METRO ACCESS - PARATRANSIT REMAINS BROKEN IN DC (GREASED PALMS)

METRO ACCESS - PARATRANSIT REMAINS BROKEN IN DC:

YET THE PROGRAM COLLECTS MORE FEDERAL FUNDS.

WHICH POLITICIANS' PALMS ARE BEING GREASED??

WHY NOT REPLACE CONTRACTORS WITH UBER & LYFT DRIVERS?

METRO ACCESS GROWING PROBLEMS INCLUDE.......

POLITICALLY-RIGGED CONTRACTS,
POOR MANAGEMENT,
HORRIBLE PERFORMANCE LEVELS,
SEVERE RETALIATION AGAINST WHISTLE BLOWERS,
EXTREME DISORGANIZATION,
RARE ON-TIME PICK-UPS,
DISABLED PASSENGERS FORCED TO RIDE FOR HOURS,
NEPOTISM,
DISPATCHERS DON'T KNOW WHERE DRIVERS ARE,
POWER STRUGGLES,
SEXUAL HARASSMENT,
HOTBED FOR SINGLE WOMEN LOOKING FOR SUGAR DADDIES IN THE WORKPLACE.


Sources: Washington Post, WTOP, Youtube


******* How problems with MetroAccess have left D.C.’s most vulnerable commuters stranded


Users of Metro’s service for the elderly and people with disabilities say they have recently endured hours-long waits for rides, spent entire afternoons in vans traveling nonsensical routes and watched as fellow riders soiled themselves on unreasonably long trips.

The routes that MetroAccess drivers must follow are not only unnecessarily long, but sometimes also take them in the opposite directions from their destinations, say customers, including some who are blind, medically fragile or use wheelchairs. One former customer said her doctor recommended she stop using the service to get to her lung cancer treatments because it was too stressful.

For MetroAccess’s 43,000 registered customers, the problems began last September with a sudden, seven-point drop in on-time performance. The share of excessively late trips nearly tripled from the month before. Metro officials have blamed soaring numbers of late and missed trips on a driver shortage.

“I feel like because I have a disability, I’m being treated like less than everyone else,” said Shannon Minnick, 46, who is quadriplegic and uses a wheelchair.

Minnick, of Silver Spring, said she recently missed a doctor’s appointment after spending more than 2½ hours in a MetroAccess van for what is typically a 25-minute ride. On another recent trip, a driver taking her home from Rockville first picked up someone in Kensington, five minutes from her home, and then drove another passenger to north Silver Spring before heading south again to drop her off.

Nancy Childress, 63, of West Springfield, Va., recalled how one MetroAccess trip took so long this winter that another passenger soiled herself after being in the van for two to three hours.

“She couldn’t help it,” said Childress, who has trouble walking and balancing from being hit by a car two decades ago.

The driver disinfected the van, and they went on their way, Childress said.

Heidi Case, a disability advocate, said she knew a woman who almost called the police, frantic that she hadn’t heard from her severely disabled daughter who had been stuck in a van for more than two hours.

Those are the kinds of “disastrous things that are happening,” Case said. “It is a significant quality-of-life change.”

On-time performance remains near its lowest level since at least mid-2013. In April, 88 percent of customers were picked up on time — better than the 83 percent in the fall but still below Metro’s minimum target of 92 percent.

By April, the number of trips deemed “excessively late” — more than 20 minutes past the half-hour pickup window — had nearly doubled since last summer, from about 2,400 a month to 4,700. Incidents in which the driver never showed also doubled to almost 1,500 in April.

The number of botched and excessively late trips make up a relatively small portion — about 3 to 4 percent — of MetroAccess’s overall service. But with about 8,000 trips a day, the percentages mask thousands of missed appointments, late arrivals at work and frustrated customers who rely on the service to live independently.

While high driver turnover has been a problem in the paratransit industry for decades, Metro officials say the growth in services such as Uber and Lyft has further cut into the driver pool. The shortage worsened just as ridership was picking up from the summer lull, Metro officials said, even though the agency’s own data shows usage actually dropped by 9,500 passengers between August and October.

Christian Kent, Metro’s assistant general manager for access services, said contractors were down about 100 drivers in September, leaving the companies 10 percent short of the 1,000 needed for full service. As the driver shortage increased throughout the fall, Kent said, on-time performance couldn’t recover, even in months when ridership dropped.

“The contractors experienced a more competitive driver market than they have had to deal with in the past, and the number of people who applied for jobs with MetroAccess was lower than we’ve seen in the past,” Kent said.

Transit agencies are required to provide paratransit service under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and MetroAccess is the fifth-largest such program in the country. Usage has more than doubled in the past 14 years, from just under a million trips in 2003 to more than 2 million trips. It is the agency’s fastest-growing and most expensive service.

Metro spends about $100 million annually to provide Metro¬Access service via five contractors. The transit agency subsidizes 92 percent of the costs, with the rest covered by fare revenue.

Rides cost two times the equivalent bus or rail fare, with a maximum $6.50, for a trip that costs the agency an average of $50.

Customers must make a reservation a day in advance and are given a 30-minute pickup window. As a ride-sharing service, there are typically multiple passengers per van.

Many of those who rely on MetroAccess cannot easily navigate Metro or afford taxis or ride-hailing services.

Kent said a trip is considered late if it is even one minute outside the 30-minute pickup window.

Just because on-time performance dropped, he said, that doesn’t mean “that suddenly every trip is egregiously late.”

Contributing to the problem are the computer-generated routes that drivers are required to follow — even if they don’t make sense in terms of geography or time.

Documents obtained through a public records request show that MetroAccess contractors began “dropping” routes at a precipitous clip last August, meaning the companies didn’t have enough drivers to accept all the trips that the computer assigned them.

During some months last fall, as many as 1,337 trips had to be reassigned among available drivers.

Fewer drivers means those on hand must cover larger areas and have more trips tacked on to their routes, Kent said. Accommodating these “add-on” trips causes the circuitous routes that customers have complained about.

Steve Polkinghorn, of Burke, Va., said his commute home from his job in Arlington County used to rarely exceed 90 minutes. Now it can take more than two hours. That’s because the drivers who pick him up at his Crystal City office often head into the District to pick up another passenger before turning around and slogging through traffic back to Northern Virginia to take him home.

“Why am I driving due north when I live due south?” said Polkinghorn, who has multiple sclerosis.

