British Petroleum (formaly Beyond Petroleum) made a pretty big claim by saying they will "clean every drop of oil" mainly because EPA (therefore US gov) is putting a lot more pressure on BP. And with pictures circulating on the internet of powerless birds, turtles, fish, eggs, crabs, covered with oil, there is growing public outrage. In addition, the shrimp industry is already suffering. Obama's administration is probably analyzing how this disaster -and the their response-will affect his legacy and his second term presidency campaign.
BP seems to be fighting to cover all the information they can before real numbers (of gallons, and enviromental effects) are fully calculated. Thus independent experts and scientists already made their own estimates. Last time I checked (this morning, Metro) it was 3 million, but I think this may be a very conservative number.
This story has a long way to go. And yes, I do think the response will affect the Obama's administraton second term elections (and thus the outcome). The response from EPA has been very passive.I get daily updates through EPA news and I havent read anything worth reading. It has been 33 days since the incident and they are still letting BP take care of bussiness under their conditions and under their technological abilities (though I recognize there arent that many choices anyway). Who would have thought there could ever be an accident of some sort! outrageous! impossible!
BP has already been fined the biggest fine in the history of fines for the explosion in a refinery in 2008. We will see what kind of fine they will face for this accident. They are playing with our lives and with our enviroment. And the enviromental consequences last more than the profit that they make ( in my opinion).
