The House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the Presidential Commission investigating the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico full subpoena power. The Republicans in the Senate then blocked it – no subpoena powers, therefore no real investigation. No answers from BP, Haliburton, andTransOcean for the American people.
Who are the Republicans representing? Certainly not the people in the Gulf of Mexico who have been devastated by this disaster. Could it be Big Oil and Gas, who also happen to fund the Senators’ campaigns?
*Update August 8 – As David Wilson’s comment below points out, the bill was initially blocked by the GOP when it was first voted on, but then after considering it, the Republicans supported it. For more info, check out the link to the Washington Post article that David linked to in his comment. Thanks David! However, the GOP’s stance in general seems to be to oppose any real action to hold BP responsible for the mess and the clean up – check out Climate Progress’s recent post Standing in the way of justice for the BP calamity: GOP puts political points above all else*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rORbqq_FHoM
And here’s the video “BP and Big Oil Don’t Want You To See”:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMkXA6kqNsw]
More links:
Michigan Oil Spill Prompts Local Evacuations
Unified Command: BP “cannot remember” when dispersant last used
Dr. Riki Ott alleges BP engaged in massive cover-up to hide Gulf Disaster damage
this sounded so outrageous that I checked into it – Google brought me this from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/07/senate_gop_will_do_right_thing.html
which basically turns around on what your video portrays and says “Senate GOP will lift block on subpoena power against BP”
this was as of July 1 – as far as I can see (which may not be very far 🙂
Thanks for setting the record straight, David – the Republicans voted against it once, but then supported it. As the Washington Post article stated, it would be pretty hard for them to justify voting against this!