At a meeting last week, the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) announced that it would reverse its recommendation to institute whistleblower protections to workers on offshore oil rigs. This unfortunate turn will be bad for workers, destructive to the environment, and quite possibly even harmful to the energy industry.
Continue Reading Chemical Safety Board Reneges on Recommended Whistleblower Protections
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced plans to bring the Oil Spill Response Bill to the House floor for passage. The Washington Independent is reporting that the bill will include the Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act of 2010, which, “provides whistleblower and anti-retaliation protections to workers on the Outer Continental Shelf” and
Assistant Attorney General Tony West confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice was “considering all avenues of redress against the potentially responsible parties,” according to a letter released today by the National Whistleblower Center. The letter specifically mentions the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The letter is in response to a letter from NWC urging the government to use the FCA to hold responsible parties accountable for losses suffered by the taxpayers as a result of the Deepwater Horizon disaster…
Continue Reading Justice Department Considering Using False Claims Act to Recover Losses in Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Last month, we posted here our letter to the U.S. Department of Justice calling on them to exercise their power under the False Claims Act (FCA) to hold oil companies accountable for misleading the government and the American people about their ability to clean up oil spills. 
Today we received an answer. Assistant Attorney
Last month, CNN’s Special Investigations Unit released a story about Bobby Maxwell’s experience as an inspector for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS). 
The main point of the story is how MMS was infused with a “culture of corruption,” and its slipshod inspections missed opportunities to prevent the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The