Have we already forgotten when Occidental Oil’s Piper Alpha platform exploded in the North Sea in 1988, killing 167 people; or when Union Carbide’s gas plant in Bhopal, India, poisoned an entire town in 1984, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and the establishment of a poisonous legacy that remains to this day.
Both of these companies were important contributors to the local economy, just as BP has been to America’s. Roughly a third of BP’s operations, shareholders and personnel are actually American.
Why is Obama taking such a hardline against BP?