Cindy LaBon, who is blind, said out-of-the-way routes have left her and her guide dog stuck in a van up to three hours.

In the fall, LaBon said, a fellow passenger who was mentally disabled began crying after the driver passed her street to drop off someone else miles way. The woman had already been in the van for three hours on a trip from Lanham to Silver Spring.

Two weeks ago, LaBon said, she spent more than two hours trying to get from Burtonsville to Gaithersburg — both in Montgomery County — in a van that first took her to Northwest Washington.

“They don’t know geography,” LaBon, 68, said of whoever sets the drivers’ routes. “They don’t even put trips [together] going in the same direction.”

While the computer suggests three options, staff members in the scheduling center can override the software, Kent said.

“On days when we have surging ridership and depleted drivers to route, sometimes the dispatchers don’t have an ideal choice coming out of the computer,” Kent said. “We are very much aware of the issue.”

Metro has fined the three companies that provide drivers — Transdev, First Transit and Diamond Transportation — almost $1 million each in contract “damages” since the fall.

But Metro officials say they’ve also cut the companies a financial break to help them hire more drivers. The agency has greatly reduced future financial penalties, in some cases by 90 percent, for six months, according to Metro. Transdev also has been allowed to use temporary drivers, a Metro spokeswoman said. And the agency recently agreed to pay the contractors “slightly” more so they could raise wages.

“It’s very difficult for them to put out the extra cash to pay drivers at a higher wage scale if, simultaneously, we’re taking the money back from them in damages,” Kent said.

Transdev, the company responsible for half of MetroAccess rides, blamed the sudden downturn on the difficulty of recruiting drivers, “given the current robust labor force and low unemployment rate.” The company said it had been fully staffed a year before the performance drop, but suddenly attrition rose and driver training classes shrank. Meanwhile, ridership increased in the fall just as back-to-school-and-work traffic jumped.

First Transit, which is responsible for 35 percent of Metro¬Access trips, said it faces the same problems attracting drivers. By fall, the company was short 35 to 50 drivers, spokesman Jay Brock said last month, and the workforce hadn’t fully recovered. Brock said the company is participating in job fairs, increasing its marketing and undertaking grass-roots efforts to attract new hires.

“We’re screening, interviewing, taking [applicants] through our background checks and trying to get them on the road and behind the wheel,” Brock said.

John Gray, acting project manager at MV Transportation, which manages the MetroAccess call center, directed reporters’ questions to Metro.

Kate Walden, a spokeswoman for Diamond Transportation, which provides 15 percent of MetroAccess trips, said driver shortages are occurring nationwide. She said the company is now “nearly fully staffed” for MetroAccess and is “aggressively recruiting to ensure we have a full complement of drivers this summer.”

A union representing paratransit drivers says Metro is letting contractors off the hook for poor service. A key problem, they say, remains the “poverty wages” drivers receive. The companies recently agreed to increase wages to at least $15 an hour, union officials said. For example, Transdev drivers who were making $13.85 an hour saw their wages increased to $16 an hour.

“You cannot operate a public service with a sweatshop employment model,” said Todd Brogan, a union organizer with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1764 at a recent demonstration urging Metro to stop using contractors for paratransit.

[Transit service for elderly, people with disabilities sees sharp decline]

Kent said training classes are now full and efforts continue to hire more drivers to meet the growing demand. The agency said late Friday that they were fully staffed. Metro also recently began receiving 207 new vans to replace older ones and expand the fleet by 25 vehicles.

The five-year MetroAccess contract expires in June 2018, and the agency is putting the new one out for bid. The agency also is exploring ways to partner with Uber, Lyft and other transportation services to provide same-day paratransit service at a fraction of the cost.

Kent said MetroAccess will improve, even as the number of people needing it continues to grow.

“There’s really not a choice,” Kent said. “MetroAccess is our responsibility to our customers with disabilities. We must provide it under the ADA, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

MARISSA ALEXANDER vs ANGELA COREY: Florida Threatens To Revoke MARISSA'S Bond For Running Simple Errands (Warning Shots/ Stand Your Ground)

#MarissaAlexander


MARISSA ALEXANDER vs FLORIDA PROSECUTORS: THEY WANT TO REVOKE HER BOND FOR RUNNING SIMPLE ERRANDS. (ANGELA COREY)

MARISSA ALEXANDER was released from Prison just before THANKSGIVING.

She was sentenced to 20 years for firing a WARNING Shot at the Ceiling to scare away her Abusive Husband.

(According to Lead State Prosecutor ANGELA COREY, "Stand Your Ground" wasn't applicable to Marissa's Case.)

Prosecutors now claim that running simple errands such as going to the Store, or driving her Parents to the Airport "VIOLATES" Marissa's Probation.

What the???

CAN YOU SAY "SLAVERY"??

20 years in Prison just for firing a WARNING Shot to scare away an Abusive Husband......

Yet the State of FLORIDA is talking about how running simple errands "VIOLATES" her Probation guidelines!

Are you kidding Me??

What if Marissa's Husband had Killed her??

Neither RICK SCOTT, Nor ANGELA COREY should be in Public Office!




ARTICLE: "Florida Asks Bond Be Revoked In Warning-Shot Case"

Florida Prosecutors have asked a judge to tighten conditions or revoke bond for Marissa Alexander, who faces a second trial for firing a gun to scare off her allegedly abusive husband.

The Jacksonville woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison despite arguing before trial that her actions were justifiable under Florida's controversial "stand your ground" self-defense law.

She was released on $150,000 bond in November after an appellate court struck down her 2012 conviction.

In court papers filed Monday, prosecutors argued that Alexander "repeatedly flouted" the limits of her bond by running errands, taking shopping trips and taking relatives to the airport. Under the terms of her release, Alexander was only allowed to leave her home for medical emergencies, court appearances and other pretrial functions, they argued.

In a scathing response, Alexander's lawyers wrote Tuesday that each trip had been approved by the sheriff's official supervising her release. "Obviously, including those omitted facts would expose the frivolity of the state's motion," they wrote.

Alexander's case had drawn the attention of civil rights leaders, who say nobody was hurt and the sentence for the mother of three was too harsh.

Alexander said she was attempting to flee her husband on August 1, 2010, when she picked up a handgun and fired a shot into a wall. She said her husband had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her.

