Brian Dubie’s imported campaign gurus from Virginia tout the virtues of a web savvy campaign. The man running Dubie’s web effort has written an article about the vital importance Facebook played in electing the arch conservative Bob McDonnell in Virginia and centerfold Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Last winter he praised Lt. Gov. Dubie for the long hours and personal attention he puts into his Facebook page.  

Perhaps this web presence alerted the Free Press that the internet has finally arrived in Vermont politics.

VtBuzz is curating (their word) a six part exploration of the gubernatorial candidate websites. The ‘curate’ starts himself off as if awakening from an eight year dream with the observation that times have changed since 2002, noting:

How the world has changed since the 2002 election, which brought the current governor, Jim Douglas, to the top of state government. That was a different era for politics. Websites hardly were in use this way by state candidates.  Now they are in the forefront of all political campaigns.

Yeah and ‘What’s with these kids in their bellbottoms?’

The series to date has covered Dubie, Racine and Markowitz. (I understand earlier today Susan Bartlett was also curated.)Dubie’s webpage came first, gets some technical criticism and is faulted for self promotion [?] but the curate just can’t resist a co-pilot and points out the official born-in-a-log-cabin-regular-guy qualities Dubie is said to possess.

The Racine and Markowitz web pages fair better in technical criticism yet the curator levels a different eye at these two. With Racine he notes the slew of statewide endorsements, including a glowing one from Gov. Dean. Then he digs deep and wonders with concern if it’s enough:

…considering his [Dean’s] cult-like reputation among liberals.  ‘

‘Why can’t you be more like Brian?’ he suggests for Markowitz in his What’s missing category. He proposes for Deb, something that at first glance I thought might be a joke

Her own Dubie tour of the business landscape would surely be an eye-opener.

My guess is that she doesn’t have the same amount of time on her hands as our Lite Gov. Dubie.  

Danielle Nierenberg is blogging everyday from across Africa for the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet blog. She is also writing with her partner Bernard Pollack at her personal blog: BorderJumpers.

Bugs. When I think of Zambia, I think of bugs.

It started when a mysterious little creature bit Dani on the side of the head. We spent hours monitoring the swelling as it inched closer and closer to her eye, applying cortisone, and praying that we wouldn’t have to go to the clinic. Thankfully, Dani’s head didn’t explode and the bite went way.

Despite a mosquito net, our favorite bug repellent (Dani has a newfound love for chemicals), and donning clothes head to toe while we slept-the bugs were everywhere.

Bugs aside, Zambia was one of my favorite countries. There is not a lot of infrastructure, or DSL, or many tourist destinations to visit in Lusaka. And definitely not a lot of food options for the vegan/vegetarians (thank Vishna and Shakti that there was one Indian restaurant within walking distance). Yet, in this medium sized city were some of the nicest people we’ve met yet on our journey and where we had some of the most frank conversations with agricultural aid workers.

Jan Nijhoff, who sits on the advisory group of Nourishing the Planet, served as a terrific host. In only three short days we had an incredible set of meetings with CARE , Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa  (COMESA), Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), the World Food Program, USAID , and others. As part of our visit, Jan took some of the most experienced staff from various organizations to engage in a frank and open discussion on a wide range of topics that included: misuse of donor money, the role of the market and private sector in sustainable agriculture, developments in cell phone technologies to aid farmers, carbon trading systems, and so much more.

We also met with an environmental reporter named Benedict Tambo with the Zambian Daily Mail. Benedict lamented the fact that businesses were ordering fewer and fewer papers and a rising number of people impacted by the economic downturn were choosing food over their daily news. The troubles seemed all-too-familiar with the struggles facing the newspaper industry in the United States.

We also visited an organization created by a North Carolinian named Dale Lewis, whose life’s work has been in testing methods to have the most impact possible on conservation and in reducing the pouching of wildlife. After years of trial and error, his data showed that lifting farmers from poverty through providing access to a market, offering training, and fair wages, was the single biggest factoring in protecting wildlife. The growth, size, and scope of his operation are mind-blowing; he employs hundreds of staff that worked with thousands of farmers.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

More evidence that law enforcement can't be trusted with Tasers. In this incident, the victim was a 17-year-old idiot who decided to run out on the field during a Philadelphia Phillies game. These guys are annoying, but the present absolutely no threat to anybody; the crime, if there is one, is undoubtedly a misdemeanor and probably never results in jail time.

