The environmental group, The Sierra Club, is trying to intervene in a federal lawsuit against BP and seek larger penalties against the oil giant. The Club filed a “motion to intervene” on Feb. 7 in the U.S. Justice Department’s civil suit against BP. The suit is related to the company’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. It was the largest offshore drilling disaster in U.S. history.
The DOJ (Department of Justice) suit is seeking over $75 million in damages under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act and about $21 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act.
The Sierra Club says their interest in the case stems from the fact that they consider the government partly complicit in the disaster.
“We can make arguments that the federal government is unlikely to make,” said the Sierra Club’s Kristina Johnson by telephone on Wednesday. Johnson notes that the federal Minerals Management Services (MMS) approved BP’s original disaster management plan. The MMS, which is under the U.S. Department of the Interior, has since made some revisions and clarifications to their rules related to offshore drilling. But Johnson points out that the Sierra Club’s major concern is not a lack of rules, but a lack of compliance.
“Prior to the oil spill (in the Gulf Coast) it was very frustrating for us because we kept pointing out that oil companies were violating safety requirements, and it was just a matter of time [before something bad happened],” said Johnson.
And they have the track record to back it up.
A simple search on the DOJ’s website with the keyword phrase “BP” elicits a string of violations by the company dating back more than a decade. Some of the violations resulted in fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2007, the DOJ announced that BP and several of its subsidiaries would pay about $373 million in connection with a horrific and fatal explosion at a Texas refinery in March 2005. The fine also included payment for leaking crude oil pipelines in Alaska, and “fraud for conspiring to corner the market and manipulate the price of propane carried through Texas pipelines.” Fifteen contract workers were killed and over 170 others were injured.
The $50 million criminal fine BP agreed to pay was at the time the largest such fine ever assessed under the Clean Air Act.
Beyond BP, the Sierra Club also wants to send a message to other oil companies that any future violations will be harshly punished.
“BP did have a history of irresponsibility, but so did other oil companies,” said Johnson. “One of the goals of this lawsuit is to let oil companies know that they can’t get away with it.”
The DOJ (Department of Justice) suit is seeking over $75 million in damages under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act and about $21 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act.
The Sierra Club says their interest in the case stems from the fact that they consider the government partly complicit in the disaster.
“We can make arguments that the federal government is unlikely to make,” said the Sierra Club’s Kristina Johnson by telephone on Wednesday. Johnson notes that the federal Minerals Management Services (MMS) approved BP’s original disaster management plan. The MMS, which is under the U.S. Department of the Interior, has since made some revisions and clarifications to their rules related to offshore drilling. But Johnson points out that the Sierra Club’s major concern is not a lack of rules, but a lack of compliance.
“Prior to the oil spill (in the Gulf Coast) it was very frustrating for us because we kept pointing out that oil companies were violating safety requirements, and it was just a matter of time [before something bad happened],” said Johnson.
And they have the track record to back it up.
A simple search on the DOJ’s website with the keyword phrase “BP” elicits a string of violations by the company dating back more than a decade. Some of the violations resulted in fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2007, the DOJ announced that BP and several of its subsidiaries would pay about $373 million in connection with a horrific and fatal explosion at a Texas refinery in March 2005. The fine also included payment for leaking crude oil pipelines in Alaska, and “fraud for conspiring to corner the market and manipulate the price of propane carried through Texas pipelines.” Fifteen contract workers were killed and over 170 others were injured.
The $50 million criminal fine BP agreed to pay was at the time the largest such fine ever assessed under the Clean Air Act.
Beyond BP, the Sierra Club also wants to send a message to other oil companies that any future violations will be harshly punished.
“BP did have a history of irresponsibility, but so did other oil companies,” said Johnson. “One of the goals of this lawsuit is to let oil companies know that they can’t get away with it.”
