In a rush to turn profits, BP reportedly saved about nine million dollars by not installing a safety barr= ier to stop the flow of gas in the area around the tubes in the well. This decision, along with a series of improper maintenance decisions, contribute= d to the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Where does that leave us now? = By contract, according to BP’s permit with the government to drill in the Gulf, BP is entirely responsible for the costs of the cleanup. President Ob= ama is so right in insisting that before it pays out any dividends BP should establish escrow accounts to pay people and businesses in the Gulf States that have been ruined economically by the spill. While stalling on its public promises to be financially accountable to the people hurt by the Gulf disaster, BP has spe= nt over $50 million on ad campaigns trying to promote a more positive image of= itself.

Robert Reich, who was Secretar= y of Labor in the Clinton Administration and now teaches Public Policy at the University of California at Berkley, has suggested that BP should be taken = into temporary receivership by the federal government to insure that all BP̵= 7;s efforts are in the interest of the common good rather than the good of BP stockholders; this receivership would last only as long as the crisis conti= nues and would motivate BP to act much more quickly in its cleanup efforts than = has occurred during the first two months of the disaster.

Beyond the immediate clean-up efforts of BP and the federal/state governments, much better procedures mus= t be put in place to regulate deep water drilling. First of all, until guarantees can be provided against a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Preside= nt Obama should make permanent

the= ban on deep water drilling, including requirements for the gas safety barriers = and the drilling of parallel pressure relief wells as is now mandated in Canada.= BP will not complete its relief wells until August, some four months after the explosion.

Next, as proposed by Senator Gillibrand (D.NY) and eighteen other senators, the country needs a bipartis= an investigative commission with subpoena powers to discover the truth about BP’s actions and recommend strong, sensible, effective regulations for off-shore drilling administered by a new INDEPENDENT regulatory agency to replace the incompetent Minerals Management Service, which has egregiously allowed the oil industry to police itself, literally write its own rules, a= nd avoid compliance with safety regulations. The MMS should simply be dissolve= d.

Another worthy proposal in Congress mandates an increase in the caps on liability for oil companies to cover the clean-up costs of oil spills. Current law, established after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, limits liability to a mere $75 million – a mere fraction of the real costs of the Gulf spill.

Currently, under federal law, = if BP is ever found guilty of criminal negligence, that corporation might be a= ble to avoid paying restitution to the victims of the BP spill, even to the families of the rig-workers who died on April 20th or to the fishermen who = have lost their livelihoods. Senator Leahy (D.VT) has proposed the Environmental Crimes Enforcement Act, which would make restitution mandatory and increase sentences for those convicted of criminal acts against the environment.

Most importantly, the Senate should pass a meaningful, comprehensive energy and climate bill such as the House of Representatives passed in June of 2009! We have had nearly forty y= ears of debates, promises, and proposals in Congress about energy independence a= nd the need to develop viable alternatives to oil and coal. Immediate action in the Senate is what we need to get us beyond the need for deep water drilling and companies like BP.