So what's the justification for the use of deadly force? According to the chief of police, “He was attempting to make an arrest and the male was attempting to flee.”

In case the chief didn't notice something, I'll point it out to him: He was attempting to flee in an enclosed space. He had nowhere to go, he was surrounded, and he was within a few feet of the cop and several security people at the time they hit him with the Taser.

There was also an interesting comment from Tony LaRussa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals:

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa agreed the use of a Taser was appropriate. “If somebody comes up there and does some damage, they're going to be second-guessing not doing anything,” La Russa said. “I just think it's acceptable, because it's a good deterrent.”

This shows an appalling lack of understanding from someone who is well known to be not only a baseball manager but also a lawyer, or at least a law school graduate. Maybe what they teach at Florida State is different, but where I went to law school the theory of deterrence applied to punishment administered by a court after the defendant is charged and convicted. The police don't get to decide that they're going to torture criminal suspects and chalk it up to deterrence.

Once again, the answer is clear: Take the toys away from the boys.

On the other hand, if things turn sour in Philadelphia, this cop might consider a move to Barre. After all, they're all for tasering people who pose no threat to anybody.

Vermont Teddy Bear has made the rather odd business decision to pay what is undoubtedly a huge sum of money to the most divisive person in America to pitch their product. This is an individual who has called social justice “marxism”, has called President Obama a “racist”, has opined “[I]f you’re an ugly woman, you’re probably a progressive as well“, and many more disgusting, arguably violence-provoking comments too numerous to mention. While VT Teddy Bear is propping up his show with ad dollars, most respectable business have already broken off such advertising deals with him in response to public pressure and their own horror at his venomous content.

Vermont Teddy Bear, however, still sees Beck as their kind of guy, apparently.

That’s why it was poetic justice when Beck undoubtedly did their Mother’s Day sales push more harm than good on his radio show yesterday. While hawking VTB’s product, Beck breaks into a rant about the evils of Mother’s Day. After a few lines, he apparently remembers his contractual responsibility to his advertiser, but the sneer in his voice remains as he gets back on message.

BECK: Our sponsor this half hour is the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. Vermont Teddy Bear is getting ready for Mother’s Day weekend.

Can you believe Mother’s Day week — by the way, Sarah and I were talking on Saturday and she didn’t believe me, or it was on Friday, and she didn’t believe me. And I said, Mother’s Day, it’s a scam. It’s a big business scam. And I said, I bet it was started by Woodrow Wilson. Look it up, Sarah. And she didn’t. I said, look it up. She’s like, no, I’m not going to look it up. I said, look it up, I’ll bet you, I’ll bet you. Mother’s Day? Started 1914. Woodrow Wilson. Hate that guy. Love my mom. Hate the holiday. Now, you could go to Hallmark because Hallmark and Woodrow Wilson would like you to do that.

But there’s something new from Vermont Teddy Bear. Three handmade teddy bears in pink, green, and white. The bears are scented, each one with a different scent: strawberry, watermelon and cupcake. It’s like a bouquet of flowers, only it’s a bear bouquet for life. Call 1-800-829-BEAR or go to VermontTeddyBear.com, VermontTeddyBear.com. Something new for mom this year to let her that you love her and you’re thinking about her. The bear bouquet. From Vermont Teddy Bear. Delivery before Mother’s Day is guaranteed. Don’t forget guys, it’s Sunday. 1-800-829-BEAR or shop online at VermontTeddyBear.com.

(HT to JL at HuffPo – NOTE: Diaries posted under the GMD user represent collaborative efforts of multiple admins.)

(In keeping with our policy of promoting diaries by statewide candidates. – promoted by GMD)

This week is Teacher Appreciation week, and we should all reflect on those teachers who challenged us and made us think differently about the world. Unfortunately, we must also watch closely and speak out in opposition to a radical plan made by the Dubie-Douglas team that will compromise our strong public schools.

By most standards, Vermont’s schools are doing very well and our success is due to the remarkable work of our teachers and our community-based school system.

Nevertheless, Governor Douglas insists we need to radically change Vermont’s school system.  Under the umbrella of “Challenges for Change,” the Dubie-Douglas administration is claiming to improve educational outcomes and reduce costs by super-sizing school boards, creating cookie-cutter curricula, and fundamentally destroying the relationship between the community and education that has made Vermont’s schools strong.

