One year ago today, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the gulf of México begun one of the worse environmental disasters in history.
On the first year anniversary of the worst oil spill in the history of the United States, the energy giant is trying to influence politics and clean up its image with campaign donations to Congress.
The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that the political action committee for BP’s North America subsidiary and company executives are making political contributions, including to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.
Despite progress being made, and lots of oil having been removed from the surface, several specialists are afraid of the long term consequences of such vast quantities of oil on the ocean floor.
President Barack Obama said in a statement that, with 2,000 responders in the Gulf providing aid, the recovery is far from over.
“We continue to hold BP and other responsible parties fully accountable for the damage they’ve done and the painful losses that they’ve caused,” Obama said “We’re monitoring seafood to ensure its continued safety and implementing aggressive new reforms for offshore oil production in the Gulf so that we can safely and responsibly expand development of our own energy resources.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., a senior member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said there has “absolutely not” been any progress in terms of ensuring there won’t be a repeat.
“We are exactly where we were, other than the public understands more clearly how reckless and what the negligence was that got us there,” Woolsey said. “But are we preventing it? Do you have better programs in place for mitigation and cleanup? No we don’t, but we could.”
Here’s the story in picture:
