BP Plc (BP)

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The case for seizure


BP's recklessness hit the fishing industry hard,
leaving thousands searching for work and depriving
their families of a source of income.



The environmental impact of the BP-engineered
disaster will be felt for decades to come.

By any number of economic, social and moral requirements, the assets of BP should be seized and used to provide comprehensive compensation and relief for those who have lost their jobs and whose livelihoods, homes and communities have been severely harmed or destroyed, and to clean up and restore the environment.

There is also a legal basis underlying a call for seizure.

Under deeply-rooted and long standing legal principles, BP should be responsible for all consequence of damage, not merely direct oil removal costs.

The doctrine of strict liability for ultrahazardous or inherently dangerous activities has deep roots within the law. See e.g., Rylands v. Fletcher, 3 H.L. 330 (1868) (landmark English tort law case applying the doctrine of strict liability for inherently dangerous activities in a case where an engineer constructed a reservoir on land to supply power to his steam-powered textile mill, the tanks collapsed and caused others’ property to become flooded).

Much as a keeper of a wild animal is held strictly liable for any damage the animal causes, regardless of fault, the doctrine of strict liability has been applied to industrial hazards, including drilling for oil. See, e.g., Green v. General Petroleum Corp., 205 Cal. 328 (1928) (case imposing strict liability, without showing of fault, upon oil drilling company that experienced well “blow-out” that spewed a steady stream of oil, gas, mud and rocks into the air for 24 hours, causing substantial damage).

Strict liability for ultrahazardous activities has been imposed, for example, on companies engaged in the transportation of toxic chemicals, activities involving poisonous gases, involving hazardous wastes, fireworks displays, deployment of rockets, etc.

Standing in the way of the imposition of strict liability is the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. 33 U.S.C. §2701, et seq. Enacted after the Exxon Valdez spill, OPA was created by industry-friendly lawmakers so that it would immunize oil drilling corporations for the economic damages from catastrophic accidents or spills.

Under the OPA, an offshore oil drilling corporation that creates an environmental catastrophe is responsible only for direct removal costs of the spillage, and is immunized from liability for all other economic damages in excess of $75 million. 33 U.S.C. §2704(a)(1)(3).

They pay $75 million and get to walk away free. That’s a great deal for the oil companies, but it’s bad for our communities, it’s bad for the environment, and it makes the future even more perilous because they can pay a pittance and do it again.

Do it again is exactly what Big Oil will do. They are profit maximizers, and the OPA allows them to drill their oil, reap their profits and shift their damages onto the people. Economists call this “cost externalization,” and it is completely opposite to what is required by the doctrine of strict liability.

“Offshore oil producers such as ConocoPhillips and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. are pressing ahead with drilling even as BP Plc struggles to contain a Gulf of Mexico spill that may costs $12.5 billion to clean up. The Gulf remains attractive to explorers because deep-water discoveries there have averaged almost four times the global average during the past decade, Frank J. Patterson, Anadarko’s vice president for international development, said yesterday at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.” Joe Carroll, Oil Explorers Drill On, Unfazed by BP’s Gulf of Mexico Spill, May 4, 2010. (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-04/oil-explorers-drill-on-unfazed-by-bp-s-gulf-of-mexico-spill.html )

The OPA’s limits of liability provision should be retroactively repealed.

There must be remediation and compensation for all damages flowing from BP’s oil spill, including all losses to people, economy and otherwise. It should not be up to BP to decide if and when to dole out compensation.

BP reaped $5.6 billion of profits in the first quarter of 2010 and $17 billion in 2009. This is money made from BP’s aggressive push into ultra-hazardous deep water offshore drilling that has taken the lives of 11 workers in the recent explosion, and caused human misery and environmental wreckage that will persist for years to come.

These huge sums are pure profit—what remains after all accounting maneuvers and payments of the massive salaries and luxurious perks to executives.

Here, BP has committed acts causing devastation that threatens the spoliation and poisoning of the shorelands, wildlife, human health and economy of no less than the five states that have frontal coastline on the Gulf of Mexico: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Worst case scenarios would pollute and destroy the frontal coastlines of states up the Atlantic seaboard.

BP’s conduct constitutes an assault on the people and environment of the surrounding region of the Gulf of Mexico.

BPs assets should be immediately seized, and placed in a trust, in amounts proportionate to—and sufficient to fully compensate for—all projected harm from its dangerous and reckless acts in pursuit of super-profits.

http://www.seizebp.org/