This is not to say that change is not necessary.

With a diminishing school population, we must find ways to modernize our education system. In addition, while we have a very strong public school program, we can always find areas for improvement.  But the proposal offered by the Dubie-Douglas administration is not the change we need, and will only harm our schools, not improve them.

In these tough economic times, we must look for ways to trim budgets and lower costs. Anyone in the business world would tell you that the first place to look for savings is not at the point of delivery, namely our teachers, but instead on the back office and overhead administrative costs.  By consolidating such expenses, there are some cost-saving measures that can be implemented without putting our strong educational system at risk.

On my website I have proposed several areas in which we can reduce costs – including reducing the number of superintendents by two-thirds to reduce overhead – while making sure our current fiscal challenges do not compromise the future of our state’s children.

To read about how we can make smart reductions you can visit my website, http://mattdunne.com/issues/ed…

We all appreciate the teachers who worked hard to provide us with a quality education.  As we reflect on their influence on our lives we should also remember that it will be teachers who will be preparing the next generation of Vermonters.  This Teacher Appreciation Day, ask Governor Douglas and Lieutenant Governor Dubie to show their appreciation for our teachers, parents and students by rethinking these radical changes to our educational system.

 Its big-time trade off time in the Gulf. The question is: will the cure be worse than or equal to the disease? BP, British Petroleum, is using dispersants to “break-up” the oil now leaking from the damaged well a mile below the surface.

The trouble or potential problem is that no one knows what these dispersants contain. Their chemical makeup is a proprietary trade secret.  

This is the same wall of corporate proprietary secrecy that environmentalists run up against when trying to find out what natural gas companies are using in the defracting process that releases natural gas from shale.

Even if the materials, called dispersants, are effective, BP has already bought up more than a third of the world’s supply. If the leak from 5,000 feet beneath the surface continues for weeks, or months, that stockpile could run out.  The exact makeup of the dispersants is kept secret under competitive trade laws, but a worker safety sheet for one product, called Corexit, says it includes 2-butoxyethanol, a compound associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems at high doses.

“There is a chemical toxicity to the dispersant compound that in many ways is worse than oil,” said Richard Charter, a foremost expert on marine biology and oil spills who is a senior policy advisor for Marine Programs for Defenders of Wildlife and is chairman of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council.

“It’s a trade off – you’re damned if you do damned if you don’t — of trying to minimize the damage coming to shore, but in so doing you may be more seriously damaging the ecosystem offshore.”

Up until forty years ago today, there was only one thing I knew about Kent State University: it was where Sam Bair ran. He was a miler who was known for running very well during the indoor season but fading in the outdoor season (he was short, so he had an advantage in the tight turns on the indoor tracks).

Then the National Guard murdered four students for the crime of disagreeing with their government.

This is a day to remember.

I usually don’t do diaries, but this 30 second commercial is worth watching.  Our addiction to oil is funding people who are trying to kill us.  http://www.billiondollarsaday….

Internal BP E-Mails and Other Company Documents Reveal Claims By Former Contractor That the British Oil Giant Violated Federal Workplace Safety Laws and Its Own Internal Policies by Failing to Keep Critical Safety Data On Its Other Offshore Oil Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico

“GREEN” IMAGE DESTROYED — Oil giant BP Plc, formerly known as British Petroleum, has for the past several years engaged in a public-relations campaign to create an environmentally-friendly image of itself, even adopting a play on its initials with the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” But a disastrous explosion and fire April 20 that destroyed an offshore rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico — the latest in a series of workplace disasters to hit the company — threatens to escalate into the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in American history. Internal company e-mails and other documents reveal that BP failed to maintain critical safety procedures for its other rigs in the gulf. (Photo courtesy World News Network)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Tuesday, May 4, 2010)

By JASON LEOPOLD

Truthout

(Republished under a Creative Commons license)

A former contractor who worked for BP Plc claims the British oil conglomerate broke federal workplace-safety laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firm’s other deep-water production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, according to internal e-mails and other documents obtained by the online news service Truthout.

The whistleblower, whose name has been withheld at his request because the contractor still works in the oil industry and fears retaliation, first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world’s largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008.

It was then that the whistleblower, who was hired to oversee the company’s databases that housed documents related to its BP Atlantis project, discovered that the drilling platform had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved documents it needed to run safely, leaving the platform vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster that would far surpass the massive oil spill that began April 20 following a deadly explosion on a BP-operated drilling rig.

