Awards to Journalistic Lapdogs
Finding journalistic excellence in the nuclear industry: my proposal
Posted January 1, 2011 by Dan Yurman
There is no shortage of coverage. The question is how good is it?
This is a proposal for the American Nuclear Society (ANS) to annually make awards to the mainstream news media for excellence in coverage of nuclear science, engineering, and the global industry. (see disclaimer below)
The purpose of the award(s) is to recognize excellence in covering a complex subject. The awards will send a message to the mainstream media that the nuclear industry recognizes excellence in media coverage of the profession and the industry. The published items receiving the awards will become benchmarks for other media to follow.
The nuclear renaissance faces some challenging times ahead. Examples of issues that will get media coverage include financing and raising money, changes to electricity markets, competition from other fuels like natural gas, and progress by state-owned nuclear energy firms that are gaining market share in Asia. The U.S. is sliding into second or third place standing globally with a technology it developed and made a commercial success.
Background
Nuclear science, engineering, and the global industry are difficult topics for general assignment reporters in any media. Retrenchment in the media have diminished the number of science reporters working at the nation's top 50 daily newspapers and elsewhere. Outside of the trade press, few reporters have technical expertise.
Instead, often they rely on the “he said / she said” model when covering the nuclear industry. It’s a lot more interesting and most readers do not object to the entertainment. Even smart guys can be wrong. Al Gore once famously testified that nuclear reactors only come in one size – large. The bright commercial future for small modular reactors is a story the news media is just beginning to grasp.
Online comments of news media coverage of the nuclear industry have generated many critical reviews, and praise, about the quality of mainstream journalism coverage of the nuclear industry. There is no shortage of coverage. The issue is how good is it? Some examples leave you wondering about the answer to that question.
OopsIn 2009 the Bloomberg wire service confused an inventory of yellowcake with weapons grade materials. Although the inventory was held by an investment bank, the story genuinely worried what the Wall Street pin stripe crowd might do with it.
In 2010 the New York Times published an OP ED by Bob Herbert which was so off the mark that the normally staid Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) called it “a hatchet job.”
Even anti-nuclear groups sometimes can’t get their facts straight. For instance, the Union of Concerned Scientists recently published an article on nuclear safety that took seriously some misguided humor at a university research reactor. The issue was a bogus sign in the restroom that said, “don’t flush the toilet when the reactor is running.” UCS worried the office building plumbing was tied into the reactor cooling system.
On a more serious note, reporters complain that their editors get cross-eyed when they file copy including radiation measurements. The sensational aspects of what the industry considers to be routine events are exploited by TV crews competing for a slot on the 11 PM news.
Finding news stories to praise for their accuracy and even handed treatment of coverage of the nuclear industry can take on the qualities of a scavenger hunt. Some newspapers are posting excellent coverage of the nuclear industry at online blogs which do not appear in the print editions.
reporter2Given the perilous financial position of some newspapers, reduced advertising budgets have diminished the number of physical pages a paper can print, the so-called "news hole." This results in squeezing out coverage of all manner of important topics and not just nuclear energy.
The result is more coverage of the nuclear industry is online and often in specialized venues rather than the mainstream media. This isn’t a good trend for increasing public understanding of the industry. Nuclear energy blogs, including this one, can’t close the gap. A lot of serious coverage is behind subscription firewalls for the nuclear energy trade press.
Potential examples of awards
There are many types of journalism awards. These are some suggested topics for this one. The actual criteria will need more definition.
* Explanatory journalism which uses the resources of a news organization to illuminate a complex issue involving nuclear science, engineering, or relevant aspects of the global industry which makes the subject more understandable to readers.
-- Examples include reporting, photographs, online material, editorials, or a combination of these media. The focus can be national or international.
* Local reporting of breaking news with an emphasis on the accuracy of the initial and subsequent coverage presented in print or online or both.
* Investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series, in print or online or both.
* Feature writing in a print magazine or online publication.
* OP ED pieces or editorials.
* Books
* Television news, online video, films,
* Other electronic content including radio.
Selection Process
In this proposal I suggest that The ANS Public Information Committee (PIC) solicit nominations through various means (to be determined) and convene a review panel to make the selection. The panel will develop criteria and use them to make the award(s).
