Too Big to Obey: Whether BP Is De-barred Up to DOD and (Hopefully) the White House

For a potentially earth-shattering move against one of the most notorious corporate environmental scofflaws in history, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sure hid its light under a bushel this morning. The agency's scant three-paragraph press release announced simply: "BP Temporarily Suspended from New Contracts with the Federal Government," adding that "EPA is taking this action due to BP's lack of business integrity as demonstrated by the company's conduct with regard to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, oil spill and response." As the headline suggests, the temporary suspension applies to new, but not existing, contracts with the government. Don't get me wrong, EPA's move was in its own way a profile in courage for an agency that too often walks around with a target on its back, taking unwarranted hits from both its known foes - House Republicans - and from people who should be on its side - White House staff, and occasionally from other agencies and departments - like the Pentagon, or the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. The question is whether the little release was an exercise in mere bravado or whether it will deliver real results. As reporters hustled to interpret the cryptic release, the Interior Department confirmed that BP would be barred from winning any new federal oil leases. Unfortunately, BP just finished winning a slew of new leases in June, making it the largest leaseholder in the Gulf. The new leases are located in the same region of the Gulf as the Macondo well, the one that exploded in April 2010, killing 11 destroying the $350 million Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, fouling the Gulf of Mexico and hobbling the regional economy of the Gulf Coast. As the rig's name suggests, oil lies deep below the surface out there, representing plenty of hazards to be navigated by a company that, according to EPA's careful review of ample evidence, lacks integrity.