Earlier this afternoon, I received a phone call from a DNC fundraiser who used the BP Oil Disaster as a pitch to donate to the Democratic Party. When I answered the call from an Austin, TX based number, the woman on the other end promptly thanked me for my past support, and asked if I would like to renew my commitment to the DNC.

I first chuckled, before saying, "No, thank you. I would like the Democratic Party to do something useful before I donate to it again."

The fundraiser replied, "Well, have you been following the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf?"

"Yes," I said. "I’ve been following it quite closely and have been writing on it as well."

"Do you know that BP is turning to the Grand Ole Party for help?" the fundraiser asked me.

At that point, I should have pressed her further for why exactly my donation to the DNC would stop BP from getting help from Republicans. Instead, frustrated that the Democratic Party was shamelessly using the BP disaster for its own gain, and asking for money that will inevitably make its way to help Big Oil apologists like Mary Landrieu, I ended the conversation.

Image courtesy twolf1

Early on the Fourth of July, the US government announced it was taking over the main website of the BP oil disaster response, deepwaterhorizonresponse.com. From early on in the disaster, that site has served as a joint venture of BP and various government agencies to post press releases, media advisories, photos, video, and other PR materials about the oil, including a mailing list for media and other interested parties.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security wants to make a "one-stop shop" for the disaster response under a .gov URL. That means shutting down the current site, and taking another look at who has access to post on the site, with government deciding control of the content and message.

So why did DHS allow BP to walk off with the mailing list of everyone who signed up for information about the disaster?

I’ve received emails from the site every day since it went live 10 days after the disaster. Every email has come from some variation of "Joint Information,"  or "Deepwater Horizon Response." Yet today, less than 24 hours after DHS announced it planned to take over the response website, I get my very first email from "BP America Press Relations," titled "BP update on Gulf of Mexico spill." The email from BP was sent to the same address with which I signed up on the original response website.

It seems quite clear that either BP made a copy of the mailing database before it loses access to the site, or the government will continue to give them access to the database. It’s also clear that no matter what, this is in clear violation of the privacy policy of the website, of the US Coast Guard, and of the government itself. On the mailing list signup page, it quite clearly states:

All information is retained for the sole use of the site owner and will not be distributed or sold.

In this case, according to the site’s privacy policy, the "site owner" is exclusively the Coast Guard (cached from July 1, before the website transfer announcement).

This web site and the information it contains is provided as a public service by the U.S. Coast Guard.

While the privacy policy doesn’t explicitly mention the site’s mailing list, it does clearly state the Coast Guard’s policy for the use of email addresses of people who email the site for information.

We use the information to improve our service to you or to respond to your request. Sometimes we forward your e-mail to other government employees who may be better able to help you. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we do not share our e-mail with any other outside organizations.

Considering the Coast Guard owns the site, information on the site "will not be distributed," and that the Coast Guard stated "we do not share our email" with anyone outside government except for law enforcement, BP has no right to be in possession of an email list from this website.

If BP wants to email people who signed up on deepwaterhorizonresponse.com, it needs to take several steps before it can start emailing people without warning. First, it should treat the list on an opt-in basis. That is, they should email the list explaining how BP got the email addresses, and that if people want to receive email from BP, they should affirmatively opt-in to receive further emails. Anyone who doesn’t can’t be emailed. Second, email addresses are valuable things. BP should compensate the government for each email address that opts in to BP’s list.

What BP shouldn’t do, and what the government shouldn’t allow, is what evidently happened this morning: BP making off with a copy of the list and treating it as its own, with no regard for the people who signed up for the list in the first place.

At yesterday’s House Energy and Commerce committee hearings with the executives of BP, Exxon, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) suggested Lamar McKay should commit ritual suicide instead of resigning.

Cao is Vietnamese-American who represents New Orleans and many Louisianans feeling pain from the oil disaster, including a big percentage of Vietnamese and Asian fishermen idled by the oil. At the start of his questioning of the oil execs, Cao said:

The oil disaster has caused great economic impact to my district. Hundreds of businesses have closed, thousands are out of work. Mr Stearns [Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-FL] asked Mr. McKay to resign. Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently. During the Samurai days, we would give you a knife and ask you to commit harakiri.

Watch Rep. Cao suggest ritual suicide to BP America’s executive, via FDL TV:

Slipped into this Reuters piece is the news that BP has hired Goldman Sachs as "advisers" for unknown purposes, in addition to Pete Peterson’s Blackstone Group and Credit Suisse Group. (Tip o’ the hat to Brad Johnson)

BP has hired investment banks Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs Group and Credit Suisse Group as advisers, a source familiar with the matter said, without identifying the purpose of the advice.

It’s funny because if the Vampire Squid lived in the Gulf of Mexico, it’d be choking to death on BP’s oil. Assuming, of course, it doesn’t actually thrive on crude oil.

As for the advice Goldman & Co. might give to BP, there’s one thing the MOTUs seem to be quite good at doing: limiting liability, being giant corporate assholes, screwing the country, and still turning a tidy profit. BP’s chances on the latter may be slim as their liability goes up with each gallon of crude gushing into the Gulf.

But if anyone can get BP through this sea of sludge, it’s Goldman Sachs. What have they got to lose?

It would be even funnier if I didn’t think this is strikingly similar to how Tony Hayward & Co. are actually talking about this disaster.

