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BP Oil Protest & Citizen's Arrest Planned For This Friday

Calling BP "Beyond Pathetic" the watchdog group Public Citizen is staging a protest and citizen's arrest of BP president Tony Hayward.

BP's president Tony Hayward

"BP has culture indicative to that of Enron", eluded Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen appearing on WPFW's Metro Watch with Gloria Minott .  "They have a culture of curruption."

BP, at the height of the recent oil spill was being fined $87.4 million for what regulators said was the company’s failure to correct problems after a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers at a refinery in Texas City, Texas.  More recently, BP was fined $3 million for safety violations at its Toledo, Ohio, refinery.  (See also BP's other crimes).

An unregulated oil industry has companies simply paying fines, but none of the company's executives do any  time in prision for what many call felonious activities.

"We want to make a citizen's arrest calling for the emprisonment of Tony Hayward", said Weissman.

As the protest is being planned President Obama is planning his third visit to New Orleans, also on Friday, to assess the latest efforts to counter the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  

In remarks after meeting earlier this week with the newly created BP Oil Spill Commission co-chairs - former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and former EPA Administrator, Bill Reilly - President Obama said, "We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have to experience a crisis like this again. If the laws on our books are insufficient to prevent such a spill, the laws must change. If oversight was inadequate to enforce these laws, oversight has to be reformed. If our laws were broken, leading to this death and destruction, my solemn pledge is that we will bring those responsible to justice on behalf of the victims of this catastrophe and the people of the Gulf region."

The protest will take place at noon at the BP headquarters here in Washington, DC at 1101 New York Ave.   (More info here at bottom of page).
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