BP Atlantis, which began production in October 2007, has the capacity to produce about 8.4 million gallons of oil and 180 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

BP CEO BLAMES RIG OWNER FOR EXPLOSION, LEAK

Confronted with the staggering cost of cleaning up the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico — as well the likelihood of multi-million-dollar lawsuits — the head of BP insisted Monday that the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and sank April 20 is responsible for the failure of a device that was designed to prevent such a catastrophe.

In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, BP Group CEO Tony Hayward said that while BP was taking responsibility for cleaning up the leak, the accident that triggered the disaster was the fault of the rig’s owner, Transocean.

“It wasn’t our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up, and that’s what we intend to do,” Hayward said. “That rig was run by their [Transocean’s] people, their processes.”

Transocean refused to comment on Hayward’s allegations. Guy Cantwell, a Transocean spokesman, said that his company “will await all the facts before drawing conclusions and we will not speculate.”

E-MAILS SHOW BP OFFICIALS KNEW OF DANGER TO ITS GULF RIGS

BP’s own internal communications show that company officials were made aware of the issue and feared that the document shortfalls related to Atlantis “could lead to catastrophic operator error” and must be addressed.

Indeed, according to an August 15, 2008, e-mail sent to BP officials by Barry Duff, a member of BP’s deep-water Gulf of Mexico Atlantis subsea team, the piping and instrument diagrams (PIDs) for the Atlantis subsea components “are not complete” and “there are hundreds if not thousands of subsea documents that have never been finalized, yet the facilities have been” up and running.

PID documents form the foundation of a hazards analysis BP is required under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act to undertake as part of its safety and environmental management program related to its offshore drilling operations. The drawings provide the schematic details of the project’s piping and process flows, valves and safety critical instrumentation.

‘CATASTROPHIC OPERATOR ERRORS’ LIKELY

Duff’s e-mail to company officials Bill Naseman and William Broman warned that “The risk in turning over drawings that are not complete are [that] the operator will assume the drawings are accurate and up to date. This could lead to catastrophic operator errors due to their assuming the drawing is correct.

“Turning over incomplete drawings to the operator for their use,” the e-mail continued, “is a fundamental violation of basic document control, [internal standards] and process safety regulations.”

BP officials did not respond to repeated requests by Truthout for comment. Despite the claims that BP did not maintain proper documentation related to Atlantis, federal regulators authorized an expansion of the drilling project.

REVIEW BY OUTSIDE CONSULTANT IN 2009 FINDS MOST PROCEDURES WERE UNAPPROVED

A year ago, Mike Sawyer, a Texas-based engineer who works for Apex Safety Consultants, voluntarily agreed to evaluate BP’s Atlantis subsea document database and the whistleblower’s allegations regarding BP’s engineering document shortfall related to Atlantis.

Sawyer concluded that of the 2,108 PIDs BP maintained that dealt specifically with the subsea components of its Atlantis production project, 85 percent did not receive engineer approval.

Even worse, 95 percent of Atlantis’ subsea welding records did not receive final approval, calling into question the integrity of thousands of crucial welds on subsea components that, if they were to rupture, could result in an oil spill 30 times worse than the one triggered by the April 20 explosion on Deepwater Horizon.

In a report Sawyer prepared after his review, he said BP’s “widespread pattern of unapproved design, testing and inspection documentation on the Atlantis subsea project creates a risk of a catastrophic incident threatening the [Gulf of Mexico] deep-water environment and the safety of platform workers.” Moreover, “the extent of documentation discrepancies creates a substantial risk that a catastrophic event could occur at any time.”

‘SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF LARGE-SCALE DAMAGE’ TO ENVIRONMENT DUE TO ‘BP’S RECKLESSNESS’

“There is no valid engineering justification for these violations and shortcuts,” he added.

Sawyer explained that the documents in question — welding records, inspections and safety shutdown logic materials — are “extremely critical to the safe operation of the platform and its subsea components.” He said the safety shutdown logic drawings on BP Atlantis, a complex computerized system that, during emergencies, is supposed to send a signal to automatically shut down the flow of oil, were listed as “requiring update.”

“BP’s recklessness in regards to the Atlantis project is a clear example of how the company has a pattern of failing to comply with minimum industry standards for worker and environmental safety,” Sawyer said.

