BP Made $58.5 Bil in Net Profits over Past Three Years But Spent Zero Dollars on Spill Response Research

From MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last night:

MADDOW: Remember, this is how much BP made in profits over the last three years. Ding, ding, ding $58.5 billion with a B. This is how much they spent on researching safer ways to drill over a three-year period $29 million. And this is how much they spent on oil spill response research. Zero dollars. BP has spent zero dollars researching how to respond to an oil spill. Aren`t you glad BP is in charge of the oil spill response in the gulf right now?

Video and transcript follow…

MADDOW: a new plan for cleaning up oil from the Gulf Coast beaches. Yes, the company tried out its brand-spanking new clean-up strategy around Orange Beach, Alabama, over the weekend. Here it is. Quote, “Under the new plan workers deploy straight from a central staging area directly to a beach in the path of oil, instead of waiting on the beach.” That`s the new plan.

We go clean a specific part of the beach that we know needs cleaning instead of waiting on the beach in the sun. That`s the new plan. It` s day 70 of this disaster — that`s the new plan. The great state of Florida has also announced that it`s looking at new ways to stop the oil instead of just boom. Now, they`re planning on arranging barges as if the barges are boom — giant barge-like boom. Maybe it`ll work, who knows. Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. Does it ever feel like they`re sort of making this up as they go along? Like BP`s real response plan was a piece of paper that just said, hey, just wing it, because hey, it turns out, they just are. This is an issue we have been hammering on for weeks on this show, the heart-breaking lameness of oil spill response, using the same technology today that they used in 1969, 1979 to respond to oil spills then, using that technology poorly.

The fact that oil companies couldn`t be bothered to invest at all in figuring out how to clean up their messes because they were too busy counting their record profits, lighting each other`s cigars with $1,000 bills. The issue of how bad oil- spill response technology is, is something that is now getting asked about in Congress. It is something that ” New York Times” touched on last week. And the ” Associated Press” hit on it over the weekend in some pretty stark detail. When a bunch of people start chasing the story, ultimately, you all turn up enough details that, if you combine them, you can get a pretty clear story. And in this case, you learn something amazing about BP.

Over the last three years, BP made about $58.5 billion in profits. I said $63 billion earlier that was wrong $58.5 billion in profits over the last three years. You know, things have been pretty awesome for BP. That`s not revenue. That`s not gross. That`s net. That`s profit. While they were raking in tens of billions of dollars in pure profit, according to the ” AP`s” reporting, BP says it spent this much you can see on the graph there, that much on safer drilling $29 million on safer drilling. BP says it spent $29 million over three years on researching how to drill more safely. That`s 0.05 percent of their profits for that same amount of time. But that little line you can barely see there, that`s just safer drilling.

We`re still not even talking about better clean-up. So back to the graph. During this three-year time period, when they were making $58.5 billion and apparently spending $29 million on safer drilling, what was BP spending on making sure that if something went wrong they`d be able to handle it? What was the company spending on spill response research? Because remember, the way oil companies get approval to drill in the United States and in U.S. waters is by promising that they can handle it if there`s a spill. They can handle the spill. They can handle cleaning up after worst-case scenario spills, right? That`s how they get approval. So let`s say BP`s minuscule investment into safer drilling doesn`t pay off and something does go wrong. Something goes wrong say 5,000 feet under water off the coast of Louisiana. What then? What has BP been spending on researching how to clean up an oil spill, how to clean up, say, a really bad underwater oil spill.

It turns out BP does not do that research itself. They admit that. A spokesman for BP telling the ” Associated Press” that, ” BP does not research oil spill cleanup technology. Instead, he said BP supports oil spill response organizations such as the nonprofit Marine Spill Response Corporation.” OK. So BP doesn`t do spill response research themselves. They have the Marine Spill Response Corporation do it for them.

And now, here`s the part that you should tell all your friends at work tomorrow or at school tomorrow or wake somebody up and tell them tonight. BP doesn`t do spill response research themselves. They have the Marine Spill Response Corporation do it for them. The budget for oil spill response research at the Marine Spill Response Corporation is zero. A spokesperson for the organization told ” USA Today” they have no budget for research. That same spokesperson confirmed to us today, quote, “Marine Spill Response Corporation” is an operational company, not a research and development company.”

So BP doesn`t do any research into oil spill response. And the company BP claims does it for them doesn`t do it either, and isn`t even the kind of company that would. So back to the graph.

Remember, this is how much BP made in profits over the last three years. Ding, ding, ding $58.5 billion with a B. This is how much they spent on researching safer ways to drill over a three-year period $29 million. And this is how much they spent on oil spill response research. Zero dollars. BP has spent zero dollars researching how to respond to an oil spill. Aren`t you glad BP is in charge of the oil spill response in the gulf right now?

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