Haliburton to Settle Charges in Deepwater Gulf Oil Spill Horror That Will Set a New Level for Disgusting Behavior

Disgusting Behavior by the Government Though

The Haliburton Company, the former lair of former Vice President Dick Chaney had mounted a vigorous defense of its activities relating to the huge explosion, deaths and resulting oil contamination of the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.  Now it turns out that Haliburton was really just a criminal enterprise, at least in regard to this situation.

The oil services giant Halliburton agreed Thursday to plead guilty to destroying evidence during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010, admitting to one count of criminal conduct and agreeing to pay the $200,000 maximum statutory fine, according to the Justice Department.

In a startling turn in the three-year-old criminal investigation, Halliburton said that on two occasions during the oil spill, it directed employees to destroy or “get rid of” simulations that would have helped clarify how to assign blame for the blowout — and possibly focused more attention on Halliburton’s role.

Notice that Mitt Romney’s assertion that corporations are people too is contradicted once again.  Haliburton is not going to jail; its employees are not going to jail, and a $200,000 fine is like a couple of pennies relative to Haliburton’s profits. 

There some good news though,

Halliburton, which has repeatedly denied responsibility and pointed fingers at BP, will be placed on probation for three years. It also agreed to pay $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation even if the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana does not accept its plea agreement.

The admission is likely to complicate Halliburton’s efforts to avoid damage payments in civil suits linked to the Deepwater Horizon spill. During the first quarter of this year, the company took a $637 million charge against earnings to increase to about $1.3 billion a reserve set aside for possible Macondo settlement costs.

Although again none of that money is really a dent in the company’s finances or the shareholder’s returns.  But maybe some regular folks will get a little relief.

So what’s the ugly disgusting part of all of this?  It is the statement of the government in the settlement.

Halliburton said that the Justice Department agreed not to pursue further criminal prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries and that the department “acknowledged the company’s significant and valuable cooperation.”   

                        (emphasis added)

That’s right, the government is forced to acknowledge the company’s ‘significant and valuable cooperation’.  This is similar to other government statements where they acknowledged ‘Jack the Ripper’s significant and valuable cooperation in solving the murder of women in London’ and ‘Bonnie and Clyde’s significant and valuable cooperation in solving bank robberies’ and the ‘KKK’s significant and valuable cooperation in furthering race relations’. 

Look, people died in this explosion.  The Gulf of Mexico was heavily polluted with oil.  Thousands of people had their lives and their economic situation upended here.

The explosion at BP’s Macondo oil well on April 20, 2010, killed 11 people, destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and ultimately leaked nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

And now the government acknowledges a perpetrator’s ‘significant and valuable cooperation’.  Yeah that Obama administration really is anti-business.