Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials held talks about possibly debarring or limiting BP from receiving additional government contracts several months after the deadly April 20, 2010, explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which claimed the lives of 11 workers and spilled at least five million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
But two senior EPA officials, who spoke to Truthout on condition of anonymity, said those discussions "went nowhere" largely because the federal government relies too heavily on BP to meet its needs and "arguments were raised" by "various agency officials" about the "possibility of debarment being a threat to national security." "But ultimately what it came down to was a lack of interest in holding this company accountable," one EPA official said. |