The oil spill now blanketing roughly 4,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers was exacerbated, preliminary reports suggest, by the failure of a blowout preventer to shut off the flow of oil on the drilling rig and the lack of a backup safety measure, known as a remote-control acoustic shut-off switch, to operate the blowout preventer.

Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent a letter Thursday to BP Chairman and President Lamar McKay seeking documents related to inspections on Deepwater Horizon conducted this year and BP’s policy on using acoustic shut off switches in the Gulf of Mexico.

The circumstances behind the spill are now the subject of a federal investigation.

GULF RIG EXPLOSION IS LATEST IN LONG HISTORY OF BP DISASTERS

Whether it’s the multiple oil spills that emanated from BP’s Prudhoe Bay operations in Alaska’s North Slope or the March 2005 explosion at the company’s Texas City, Texas refinery that killed 15 employees and injured 170 people, BP’s critics have long accused the company of having consistently put profits ahead of safety.

On October 25, 2007, BP pleaded guilty to a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and paid a $20 million fine related to two separate oil spills that occurred in Alaska’s North Slope in March and August of 2006, the result of a severely corroded pipeline and a safety valve failure.

BP formally entered a guilty plea in federal court on November 29, 2007. U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline sentenced BP to three years probation and said oil spills were a “serious crime” that could have been prevented if BP had spent more time and funds investing in pipeline upgrades and a “little less emphasis on profit.”

Also on October 25, 2007, BP paid a $50 million fine and pleaded guilty to a felony in the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion. An investigation into that incident concluded that a warning system was not working and that BP sidestepped its own internal regulations for operating the tower. Moreover, BP has a prior felony conviction for improperly disposing of hazardous waste.

BP REPEATEDLY FINED FOR VIOLATIONS OF SAFETY PROCEDURES

In 2007, the federal Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency that monitors offshore drilling practices, fined BP $41,000 for not properly training employees in well-control management related to a near-blowout due to a rise in gas pressure on the Ocean King Rig in the Mediterranean off the coast of Croatia five years earlier that forced the evacuation of all 65 workers for two days and halted drilling for a week.

According to the MMS, Diamond Offshore Drilling, the Houston-based owner-operator of the rig, and BP did not know that the critical safety procedures they employed to try and stop the increase in gas pressure on the Ocean King Rig could also have caused a blowout.

The environmental publication Clean Skies [which erroneously located the Ocean King Rig in the Gulf of Mexico] reported that the MMS “cited BP for what it called ‘no formal procedures’ and ‘no written guideline’ to follow in case of an emergency. The MMS also cited BP and contract workers in the incident for what they said was a ‘lack of knowledge of the system, and lack of pre-event planning and procedures.'”

In separate incidents, “BP was also fined $75,000 in 2003 for not having adequate water pressure on one rig’s fire protection system as well as another $80,000 fine for bypassing safety alarms that could have indicated dangerously high pressure, similar to what caused the near-blowout in 2002,” according to MMS data cited by Clean Skies in a recent report.

BP IGNORED REPEATED WARNINGS OF SAFETY VIOLATIONS SINCE 1999

The incident involving Deepwater Horizon may end up being the latest example of BP’s safety practices run amok.

The issues related to the repeated spills in Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere were revealed by more than 100 whistleblowers who, since as far back as 1999, said the company failed to take seriously their warnings about shoddy safety practices and instead retaliated against whistleblowers who registered complaints with their superiors.

In September 2006, days before BP executives were scheduled to testify before Congress about an oil spill from a ruptured pipeline that forced the company to shutdown its Prudhoe Bay operations, BP announced that it had tapped Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge, to serve as an ombudsman and take complaints from employees about the company’s operations.

It was Sporkin to whom the whistleblower complained via e-mail about issues related to BP’s Atlantis operations in March 2009, a month after his contract was abruptly terminated. The whistleblower believes his termination was directly related to his complaints to management about BP’s failure to obtain the engineering documents on Atlantis and to his defense of “a female employee who was being discriminated against and harassed.”

WHISTLEBLOWER: BP DIDN’T WANT TO SPEND $2M TO SECURE SAFETY DOCUMENTS

The whistleblower alleged that the $2 million price tag was the primary reason BP did not follow through with a plan formulated months earlier to secure the documents.

“We prepared a plan to remedy this situation but it met much resistance and complaints from the above lead engineers on the project,” the whistleblower wrote in a March 4, 2009, e-mail to Pasha Eatedali of the BP ombudsman’s office.