The review panel will include at a minimum a nuclear industry professional, a senior member of the faculty of a leading journalism school, and the editor of ANS Nuclear News. One member of PIC will be the point of contact for the group and will also serve on the panel. No member of the selection panel, nor the parent public information committee, will be eligible for an award.
Timing
The panel will have the objective of making an annual award at the ANS winter meeting. The awards will consist of a certificate, plaque, and publicity about them to the mainstream media through press releases to trade and professional publications in the journalism field.
The ANS Public Information Committee has enough time to get the award approved and to complete the process of giving at least one award next November in Washington, DC.
Feedback
Please circulate this proposal to your colleagues in the nuclear industry and news media.
Please post comments here or email comments to me at: djysrv@gmail.com
I will send an updated proposal in February 2011 to the ANS Public Information Committee for its consideration. Note to readers: I am a member of ANS and of the public information committee.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this informal proposal are my own and not necessarily those of the American Nuclear Society.
# # #
Idaho Samizdat ~ http://djysrv.blogspot.com
* 952 reads
* Feed: Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes
* Original article
About the Author Dan Yurman publishes a blog on nuclear energy titled 'Idaho Samizdat' http://djysrv.blogspot.com. It covers the nuclear energy industry globally including new reactor investments, economics, politics, and technologies. Dan is a contributing reporter for Fuel Cycle Week, a nuclear industry trade newsletter which covers the global fuel cycle. His beat is uranium mining in the U.S. and Canada.
Posted January 1, 2011 by Dan Yurman
There is no shortage of coverage. The question is how good is it?
This is a proposal for the American Nuclear Society (ANS) to annually make awards to the mainstream news media for excellence in coverage of nuclear science, engineering, and the global industry. (see disclaimer below)
The purpose of the award(s) is to recognize excellence in covering a complex subject. The awards will send a message to the mainstream media that the nuclear industry recognizes excellence in media coverage of the profession and the industry. The published items receiving the awards will become benchmarks for other media to follow.
The nuclear renaissance faces some challenging times ahead. Examples of issues that will get media coverage include financing and raising money, changes to electricity markets, competition from other fuels like natural gas, and progress by state-owned nuclear energy firms that are gaining market share in Asia. The U.S. is sliding into second or third place standing globally with a technology it developed and made a commercial success.
Background
Nuclear science, engineering, and the global industry are difficult topics for general assignment reporters in any media. Retrenchment in the media have diminished the number of science reporters working at the nation's top 50 daily newspapers and elsewhere. Outside of the trade press, few reporters have technical expertise.
Instead, often they rely on the “he said / she said” model when covering the nuclear industry. It’s a lot more interesting and most readers do not object to the entertainment. Even smart guys can be wrong. Al Gore once famously testified that nuclear reactors only come in one size – large. The bright commercial future for small modular reactors is a story the news media is just beginning to grasp.
Online comments of news media coverage of the nuclear industry have generated many critical reviews, and praise, about the quality of mainstream journalism coverage of the nuclear industry. There is no shortage of coverage. The issue is how good is it? Some examples leave you wondering about the answer to that question.
OopsIn 2009 the Bloomberg wire service confused an inventory of yellowcake with weapons grade materials. Although the inventory was held by an investment bank, the story genuinely worried what the Wall Street pin stripe crowd might do with it.
In 2010 the New York Times published an OP ED by Bob Herbert which was so off the mark that the normally staid Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) called it “a hatchet job.”
Even anti-nuclear groups sometimes can’t get their facts straight. For instance, the Union of Concerned Scientists recently published an article on nuclear safety that took seriously some misguided humor at a university research reactor. The issue was a bogus sign in the restroom that said, “don’t flush the toilet when the reactor is running.” UCS worried the office building plumbing was tied into the reactor cooling system.
On a more serious note, reporters complain that their editors get cross-eyed when they file copy including radiation measurements. The sensational aspects of what the industry considers to be routine events are exploited by TV crews competing for a slot on the 11 PM news.
Finding news stories to praise for their accuracy and even handed treatment of coverage of the nuclear industry can take on the qualities of a scavenger hunt. Some newspapers are posting excellent coverage of the nuclear industry at online blogs which do not appear in the print editions.
reporter2Given the perilous financial position of some newspapers, reduced advertising budgets have diminished the number of physical pages a paper can print, the so-called "news hole." This results in squeezing out coverage of all manner of important topics and not just nuclear energy.