State Attorney Angela Corey had said the case deserved to be prosecuted because Alexander fired in the direction of a room where children were standing.

Corey had said she offered Alexander a plea bargain that would have resulted in a three-year prison sentence -- but Alexander chose to take her chances at trial, where a conviction would bring an enhanced sentence for the use of a firearm.


Sources: CNN, WAWS, Youtube

Voter ID Suppression Laws Disenfranchise 50% Of Registered Voters In 2012; POLL TAXES!

Increasing Numbers of Registered Voters Could Lose Right to Vote because of New ID Laws

Generally speaking, election tacticians for both major parties pursue two strategies: make sure your supporters actually go to the polls on Election Day and try to persuade undecided voters to lean your way when they cast their ballots.

But this year, Republicans have aggressively added a new tactic…limiting the number of Democrats who are able to vote.

They have done this by passing state laws requiring voters to present ID, often with photos, on the assumption that voters who are too old or too poor to have photo IDs are more likely to vote Democratic.

For example, new laws requiring voters in Pennsylvania and Mississippi to show ID at polling places could result in thousands not voting in November.

State elections officials in Pennsylvania say more than three quarters of a million registered voters do not have the most common required documentation: a drivers license or ID card from the state Transportation Department.

In Philadelphia alone, more than 186,000 registered voters (18% of the city’s total registration) lack a license or state ID.

Many of these voters could be turned away in November unless they can provide the above forms of identification or a U.S. passport, student ID card, current military identification or ID cards issued to government employees.

The percentage of registered voters statewide at risk of not being allowed to vote is 9.2%, out of 8.2 million people.

The administration of Governor Tom Corbett had previously claimed that only 1% of registered voters did not have the required photo ID.

The new law was adopted by Republican lawmakers and Corbett over the objections of Democrats who argued that the restriction would disenfranchise thousands of voters, especially the poor, elderly and young.

A similar conundrum faces voters in Mississippi, where the voter ID law has a Catch-22 aspect.

Those who need to obtain an ID to qualify to vote must show a certified birth certificate, but for those who don’t have a birth certificate, they need to show an ID to get one.

Besides Pennsylvania and Mississippi, five other states have passed strict photo ID laws…Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin, although Wisconsin’s law is being challenged in the courts.

Texas and South Carolina have also passed such laws, but they are being challenged by the federal government.

In Virginia, a law enacted in May requires those who show up without ID to cast a provisional ballot and then present ID within a few days for their ballots to count.



After 50 and 70 Years of Voting, Two 93-Year-Olds Sue to Keep Right to Vote without Photo ID

Viviette Applewhite, 93, of Philadelphia has become the face of a civil liberties lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania for requiring voters to show identification before voting. The new requirement was signed into law by Republican Governor Tom Corbett on March 14.

The wheelchair-bound Applewhite says she has voted since 1960, but won’t be able to do so this November because of the new legal requirement. She doesn’t possess a driver’s license and is unable to obtain a birth certificate from the state, she says, making it impossible for her to show the requisite ID at the polls.

Another 93-year-old plaintiff, Bea Bookler, first voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. She has the documents needed to obtain a valid photo ID, but state law requires that she present them in person and she is too frail to do so.

Representing Applewhite, Bookler and eight other plaintiffs are the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Color People. They contend the law will disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible Pennsylvanians who lack ID.

A 2006 survey by the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that about 13 million adult American citizens lack the kind of proof needed to comply with voter ID laws.


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Sources: AllGov, MSNBC, Political Articles, TPM Muckracker, Uptake Video, Young Philly Politics, Youtube, Google Maps

Pennsylvania's GOP Voter ID Laws Disenfranchises 750,000 People From Voting In 2012 (Voting Rights Law Violation!)

HELP RE-ELECT BARACK OBAMA IN 2012!

GET YOUR STATE-APPROVED ID CARDS NOW AND GO TO THE POLLS THIS NOVEMBER EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO CRAWL THERE!









Stringent voter ID law in Pa. could prevent 750,000 from Voting

New data released by Pennsylvania officials suggests that as many as 750,000 voters in the crucial battleground territory could be impacted by a stringent new voter ID law.
The law, passed this May ostensibly to prevent voter fraud, requires all voters in Pennsylvania to show a valid photo ID at the polls.

Among those acceptable forms of photo ID include a state-issued driver's license, a valid U.S. passport, a U.S. military ID, a government-issued employee ID, an ID card from an accredited Pennsylvania higher learning institution, or a photo ID card issued by a Pennsylvania care facility, such as an assisted living residence or personal care home.

According to the survey, 758,939 voters - 9.2 percent - could not be matched in state databases as having Pennsylvania driver's licenses, the most common form of photo ID in the state.

Of those 9.2 percent, about 22 percent - or 167,566 people - are categorized as "inactive" voters, according to the data. A person can be characterized as an "inactive" voter if he or she has not voted in five years and has not responded to a state inquiry about his or her current address. Federal and state law also mandate that an "inactive voter" be kept on the state registration list until he or she fails to vote in two consecutive general elections for federal office following the notification.

"Even though many voters identified in this comparison as not having PennDOT IDs are 'inactive voters', most of whom have not voted since 2007, we will err on the side of caution and include them in this mailing," said Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele in a statement released alongside the study.

Even if voters are classified as "inactive" with 100 percent accuracy, however, that leaves nearly 600,000 "active" voters who lack driver's licenses and may not be able to cast their votes on Election Day.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele had previously said that 99 percent of Pennsylvania voters had the photo ID they needed to vote this November.

The controversial legislation has come under particular scrutiny in the last few weeks after Republican Mike Turzai, Pennsylvania's House Majority Leader, suggested during a June Republican State Committee meeting that the legislation aimed to benefit Mitt Romney's electoral prospects this November.

"We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we've talked about for years," Turzai said in June, listing off a litany of Republican accomplishments in the state, according to Politics PA. "Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it's done. First pro-life legislation - abortion facility regulations - in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

The remarks inspired widespread criticism from Pennsylvania Democrats, who decried it as an admission that Republican legislators were attempting to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, however, maintains that the law merely aims to deter people from voting illegally.

"We are committed to helping any eligible voter who does not have an acceptable ID get one to be able to vote in November," Aichele said. "We are continuing our outreach to get the word to voters about this law. The goal of this law is to allow every legal voter to cast a ballot, but detect and deter anyone attempting to vote illegally."


