Franken v. (another) Coleman: Senate grills oil execs on BP spill
Wednesday, June 09, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Sen. Al Franken grilled oil industry executives on Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The Minnesota Democrat asked Jack Coleman, a managing partner for EnergyNorthAmerica, LLC, if he would support a moratorium on drilling following the BP disaster. Coleman said he wouldn’t, not even to prevent the BP disaster.
“In retrospect, you would not have stopped that drilling? I’m asking if 8 weeks ago you would have stopped that drilling?” asked Franken.
“I would not, because we have to be bound, and the administration has to be bound, by the contractual rights of the lessees,” said Coleman. “It is not an unreasonable risk to allow more drilling.”
“This tragedy shows us that our laws aren’t doing enough,” Franken said in a statement following the hearings. “We need to improve our laws so that bad actors like BP can’t just make a business decision to ignore them. We need laws that better incentivize safety. And we need laws that strictly penalize violations, and help the people harmed by those violations.”
Here’s video of Franken questioning Coleman about the BP disaster:
10 Comments
Comment posted June 9, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
Another example of why Mr. Franken will go down in history os one of the premire statesmen in the world’s history.
I loved it when he backed that Republi-thug Coleman into the corner with the question about supporting a moratorium.
This clown Coleman is the reason we have to nationalize Big Oil and do it now. Our lives and the future of our Mother, the Earth, is hanging by a thread.
Comment posted June 9, 2010 @ 7:07 pm
Good Job Al !! These Corporate Monarchies need to be grilled!! Unfortunately they will NEVER go to jail….. For the life of me I can’t figure this out.. If I dump antifreeze in a storm sewer I would be cuffed, stuffed and probed.. When a BP Exec’s dump BILLIONS of gallons of crude into an environmental sanctuary they just get a slight slap on the wrist in Senate hearing.. When will justice be truly served?? All BP execs should be serving a MANDATORY Community service by scrubbing off birds and picking up dead, endangered sea turtles off of the beaches.. Let’s really do what is right and NATIONALIZE OUR OIL RESERVES SO ALL OF AMERICA CAN PROSPER..
Comment posted June 9, 2010 @ 8:20 pm
oh, al. “incentivize”? you’re making so very much sense – but please keep it in people-speak!
Comment posted June 9, 2010 @ 9:54 pm
Wow, did you hear Sen Leahey step in and tell Senator Smalley to STFU? Sen. Smally was babbling along and BOOM STFU….Gadzooks what a tool!
Comment posted June 9, 2010 @ 10:52 pm
That was today’s episode of “Deep Thoughts” by Gadzooks!
Comment posted June 10, 2010 @ 12:06 am
Ironic that Al couldn’t start your weedwhacker but he gets to look down his nose at the energy industry. Very sad.
Comment posted June 10, 2010 @ 12:19 pm
Last year MMS gave Deep Water Horizon a safety award. When the platform exploded, it proved how meaningless MMS safety assurances were. In effect, there was no longer any reliable data indicating that any rig was safe.
If this guy wants to talk about contract rights, then let’s talk about corruption and bribery on the part of the oil industry. Or we could talk about fraud and breach of contract on their part.
Colman made a smooth transition from “unreasonable risk” to any risk at all. An unknown risk with such dire consequences is definitely an unreasonable risk.
Comment posted June 10, 2010 @ 5:56 pm
I was very disapointed in Senator Franken’s grilling of somebody (whose name I cannot remember} trying to answer his question. Shame on Franken.
Whitepup
Comment posted June 11, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
The only reason this clown won was that a very very few more people disliked him less than Coleman. I wouldn’t think he’ll be too hard to unseat.
Comment posted June 11, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
For the record, Coleman won the election. ACORN hyenas walked away with the piglet.
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