Speaking as someone who has been involved in many oil leaks....

The talk here of due process is nonsense. This is currently a civil matter and could be settled in court. If anyone here is stupid enough to think that BP wants this to wind up in a real civil trial....

When we had a problem, and one of the bosses wanted to fix it on the cheap, we used to tell our execs, "How hard will it be for the plantifs lawyer to find 12 people that hate oil companies?"

There is also a point here that is very important that everyone has missed. If an oil leak is found it must be 'claimed'. If you claim the leak you truly own it. And don't start in on Obama 'claimed' it since he is not, by law, authorized to do so. Only someone in the oil business, who is registered in the state where the leak takes place, can, and it must be done verbaly and in writing with-in 24 hours of the leaks discovery.

If you wish to be in the oil business you have to have premission to prove to the state you can handle it. Someone's name, someone who must be a resident of the state, has to be the oil companies' agent. If criminal laws are broken they are the one going to jail. You have to account for every barrell of oil you intend to produce or move (so the state can get their taxes from it) and you have to show that you are financialy responsible in case anything goes wrong.

If anything goes wrong you are required to pay for the damages to the extent of your ability. Your performance bond will not cover the cost? Well then, it is goodbye company assets!

The state, or if you are operating on a Fed lease, can require you to put up more money to cover damages if they think you are going to skip. In BP's case it was $20 Billion. Please understand that they agreed to do this in order to receive an operation permit. BP is a big company, they know how to read a contract. Would they put up this money just because they are good people? If they are good people then why do they kill more employees than all the other oil companies?

What some people here are calling a 'shakedown' is what the oil industry calls 'business as usual'. If you create problems you know you will be held responsible. Of course, you can just leave the oil business, but the state will grab everything you have to cover your mistakes and clean-up your messes.

They can do this because you agreed to this when you received your operating permit.

And remember the 'claiming' thing I mentioned? So far BP has not Claimed the leak. They have said they will pay for all clean up costs, but they have not said the leak was their fault. This Claiming is not just something that is done to help get things cleaned up; it is a leagal requirement. If no one Claims a leak then whoever discovered it has to clean it up. After an invesigation determins who is really at fault the guilty have to pay for all the clean up and damages. Avoiding Claiming is where the Criminal penatilies start to kick in.

No where has BP Claimed this leak. When Tony was speaking to the good folks in DC he never said BP was at fault. He said we all would have to wait until it was investigated.

If BP had claimed the leak, and later they were found to be not at fault, they could recover ALL the cost from the company that was and the state would assist them. As it is they are stuck with paying all the bills, and if they can prove some other company caused the leak then recovering their costs is up to them.

I was watching Tony speaking to the Washington bunch with a friend of mine, a very die-hard Republican who has been in the oil biz for about 40 years, and both of us just looked at each other. "How much jail time did that ol' boy just buy himself?", my friend asked. I answered, "All of it."

I remember seeing an exec smirk at a State Regulator like Tony did to the Congressmen. I asked him if he enjoyed it and he said he did. I told him that was good since it was going to cost us a lot. I heard later our fine was several million Dollars and a written warning that our permits to operate would be pulled if we had another infraction with-in six months. The fine was easy to pay, but the fellow with the smirk was tasked with keeping the incident rate to zero. He retired since he knew he was not up to the job.

At least my guy did not lie to the Regulators. I don't know if Tony did or not, but he sure blew town quickly. We used to keep aircraft on the runway with the engines running when operating in some Arab countries. You never know when you might need to leave in a hurry, so his quick departure is not unheard of. And it is much easier to do than explaining your side of a story to a Judge.

You may also be under the impression that all of this 'shakedown' stuff on the Govs part is something new, but you would be wrong. There is enviromental damage here in Oklahoma that was caused 90 years ago that is still being cleaned up, and it is being cleaned up (and paid for) by current day oil people. In the past it was get out the oil and forget about the clean up. No state allows any oil company to operate that way today.

Not even if their name if BP.