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Sources: ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

Vern Buchanan Accused Of Federal Campaign Finance Violations (Read FEC Reports)

Powerful Congressman accused of campaign finance violations

Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan, a self-made Florida millionaire, is only in his third term in Congress, but he already is in charge of fundraising for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, and he sits on the powerful House Ways and Means committee.

But all that could be jeopardized. Federal investigations underway could result in Buchanan serving his next term behind bars.

CNN has confirmed there are no fewer than four congressional and federal investigations into Buchanan's business practices, his campaign finances and his alleged attempt to try to stop a witness from talking.

Now that witness is stepping forward in an exclusive interview with CNN.

Buchanan's former business partner says the congressman schemed to launder money from his car dealerships into his campaign coffers, and then tried to get others to cover it up.

Many of the questions surrounding Buchanan go back to his auto dealerships in Florida where he made his millions, and back to the days when he worked with his former business partner Sam Kazran.

Their partnership started at what is now a weed-filled lot, the former North Jacksonville Hyundai dealership. Eventually they owned four dealerships together.

"I respected him," Kazran says of their early years together. "I believed him."
But Kazran says he was naive, and that he soon found out the man he believed in was interested in only two things: money and power.

"Mr. Buchanan is a very selfish person, and in my opinion people who go to Congress have got to do good for the people they represent," Kazran says.

Kazran presented to CNN the same information, documents and testimony he has given to federal investigators. The two men had a falling out over their finances, and they've been suing each other for years. Buchanan says Kazran is a disgruntled partner and has lied about what happened.

At the center of Kazran's allegations is a cash swap scheme used to finance some of Buchanan's campaigns. He says employees were forced to write checks, then were reimbursed with cash drawn from Buchanan's car dealerships.

"It was to a point where I said, 'Chief, we can't give you this kind of money. At which point he said, 'Just run it through the corporation,'" Kazran said. "What he said to me was 'Get people to write a check to the campaign and then pay them back through the corporation.'"

Kazran did, and he was soon calling in managers, salesman, even assistants. People who never gave money to campaigns were suddenly writing big checks to Buchanan for Congress and, according to Kazran, getting reimbursed from the dealership.

It added up to almost $70,000 at Kazran's dealership alone, he said.

"I remember one of the partners jokingly saying, 'Boss, you have all the money in the world. Why do you want us to pay you the money?' And he said, 'Well, it doesn't look good if it's coming from me.'"

Kazran took his detailed allegations to the Federal Elections Commission, which was already looking into Buchanan's campaign finances. Investigators there wanted to know not only about how the cash-swap scheme was set up, but if the congressman knew about it.

Kazran says there is no question the congressman knew all about it.
The FEC's initial report found "reason to believe" that Buchanan "knowingly and willfully violated" federal election laws.

Read the initial FEC report (pdf).

But in a later report the FEC pulled back, saying it found credibility problems with both Kazran and Buchanan and not enough corroborating evidence to back up Kazran's testimony.

The FEC then dropped the investigation into Buchanan, stating, "While there is some other evidence in the record that is consistent with Kazran's general allegations, other evidence supports Buchanan's denials or is ambiguous."

Read the FEC report (pdf).

The FEC eventually fined Kazran $5,000 in a settlement because he admitted reimbursing employees for campaign contributions. Kazran has never disputed his involvement, but he says he did it because Buchanan told him to.

While the congressman has said the later FEC report proves he's innocent, the findings at the FEC were more convoluted, stating it came "close to supporting a finding that it is more likely than not" that Buchanan violated the law.


And that's where things get much more serious for the congressman.

During the FEC probe, Buchanan pushed to settle a lawsuit Kazran had brought against him. At the last minute, with a $2.9 million settlement offer from Buchanan dangling in front of him, Kazran says he was given an affidavit to sign.

According to Kazran, the congressman and his attorneys were asking him to sign a statement that was a lie, that Buchanan knew nothing about the campaign cash swap.

Kazran says Buchanan and his team were trying to force him to lie about Buchanan's role in the campaign cash scheme in exchange for the nearly $3 million cash settlement, money which Kazran says he desperately needed, as his finances were in trouble and his wife was suffering from cancer and was undergoing expensive medical treatments.

"A lot of the language of it was really to distance himself...," said Kazran. "In short it said that Mr. Buchanan had nothing to do with it."

Kazran's lawyer, Robert Stok, says it was clearly an effort to lean on Kazran when he was vulnerable.

"He was holding the settlement in escrow," Stok says. "He basically said, 'We can settle, but there's one little thing remaining. All you have to do is sign this affidavit. We release the settlement and everything will be rosy for you.'"
Kazran refused to sign and took the affidavit to federal investigators.

Now, CNN has learned that Buchanan is being investigated for attempting to tamper with a witness in a federal investigation.

After CNN's repeated requests for interviews were ignored, CNN decided to find Buchanan as he emerged from a hearing.

Buchanan would not respond fully to any questions and quickly walked away from CNN's camera. When asked if he tried to get Kazran to sign the affidavit, Buchanan responded "No, no, no, no. No I didn't," adding that he needed to get to another meeting, and that CNN should contact his office.

When asked if he used the affidavit to hold up the $3 million settlement with Kazran, Buchanan replied: "No."

In a recent report, released quietly several weeks ago, the Office of Congressional Ethics wrote: "There is substantial reason to believe that Buchanan attempted to influence the testimony of a witness in a proceeding before the FEC in violation" of federal law and House ethics code.

Read the OCE's report on the affidavit (pdf).

Now a full House ethics committee is looking into it. CNN has also learned that the FBI is conducting its own investigation.

In addition, the Office of Congressional Ethics also found "substantial reason to believe" that Buchanan failed to disclose unearned income on his financial disclosure forms from 2007 to 2010.

Read the report (pdf).

Salvatore Rosa, a former chief financial officer for Buchanan's business interests for five years, said in a recent deposition conducted by Buchanan's attorney that he submitted a federal whistle-blower complaint to the IRS with allegations that Buchanan violated federal tax laws, including tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy to commit tax evasion.

In the deposition, Buchanan's attorneys asked Rosa if he stood to gain a "financial windfall" by filing the complaint. Rosa said "potentially." The deposition did not provide details of the alleged violations of tax law. Rosa declined an interview with CNN.

