Do you remember the Deepwater Horizon? That was the rig that blew out in 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing a still-undetermined but massive amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling both the Gulf and the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle.Well, just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced what settlement had been reached between BP, the oil company responsible for the rig, and the Justice Department.
As part of this settlement, we were loudly told, BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges including, we were loudly told, 11 charges of manslaughter for the deaths of the workers and one of obstruction of justice for lying to Congress about how much oil was spilling out.
The company was hit with, we were loudly told, a record criminal penalty of $1.3 billion plus another $2.7 billion in fines to various federal agencies, plus, we were loudly told, another $525 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle securities charges.
We were loudly told all of that, and all of this is true.
This is the part that was whispered: The total fines of $4.5 billion will be paid out over five years, or $900 million a year.
This is the part they didn't say at all: In 2011, BP recorded revenue of over $234 billion, with net income - that is, profit - of $16 billion. The total fine for 14 felony counts could be paid all at once with just one week of that one year's income, in fact with less than 15 weeks of that one year's profits. Since it's to be paid out over five years, at that rate we're talking less than two days income or just three weeks profit per year. Consider that in the most recent quarter, the one that ended September 30, BP netted, profited, $5.4 billion - $1 billion more than the total of the fines, in just three months.
BP still faces the possibility of other civil fines from the government under, for example, the Clean Water Act. It also faces civil suits from private individuals and, in what might be the most usual aspect of the whole thing, four lower-level executives have been criminally charged as individuals.
But look what we've got here: Corporations are people, remember? That's what the Supreme Court declared in the Citizens United case. For legal purposes, corporations are people, are legal persons. So what we have here is this legal person pleading guilty to 14 felonies including the deaths of 11 people and their total penalty is a fine equal to one week's wages. And this, we were also loudly told by some, is "fair" and "appropriate."
I say it's a moral outrage.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/bp-oil-spill-fine_n_2137339.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/bp-oil-spill_n_2136063.html
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