It's time to update the old lawyer joke. Q: How can you tell when BP is telling a lie? A: Their lips are moving. There is no reason at all to believe anything they say. None. The Obama administration does appear to be waking up to this news. It's late and it's still shocking to imagine they've been so gullible but better late than never, as they say.
BP admitted it is capturing less oil than initially estimated from the broken well in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday, and the group is ramping up efforts to try yet another scheme to plug the leak.The administration is also updating the responsibility for BP now that oil has reached land. They're also now using their own labs as opposed to BP-owned labs and calling for more transparency. This is definitely a move in the right direction.
The mile-long pipe siphoning oil and gas from the broken well for the past eight days is the first successful effort to contain the leak conservatively estimated to be pumping out 5,000 barrels of oil per day. But since the so-called "riser insertion tube tool" (RITT) went into operation it has collected an average of just 1,885 barrels per day, according to the latest statistics – far from the 3,000 barrels estimated last week.
Adding to BP's woes, Jackson said that the company is liable for environmental fines and penalties now that oil has reached land. And the Commerce Department declared a "fisheries disaster" for the waters off Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, making the company responsible for compensating losses to the fishing industry.
BP's dressing down came on a day when a bipartisan cast of lawmakers and federal officials voiced unstinting criticism of the company as toxic oil washed up on nearly 75 miles of Louisiana marshland.
In refusing to rely on BP's data on the toxicity of dispersants, Jackson said, "I'd rather have my own scientists do their own analysis."