Additionally, the whistleblower hired an attorney and contacted both the Interior Department’s inspector general and the MMS, telling officials there that BP lacked the required engineer-certified documents related to the major components of the Atlantis subsea gas and oil operation.

In 2007, the MMS had approved the construction of an additional well and another drilling center on Atlantis. But the whistleblower alleged in his March 4, 2009, e-mail to Eatedali that documents related to this project needed to ensure operational safety were missing and that amounted to a violation of federal law as well as a breach of BP’s Atlantis Project execution plan. The ombudsman’s office agreed to investigate.

BP ACCUSED OF NOT FULLY COOPERATING WITH FEDERAL PROBE

The MMS, acting on the whistleblower’s complaints, contacted BP on June 30, 2009, seeking specific engineering related documents. BP complied with the request three weeks later.

On July 9, 2009, the MMS requested that BP turn over certification documents for its subsurface safety valves and surface-controlled subsea safety valves for all operational wells in the Atlantis field. MMS officials flew out to the platform on the same day and secured the documents, according to an internal letter written by Karen Westall, the managing attorney on BP’s Gulf of Mexico legal team.

But according to the public advocacy group Food & Water Watch, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, which became involved in the case last July, BP did not turn over a complete set of materials to the MMS.

“BP only turned over ‘as-built’ drawings for [Atlantis’] topsides and hull, despite the fact that the whistleblower’s allegations have always been about whether BP maintains complete and accurate engineer-approved documents for its subsea components,” Food & Water Watch said in a 19-page letter it sent to William Hauser, the head of the MMS’ regulations and standards branch.

During two visits to the Atlantis drilling platform last August and September, MMS inspectors reviewed BP’s blowout preventer records. Food & Water Watch said they believe MMS inspectors reviewed the test records and failed to look into the whistleblower’s charges that engineering documents were missing. The blowout preventer, however, is an issue at the center of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

An MMS spokesperson did not return calls for comment.

Last October, Food & Water Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request for expedited processing, seeking documents from the MMS that indicate BP “has in its possession a complete and accurate set of ‘as-built’ drawings … for its entire Atlantis Project, including the subsea sector.”

“As-built” means lead engineers on a specific project have to make sure updated technical documents match the “as-built” condition of equipment before its used.

The MMS denied the FOIA request. In a response letter dated October 30, 2009, the agency wrote that it “does not agree with your assessment of the potential for imminent danger to individuals or the environment, for which you premise your argument [for expedited response]. After a thorough review of these allegations, the MMS, with concurrence of the Solicitor’s Office, concludes your claims are not supported by the facts or the law.”

The MMS said that although some of its regulatory requirements governing offshore oil and gas operations do require “as-built” drawings, they need not be complete or accurate and, furthermore, are irrelevant to a hazard analysis BP was required to complete.

Unsatisfied with the MMS’ response, Food & Water Watch contacted Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, about the issues revolving around BP’s Atlantis operations and provided his office with details of its own investigation into the matter.

BP ATTORNEY: ALLEGATIONS AGAINST COMPANY ‘UNSUBSTANTIATED’

On January 15, Westall, the BP attorney, wrote a letter to Deborah Lanzone, the staff director with the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals, to address the allegations leveled by Food & Water Watch as well as indirect claims made by the whistleblower.

Westall said BP “reviewed the allegations” related to “noncompliant documentation of the Atlantis project … and found them to be unsubstantiated.”

Westall noted in her letter that “all eight BP-operated Gulf of Mexico production facilities” received safety awards from MMS in 2009.

“Maintenance and general housekeeping were rated outstanding and personnel were most cooperative in assisting in the inspection activities,” MMS said about BP’s Gulf of Mexico drilling facilities. “Platform records were readily available for review and maintained to reflect current conditions.”

Westall maintained that the whistleblower as well as Food & Water Watch had it all wrong. Their charges about missing documents has nothing to do with Atlantis’ operational safety. Rather, Westall seemed to characterize their complaints as a clerical issue.

Westall said in her letter to Lanzone. “The [August 15, 2008] e-mail [written by Duff] which was provided to you to support [Food & Water Watch’s] allegations relates to the status of efforts to utilize a particular document management system to house and maintain the Atlantis documents. The document database includes engineering drawings for future phases, as well as components or systems which may have been modified, replaced, or not used.”

