Open Letter to Bill Randall

Bill:

I heard that during a campaign stop for the House in North Carolina you said that "there was some sort of collusion" between BP and the government that allowed the Gulf Coast oil spill to happen.

You asserted that the government let BP get away with breaking offshore drilling regulations, which then led to the oil spill fiasco:

"I don't know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company proposing to violate the safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak."

You acknowledged that your theory is "purely speculative and not based on any fact," but you insisted that there might be a "cover up going on."

I think you are right. But I think you have the parties involved confused. What possible motivation would BP have to participate is such a scheme with the government? Since the so called 'accident" had to be set in place during the Bush administration when they selected just the right place to destroy, how did they get the Obama administration to agree to allow it to trigger? No, these participants don't make sense.

But there is a conspiracy that does make sense and is already working. I think there is evidence that there is collusion between the various oil companies. For example, during the testimony before the Senate hearing this week it was disclosed that the Gulf of Mexico response plans for ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell are virtually identical to BP’s and just as deficient. It is well known that

they share lobbying companies and associations and all have been very generous to many of the same candidates.

But why? Well, if the Gulf of Mexico is made into a dead zone and fishing and tourism is killed off completely then the only industries and jobs available to border states will be in the oil industry. They will bow to the oil companies and give them any franchise they want to drill, baby drill. It could be a free-for-all! If the Gulf is dead, what more harm could be done?

We are already seeing evidence that pressure for this is being pushed. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is critical on the moratorium on new drilling. He said:

. . . we've lost off shore jobs because we have a lot of them. But I'm going to tell you, my concern is bigger than that. My concern is because we produce 30 percent of all the oil in the United States in the Gulf of Mexico and that more than 80 percent of that is from deepwater drilling, what you're talking about is reducing American oil production by about a fourth. That's the opposite of what we need. We need more American energy.

Congressional representatives from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are appealing to the Obama administration to shorten the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, noting the damage that will be done to regional economies dependent on the oil and gas industry. Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, has described the moratorium as a self-inflicted wound that will make it even harder for his state to recover. Louisiana's two senators, one a Republican and one a Democrat, have also argued against the length of the moratorium.

I think you are thinking too small. There is a conspiracy but it's not between Obama and BP. It's ALL the oil companies conspiring to create conditions for a drilling free-for-all and buying politicians to implement it. You should conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. In fact you might want to withdraw from your Congressional race so you can devote full time to this investigation.

Good luck! I'm sure you will be very successful in your investigations. Go get em!! You'll be our hero!