Buchanan's office responded to CNN's interview request with a statement saying the charges are "politically motivated," that the congressman did nothing wrong, and "We are confident that the Justice Department and House Ethics Committee will reach the same conclusion."

On Friday, lawyers for Buchanan filed a legal motion in Sarasota, Florida, to seal all documents in the Kazran case and to stop Kazran and his lawyers from speaking publicly about it.

Buchanan's lawyers said news stories about the congressman are "publicly disparaging" his character.

Stok said: "As an American citizen, both Congressman Buchanan and I have the fundamental right of free speech. ... Mr. Buchanan's motion is yet another in a series of frivolous efforts to attempt to shut down the case ... and to conceal his wrongdoing behind a shroud of secrecy."


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Wikileaks Release Protected By First Amendment; Legal Case Weak

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

U.S. Looks For Way To Prosecute Over Leaks


Striking back, the Obama administration branded the WikiLeaks release of more than a quarter-million sensitive files an attack on the United States Monday and raised the prospect of criminal prosecutions in connection with the exposure.

The Pentagon detailed new security safeguards, including restraints on small computer flash drives, to make it harder for any one person to copy and reveal so many secrets.

The young Army Pfc. suspected of stealing the diplomatic memos, many of them classified, and feeding them to WikiLeaks may have defeated Pentagon security systems using little more than a Lady Gaga CD and a portable computer memory stick.

The soldier, Bradley Manning has not been charged in the latest release of internal U.S. government documents. But officials said he is the prime suspect partly because of his own description of how he pulled off a staggering heist of classified and restricted material.

"No one suspected a thing," Manning told a confidant afterward, according to a log of his computer chat published by Wired.com. "I didn't even have to hide anything."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted Monday that WikiLeaks acted illegally in posting the material. She said the administration was taking "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information."

Attorney General Eric Holder said the government was mounting a criminal investigation, and the Pentagon was tightening access to information, including restricting the use of computer storage devices such as CDs and flash drives.

"This is not saber-rattling," Holder said. Anyone found to have broken American law "will be held responsible."

Holder said the latest disclosure, involving classified and sensitive State Department documents, jeopardized the security of the nation, its diplomats, intelligence assets and relationships with foreign governments.

A weary-looking Clinton agreed.

"I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information," Clinton said. She spoke in between calls to foreign capitals to make amends for scathing and gossipy memos never meant for foreign eyes.

Manning is charged in military court with taking other classified material later published by the online clearinghouse WikiLeaks. It is not clear whether others such as WikiLeaks executives might be charged separately in civilian courts.

Clinton said the State Department was adding security protections to prevent another breach. The Pentagon, embarrassed by the apparent ease with which secret documents were passed to WikiLeaks, had detailed some of its new precautions Sunday.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said it was possible that many people could be held accountable if they were found to have ignored security protocols or somehow enabled the download without authorization.

A senior Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the criminal case against Manning is pending, said he was unaware of any firings or other discipline over the security conditions at Manning's post in Iraq.

In his Internet chat, Manning described the conditions as lax to the point that he could bring a homemade music CD to work with him, erase the music and replace it with secrets. He told the computer hacker who would turn him in that he lip-synched along with pop singer Lady Gaga's hit "Telephone" while making off with "possibly the largest data spillage in American history."

Wired.com published a partial log of Manning's discussions with hacker R. Adrian Lamo in June.

"Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, inattentive signal analysis," Manning wrote. "A perfect storm."

His motive, according to the chat logs: "I want people to see the truth ... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

By his own admission, Manning was apparently able to pull material from outside the Pentagon, including documents he had little obvious reason to see. He was arrested shortly after those chats last spring. He was moved in July to the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia to await trial on the earlier charges and could face up to 52 years in a military prison if convicted.

There are no new charges, and none are likely at least until after a panel evaluates Manning's mental fitness early next year, said Lt. Col. Rob Manning, spokesman for the Military District of Washington. He is no relation to Bradley Manning.

Manning's civilian lawyer, David Combs, declined comment.

Lapan, the Pentagon spokesman, said the WikiLeaks experience has encouraged discussion within the military about how better to strike a balance between sharing information with those who need it and protecting it from disclosure.

So far, he said, Pentagon officials are not reviewing who has access to data but focusing instead on installing technical safeguards.

Since summer, when WikiLeaks first published stolen war logs from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department has made it harder for one person acting alone to download material from a classified network and place it on an unclassified one.

Such transfers generally take two people now, what Pentagon officials call a "two-man carry." Users also leave clearer electronic footprints by entering a computer "kiosk," or central hub, en route to downloading the classified material.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the WikiLeaks case revealed vulnerable seams in the information-sharing systems used by multiple government agencies. Some of those joint systems were designed to answer another problem: the failure of government agencies to share what they knew before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"These efforts to give diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to greater amounts of data have had unintended consequences," Whitman said.

Agencies across the U.S. government have installed safeguards around the use of flash drives and computer network operations, said Navy Rear Adm. Michael Brown, the Department of Homeland Security's director for cybersecurity coordination.

Like the Pentagon, Homeland Security has laid out policies to ensure that employees are using the networks correctly, that the classified and unclassified networks are properly identified, and that there are detailed procedures for moving information from one network to another.

Dale Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the U.S. intelligence community, said Monday that it will never be possible to completely stop such breaches.

"This is a personnel security issue, more than it is a technical issue," said Meyerrose, now a vice president at Harris Corp. "How can you prevent a pilot from flying the airplane into the ground? You can't. Anybody you give access to can become a disgruntled employee or an ideologue that goes bad."

One official in contact with U.S. military and diplomatic staff in Iraq said they already were seeing the effect of a tighter collar on information.

The State Department and other agencies are restricting access among the Army and nonmilitary agencies, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sharing of classified information.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden warned the latest leak will affect what other governments are willing to share with the U.S. as well as change the way U.S. officials share information among themselves.

"You're going to put a lot less in cables now," he said.

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U.S. Can't Let WikiLeaks Limit Candor, Diplomats Say


The release of a quarter-million secret U.S. diplomatic communiqués could lead to serious misunderstandings in some of the most sensitive parts of the world, but it can't be allowed to change how American diplomats gather and report information, current and former diplomats said Monday.

Publication of the documents by WikiLeaks.org was dangerous not so much because of what was in them — many are unclassified and none are labeled "top secret" — but because the breach of confidentiality complicates the U.S. government's gathering of "hard-hitting analysis" from its personnel around the world, said Carey Cavanaugh, a former U.S. ambassador and special negotiator for conflicts in Eurasia.

