What does BP stand for?

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has published documents relating to its hearings into the Deepwater Horizon accident and subsequent oil leak, and what should come as a surprise to no one,  BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a destructive oil spill in a well that an engineer ominously described as a "nightmare" just six days before the blowout.

Congress wrote a letter to Tony Hayward outlining its concerns that BP took shortcuts and undertook risky practices, in an attempt to keep costs down. This letter was written in preparation for Hayward's testimony on Thursday of this week.

Worse yet, oil and gas industry insider, Matt Simmons has been warning that the scale of the spill is much bigger and that there's a larger leak several miles away.  He also thinks that sealing the gush of oil might very well entail  "what the Soviet Union did decades ago -- setting off a bomb deep underground so that the fiery blast will melt the surrounding rock and shut off the spill."

Despite BP's egregious history and continuance of corporate criminality -  in addition to its behavior before and after the the Deepwater Horizon oil spill - BP, which stands for Beyond Prosecution

"...the Justice Department (DOJ) abruptly shut down West's investigation into BP in August 2007 and gave the company a "slap on the wrist" for what he says were serious environmental crimes that should have sent some BP executives to jail."

and will no doubt avoid the harsh consequences it deserves, as BP stands for  Bankruptcy Protection.

They have about a month before they declare Chapter 11. They're going to run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses. One really smart thing that Obama did was about three weeks ago he forced BP CEO Tony Hayward to put in writing that BP would pay for every dollar of the cleanup. But there isn't enough money in the world to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. Once BP realizes the extent of this my guess is that they'll panic and go into Chapter 11. -- Matt Simmons

Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens, Rand Paul, and  Mike Bloomberg think we're being too hard on BP.

On his weekly radio show, the mayor of New York said, "The guy who runs BP didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well."

No, he didn't "go down there"...he didn't have to "go down there." Remote control is just as effective.

In other news, over the weekend, oil spilled once more.  21,000 gallons from a Chevron pipeline leaked into the Red Butte River which runs through the center of Salt Lake City.

Chevron is expected to unveil a cleanup plan this morning, after a day in which the company focused on containing an oil leak that fouled Red Butte Creek and Liberty Park pond, in hopes of keeping the toxic spill from reaching the Great Salt Lake.