Despite all of Feinberg's happy talk above the Press-Register has revealed this.
BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. -- Ken Feinberg said today he hasn't been able to start writing claims checks because BP PLC has not yet deposited any money into the $20 billion escrow fund it promised to create.
Feinberg, who was appointed last month to administer individual and business claims stemming from the oil spill, held an early morning town hall meeting in Bayou La Batre on Saturday before meeting with the Press-Register editorial board in downtown Mobile.
Feinberg said he is leaning toward giving partial payments to companies and people who are indirectly impacted by the spill -- an outlet store in Foley hurt by the decline in beach traffic, for example.
He also said he would do something for real estate owners to cover a decrease in property value.
BP officials and President Barack Obama agreed last month that the oil company would put $5 billion a year over the next four years into an account to pay for spill-related costs, such as claims, environmental restoration and cleanup costs.
This might just be a bureaucratic snafu, and in the long run may not be a big deal, but when we also look at how BP has treated local Scientist and experts by trying to legally shut them up about what the ecological and environment impacts of the spill has really been...
BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.
add to this the very clear fact that clean up workers in the Gulf are still not using Reperators - (after some were threatened with being fired if they brought their own)
Hugh Kaufman just messaged Crooks and Liars the following, along with a link to the video below:
CNN may not know what they have documented. Will anybody tell them? Will they figure it out? ...
CNN documents, on this documentary airing tonight and tomorrow, that the “air smell’s [sic] bad” (it’s full of carcinogenic and other hazardous material in oil and dispersants). None of the cleanup workers are wearing respirators and nobody is testing the air.
Just like 911 WTC, these workers are gonna be in trouble 5, 10, and 20 years down the line.
Where is EPA and OSHA?
Yeah, good question - they've been MIA for quite some time.
Despite the current Right-Wing Meme that "Obama has been to MEAN to Business, and has scared them to too much change", the fact is that he's actually been pretty toothless in regards to BP.
If anything U.S. Officials have been flacking for BP, not keeping their "Boot on their Neck".
And they're certainly not getting in the way while BP hires Prison Labor - working them for up to 12 Hrs a day, 6 hours a day, in 100 degree plus toxic environment.
Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why black people were over-represented in "the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins."
Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.
...
Work release inmates are required to work for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week, sometimes averaging seventy-two hours per week. These are long hours for performing what may arguably be the most toxic job in America. Although the dangers of mixed oil and dispersant exposure are largely unknown, the chemicals in crude oil can damage every system in the body, as well as cell structures and DNA.
Did someone say Slavery was over? Fact is - it's not, particularly if you read all of the 13th Amendment which has an bright bold exception for the "Duly Convicted".
The Oil Spill itself may be stopped for now, but it's long term environmental and health impact remains a giant dark cloud looming just under the surface of our full comprehension, one that is likely to continue taking it's toll - for generations.
Vyan
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