In a press conference on the beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana last week, a BP spokesman claimed that the company’s solution to removing oil from marshes will be to set up boom that will capture oil as the tides come in an out.

FDL Seminal diarist Ivan Oleander asked BP’s spokesman about how to remove oil from the marshes around Elmer’s Island, part of Grand Isle BP blocks press from viewing.

"What we’re doing with the marshes is deploying snare and absorbent boom currently. With the tide changes, it works pretty effectively at picking up oil as the tide comes in and out," said BP’s flack.

That sounds nice, except for the reality of how oil hits the marshes. Oil covers the grasses and plants, leaving the plants brown as the water recedes. Pelican nests and rookeries become covered in thick brown oil as the tide comes in. The oil soaks into the soil of the marsh lands and barrier islands, eroding the fragile ecological makeup of the wetlands. Even with a minor spill, oystermen reported oil-covered oysters ten years after the spill because of oil seeping into soil.

Yet BP’s plan to clean up the marshes and wetlands is to set up some boom and let the tide handle it. "It works pretty effectively," BP says.

BP clearly doesn’t begin to know, understand, or care about the realities of the problems created by its oil disaster.

Sign our petition to the Senate: make BP pay every penny for its destruction of the Gulf.

Louisiana fisherman Raleigh Lasseigne, whom I introduced to the FDL community in a video last night, as well as his wife earlier this morning, received a $5,000 check from BP after the oil disaster struck. I asked him what he thought about that compensation.

"BP done gave us something already, gave us $5,000…but that’s really, it’s really nothing," said Raleigh. "It’s nice of them doing it, but it’s really nothing. Because it’s not just a one month thing we got coming with that oil. We’re there we don’t know how many years."

Raleigh says that the one-time compensation doesn’t begin to take care of the years-long effects of the disaster. "They gave us $5,000, but that really don’t mean too, too much if we’re going to be 10 years out of business."

He also compared the responses of BP’s oil disaster with a leak from an Exxon pipe in the Gulf that hit his oyster beds. While Exxon had someone in touch and were cleaning up his beds the day after the leak, Raleigh got lawyers involved before he ever heard from BP.

Watch the video:

Sign our petition to the Senate: make BP pay every penny for its destruction of the Gulf.

Last week I told you about my morning spent with Kay and Raleigh Lasseigne, a fisherman husband and his wife who live in Grand Isle, Louisiana. I introduced you to Raleigh this morning, and you saw their memorial to their oysters in photos on Friday; now let Kay show you herself.

Watch:

Sign our petition to the Senate: make BP pay every penny for its destruction of the Gulf.

I spoke with Senator Mary Landrieu for several minutes on Friday afternoon following President Obama’s press conference on Grand Isle, Louisiana. My questions, and those of residents and other reporters, largely focused on making BP pay for the damages done to locals and fishermen by the oil disaster.

I clipped together Landrieu’s statements on making BP pay in this video:

Landrieu says that BP’s liability will be "hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, and BP’s going to pay every penny." She also claimed that BP has already distributed 27,000 checks for $3100 on average, or about $800 million in payouts.

When I pressed her on the long-term damage done to fishermen and the community – one person told me that last time oil hit his oyster beds, it was there for 10 years – Landrieu immediately swatted back that number and said "we don’t know." She says that if a fisherman "made $50,000 last year, BP’s going to write them a check for $50,000."

But this disaster will last for well more than one year, and likely well beyond a decade. You can still pick up rocks in Prince William Sound, Alaska and find plenty of oil from the Exxon Valdez spill.

This will be a generations-long recovery. To think it won’t last 10 years is ignorant; to not plan for a very long-term effort to get the Gulf region back on its feet is plain irresponsible.

Sign our petition to the Senate: make BP pay every penny for its destruction of the Gulf.

I just came from a press conference held on the beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana. It was a joint briefing by representatives of BP and the Coast Guard. When questioned about which entity was in charge of the operation, there was clear confusion about how to answer the question. In fact, no one was in charge of how to answer that question.

We drove up the beach to a media staging area with satellite trucks. We counted about 24 workers half-wearing their plastic suits digging up debris and sand from the beach and putting it into plastic bags. As the media drove down the sand, Sheriff’s deputies on four wheelers sent most of the workers to tents further down the beach, while several stayed to pick up sticks and sand.

The press briefing focused on cleanup operations in Grand Isle. BP says that they have "everyone they need" and "all the resources" required to clean up Grand Isle, Port Fourchon, and other localities around us – no more boats, no more men – BP’s rep was very certain of that. Even the Fox reporter rolled his eyes at that.

The final question of the conference asked who was in charge – BP or the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard’s spokeswoman said that while BP was the "responsible party," the Coast Guard was "overseeing" BP’s operations.  When pressed on what that meant, BP said they work "in tandem" on all decisions. "Coast Guard is in every meeting," he said. The Coast Guard then stepped in and said that wasn’t quite correct, as the CG oversees what BP does – it doesn’t make decisions with them. But they step in"when something’s not going right."

When pressed for what hasn’t gone "right," Coast Guard reps closed down the press conference. Later, I overheard the spokeswoman saying one of the things that CG stopped was rescue workers from smoking while cleaning up.

From what I can tell down here, it’s clear BP is fully in charge, and Coast Guard is sitting on the sidelines.

UPDATE: I added video of the relevant section of the press conference and realized I missed a key statement. BP says that the Coast Guard is "embedded in our organization." Huh? How is that "overseeing?"