Monthly Archives: July 2010
A seemingly feel-good story showed up this week on the nation’s front pages and newscasts: The oil that befouled the Gulf of Mexico for 86 days is vanishing from the surface, leaving workers with little to clean. But scientists warn the oil’s ecological impacts are shifting, not ebbing, thanks to massive volumes of dispersants that have kept the crude beneath the waves. “This is a management decision, to use dispersants,” [...]
Read More »Many Gulf-area residents and media folks following the spill are convinced BP used unprecedented amounts of chemical dispersants “to make the oil go away.” With all due respect, that assumption is just plain wrong. What those chemicals actually did, in effect, is trade an oil spill on the ocean surface for a toxic oil-and-dispersant spill hidden underwater. This may be good for BP’s public relations campaign, and maybe even its [...]
Read More »The House voted Friday to end the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, though Republicans and a Louisiana industry group said it gives too much discretion to the Interior Department and provides no guarantees drilling will resume quickly. The amendment — sponsored by Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville — was added to a sweeping offshore drilling regulatory bill that would eliminate the $75 million cap on oil-company liability for spills, codify the [...]
Read More »Uncertainty, like the Gulf’s waters, ebbs and flows in this fishing village in Louisiana’s southern reaches. Shortly after the oil began gushing more than three months ago, fishing was banned in vast areas of the Gulf of Mexico, and many of the local fishermen in this rustic town of 500 residents didn’t know where their next paycheck would come from. Then came stability, when BP started paying up to $1,500 [...]
Read More »HOUSTON—An attempt by BP PLC to deactivate the well that has spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has been pushed back, company officials said Friday. The “static kill” process previously scheduled to begin late Sunday or early Monday now is expected to start late Monday night or Tuesday, BP senior vice president Kent Wells said. The operation—which entails pumping in drilling mud and cement—has been [...]
Read More »NEW ORLEANS — Officials in charge of the oil spill response in the gulf region say they are beginning to shift their efforts to a new phase, focusing more on long-term recovery now that some of the urgent demands of the spill are diminishing. Crews recently removed boom from the water in Alabama, as swimming advisories were lifted. Some of the waters on parts of the Gulf Coast that had [...]
Read More »You may have noticed that I, and most of my fellow lawyers, stop well short of advising folks not to sign anything without professional legal advice. Frankly, that approach is a bit too self-serving to be credible and there are likely small claims that just don’t require legal counsel. So it was interesting recently when one of the more intense oil spill media commentators and BP critics (and frequent guest [...]
Read More »BILOXI, Miss. — While introducing a new leader in Gulf Coast restoration efforts, incoming BP PLC CEO Bob Dudley plans to fly to Mobile today to meet with Gov. Bob Riley and discuss the company’s oil spill claims process. Dudley acknowledged trouble with the process, saying that the company was faced with a “lack of competency” when it took over claims. That’s part of the reason Ken Feinberg was asked [...]
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