"It's a horrible thing that has happened" because foreign officials and other sources of information may be less willing to trust that what they tell the United States will remain confidential, Cavanaugh said, adding that "very frank, candid" cables are necessary "to make the world work."

Michael Sheehan, a former ambassador-at-large and assistant U.N. secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, saw a different potential problem, saying he feared that the WikiLeaks release would "make a lot of conversations go offline."

Reluctance to put diplomatic information in writing "increases the chances for a misunderstanding in some of the most sensitive discussions" around the world, said Sheehan, who cited negotiations over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran as especially critical.

"These are very important, sensitive issues," he said. "We cannot afford to have a misunderstanding."

New restrictions under consideration

In a memo circulated Monday by its Office of Management and Budget, the White House said it was ordering a review of safeguards that could shut down some users' access to classified information.

That would further limit diplomatic communications that have been restricted in response to earlier disclosures by WikiLeaks. The Defense Department has already limited the number of computer systems that can handle classified material and made it harder to save material to removable media, such as flash drives, on classified computers.

Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, said Monday that it was inevitable that steps like that would "compromise ... efforts to give diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to greater amounts of data."

But current and former ambassadors said the United States should do whatever it could to avoid that outcome.

Unvarnished analysis in secure diplomatic cables is vital to informing U.S. policy on "nonproliferation and arms control, addressing violent extremism and promoting the spread of democracy and human rights, to name just a few," Louis Susman, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, said in a statement.

And in a commentary Monday in the Pakistani newspaper The News, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, wrote that "honest dialogue — within governments and between them — is part of the basic bargain of international relations; we couldn't maintain peace, security and international stability without it."

That's because cables like those released Sunday are the way diplomats tell policymakers what they really think is going on, which often isn't what they're telling their foreign counterparts or the public, Cavanaugh said.

'It's not helpful to have it out on the table'
"At the end of the day, everyone acknowledges that these are the kinds of reports that governments need to advance the interests of their people," said Cavanaugh, who is now director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy at the University of Kentucky.

"If you think of it like a family," people always have conversations about their parents "that are important and valid and needed, but if they were fully public could also be hurtful," he said. "The kids will talk about this — they'll talk about it in frank terms — but it's not helpful to have it out on the table."

In this case, Cavanaugh said, the United States appeared to dodge a bullet, as there didn't seem to be anything seriously damaging in the new documents.

Diplomatic cables are how the United States and the former Soviet Union resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis 37 years ago this month, and if secret deals discussed in those cables had been disclosed to the public, "it could have taken both nations to the brink of nuclear war," Cavanaugh said.

To resolve the standoff over the Soviet construction of nuclear missile bases in Cuba, the United States withdrew its naval blockade of Cuba and promised never to invade the island.

President John F. Kennedy also agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey, but "a condition of that agreement was there would be no reference to it in the Cuban context," Cavanaugh said. Had that agreement been made public by a 1963 counterpart to WikiLeaks, "it would have been a disaster," he said.

"I don't see things like that" in the new documents, Cavanaugh said, "but I do see where there's information about current issues under negotiation — six-party talks in North Korea, efforts to deal with nuclear proliferation, concerns in Iran, a new START treaty. Those could become impediments."

Countries like Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea know the United States makes judgments they wouldn't like in its diplomatic cables because "if you were to get the same things from other countries, you'd find the same types of discussions."

It's when such assessments become public that nations are forced into a diplomatic corner,as Kennedy would have been in 1963.

"It's a little rougher than people expected, but if you think of countries being like people ... you do have those conversations," he said.


Sources: MSNBC

North Carolina Labor Dept Found To Be Extremely Slack On Workplace Safety

Federal Reports Chide North & South Carolina On Workplace-Safety Programs


Workplace safety programs run by North Carolina and South Carolina downplay serious safety problems, issue weak fines to violators and fail to properly handle whistleblower complaints, according to reports released by the federal government.

South Carolina's problems are so severe that auditors said increased federal oversight may be needed.

The audits, conducted by the U.S. Labor Department, are part of the federal government's pledge to strengthen its oversight of states that run their own workplace safety programs. About half the states - including the Carolinas - run their own programs, which the law allows as long as they are as effective as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in protecting workers.

South Carolina has the nation's lowest average penalties for workplace safety violations, noted Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.

"We're very concerned that with the low penalty number, they're not presenting a credible deterrent to employers around the state who cut corners on workplace safety," Barab said.

Lawmakers and officials have grown concerned in recent years over the ability of some state-run programs to protect workers.

In a 2008 investigation into workplace safety in the poultry industry, the Observer found that weak enforcement, minimal fines and declining inspections have allowed companies nationwide to ignore hazards that can kill and injure workers. The series examined injury records from 2003 to early 2007.

Federal audits conducted this year were more intensive than those done in previous years. Auditors examined case files from October 2008 to September 2009.

Both states praised their low injury and illness rates in written statements and said they work hard to protect employees.

Penalties are weak

Among the U.S. Labor Department's findings:

Both Carolinas impose weak penalties when violations are found - an average $281 per serious violation in S.C., compared with $512 in N.C. and $970 by federal OSHA.

North Carolina shaves 10 percent off fines for "cooperation," and state policy "results in lower penalties for serious violations," the report says.

South Carolina cuts fines by 60 percent in exchange for the employer's promise it will improve safe working conditions. But auditors found the state rarely checked to see if problems were fixed, and employers who got the discount were not required to take more steps than other companies to ensure safety.

Compliance officers in the Carolinas understate the severity of problems by misclassifying violations and rarely label problems as "willful" - the most serious degree.

N.C. compliance officers issued only one willful violation in 2009 "due to the belief that it would be too difficult to pass the review process," auditors said. South Carolina had five willful violations.

Auditors said of the N.C. program: "Some violations that would most likely have been classified as serious by federal OSHA were classified as non-serious by the state, and some violations categorized as low or medium severity would have been categorized as high severity by federal OSHA."

Companies receive higher fines when they are cited for serious or willful violations.

North Carolina lets bureaucrats purge documents from case files when they are closed. Removing the documentation limits the state's ability to review a company's history and properly investigate future violations, auditors said.

