Bloomberg Urges Critics to Go Easier on BP

Last updated at 4:49 p.m. ET

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg became a lonely defender of BP PLC on Friday, declaring the world should not rush to point fingers at the British oil giant for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The billionaire mayor, a former CEO, became the most prominent politician to embrace BP, whose offshore rig exploded in April, killing 11 workers and setting off what has become the nation's worst oil spill. Scientists say the spill could now involve 42 million to more than 100 million gallons.

Bloomberg, who often sides with CEOs and private businesses entangled in public relations catastrophes, said he'd rather have BP worrying about stopping the leak than devising a legal strategy.

"The guy that runs BP didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. "And what's more, if we want them to fix it and they're the only ones with the expertise, I think I might wait to assign blame."

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

The federal government is conducting civil and criminal investigations into BP's preparedness and the spill.

An analysis this week by The Associated Press found that BP's regional spill plan for the Gulf and a site-specific plan for the Louisiana rig contained glaring errors, including the listing of a professor as a wildlife specialist even though he died in 2005.

The company also described in the plan a scenario for spill worse than the real-life disaster, in which fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm, beaches remain pristine and water quality is only a temporary problem.

While some lawmakers have criticized the Obama administration's response to the spill, there have been few voices outright defending BP, and none as well-known as New York's third-term mayor.

The founder of the financial information company that bears his name has a fortune estimated at $18 billion by Forbes magazine and toyed with the idea of running for president in 2008. The Republican-turned-independent is occasionally mentioned as a wild card contender for 2012.

Bloomberg has a long history of defending big companies in cases where it was extremely unpopular and unusual to do so.

Last year he sided with bailed-out banks that didn't want to disclose which employees got bonuses, and he likened New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's quest for information about bonuses to "snooping around."

He also defended pharmaceutical companies and their CEOs, insisting they "don't make a lot of money" and shouldn't be scapegoats in the health care debate.

And when New Yorkers struggled through a series of summer blackouts, Bloomberg repeatedly took sides with the management of the utility company, Consolidated Edison.

Amid a July 2006 blackout that left 100,000 Queens residents in the dark for several days, Bloomberg applauded Con Ed and said CEO Kevin Burke "deserves a thanks from this city."

On Friday, Bloomberg said everyone is to blame for a society that places too much emphasis on ... blame.

"Unfortunately it's not any one person or one party or one branch of government" that looks for culprits, he said. "There's got to be somebody that's culpable in everything — c'mon!"

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[johnny465]

agnosticcc said, "The U.S. banks had not suffered from the same personalised attacks in spite of the global economic damage caused by their irresponsible, unchecked greed and avarice. Just play to the domestic audience and blame the foreigners..."

This is a great 100% true comment----Obama keeps giving the banks more money even after blaming bush

[yd372801]

In General a catastrophe the Gulf of Mexico and wasapperance "oil spot" t'be nearness of territories theState Florida,Luisiana was calling unprecendented panic among all the population USA and reapraisalof values: "wealth"or protection environment, ecological?!!
Indeed, for United of Stated a long time had been strategy of workings" natural of mineral" outside of territory USA: somewhere in Africa,Asia,Russia t'be was preserved own a Hatural wealth. At one time yet would be youthful boy I was reading a story Ernest Hemingway is "The Old Man and theSea". On this short a story We are looking an engagement old man and Natural by force it's great fish-sword,which has been yet lenghtly of boad fisherman. Still, old man become conqueror over enormous fish, but shoal of sharks was tear to pieces a big fish formerly, than fishman come back to home.
Here is a Nature and man were imagine an indivisible harmoney and nothing not change
an Earth. However now , after rough was looking through of Humanity . T'be furious a Nature go out from under a control and the same degree be killid animal and vegetable fauna. Did a lot of birds was attempted catch of fish and were dive though of oil spot and killied. Did the fishmen was begining hungry from kilied of sea fauna:oyster,crab,trade of fish....

