State officials in Alabama have taken action, and other states need to take action to keep dangerous seafood from the Gulf off the dinner tables of Americans.
What is missing is a criminal prosecution that holds responsible the individuals who gambled with the lives of BP's contractors and the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico.
Critics argue the settlement allows BP to avoid going to court, where more than 72 million pages of documents and hundreds of witnesses could reveal damning evidence.
The prosecutors are focusing on US-based BP engineers and at least one supervisor who they say may have provided false information to regulators on drilling risks.
Energy companies continue to rake in massive profits. They use this wealth to leverage elections, write legislation, scale back regulations and escape accountability.
More than 14,000 oil-and-gas companies were active in the United States in 2009. But multinational giants like Exxon Mobil and BP now produce much of the nation's gas.
BP used over 1.8 million gallons of dispersant during the three-month long oil leak that gushed 4.9 million barrels of crude oil from the Macondo well.
Exxon's taxes were actually less than zero! Big Oil's lobbyists have so skewed the system that Exxon was able to extract a $156 million rebate from us taxpayers last year.
A year later there is widespread complaints of nosebleeds, GI pain, memory loss, persistent coughing, skin lesions and other serious conditions. But where's the help?
It apparently is of little concern to the government that BP is under federal criminal investigation and was responsible for our largest environmental disaster.
Gulf residents and community leaders vented their increasingly grave concerns about the widespread health issues brought on by the three-month-long oil spill.