South Carolina files, meanwhile, lacked narratives explaining items such as a description of the hazard and didn't have contact information for employees interviewed. The report said the files involving one fatality, for example, "did not provide a complete picture of how the accident occurred."

The federal government took both states to task for failing to properly handle cases involving workers who had complained about their employer. It criticized North Carolina for doing only phone interviews, for example.

The Observer investigation found that of the roughly 800 people a year who filed complaints under N.C.'s Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act, about 1 percent get their jobs back. The state had not taken a case to court on behalf of a worker in seven years. And investigators dismissed cases without interviewing workers. The act prohibits employers from firing or punishing workers for filing worker's compensation claims or complaining about unsafe working conditions.

The reports show little is being done in the Carolinas to deter companies from shortchanging safety, said workplace safety advocate Tom O'Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

"Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to get people's attention is with a significant dollar fine. And there just isn't an adequate deterrent from the low penalties assessed," said O'Connor, who lives in Chapel Hill.

"And if discrimination programs are not effective, then workers don't feel able to express themselves and will keep quiet if they find themselves in a dangerous situation."

The reports, released in the last two weeks, could prove troubling for South Carolina, as auditors noted "inadequate enforcement documentation and state policies that potentially render the program less effective than the federal program."

S.C. official defends program

An S.C. OSHA spokesman, Jim Knight, said in a statement Thursday the state is proud of its record in occupational safety and health.

"Evaluations during the past eight years indicate that we have exceeded expectations and have an effective state program. Nothing has changed in the program, whether staffing levels or enforcement procedures, since the last evaluation in 2009," the statement said.

N.C. OSHA said in a written response it "will make adjustments that are in the best interest of North Carolina. It appears (recommendations included in the report) are procedural in nature and do not directly impact our workplace safety efforts."

The report noted some achievements for N.C. OSHA, including an increase in the number of health inspections, which are more time-consuming and complicated than safety inspections, and for reaching out to Spanish-speaking workers. Construction deaths also fell to 10 in 2009 from 17 in 2008.

The states must respond to OSHA this month.

If states don't adequately address the concerns, Federal OSHA can increase its oversight - or even start proceedings to take over a state program.

"South Carolina has more problems than most of the states," Barab said. "We'll focus very carefully on their corrective action plan and their progress on addressing the problems."


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

Health Care Insurers Vs. Obama Administration: Children's Coverage

HHS Hits Insurers On Kids' Coverage


The Obama administration is taking health insurers to task again, this time for choosing to no longer sell plans intended to cover sick children, but gave the industry some new flexibility in implementing a problematic provision of the health care overhaul.

Many insurers have said in recent weeks that they would stop selling "child only" insurance plans because the overhaul requires them to accept all applicants, even if they apply for coverage at the last minute before treatment. Insurers say the provision, which went into effect Sept. 23, allows patients to game the system.

That's angered Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who said in a letter to the industry late Friday that insurers are operating in bad faith. She cited a March letter in which the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans said, "health plans recognize the hardship that a family faces when they are unable to obtain coverage for a child with a pre-existing condition."

AHIP said its members would abide by the provision. For many insurers, that meant leaving the niche market entirely to avoid getting all of the most expensive patients — or "adverse risk selection."

"While we appreciate the concerns of insurers and [state insurance] commissioners about adverse risk selection, and want to clarify what legal options exist, the plight of millions of parents who desperately want to provide health coverage and critical treatments for their children is a top priority, and we would hope that insurers who have for years offered child-only policies to healthy children would not deny coverage to families who desperately want to purchase health insurance," Sebelius wrote to AHIP. She sent a similar letter to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Insurers say they've been working with the administration since last spring to come up with a solution that would ensure children get coverage while minimizing disruption to the market and cost increases.

"That process has worked well in the area of family coverage," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for AHIP. "In the small but critically important niche market for child-only policies a powerful incentive has been created for parents to defer purchasing coverage until after their children need it. Plans are therefore having to make very difficult decisions about offering new child-only coverage."

HHS also issued new regulatory guidance that could make it easier for insurers to sell the policies. The agency said insurers could raise rates based on health condition — though doing so will be illegal beginning in 2014; issue different rates for child-only policies and dependent children; impose a surcharge for dropping coverage and subsequently reapplying; and instituting rules to preventing "dumping" the policies.

The moves are likely to drive premiums up, if insurers choose to start selling the policies again.

Sebelius also said she welcomes state laws that would force insurance companies to cover these children if the company offers similar coverage to adults. Insurers won't have to cover all adults regardless of pre-existing conditions until 2014 under the health reform law.

"The administration is determined that children and families receive the full benefits provided to them in the Affordable Care Act," Sebelius wrote.

The agency has already said insurers could establish an open enrollment period — say, of approximately a month — in which insurers could sell policies and still legally close access the rest of the year. HHS said Friday that it would consider a uniform open enrollment period "only if it would result in issuers selling new child-only policies."


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Lindsay Lohan Ordered To Jail For Non-Compliance, Fallen Star

Lindsay Lohan's Future On Hold Until Jail, Rehab Are Done


Lindsay Lohan's future includes a new fashion line, two new movies, some time in jail and another stint in rehab.

The actress was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail and 90 days in a residential substance-abuse program for violating her probation stemming from two separate 2007 cases of driving under the influence of cocaine and alcohol. She is to surrender and begin her jail sentence July 20. Rehab will follow.

The punishment, levied by Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel, will keep Lohan from promoting "Machete," the Robert Rodriguez action film due in theaters in September. Fox, which is releasing the film, had no comment Tuesday.

Lohan's jail and rehab sentence will also delay production on "Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story," in which the 24-year-old actress plays the starring role.

Writer-director Matthew Wilder said after the ruling that he and his crew remain "100 percent behind Lindsay."

"We are proud to have this remarkable artist work on our film," he said.

Lohan's sentence may also prevent her from further promoting her new fashion line, 6126. The first items from the 280-piece collection are shipping out to department stores nationwide this month. Lohan was instrumental in the line's design and marketing plans and is featured in its promotional materials. Her business partner, Kristi Kaylor, did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

Lohan's agent, Nick Styne, declined to comment Tuesday. Her manager, Jason Weinberg, did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.

Kerry Wallum, a producer with Lucky Films, said Lohan was in negotiations for a role in the upcoming Willie Nelson flick, "The Dry Gulch Kid," and that the production would wait for her if she wanted the part.