[hodieb-khalifa]

CONTACT YOUR SENATORS & CONGRESSMEN

As an expert in oilfields in the Middle East, I've already offered BP the following simple technique that can instantly plug the well. Though BP admitted it can work, it wouldn't implement it because it will kill the Well.

Plugging BP Well by a String of Cement-Filled Casing Pipes:

{BP has to lower down the wellbore through the Riser Pipe Stub and the Blowout Preventer a string of 16"- 18" Casing Pipes connected together about 500-1000 ft long after being filled with cement. The wild well will instantly be plugged and there will be no need for the Relief Wells. The annulus space between the Casing Pipe String and the well walls can be filled by pumping cement. The whole operation will take a couple of hours- finito!}

PLEASE ASK YOUR SENATORS & CONGRESSMEN TO INVITE ME to face Tony Hayward during his hearing this week to expose the real BP for US officials and citizens, then implement this solution.

Eng. Hodieb Khalifa
Cairo - Egypt
hodieb_khalifa yahoo

[alphaa10000]

Thank you-- that is what many already suspected. BP will cover the Gulf floor in crude before it will permanently cap a leaking well, if it means losing a salvageable bore.

BP might hope its hand-wringing and public histronics will distract us for two or three months (or longer) while it "dithers", and slowly drills relief wells to preserve its main bore.

For BP, it is their way, or no way. Yet, it is BP which borrows our land for its own profits. Such courtesy and regard from English "nobility" is surely common throughout the world.

[alphaa10000]

GOP PROTECTS BP AND BIG OIL

CBS reports, "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg became a lonely defender of BP PLC on Friday, declaring the world should not rush to point fingers at the British oil giant for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill."
---

Don't worry, Michael Bloomberg-- none of the outraged American public is rushing into this. We are likely to see decades of environmental damage from the kind of GOP policies you defend.

We'll have plenty of time to reconsider our intemperate words and anger about corporate greed, irresponsibility and dead wildlife.

Just as we'll have plenty of time to reflect on the loss of our foreclosed homes, lost pensions and jobs, thanks to the GOP-sponsored Wall Street fraud that crashed our economy in 2008.



The Gulf-- More Blowout from GOP DEregulation--

GOP policies which propose cutting back regulation of industry-- or removing it altogether and letting industry "regulate itself"-- are called DEregulation.

DEregulation was the gift that industry lobbies secured for their rich, corporate clients, back when the GOP led the charge for DEregulation in the late 1990's. They worked for Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, and the oil industry.

Those lobbies worked for corporate money, not the American people-- but in the end, guess who paid? And still pays, today.



Bloomberg-- A Wannabe GOP Presidential Candidate--

Talk about political "tone deafness"-- Bloomberg clearly wants the GOP nod for a presidential run. And so badly he covers himself in Gulf mud and oil in order to take the heat from GOP patron BP, and make it happen.

Lots of BP money and other GOP patronage will come his way, because BP and industry likes its friends. Likewise, Bloomberg and the GOP like companies like BP, even if they also attack our environment.

That leaves both GOP and Bloomberg an affront to America, because BP and its Gulf disaster is fact.

Clearly, the inadequate DEregulatory regime Bloomberg defends means leaving BP without responsible adult supervision-- a formula for disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Slope and anywhere else.

Here are other results of GOP Deregulation-- in 2005, BP negligence killed 15, injured 180 at its Texas City refinery. In 2006, alone, BP negligence spilled oil repeatedly at Prudhoe Bay. And since its creation, a series of spills on the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline-- at least one major spill from BP's decision not to inspect the pipeline for corrosion.

And now, in 2010, the penultimate environmental disaster, because BP had acquired the attitude it could do no wrong.


Running Political Interference for BP--

The GOP now runs interference for BP, with Bloomberg as point man-- urging everybody to be a little easier on the poor, misunderstood blokes at BP.

Accordingly, the GOP wants its bozos on public forums to downplay the importance of the BP disaster. Look for lots of solicitous concern for BP from Faux News, and outlandish tales. Limbaugh, himself, set the campaign of deceitful propaganda, saying environmentalists destroyed the Deepwater Horizon.

The official GOP narrative goes deliriously off-course-- blame the press, environmentalists, Obama and government. Any incredible accusation will do... just stop talking about BP (and the GOP), please.


Drill, Bloomberg, Drill !

( Innocent bystanders can search BP's record with the terms "BP environmental record" on BING, GOOGLE or YAHOO! Be sure to include the search term, "Iran", and see what it reveals about other damage BP has done in the world. )

[agnosticcc]

There is a sense here that these attacks are being made because BP is British. Because American companies like Transocean who owns and operates the rig, Cameron who made that failed blow-out preventer, Halliburton who was suppose to cement that well, had never been mentioned or attacked as vigorously as BP. While this Disaster already costs BP $1.4 billon, those american companies $0. The U.S. banks had not suffered from the same personalised attacks in spite of the global economic damage caused by their irresponsible, unchecked greed and avarice. Just play to the domestic audience and blame the foreigners. I commend BP in the dignified way they've conducted themselves in the face of a barrage of ill-informed and politically motivated insults. So much for the SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP!

[alphaa10000]

No sense, at all. BP is in the public spotlight-- if you cared to read about the matter-- because BP ordered production crews to cap an unstable bore.

The production crew objected, on safety grounds. A BP chief, on-site, over-ruled the crew, and was quoted by one eyewitness as saying, "That's the way it will be!"

However, it is a safe conclusion British mercantile appetites are greed, itself. BP is no exception.

In fact, for the sake of BP, the American CIA overthrew Iran's democratically-elected president (Mossadeq) for the offense of seizing BP oil fields in Iran. You understand, democracy is important, but not THAT important-- the British empire must endure.

Oh, what a record of splendor, the British Commonwealth! For the sake of its wealthy (not to be confused with nobility), England sent its young men out to overrun the rest of the world.

And it continues, to this day, apparently, in the Gulf of Mexico.

[alphaa10000]

CALLING BP CORPORATE

agnosticcc said, "The U.S. banks had not suffered from the same personalised attacks in spite of the global economic damage caused by their irresponsible, unchecked greed and avarice. Just play to the domestic audience and blame the foreigners..."
---

Again, you are not paying attention. The American public hates Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citibank, etc., entirely as much as you claim you do.

The American public offers no excuse for the GOP and its DEregulated mentality of greed and political prostitution to corporate wealth.

Further, the GOP and its patronage represent only 5.5 percent of American taxpayers, but fully 100 percent of the Archie Bunkers who vote GOP, imagining themselves someday part of the 5.5 elite.

That said, we Americans were not exactly overwhelmed by the anger of UK banks about Wall Street-- chiefly because they were leveraged against the Wall Street fraud, as well.

[rwsmith29456]

It's bad about the blast and it's bad about the oil leaking. BUT THEIR RESPONSE HAS BEEN HORRIBLY INEPT. That's what people are mad and upset about.

[vietnamwar]

Bloomberg Urges Critics to Go Easier on BP


WHY? Because this is not Bush fault???he hehhe he hhe

[cbsblogger]

What gives Mayor Bloomberg the right to tell Americans anything? He's part of the Wall Street - Goldman bailout gang that believes his rich peers should always benefit while taxpayers should pay. I have two words for him but they are banned from CBS.

I doubt if this overly wealthy elitist can even pump his own gas, or has ever had dirty fingernails. Bloomberg spends his time counting his billions of shekels and not worrying at all about the USA, or what most Americans worry about such as a job, family, health care, college for kids, paying the mortgage, and generally keeping one's head above water.

What he says about BP is irrelevant. He should instead worry about his corrupt city. What BP has done to America is very relevant and they need held criminally accountable with the CEO spending a lifetime in prison and shareholders being forced to sacrifice.

[esq777]

Thank you Mr. Bloomberg for standing up for the poor little helpless multibillion dollar global conglomerate. What a tone deaf jerk.

[formrusmcsgt]

"The guy that runs BP ...
---
A billionaire and a mayor of the largest city in the country and he speaks English like a drop-out.