There’s an oped in the Jun 3 NYT by one David Uhlmann, professor of environmental law at the University of Michigan. The subject is potential criminal prosecution of BP for environmental damage. From a legal standpoint, it’s kind of vapid, because it doesn’t claim to have any insight into the facts of the case, just that if the DoJ can prove criminal negligence, there are laws against making messes like that. Duh.
Prosecutors must examine all witness statements, internal documents and any physical evidence that remains after the explosion. But if the news articles are accurate, the Justice Department should bring criminal charges against BP, and possibly Transocean and Halliburton, for violations of the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Refuse Act — the same charges brought in the Exxon Valdez case. Exxon ultimately paid a criminal fine of $125 million, the largest ever for an environmental crime.
In this case, though, a fine of that size may not satisfy the many people who are outraged by the gulf spill. The public expects felony charges and multibillion-dollar fines.
That latter paragraph seem odd coming from a law professor; what the mob may want is legally irrelevant. He goes on:
All three of the environmental laws that may have been broken provide for criminal penalties, but only the Clean Water Act includes felony charges. For the government to prove a felony violation of the act it would need to demonstrate that the defendant knew oil would be discharged into United States waters. A felony violation can be easy to prove when a business dumps waste into a river, but it’s harder in the case of an oil spill.
I understand that his specialty is environmental law, but if BP can be shown to be criminally negligent, then don’t you suppose that the 11 killed might be worth a mention? Certainly in that case, manslaughter charges are fair game.
This lays bare the mentality of the environmentalist. The 11 people killed are nothing. The oily pelicans are all that matter. Even if it’s not germane to his point, that fact that there was no mention at all of such an important aspect of this is shocking. He mentions the 15 killed at the 2005 incident at BP’s Texas City refinery as a supporting his argument of a negligent culture. They were just props, not people. As far as he’s concerned, the only thing that matters is the water and the animals.
This is what I find so revolting about the environmental left. At best, they consider human life irrelevant. In reality, they find it contemptible. Except for themselves and their buddies, of course.
Mr. Uhlmann will no doubt take his SUV to the gas station soon, and expect the stuff to come from somewhere.
Tags: Environmentalists
