Every day we shake our heads at the damage being done in the Gulf of Mexico by the ruptured oil well that BP cannot yet cap. It sounds like a horrible accident, at least when BP executives and their apologists go on camera. Then we learn that BP could have—and, it turns out, should have—installed an automatic shut-off on the well that would have prevented this environmental catastrophe.

Next, we find out that BP has a history of environmental and safety violations and fines. It paid the two largest fines is OSHA history: $87.4 million and $21.3 million. Last month it paid another fine of $3 million for 42 safety violations at a plant in Ohio—four years after paying $2.4 million in fines for the same refinery. In 2007, BP agreed to pay a $50 million fine and plead guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act. The same year, FERC ordered BP to pay a $7 million civil penalty for engaging in anti-competitive practices. For a much longer list of BP recent history of corporate irresponsibility, click here.

The ongoing devastation in the Gulf could have been prevented. Environmental and safety violations can be prevented. Not preventing them is a decision made within a morally corrupt culture that will spare nothing to increase profits.

Last Sunday, McClatchy’s Tom Knudson wrote about how the travesty in the Gulf is a small but visible example of the worldwide damage oil companies are causing:

• At least 200 square miles of ruined habitat in Alberta

• More than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater in the rainforests of Ecuador

• More than 2,000 polluted sites in Nigeria

Americans are painfully aware of the oil spill in the Gulf. Nigeria has more than 2,000 official oil spill sites.

It’s time to hold oil companies accountable for their responsibility to the health and well-being of all people. Exxon, Shell, and now, BP, lead the list of oil companies I will not buy from. I realize that all oil companies are complicit in making the environment worse so I have to prioritize, and these seem to be the worst of the worse.

Who makes your list?

(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

 Loading ...