HippoBLOGamus

As Congress cranks up its cumbersome powers of subpoena to investigate the British Petroleum “shortcuts” in deepwater drilling that are spewing filth into the life of the Gulf, observers would be well advised to ratchet up their own powers of cynical imagination, for there is evidence at hand that BP has little regard for human life, let alone that of dolphins, birds and the nation’s wetlands.

As an official of the United Steelworkers, which represents BP employees at its Texas City refinery where rank corporate disregard for minimal safety standards cost the lives of 15 workers as the result of a massive explosion earlier in the decade, I had occasion to view the findings of lawyers representing the claims of family members of those killed.

What discovery had “discovered” was a host of e-mails, memos and corporate communiqués that documented BP management’s willful disregard for human life. Indeed, these documents revealed that BP had carefully calculated the potential loss of life that might be caused by the “cost-saving” shortcuts on safety the company was wittingly considering and concluded that saving production costs was preferable to the cost to saving lives.

So there is little reason to doubt that observers who expect anything but the worst of BP will be disappointed with a company that treats human life as a cost item in its budget calculations. This is not an outfit with shame, let alone conscience, in its DNA.

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