ATTORNEY’S RESPONSE CONTRADICTS BP’S OWN OMBUDSMAN

But Westall’s response directly contradicts the findings of Billie Pirner Garde, BP’s deputy ombudsman, who wrote in an April 13 e-mail to the whistleblower that his claims that BP failed to maintain proper documentation related to Atlantis “were substantiated” and “addressed by a BP Management of Change document.”

Garde did not say when that change occurred. But he added that the whistleblower’s complaints weren’t “unique” and had been raised by other employees “before you worked there, while you were there and after you left.”

CONGRESSMAN UNIMPRESSED WITH BP AND DEMANDS ANSWERS

Congressman Grijalva was not swayed by Westall’s denials. He continued to press the issue with the MMS, and in February, he and 18 other lawmakers signed a letter calling on the MMS to probe whether BP “is operating its Atlantis offshore oil platform … without professionally approved safety documents.”

Grijalva wrote that the MMS has not “done enough so far to ensure worker and environmental safety at the site, in part because it has interpreted the relevant laws too loosely.”

“[C]ommunications between [the] MMS and congressional staff have suggested that while the company by law must maintain ‘as-built’ documents, there is no requirement that such documents be complete or accurate,” Grijalva wrote.

“This statement, if an accurate interpretation of MMS authorities, raises serious concerns” and requires “a thorough review at the agency level, the legal level and the corporate level,” Grijalva continued. “The world’s largest oil rig cannot continue to operate without safety documentation. The situation is unacceptable and deserves immediate scrutiny.

“We also request that [the] MMS describe how a regulation that requires offshore operators to maintain certain engineering documents, but does not require that those documents be complete or accurate, is appropriately protective of human health and the environment,” the letter concluded.

On March 26, the MMS launched a formal investigation and is expected to file a report detailing its findings next month.

Zach Corrigan, a senior attorney with Food & Water Watch, said in an interview with Truthout on Thursday that he hopes MMS “will perform a real investigation” and if the agency fails to do so, Congress should immediately hold oversight hearings “and ensure that the explosion and mishap of the Horizon platform is not replicated.”

“MMS didn’t act on this for nearly a year,” Corrigan said. “They seemed to think it wasn’t a regulatory or an important safety issue. Atlantis is a real vulnerability.”

# # #

Special Report Copyright 2010, Truthout. Republished under a Creative Commons license.

The ‘Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2010, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

(I hate to be the one to point out the fly in the ointment, but not all local Abenaki are thrilled with the passage of this bill.  A  couple of weeks ago, a trusted friend with connections to the Abenaki community told me of a controversy within the community that concerns the political back-story of this bill, and I am still trying to learn more about  the arguments on both sides of the debate.  That being said, I hope that promoting this diary to the front page will result in  a constructive discussion that will encourage people to share what they know of the issues involved so that we can all be better informed. – promoted by Sue Prent)

(crossposted at vtdigger.org)

Update, May 5, 6:20 PM:

On Tuesday, May 4, the Vermont Senate concurred with the House version of S.222 with amendment.  The amendment was the result of discussions with members of the “Alliance”, and has made the bill more complete.  Concessions made in negotiations have addressed important issues to the Abenaki, including but not limited to protecting their geneology in a way that allows it to be used for recognition purposes but does not allow it to be entered into the public record. Also written into the bill was language that will restart the Vermont Native American Commission this fall, as well as clarifying the criteria for applying to the commission.

On Wednesday morning, the bill was returned to the General, Housing & Military Affairs committee for further review.  After a short discussion, we voted to concur with the further amendment and declared so on the floor.  With this, a final voice vote was taken and S.222 passed the House.  The bill will now be messaged to the Governor and he will decide whether to sign or veto the bill.

We are extraordinarily proud of the work we have done in concert with the Senate on this bill.  Recognition of our local Native Americans has been an extremely complex issue, with differences of opinion on the direction S.222 should take, differences of opinion on the criteria and process, and finally, differences of opinion as to what the words within the bill actually mean.  In the end, the process worked as it is designed to do, and we are prepared to see this bill submitted to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board for their approval of the criteria we will use to recognize tribes.  If the law passes muster, we can begin, once again, to legally recognize our Native Americans so they may pursue their own lives and culture in a formal and established way.  With this recognition, our Native Americans will inherit rights and responsibilities they have been denied for generations.

