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Fidel Castro says the spreading oil slick fouling the Gulf of Mexico is proof that the world's most powerful governments cannot control large corporations that now dictate the public's destiny.
Officials are rushing to seal an underwater oil gusher triggered after a deep-water rig operated by BP PLC exploded and sank on April 20, killing 11 people. It still is unclear whether some of the 3 million gallons of spilled crude could eventually reach Cuba's shores - though government scientists have appeared on state television to say the island is not immediately at risk.
In an opinion piece published by state media on Saturday, Castro said the disaster "shows how little governments can do against those who control the capital, who in both the United States and Europe are, due to the economy of our globalized planet, those who decide the destiny of the public."
Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post reveals.
Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.
The exemption came less than one month after BP had requested it in a March 10 "exploration plan" submitted to the MMS. The plan said that because a spill was "unlikely," no additional "mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources." BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."
Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post that the Obama administration's exemption effectively "put BP entirely in control," adding, "The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans."
...Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class interests....
Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.
Originally posted by On the Edge
Yep,what else is new?
"Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig from Regulatory Requirement"
The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.
BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."
...Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class interests....