Remember the rumors a few months ago that BP was restructuring itself so it could file for bankruptcy and avoid paying for the cleanup? A couple of people accused me of being too cynical. Hah!
Now they’re crying poor mouth:
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company says a ban would also imperil the ambitious Gulf Coast restoration efforts that officials want the company to voluntarily support.
BP executives insist that they have not backed away from their commitment to the White House to set aside $20 billion in an escrow fund over the next four years to pay damage claims and government penalties stemming from the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The explosion killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of oil into the gulf.
Susie, you’re not cynical just pragmatic with a keen sense of what corporations have been doing for years. I’m not sure if I mentioned the B-word here, but I know I said it at least once in comments someplace. Bankruptcy has been the corporate out for so many things, like overturning pension obligations, contracts for salaries and working conditions, why wouldn’t BP try to instigate it?
It might have been over at C&L and not here, but I remember commenters telling me there was “no way Obama would allow that to happen.” Sometimes my brain doesn’t have enough room to hold all that crazy.
There was a movement out there early on in the disaster to petition the Administration to move to take over BP in the public interest—-of course, we have an Administration with zero balls, so that never happened. And, just like Suze and so many others predicted, BP is exercising its right as a private company to screw the public till it gets tired of screwing.
There’s a B-word in this, alright. It’s called Blackmail.
How much did BP spend on publicity over the last three months? 100 Million?
But then again, I’ve been saying “nationalize” for four years or so.