Third World America - Arianna Huffington [52]
As for fines for safety violations levied by the Minerals Management Service, between 1998 and 2007, BP racked up a dozen safety violations but paid less than $580,000 in penalties—an infinitesimal figure for a company that made $5.6 billion in profits in just the first quarter of 2010.49, 50
Even after the Gulf catastrophe, oil companies were handled with a velvet glove.51 According to the New York Times, in the five weeks after the Deepwater Horizon blew up and millions of gallons of oil came gushing out, “federal regulators … granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits.” And, wouldn’t you know—one of the exempted projects was run by BP.52
I have no doubt that new regulations will be written in response to these latest oil and mining disasters, just as we have new financial regulations in response to the financial disaster. But by the time these regulations make their way through Congress, the lobbyists will make sure that loopholes are part of the deal—and that the American people are on the losing side of the trade once again.
Disasters—mining, environmental, and financial–are going to keep happening until we reevaluate our priorities and force our elected officials, and the regulators they pick, to put the public interest above the special interests, and until the lives of hardworking Americans take precedence over the corporate bottom line.
FOXES GUARDING THE HENHOUSE
Not content with controlling politicians and kneecapping effective government oversight and regulations, corporate America has taken things one step further.53 As Janine Wedel, author of Shadow Elite, and Linda Keenan put it, “businesses aren’t just sidestepping or fighting regulators. Their M.O. is to try to make themselves the de facto regulators of their own self-interested conduct …”
That’s something else that the mining, oil, and financial industries share: the revolving door between regulators and those they’re supposed to be regulating. The names of the Wall Streeters who have moved into positions of power in Washington are familiar: Hank Paulson, Robert Rubin, Josh Bolten, Neel Kashkari, Mark Patterson—and that’s just from Goldman Sachs.54
But the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington goes far beyond these marquee names. The finance industry has 70 former members of Congress and over 900 former federal employees on its lobbying payroll.55 This includes 33 chiefs of staff, 54 staffers of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee (or a current member of those committees), and 28 legislative directors.56 Five of Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd’s former staffers are now working as banking lobbyists, as are eight former staffers for Senate Banking Committee heavyweights Richard Shelby and Chuck Schumer.57 Of course, the revolving door spins both ways: 18 percent of current House Financial Services committee staffers used to work on K Street.58
On the mining front, former Massey chief operating officer Stanley Suboleski was appointed to be a commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 2003, and four years later was nominated to run the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.59 At the time of the Upper Big Branch accident he was back on Massey’s board.60 And President Bush named Massey executive Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2006.61 Stickler had such a lousy safety record at the companies he’d run, his nomination was twice rejected by senators from both parties, forcing Bush to sneak him in the back door with a recess appointment.62 In other words, the guy Bush tapped to protect miners was precisely the kind of executive the head of the MSHA is supposed to protect miners from.
Picking foxes to guard