The result is more coverage of the nuclear industry is online and often in specialized venues rather than the mainstream media. This isn’t a good trend for increasing public understanding of the industry. Nuclear energy blogs, including this one, can’t close the gap. A lot of serious coverage is behind subscription firewalls for the nuclear energy trade press.
Potential examples of awards
There are many types of journalism awards. These are some suggested topics for this one. The actual criteria will need more definition.
* Explanatory journalism which uses the resources of a news organization to illuminate a complex issue involving nuclear science, engineering, or relevant aspects of the global industry which makes the subject more understandable to readers.
-- Examples include reporting, photographs, online material, editorials, or a combination of these media. The focus can be national or international.
* Local reporting of breaking news with an emphasis on the accuracy of the initial and subsequent coverage presented in print or online or both.
* Investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series, in print or online or both.
* Feature writing in a print magazine or online publication.
* OP ED pieces or editorials.
* Books
* Television news, online video, films,
* Other electronic content including radio.
Selection Process
In this proposal I suggest that The ANS Public Information Committee (PIC) solicit nominations through various means (to be determined) and convene a review panel to make the selection. The panel will develop criteria and use them to make the award(s).
The review panel will include at a minimum a nuclear industry professional, a senior member of the faculty of a leading journalism school, and the editor of ANS Nuclear News. One member of PIC will be the point of contact for the group and will also serve on the panel. No member of the selection panel, nor the parent public information committee, will be eligible for an award.
Timing
The panel will have the objective of making an annual award at the ANS winter meeting. The awards will consist of a certificate, plaque, and publicity about them to the mainstream media through press releases to trade and professional publications in the journalism field.
The ANS Public Information Committee has enough time to get the award approved and to complete the process of giving at least one award next November in Washington, DC.
Feedback
Please circulate this proposal to your colleagues in the nuclear industry and news media.
Please post comments here or email comments to me at: djysrv@gmail.com
I will send an updated proposal in February 2011 to the ANS Public Information Committee for its consideration. Note to readers: I am a member of ANS and of the public information committee.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this informal proposal are my own and not necessarily those of the American Nuclear Society.
# # #
Idaho Samizdat ~ http://djysrv.blogspot.com
* 952 reads
* Feed: Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes
* Original article
About the Author Dan Yurman publishes a blog on nuclear energy titled 'Idaho Samizdat' http://djysrv.blogspot.com. It covers the nuclear energy industry globally including new reactor investments, economics, politics, and technologies. Dan is a contributing reporter for Fuel Cycle Week, a nuclear industry trade newsletter which covers the global fuel cycle. His beat is uranium mining in the U.S. and Canada.
Peter Schorsch on St. Petersblog re: AG Pam Bondi's "Brilliant" Hiring of Dave Aronberg
Tying to drive from Tally to the ‘burg in under four hours, I thought up the idea for a new series of posts called “Takeaways from Tallahassee” in which I will do my best to offer some analysis, in bursts of insightful nuggets, on what is really going on in the state capital. Here are my five takeaways from Inauguration Week.
No matter what you may hear about official numbers regarding attendance in Rick Scott’s inaugural events, participation was still rather low-key. Yes, Tallahassee is a company town and that company is government, but it’s still a Democratic town and a lot of folks stayed home or sat on their hands.
Besides Rick Scott’s friends and family, the most excited participants in the inaugural festivities really were the establishment Republican lobbyists but not because they were celebrating; it’s that they actually get and understand Rick Scott. The brutal truth is Jeb Bush was the son of a president and, at the time of his inauguration, did not entirely respect the old hands that really run this town. By that same token, many of the senior Republican lobbyists didn’t exactly respect Charlie Crist. But these guys respect Rick Scott. Many of them still work with or were themselves business executives. In Rick Scott, they see a kindred spirit.
The political powerplay of the month does not belong to Rick Scott or Marco Rubio, but to Pam Bondi. Her hiring of Dave Aronberg to serve as a Special Counsel dedicated to prosecuting “pill mill” cases is the Florida equivalent of Barack Obama naming HIllary Clinton as Secretary of State. Bondi just took her most likely political opponent in 2014 and made him part of her team. And it’s just good public policy. Absolutely brilliant.