We are pleased to pass S.222 to the Governor for signing and moving forward on this long and decidedly arduous path.

On Friday, April 30, the Vermont House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed their version S.222, an act relating to state recognition of Native American Indian tribes in Vermont.  This bill was originally written in the Senate and came to the General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee in the House for review and, eventually, revision.

Recognition for our Native American citizens has been a long and rocky road.  In 1976, Governor Thomas Salmon issued recognition to the Missisquoi Abenaki, but in 1977 Governor Richard Snelling rescinded that recognition.  In 2006, the General Assembly passed and Governor Douglas signed S.117, which recognized the Abenaki people and all other Native Americans living in Vermont as a minority population.  

This recognition, long sought and especially important after an application by the Missisquoi Abenaki for federal recognition failed, was meant to provide our Native Americans with a legal status so that they might apply to get, among other benefits, recognition of their crafts as “Abenaki made.”  This ability to identify their crafts in this manner would have legitimized their efforts to get their culture, as represented by their crafts, installed in such institutions as the Smithsonian, our national museum.

Without this recognition, Abenaki artisans have been unable to sell their wares as authentic, and any galleries who displayed their wares as authentic were at risk of facing large fines for doing so.

The legislation passed in 2006, as well intentioned and crafted as it was, contained a major flaw that ended up neutralizing its intent: its reliance on calling the Abenaki a minority population, rather than recognizing them, and individual tribes or bands within, as political entities.  The Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB), responsible for granting the desired craft status, notified the state that its recognition of the Abenaki as minorities  was not sufficient, and that Abenaki artisans still could not market their wares as “Abenaki made”.

With S.222, the House has taken the fine work of the Senate and, in our opinion, improved upon it in a way that may gain federal approval for our criteria in granting recognition to our Native American tribes and bands.  It was clear that we needed to craft criteria that would, first and foremost, recognize our tribes and bands completely and totally.  We cannot try to craft criteria that would allow, in its simplest terms, craft based recognition.  The standards we found in federal law and in other states that have recognized their own Native Americans were drawn in a way that was inclusive and reasonable — but they were not necessarily applicable to our Native American tribes and bands.  

The House version of the bill has attempted to make a process that was open enough to acknowledge the difficulty of proving certain criteria, including geneology.  We know that one of the reasons federal recognition was denied was the inability to show a continuous local history — a fact exacerbated by the large holes in recordkeeping that exist in towns across the state due to flood, fire or what have you.  This lack of consistency in birth and death records certainly has affected certain tribes’ and bands’ attempts to use geneology as a method for proving their case.

Geneology, however, is not the sole criteria used to recognize tribes.  S.222 attempts to utilize criteria that has been collected not only from the original Senate bill, but from statutes from across the country.  This bill also establishes a process that we hope, in combination with the criteria, will gain the approval of the IACB and allow our Native Americans — including and most numerously, the Abenaki — to receive full state recognition first (and most importantly) and craft recognition for their artisans.

This bill also creates a process wherein the Native American Commission will work with a review panel and the legislature to process applications from bands and tribes for recognition.  This, we hope, will allow the applicants a level playing field and remove personal politics from the decision making process.

Rep. Kesha Ram championed this bill in the House.  As we took testimony and chose to go in a different direction than the Senate version of the bill, Rep. Ram worked hard to balance the needs and concerns of all the different groups of Abenaki who reside in our state and had a stake in the outcome of the bill.  We feel the direction we took and the bill we produced will give us a reasonably good chance to gain the recognition we seek for the Abenaki — and at the same time putting the responsibility for creating good criteria directly where it belongs: on the legislature. We have seen the pain of having recognition yanked away, and it is real. By creating a bill that limits its language to the process and the criteria, it will be upon the legislature to fix any problems that may arise.  In years past, we have attempted to provide recognition for the Abenaki and we have failed.  If we are to succeed, we must put ourselves in front of the decision-making process on behalf of the Abenaki.  

The House version of S.222 is an attempt to right wrongs done to our indigenous people  throughout our history. We are hopeful that the Senate will concur with our version of S.222, and if it does, and the governor signs the law, and if the federal government approves our criteria, that it will be seen as a crowning achievement for Vermont, for the Abenaki, and for all Native Americans in Vermont.

Rep. Tom Stevens (Washington-Chittenden 1) is a member of the House General, Housing & Military Affairs committee.