>>> hey, guess what? corporations are not people. if you are a corporation, and you get into trouble, you cannot go to prison as a corporation. show your executive office or something maybe can go to prison, but in terms of you as a corporation, paying for your crimes, is usually literally paying for your crimes. you pay money. you pay a fine. so our happy friday pop quiz tonight is this -- what is the single largest fine ever imposed on a corp rag in the united states ? what's the largest amount of money that any u.s. court ever made a company pay for its crimes? the answer? ding. $4.5 billion. 4.5 billion to be paid by the company that does not want you to pronounce the petroleum in their name. they just want you to call them by their initiales. bp . think of this green, green sun flower when you think of them and not say british petroleum . bp earned bragging rights for being charged the largest fine ever in american history . they earned it in part for lying. bp caused the largest accidental oil spill in world history three years ago this week. and their full culpability for that spill is still being worked out along with the other companies that are responsible. they are currently on trial in new or lean. but the bp lying part of it, that part has been adjudicated. bp admitted in court that while they said publicly and to congress even, that their gushing well only leaking 5,000 barreles a day, merely a flesh wound. while they said that publicly, not only was that wrong, but they knew it was wrong. bp was having all sort of discussions about how it wasn't 5,000 barrels a day. it was more like 60,000 or maybe 140,000 barrels a day. but publicly, they kept assuring everybody that it was no big deal , only 5. the important part was not just that bp was wrong or that they didn't know the answer and they were getting. the important part in their culpability, the reason they paid the largest corporate fine in history of corporate fines was not because they got it wrong, it is because they did know the truth and they lied about it. they lied about it publicly and lied about it to congress. in the three years since the worst oil spill ever, there is a slow unfolding in the courts and the gulf of things that we, the public, did not know at the time of the spill. some of them, it turns out, the oil companies knew what the truth was and kept it from us. other unanswered questions, three years down the road, maybe we are knew it all along or if they were in the dark until now just like we were. this week, "newsweek" published remarkable new reporting on the question that i frankly was asked the most when i was down at the gulf covering this story. the worry that was expressed to me the most by people who live on the gulf coast and make their living on the water there, three years ago in the middle of the spill, this is what folks worry about more than anything. we are getting answered about it now three years later. for now crews are lying on the tried and true method of kpem cal dispushants. these are chemicals you have seen dusted offer the oil slick . bp dispursed thousands of gallons on the oil slick , not to mention that pumped to the leak. that is more used on any oil spell ever. the chemicals are toxic. probably. we don't really know what's in them.
>> what are the long-term impacts of breathing this? of touching the oil? of touching the dispersant. these are all questions that nobody really knows the answer to. so we need scientific data. we need doctors to help people when they do come in contact with this.
>> one of the response technologies so controversial for this, congressman, is the issue of dispersants. one of the complication says that they are seen as pro pry tarity technology. the companies that makes them don't say what is in them.
>> we can't allow for the company to use chemicals in ways that could ultimately have profound impacts on not only the food that is provided from that region, from the fishing, but also the impact that it could ultimately have upon human beings .
>> are you also hearing concerns voiced about the long-term impacts of dispersants? that's something i know fisherman, when i was there, were talking about. and they are doing long-term studies, but they don't know.
>> very much so. they don't no the long-term impacts and that's what is what really scares people here.
>> that is what really scares people. now, three years down the road, some of the very ominous unanswered questions asked on the gulf coast when that spill was happening and dumping all of that dispursant into the sea it make it better, some of questions are finally beginning to be answered. joining me is mark hartzguard. contributor for the daily beast . what bp doesn't want you to know about the 2010 gulf spill is his article. thanks for joining us. nice to have you here.
>> thanks for inviting me.
>> i know you've been in the gulf coast talking to folks who came in contact with this dispursant. what did you find?
>> that people are still suffering from this and that the illnesses at the time were very, very severe. basically, an odd combination of illnesses. striking the skin, lungs and brain all at once. and above all, what i found, is that bp knew this at the time. bp was told that this correxit dispursant, told by them, what chemicals were in there and that workers and anyone who came in contact with it, this was extremely hazardous stuff and they needed it protective gear . they needed training and everybody and bp buried that report in toward further its goal of basically making the oil appear to disappear. to cover up this oil spill and to get it off of tv screens in the front pages.
>> that is always been one of the political conundrums, thinking about the use of dispursant, from a political perspectispe perspective. even if the oil is still there and maybe made into something you can't see by addition of another chemical that might be just as toxic. but isn't there an argument to be made for using dispursants for the use of breaking oil down. allowing it to be exposed more to the elements that might make it -- might make the spill go away faster?
>> to be fair. i interviewed the epa add money straighter in charge at that time and that's what she said. she said we faced a choice between bad and worse. we didn't like the idea of the dispursant but we thought it was better to apply it to keep the oil from hitting coast lines. to keep it from hitting a l beaches and epa administrator jackson said that the national commission appointed by president obama did not find fauld, quote unquote . so hardly a ringing endorse many of it but not finding fault. let's remember, epa did not have the legal authority to force bp not to use this. administrator jackson wrote them a letter. this is in the story on may 19 . asking them to stop using the toxic dispursant but she did not have the opportunity to force them to stop and bp wrote back the next day and essentially said, sorry, we are going to continue.
>> the people made sick by exposure to correxit, and again the ways this he were made sick, are the ways you point out were predicted or described by the company that makes it which is why they should they should be used in such careful ways. are the people who made sick by this chemical seeking redress? what are they doing to get their medical expenses covered? are they settled with the residents that covered the rest of the oil spill ?
>> they are trying, rachel. but it'll be an uphill path because, now, you know, bp set aside last year, roughly $8 billion for medical claims. but unfortunately moestd of the illnesses that these people are suffering from are not covered under that settlement and that's partly because they were not well represented by the plaintiff's committee, the attorneys handling that. so it is a kind of a tragedy that goes on. some of them have already taken buyouts from bp but they are paid pennies on the dollar and at $60,000 and their medical bills are way beyond that. so you know, i think that is part of the reason that i felt so strongly about getting this story out is that these people were basically treated as collateral damage by bp . as part of bp 's coverup, they were willing to sacrifice the health of the workers, hundreds and possibly thousands of them, coastal residents, a 3-year-old boy we write about in startry who was fine until he started breathing this stuff in. now he is terribly sick. let's not forget the eco system where 33%, one-third of the seafood we americans eat come out of that gulf. that too was terribly damaged by this use of correxit. and this name of the dispursant, once you put that with oil it is 52 times more tomore toxic.
>> mark herts fw aard, also the author of "hot." thanks for talking with us tonight.
>> thanks for airing it.
>> i appreciate it.
>> are you a deeply suspicious, deeply suspicious person, but you can't seem to find your soul mate ? i have some very bad advice for you,
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