Democracy Now: EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup
In a story that deserves greater media attention, a whistleblower from the EPA is stating that the millions of gallons of chemical dispersants being used by BP in the Gulf are unsafe, and that the company's decision to use the toxic mixture is primarily monetary.
Sen. Mikulski (D-MD) has been questioning the EPA about the safety of chemical dispersants. This piece (and some water quality samples from the Gulf) indicate that she was misled by EPA officials about the dispersant's safety.
The whistleblower himself served as an EPA investigator after the 9/11 attacks regarding the false EPA statements about air quality around Ground Zero. He says that this situation is extremely similar - the EPA is making false statements about worker (and public) safety and risk regarding the cleanup, and that people will get seriously hurt.
Key Quote: "I did the ombudsman investigation on Ground Zero, where EPA made false statements about the safety of the air, which has since, of course, been proven to be false. Consequently, you have the heroes, the workers there, a large percentage of them are sick right now, not even ten years later, and most of them will die early because of respiratory problems, cancer, etc., because of EPA's false statements.
"And you've got the same thing going on in the Gulf, EPA administrators saying the same thing, that the air is safe and the water is safe. And the administrator misled Senator Mikulski on that issue in the hearings you talked about. And basically, the problem is dispersants mixed with oil and air pollution."
The New York Times: Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety
In what can only be seen as absolute proof that stronger corporate whistleblower protections are needed, a survey of the workers on Deepwater Horizon, conducted in the weeks before the disaster, "showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems." Furthermore, "workers said that company plans were not carried out properly and that they 'often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig.'"
Washington Post: Three of Every Four Oil and Gas Lobbyists Worked for Federal Government
This article details how large a revolving door exists between federal employees and oil and gas companies. Which of course, could help to explain the lack of strong whistleblower protections for those companies.
Los Angeles Times: Gulf oil spill: Deepwater Horizon had ongoing maintenance problems
In more bad news for BP, a company lawyer testified on Monday that Deep Horizon had "a backlog of thousands of hours of overdue maintenance."
Key Quote: "In September 2009, an audit was completed that showed there was "overdue planned maintenance considered excessive -- 390 jobs amounting to 3,545 man hours," said Richard Godfrey, a lawyer for BP, which was leasing the rig from Transocean Ltd."
The Hill & The Center for Public Integrity: Feds Dismiss Post-Enron Tips of Fraud
Yesterday, Barack Obama signed the financial reform bill into law, which has significant whistleblower protection upgrades in it.
However, this article illustrates how the significant whistleblower protections put into place after the Enron scandal, which were much heralded at the time, have been "gutted by the federal bureaucracy" since their original passage.
Surely, the new whistleblower provisions attempt to help correct this problem. But even stronger protections for all federal workers are needed. Please send a letter to your Senators and urge the passage of solid whistleblower rights for federal workers!
Key Quote: Since Congress passed the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law in 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor has upheld 25 whistleblower claims under the law - and tossed out 1,066 claims, according to figures available through June 30. That translates into a winning percentage of a little more than 2 percent for workers seeking whistleblower status.
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.
