What Good is BP Lifeline if it Doesn’t Rescue Victims?

July 29th, 2010. By AbiK

Here’s the situation—really a Catch-22. You’re stranded at sea, and a seemingly kind soul passes by on a boat, with a life buoy—you know, the type lifeguards use with that long rope. The kind soul tosses it out to you, reaching just beyond your shoulder like he’s been taught to do—and your countenance immediately turns from one of panic to one of relief…safe and secure that you’ll be able to remain afloat for a while and, although exhausted, enjoy the tow in toward the boat.

Ahhh…but funny thing happened on the way to the boat! The kind soul sort of, uh, dropped his end of the lifeline. Whoops! And guess what? Since you grabbed the line, you don’t have any other options for being saved other than saying some prayers.

Enter the current hell that BP oil spill victims are living right now. They can see that seemingly kind soul with the life buoy in hand (i.e., BP & Feinberg), but there’s also a ship way off on the horizon that may take days to get to them (i.e., litigation) and, if they turn toward litigation, they leave behind the life buoy. The clock is ticking, they’re drowning in the very real possibility of losing their homes, their livelihoods, their futures…what to do?

Most of us would be giving serious thought to taking the life buoy—particularly if there are others dependent on us as well. But, with the BP oil situation, some hindsight is playing into the mix. See, if you recall—and this was a topic on NPR today—9/11 taught us a few things. Things like, gee, maybe there will be after-effects of the disaster that we really can’t quantify just yet. There are lots of hard-to-quantify aspects of this: how long will the clean up take? how long will victims remain without an income? will there be illnesses that crop up years later as a result? So maybe taking what’s offered by BP and Feinberg is not in one’s best interests.

Then, factor in what I’ll call the piss-off factor. It’s like that last straw. First, Katrina. Then, the economy. Then, the BP oil spill. And now you’re telling me I have to waive my right to sue BP if I take a final settlement payout from them—that very well may not cover my damages? Let’s just say the water in the pot on the stove has officially begun to boil. Damn BP! Damn Feinberg! Damn the system! Enough is enough folks. So…as Lucy so aptly likes to say in her posts, “Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho! It’s off to court we go!”

You can’t continue to push a person’s back against the wall without them rallying at some point and pushing back. And it starts to go beyond just the basic need for security as per Maslow’s hierarchy—it starts to be a push back based on principle. BP, you cannot continue to screw us. And that goes for Facilitator Feinberg as well—actually, I should say “Enabler Feinberg” as the situation is more dysfunctional in nature. Here’s a quote from Feinberg that was picked up by NPR today:

“We’ve done our best. We’ve talked to the experts. If you believe that that check is insufficient, don’t accept it,” Feinberg said. “You can go about your business. You can go litigate. You can do whatever else you want.

“But it is a generous check that accurately reflects the likely long-term damage — and then some.”

And, here’s another gem, in regard to possible longer-term health issues from the oil spill:

Feinberg called the scenario a horror and said he’d ponder it. “Right now, I would say — it’s a tough call,” he said. “You’ve given me a hypothetical which I hadn’t thought of.”

Let’s get this straight—Feinberg had not yet thought of the possible longer-term implications of this mess—AND goes as far as to say that such a hypothetical would be a “horror”. This from the man who’s been heading up the team that’s calculating the long-term impacts of the spill and, using that calculation, coming up with the settlement amounts folks will receive if they file a claim with BP.

That ought to give you complete confidence in that lifeline, no? Betting woman I am not, but my money’s on litigation for this one.

 

Tags: BP, BP Lawsuit, BP Oil Spill, Feinberg

This was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 10:33 am and is filed under Emerging Issues, Environment . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.