MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript
Interview
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O"DONNELL: As we reported last night, the Senate held hearings last week on safety at BP before the blowout--at which BP"s so-called vice president of safety refused to say he felt in any way responsible for the disaster and the 11 workers who were killed.
Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, took part in those hearings as a member of the health, education, labor, and pensions committee. He joins us now from Washington.
Senator, if BP"s vice president for safety, Steve Flynn, isn"t responsible for the explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon, then no BP executive is responsible. Isn"t that what BP is trying to tell us?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D), OREGON: Well, absolutely. Steven Flynn came into our committee and he said in the beginning of his testimony, "Safety is our top priority." And we had before us all kinds of history of BP safety violations.
You have a situation where over a three-year period, Exxon had one--
I mean, one single egregious willful violation while BP had 760. And that contrast, this is a company that absolutely ignored safety, cut every corner in favor to turn a larger profit, and coming before the American people, before Congress, and saying safety is number one--completely unacceptable.
O"DONNELL: Now, if the vice president for safety still has his job and the company has replaced the CEO with another executive who was in place before this disaster occurred, before this explosion occurred that killed BP workers, what--what has really changed? I mean, why wouldn"t they be bringing in someone who didn"t have any of this blood on his hands?
MERKLEY: Well, I tell you this. I hope that Bob Dudley seizes this opportunity to completely change the corporate culture. Exxon after the 1989 spill, Exxon Valdez, it proceeded to change everything. They brought a top team together. They looked at everything from the temperature of the salad dressing to the safety of deep water drilling. And the result was a complete corporate makeover.
BP could go through that, but it has to have the will power and has to start with Bob Dudley. And I guess we"ll find out soon if he has that determination based on what actions he takes in the department of the safety team.
O"DONNELL: Now, Tony Hayward is out there very proudly talking about BP"s unprecedented response to the environmental disaster. Of course, it"s an unprecedented disaster. SO, of course, the response would be unprecedented.
But what is really unprecedented is what you just pointed out about BP"s occupational safety record--as was pointed out in the hearing and you pointed here again. Egregious violations in this industry, 760 out of 761 of them belonged to BP prior to this explosion.
I mean, what do you have to do with a company like that to get real change? And what will you be looking for after Dudley takes over that you could call real change?
MERKLEY: Well, I think the first thing we"ll look for is whether Steven Flynn remains in charge of safety. This is a man who"s been with the company for 25 years. He"s been head of safety for a long period of time.
He had every opportunity after previous disasters to make over the company, didn"t do it. Maybe he tried. Maybe he wasn"t allowed. But whatever the reason, he didn"t make it happen. And so, that will be a clear indication.
But Congress also has to do its part, because, certainly, we have not been clear enough, strict enough, about the requirements necessary both to protect workers and to protect the environment.
O"DONNELL: Now, Senator Franken referred to BP in the hearing in terms of safety as an outlier, a company that seemed to be much more reckless than anybody else in the industry. Is that your feeling? Is the rest of the industry operating at a substantially safer level than BP?
MERKLEY: There is no comparison. You have other companies like ConocoPhillips and so forth that may have two violations or four violations over the same time period that BP had 760. It is--it"s such a gap.
And when I questioned Steven Flynn about this, he played the victim.
He said, I"m so disappointed people would view us that way. And he almost
and I said, well you almost sound like you"re blaming the process, like you"re the victim. And he said, well, they"re looking at violations and they"re not comparing apples and oranges.
There was no taking responsibility for a series of egregious violations over a long period of time that just didn"t take the lives of the Deepwater Horizon. That was--it was terrible and awful. But there were terrible and awful instances before in which at least 30 earlier workers had died due to the safety practices of this company.
O"DONNELL: Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon on the health committee--
Senator, I just want to commend you for maintaining your patience and dignity in the face of that outrageous testimony last week. It was really something to see.
MERKLEY: It was surreal.
O"DONNELL: Thanks for your time tonight, Senator.
MERKLEY: You"re welcome.
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