Have their at the pump sales suffered at all? I know we'll get some posts to this thread that says the government (aka Obama) is to blame but I say bullshit. I agree mistakes have been made in the clean up response but that didn't cause the blow out. It's time as consumers to take our business elsewhere until this mess is cleaned up and the people who have been damaged have received fair compensation.
If BP did something illegal, they should pay fines and/or for the cleanup. If it puts them into bankruptcy, then that's too bad. Maybe other companies won't take shortcuts next time. I don't think that a boycott is something that makes much sense, though. Ed O.
Hey if you want to do business at BP or ARCO that's great! Hell one could even make the argument that if we were to double their sales they would clean up the mess twice as fast. That's the beauty of what I'm saying, if you don't like what BP did it's your choice to not do business with them. I make choices like this all the time. I shop Costco over Walmart because I don't support Walmart being one of the largest employers of illegal aliens in the USA. I look at that oil as a natural resource of the USA. IMO BP and their contractors were caviler in their harvesting of this natural resource.
A boycott is just another way of saying I choose not to do business with that person or company. As a consumer I'm sure you make that decision everyday for a variety of personal reasons. Also so if BP didn't do anything illegal they shouldn't pay for the clean up? Sorry, I don't agree with that. Even if it was just a random act of god and they didn't make any mistakes I think the cost of the clean up is on them.
Panel Suggests Signs of Trouble Before Rig Explosion In the hours before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, there were strong warning signs that something was terribly wrong with the well, according to a Congressional committee that was briefed on the accident by executives from BP. Among the red flags, the panel said, were several equipment readings suggesting that gas was bubbling into the well, a potential sign of an impending blowout. Investigators also noted “other events in the 24 hours before the explosion that require further inquiry,” including a critical decision to replace heavy mud in the pipe rising from the seabed with seawater, possibly increasing the risk of an explosion. The new information, released Tuesday night in a memorandum addressed to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, confirmed many of the committee’s own findings from a review of documents and from statements and testimony given at Congressional hearings over the last two weeks. The memorandum provides the most detailed accounting of the events and decisions made aboard the Deepwater Horizon before the accident on April 20 that took 11 lives and caused a so-far unchecked torrent of oil to pour into the gulf, and comes as BP prepared an ambitious “top kill” procedure in a new effort to stop the leak. The findings are preliminary, and most come from BP, which owns the lease on the well and has at hearings pointed fingers at other companies for the problems on the rig, including Transocean, the rig’s owner. In a statement late Monday, Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, said, “A number of companies are involved, including BP, and it is simply too early — and not up to us — to say who is at fault." Although one-sided, the account of procedural and equipment failures offers one road map for federal investigators as they try to determine who is ultimately responsible for the accident. As part of the investigation, they are also looking at the role of regulatory agencies. Some of those who survived the explosion, including managers from BP and Transocean, are expected to testify at hearings in Louisiana to be held by the Coast Guard and the federal Minerals Management Service, beginning Wednesday. The testimony may help clear up some of the uncertainties about the day of the accident, including who was making the decisions. But the new information from BP — combined with past testimony by executives, analysis of documents by The New York Times and interviews with independent drilling experts — is beginning to paint a picture of a complex operation that went awry just as it was drawing to a close. Drilling logs from the Deepwater Horizon suggest that shortly after midnight on the morning of the explosion, attention had turned to temporarily plugging and capping the well so the rig could disconnect and move to another job. Halliburton, the contractor hired by BP to provide cementing services, had spent the past several weeks cementing each new segment of the well into place. Halliburton was also responsible for plugging it. BP and Congressional investigators have raised questions about the cementing, suggesting that the seal might have been faulty and failed to keep gas from rising up in the well. According to BP, the cement work took longer than normal, and there were concerns that the quality of the cement might have been compromised by contamination with mud. However, in testimony before Congressional hearings, Halliburton executives have said that the company adhered strictly to the specifications provided by BP for the cementing of the well. BP’s investigation, the memorandum said, also indicated that there might have been problems with the blowout preventer — the stack of valves and rams on the seafloor designed to seal off the well in the event of an emergency — at least five hours before the explosion. A sharp fall in fluid levels in the riser pipe that connects the well to the rig suggested that one of the seals in the preventer was leaking. The article goes on, doesn't seem like "just an accident" to me. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/26rig.html
This sounds like a lot of those "don't buy gas for 1 day" in a particular month that people were calling for a few years ago. As if that'd make a difference. Or anyone would actually do it.
