[Unimog Bob]

It all makes me sick. What makes me most sick is the transparency (if you have half a brain) regarding the LACK of federal gov't oversight/punishment to prevent things from going wrong. IMO, the federal gov't exists for very few reasons. One reason they exist is to regulate large businesses that can do catastrophic harm to our environment while profiting from its resources. Instead, they practically encourage them to take risk by doing (close to) nothing. It's obvious to me that gov't bows to big business.

I saw in the second part that BP was fined 108 million for their negligence that cost 15 men their lives. I did some more research. BP averages 24 Billion a year profit. That's 65 million a day (profit).

So. They were fined less than two days profit for being negligent. Think about that. Any man that is divorced usually loses HALF of his worth that day, and then often pays for years after the fact. I don't bring this up for sexist reasons, but as a comparison. Why then isn't BP fined in a comparable manner? Say 1/10 of total value? That might encourage them to not be negligent in the future and spend money/put effort where needed to guard against more negligent mishaps. It'd then make sense to spend money to guard against losing it. As the penalties exist now, it makes NO monetary sense whatsoever to guard against destroying the environment, or losing 11 or 15 men/women.
It's beyond obvious (to me) that big biz has zero conscience and makes decisions based solely on the bottom line. Fining them comparable to two days work is just ridiculous and will never encourage proper behavior. If penalties are minimal, poor decisions will continue indefinitely.

Sounds like nearly all on the rig knew of the problem (with blown out BOP). The BP rep literally knew of the risk with removing "the mud" while putting in the plugs, but insisted (over TransOcean's recommendation) to do it to "expedite" drilling later. Pure greed, no conscience or concern for anyone or anything. It makes us all sick.