(There’s a new term being bantered about in Tallahassee: “Aronberg Democrats” – progressive-minded politicians, lobbyists, staffers and operatives not worried about reaching across the aisle to work with the new administration.)
I ran into the St. Petersburg Times‘ capital bureau a couple of times and was struck by what an interesting mix of personalities they have working for the newspaper of record. The additions of Michael Bender and Janet Zink to Steve Bousquet and Adam Smith reminds me of how the Red Sox and Yankees go out every off-season and sign blockbuster free-agent deals. In other words, the St. Petersburg Times does not rebuild, it reloads. (Of course, the Times really does need to do something about the Buzz – the redesign of that website was a step backward, not forward.)
Most important person in Tallahassee? It may be Rick Scott, but a close second is Mike Haridopolos. Dean Cannon may have his shock troops in the Florida House, but there’s been an arch-conservative Florida House for almost 16 years. To have a staunchly conservative Senate is an entirely different matter. Every move being made in Tally is evaluated on its prospects in the Senate (which partially relies on how it impacts Haridopolos’ run for the US Senate). Scott and Haridopolos may be the most important two men in Tallahasee, but the real “star” is Jennifer Carroll. She really does light up a room — or an auditorium, as I witnessed on Sunday. As LG, she may not have much to do, but if all she does is walk the Capitol and travel the state promoting the Scott agenda, she will still be a force.
Then again, without a Bush in office and with Charlie Crist licking his wounds in St. Petersburg, the overall wattage in Tallahassee has dimmed a little. It’ll be interesting to see who lights up the town.
No matter what you may hear about official numbers regarding attendance in Rick Scott’s inaugural events, participation was still rather low-key. Yes, Tallahassee is a company town and that company is government, but it’s still a Democratic town and a lot of folks stayed home or sat on their hands.
Besides Rick Scott’s friends and family, the most excited participants in the inaugural festivities really were the establishment Republican lobbyists but not because they were celebrating; it’s that they actually get and understand Rick Scott. The brutal truth is Jeb Bush was the son of a president and, at the time of his inauguration, did not entirely respect the old hands that really run this town. By that same token, many of the senior Republican lobbyists didn’t exactly respect Charlie Crist. But these guys respect Rick Scott. Many of them still work with or were themselves business executives. In Rick Scott, they see a kindred spirit.
The political powerplay of the month does not belong to Rick Scott or Marco Rubio, but to Pam Bondi. Her hiring of Dave Aronberg to serve as a Special Counsel dedicated to prosecuting “pill mill” cases is the Florida equivalent of Barack Obama naming HIllary Clinton as Secretary of State. Bondi just took her most likely political opponent in 2014 and made him part of her team. And it’s just good public policy. Absolutely brilliant.
(There’s a new term being bantered about in Tallahassee: “Aronberg Democrats” – progressive-minded politicians, lobbyists, staffers and operatives not worried about reaching across the aisle to work with the new administration.)
I ran into the St. Petersburg Times‘ capital bureau a couple of times and was struck by what an interesting mix of personalities they have working for the newspaper of record. The additions of Michael Bender and Janet Zink to Steve Bousquet and Adam Smith reminds me of how the Red Sox and Yankees go out every off-season and sign blockbuster free-agent deals. In other words, the St. Petersburg Times does not rebuild, it reloads. (Of course, the Times really does need to do something about the Buzz – the redesign of that website was a step backward, not forward.)
Most important person in Tallahassee? It may be Rick Scott, but a close second is Mike Haridopolos. Dean Cannon may have his shock troops in the Florida House, but there’s been an arch-conservative Florida House for almost 16 years. To have a staunchly conservative Senate is an entirely different matter. Every move being made in Tally is evaluated on its prospects in the Senate (which partially relies on how it impacts Haridopolos’ run for the US Senate). Scott and Haridopolos may be the most important two men in Tallahasee, but the real “star” is Jennifer Carroll. She really does light up a room — or an auditorium, as I witnessed on Sunday. As LG, she may not have much to do, but if all she does is walk the Capitol and travel the state promoting the Scott agenda, she will still be a force.
Then again, without a Bush in office and with Charlie Crist licking his wounds in St. Petersburg, the overall wattage in Tallahassee has dimmed a little. It’ll be interesting to see who lights up the town.
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