BP's Hayward Apologizes for 'I'd Like My Life Back'

The president and BP's CEO should be allies, at least for now

(NEWSER) - Great, President Obama finally met face to face today with BP's Tony Hayward. Only about 6 weeks too late, complains Steven Pearlstein. These guys should have realized from day one that "they were in this mess together," he writes in the Washington Post . Obama has been publicly hostile toward Hayward, but his attitude should have been, "Your guys screwed up, my guys screwed up, so we better both roll up our sleeves and fix this thing before we're both out of a job." More»

Tony Hayward has cheerily blundered through disaster

(NEWSER) - BP CEO Tony Hayward wrote an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal in which he advocated that the oil industry improve its technology and change its practices. Sure, sounds great, Tony. But Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post has just one question: Why do you still have a job? “At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says,” he writes. “If he told me my mother loves me, I'd want a second source.” More»

With trial to begin tomorrow, lawyers negotiating furiously

(NEWSER) - With the trials set to begin tomorrow for BP and the other companies involved in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP alone could conceivably face up to $52 billion in fines and compensation, reports the AP . Under the Clean Water Act, which requires a minimum of $1,100 per barrel of spilled oil, but quadruple that amount for gross negligence, BP could owe up to $21 billion. And under the Oil Pollution Act, which requires companies to pay for the restoration of the environment hurt by their pollution, BP could face another $31 billion. "This one is off the charts in terms of size and significance," says the director of an environmental watchdog group. More»

Many in Gulf Coast got rich in unsupervised spending frenzy: Pro Publica

(NEWSER) - A Pro Publica investigation introduces a new word in the Gulf Coast lexicon: spillionaire. As in, the nickname given to someone—usually someone politically connected—who raked in a lot of money from BP's unregulated $16 billion cleanup fund for localities. It puts a particular focus on St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans—along with its vocal president, Craig Taffaro—with tidbits like these:

• A subcontractor there charged BP $15,400 a month to rent a generator, about 10 times higher than usual.
• A company partly owned by the sheriff charged BP more than $1 million a month for land that had been renting closer to the $1,700-a-month range.

And so what if I went sailing, he harrumphs in first in-depth interview

(NEWSER) - Tony Hayward's lips are flapping again, which usually doesn't bode well for Tony Hayward. In his first in-depth interview since his departure from the company's helm, BP's vilified ex-CEO is unrepentant about wanting his life back and going sailing as the Macondo well gushed, and generally feels like he "may have done better" during the disaster if he'd had an acting degree, "rather than a degree in geology," the Guardian reports. More»