Despite the predictable rhetoric from community boosters, the fact the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is playing hardball with BP is both reasonable and good.
At issue is an $87 million fine recently imposed on the allegation that BP failed in 270 cases to comply with agreements made after a March 23, 2005 explosion that killed 15 and injured more than 200 at the company’s Texas City refinery.
Regulators also claim to have found 439 new willful violations involving pressure-release systems on units at the refinery. Willful violations demonstrate an intentional disregard for safety requirements, OSHA said.
The local response has to been to trot out some of the most sacred corporate cows:
• Corporations always know best and can be trusted to do the right thing. The public record argues the opposite in this case. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said, among other things, that BP knew it was operating unsafe equipment and continued doing so rather than take reasonable steps to avoid a predictable consequence.
The most compelling evidence is the simple fact that a huge explosion did happen.
• Government regulation always is bad for business. The fact is that lax government oversight combined with poor management created a situation that killed 15 people. BP shareholders had to shell out $2 billion in an attempt to make that right. That’s $2 billion that didn’t go to research and development, improved equipment and processes, pay and benefits or anything else that contributes to the company’s health.
In this case, some government oversight before the blast would have been good for business.
Texas City Mayor Matt Doyle called the fine “one of the biggest affronts to the working men and women of this country.” Beg pardon, but some of we working people think killing 15 of our fellows was a somewhat larger affront.
Doyle also resorted to the argument that the community should accept whatever its corporate neighbors demand or they would take their jobs and leave.
“One of these days, BP is going to say enough is enough and shut down and leave,” he said.
But, if contributing to the deaths of 15 people is not enough to earn a corporation intense, prolonged and rigid oversight, how many does it take?
