The EPA should go to Federal Court and apply for a cease and desist order against BP for polluting the Gulf of Mexico. If BP fails to stop the flow, they will be fined every day until they stop.

It has been obvious for some time that BP has no real interest in stopping the flow, only in recovering what oil they can from the gusher. You have to wonder if there is an insurance company somewhere that will go bankrupt trying to cover the costs.

Thad Allen: Only BP has expertise to stop oil spill

WASHINGTON — The U.S. official leading the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill said Sunday that only BP had the expertise to plug the gaping hole in its deepwater well and that he trusted the oil company was doing its best.

The comments by Adm. Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, signaled that the U.S. government wouldn’t take a larger role in stopping the five-week-old spill even as frustration in the Gulf coast grows over the Obama administration’s policy of letting BP run the cleanup.

BP rents its expertise, it doesn’t own it. It leases everything and uses contract workers, like all major corporations. Transocean owned the rig, but it is doubtful that many of the crew on the rig worked for Transocean, as most oil rig employees are considered independent contractors and get their jobs through third party “body shops”.

If BP was so competent, why didn’t their crack team realize immediately that the BOP plans they received weren’t for the configuration used on the Deepwater Horizon? If they are such masterful performers, how did they permit a device with a dead battery and leaking hydraulic line be put under a mile of water?

And the Pensacola city council isn’t going to take it any more.

Rick Outzen has the outline in Tempers flare at City Council

The Pensacola City Council cut off BP Civic Affairs Director Liz Castro three pages into her PowerPoint presentation after the community liaison failed to answer simple question about the boom decontamination operation BP wants to establish at Pensacola Shipyards on Bayou Chico.

Ms Castro didn’t even know if the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had issued a permit for this operation, and she wanted the council to approve it. The council is wasting its time even considering the issue if DEP hasn’t given its approval.

I would think that the council is of the opinion that, since the oil hasn’t reached Pensacola, it would be stupid to start importing it, and there has been a hell of a lot of money spent cleaning up Bayou Chico from past abuse.

There is another problem with some of what BP is trying to do, and that is the Florida Sunshine Law. If they take the entire council on a tour of their operation, the media has to go along and a record has to be kept, which I feel sure would make BP unhappy. You have to understand that the people of Florida assume that politicians are crooks, so they demand written records and public access to any meetings where something may be decided.