"We're behind her," he said Tuesday. "We'll wait until all of this blows over."

Revel chastised Lohan for missing a court hearing in May while at the Cannes Film Festival and repeatedly skipping out on court-mandated alcohol-education classes. She said Lohan lied about using drugs and tried to blame others for the two driving offenses when the original charges were filed.

A tearful Lohan pleaded with the judge before the sentencing, saying she did the best she could to juggle jobs and the court-ordered classes and really tried to comply with the terms of her probation.

"I'm not taking this as a joke," Lohan said. "It's my life. It's my career I've worked for my entire life."

Revel said she found the starlet's apology insincere, comparing it to "somebody who cheats and thinks it isn't cheating if she doesn't get caught."

Lohan burst into tears upon hearing the terms of her punishment. Her sister, Ali, and father, Michael, were also in the courtroom and cried after the ruling.

Lohan spent 84 minutes in jail in 2007 after she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of cocaine and no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08 percent and one count of reckless driving.

The plea came after a pair of high-profile arrests earlier that year. Lohan was sentenced to three years of probation but had to ask for a yearlong extension in October after she failed to complete her alcohol-education courses on time.

Prosecutor Danette Meyers argued Tuesday that Lohan wasn't taking the charges or her punishment seriously and urged jail time for the actress.

"You have not caught her attention," Meyers told the judge. "I appreciate the tears, but I don't think you've got it."

Lohan's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, claimed that the actress had adhered to the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

"She has gotten it together," Holley said. "She changed her conduct and is now in compliance with the court's overall order."

Lohan may serve less than her 90-day sentence, thanks to jail overcrowding and a state program that credits inmates for good behavior, said Los Angeles Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore. Nonviolent female misdemeanor offenders typically serve about 25 percent of their sentences, he said.

Lohan will be taken to the Century Regional Detention Center — the same jail that housed Paris Hilton for 23 days in 2007 after she was found guilty of driving on a suspended license while on probation in an alcohol-related, reckless-driving case.

Lohan's jail sentence could impact a civil lawsuit filed after Lohan's second arrest in 2007. A woman in a car chased by the actress sued for infliction of emotional distress and the case is scheduled to begin trial a week after Lohan surrenders.

It is unclear how much of the trial Lohan would have attended, although she is listed as a potential witness in the case. A hearing was set for Wednesday in Beverly Hills.


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BP Continues Business As Usual With U.S. Dept Of Defense

BP Has Steady Sales At Defense Department Despite U.S. Scrutiny


The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil company comes under scrutiny for potential violations of federal and state laws related to Gulf of Mexico well explosion, according to U.S. and company officials.

President Obama said last month that the company's "recklessness" in the gulf contributed to the disaster, and he promised that BP will "pay for the damage." Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking into possible violations of civil and criminal statutes. "If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," he said.

BP, meanwhile, remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. In fiscal 2009, BP was the Pentagon's largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to DLA spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher.

"BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs," Schirmacher said, without providing details. BP spokesman Robert Wine said he was aware of at least one "big contract" signed by the U.S. military after the oil rig explosion on April 20, involving the supply of multiple fuels for its operations in Europe.

So far, members of Congress have discussed barring BP from any new oil and gas drilling leases, not from fuel sales to the government. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who co-chairs the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, said last week that he would introduce legislation to shut BP out of such leases for the
next seven years, as punishment for what he described as "serial" legal violations.

But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a statement that "the U.S. government needs to look at all possible options when it comes to showing BP, or any corporate bad actor, that a continued culture of cost cutting and increased risk taking will absolutely not be tolerated."

Even before the gulf debacle, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun to explore cutting off BP from all federal contracts -- including those with the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which buys all fuel for the military services. The EPA plays the lead role in debarment proceedings related to the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and its probe was sparked by BP's 2006 oil spill in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas.



The EPA's deliberations, however, are suspended until the gulf spill investigations conclude, according to an EPA spokeswoman. The agency may decide to shut off federal contracts with specific divisions within BP, or with the whole company "if it is in the public interest to do so," it said in May. Any such action would be meant to punish "environmental noncompliance or other misconduct," it said.

Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently oversaw the review of BP's possible debarment, has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the Pentagon depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East. "My contact at DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces" in the region, Pascal said. She added that "BP was very fortunate in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in a military action or a war."

Pascal then sought a settlement to allow contracting with BP while forcing the company to elevate an internal office dealing with health, safety and environmental issues within its corporate structure. She also demanded that the company keep an ombudsman, retired federal judge Stanley Sporkin, whom BP first hired after the Alaska spill but had sought to let go. BP resisted both demands, and the talks were stalemated when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, Pascal said.

"At some point, debarment attorneys throughout the government need to look at BP's record," she said. "This is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. . . . Do we want to do business with this foreign corporation, which has a horrendous record of chronically violating U.S. law? You have to look at the overall behavior pattern."

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Wendy L. Snyder, gave a different account of the internal debarment discussions. She said the Defense Logistics Agency "informed the EPA that there are adequate procedures and processes to protect the U.S. military missions should EPA determine that BP should be debarred."

That claim was reinforced by Schirmacher, who said that "none of BP's current energy contracts are in direct support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan" and that the department could meet its requirements without BP fuel. But she indicated that the Pentagon had no intention of taking such action in the absence of an EPA decision.

Wine, the BP spokesman, said that although he is not familiar with details of the company's negotiations with EPA, Sporkin's tenure was extended earlier this year until the middle of 2011. He did not challenge Pascal's claim that BP's health, safety and environmental unit had been moved lower on the corporate structure before the gulf spill, reporting to the head of a business unit instead of directly to the top executive. But, Wine said, "what difference does that make?"

"Safety comes through the organization through every root," he said, and remains "paramount in every part of the business."

Several federal agencies have continuing contracts with BP, although none worth as much as the Pentagon's. Since 2008, the Federal Aviation Administration has contracted to spend at least $2.26 million to station weather, communications and aerial surveillance devices on several BP platforms in the gulf, including the Atlantis oil production platform roughly 100 miles from Deepwater Horizon's former location. Critics, including a former BP contractor, have alleged that the Atlantis was built without proper safety controls, which BP denies.

FAA spokeswoman Laura J. Brown said that BP's environmental and legal record was not a consideration in her agency's contracts. The Atlantis platform was selected "based purely on how it would support air traffic," she said.


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Sources: National Geographic, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps