Robert Romano: “Work Longer Hours” Gaffe Is Hurting Jeb Bush

They didn’t go to jail, and didn’t have to clean it up or change the design of their blowout “preventers,” and they cheated on the number of barrels they estimated were spilled.

…and they didn’t award money to people that they promised to – they got out of it by saying they had to have “proof” that they were damaged, and used lawyers to eliminate claimants on technicalities.

It’s arguments like yours… and Mitch McConnell.. … and Joe Barton..that give them a red carpet exit from hell.

Mitch McConnell

“Well, look, we’re all angry about it. This is a–an environmental disaster of gargantuan proportions, but the president’s spent a whole lot of time pointing the finger at, at BP–and you should point the finger at BP and the other companies involved in it. We’re also interested in knowing what the administration did. Was the Mineral Management Service a part of this administration that approved this site? It also approved this spill response plan. What kind of oversight did the administration provide during the course of the drilling? There are plenty of questions that need to be answered, and there’ll be adequate time for that. But the administration’s involvement in this will be a big part of the inquiry. In the meantime, we need to do everything we can to stop this spill.”

McConnell didn’t stop at just blaming Obama. He also said that the damages cap should not be lifted, so BP should pay, but not that much, “Well, the danger in that, of course, is that if you raise the cap too high, there will be no competition in the Gulf and you’ll leave all the business to the big guys like BP. What BP has said they need to be held to, which is they’re going to pay for this. They ought to pay for it, and they will pay for it. But the danger of taking the cap too high is that you end up with only massive, very large oil producers able to meet that cap and produce in the Gulf. And look, we can’t walk away–and the president’s not suggesting this either–from offshore drilling. As horrible as this is, it’s important to remember that we get 30 percent of our oil from the Gulf and, if you shut that down, you’d have $14 gasoline.”

McConnell was pushing a big lie, because he knows that the oil drilled in the Gulf does not belong to the United States, as per the sweetheart agreement that our government has with the oil industry, the oil extracted from the Gulf belongs to the oil companies that drill for it, and they are free to sell it to anyone on the open global oil market. He is lying to protect the industry, pure and simple. This is what most Americans don’t get. The oil drilled here is not ours. It doesn’t belong to us. It does not help with our energy woes.

Joe Barton

It shouldn’t matter that Barton is often representing the interests of the oil industry. Any sane person would be outraged at the response thus far of BP, as well as the insensitive and asinine comments by company representatives.

In his opening statement, Barton was so over the top that even his fellow Republicans must have thought he bumped his head on his way into the hearing.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown — in this case a $20 billion shakedown.”