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Rachel Maddow-Trump approves oil project helmed by company responsible for the worst spill in U.S. history
The 2010 spill was living, terrifying, toxic proof that one of the world’s most profitable industries was wholly unprepared to fix a disaster it created.
"Why isn't this a show stopping scandal in our country?"
— Desert Dweller (@tischtak.bsky.social) 2026-03-17T02:26:00.996Z
- Rachel Maddow tonight.
youtu.be/UBcMF-A-CwI?...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-bp-oil-drilli-gulf-of-mexico-deepwater-horizon
But that was only the start of the disaster because, as you may remember, they couldn’t stop the oil spewing out of the well. There was even a live feed from the broken wellhead where you could watch the oil spewing out from a hole in the seafloor.
For three months, millions of barrels of oil spewed into the sea, and they just had no plan for how to stop it. They tried something called junk shots, where they literally shot junk into the top of the well to try to clog it up — anything they could find: golf balls, pieces of plastic, pieces of old tires, knotted up hunks of rope.....
In the end, the overall cleanup and compensation costs for Deepwater Horizon topped out at around $65 billion. BP was held responsible for the disaster not only in court but also in Congress, where it basically had to prostrate itself and apologize for all it had done.
Now fast-forward to Friday, when late in the day, very quietly, the Trump administration announced that it had approved a new, ultra-deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike the rig at the center of Deepwater Horizon, which was at 5,000 feet, this project will be nearly 6,000 feet.
But don’t worry, the company behind this project, which has now been permitted to do its ultra-deep-water drilling in the same place as the worst oil spill in U.S. history, is none other than the company responsible for that 2010 disaster: BP.
As The New York Times notes, the emergency plan this time from BP is still basically the same as it was more than 15 years ago; it proposes “using chemical dispersants to break oil into tiny droplets and push it underwater.”
No word yet on whether they’re still going to focus on finding tropical walruses or trying to call dead guys as their emergency contacts.
For three months, millions of barrels of oil spewed into the sea, and they just had no plan for how to stop it. They tried something called junk shots, where they literally shot junk into the top of the well to try to clog it up — anything they could find: golf balls, pieces of plastic, pieces of old tires, knotted up hunks of rope.....
In the end, the overall cleanup and compensation costs for Deepwater Horizon topped out at around $65 billion. BP was held responsible for the disaster not only in court but also in Congress, where it basically had to prostrate itself and apologize for all it had done.
Now fast-forward to Friday, when late in the day, very quietly, the Trump administration announced that it had approved a new, ultra-deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike the rig at the center of Deepwater Horizon, which was at 5,000 feet, this project will be nearly 6,000 feet.
But don’t worry, the company behind this project, which has now been permitted to do its ultra-deep-water drilling in the same place as the worst oil spill in U.S. history, is none other than the company responsible for that 2010 disaster: BP.
As The New York Times notes, the emergency plan this time from BP is still basically the same as it was more than 15 years ago; it proposes “using chemical dispersants to break oil into tiny droplets and push it underwater.”
No word yet on whether they’re still going to focus on finding tropical walruses or trying to call dead guys as their emergency contacts.