NEWSCOM
NEWS OF THE WEEK
BP SETTLEMENT BREAKS RECORD REGULATION: Safety agency hits
oil company with $50.6 million fine for workplace violations
B OSHA finds that workplace safety problems remain at BP’s Texas City refinery, where this 2005 accident killed 15 workers.
P WILL PAY a $50.6 million fine as part of a re-
cent agreement with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration to resolve workplace safety violations at BP’s Texas City, Texas, refinery. It is the largest fine in OSHA’s history. The record settlement springs from an OSHA investigation of the 2005 BP refinery accident that killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. In 2007, OSHA fined the company a then-record $21 million because of the accident and ordered BP to take several corrective actions to improve safety. A follow-up investigation in 2009 found that the company had failed to correct deficiencies identified during the earlier investigation; these findings resulted in the latest fine and settlement, which was announced on Aug. 12. The agreement, said Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, who oversees OSHA as part of her department, is
BEET PLANTINGS BANNED RULING: Judge says USDA will have to review Monsanto crop
FEDERAL JUDGE has temporarily nixed future plantings of Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready sugar beets in a case brought against the Department of Agriculture in 2008 by environmental groups including the Center for Food Safety and the Sierra Club. The order does not affect crops already planted on 1 million acres in 10 states. Worried about “the likelihood and potential amount of irreparable harm to the environment,” the judge ordered USDA to prepare the environmental impact statement that should have been prepared for the beets, engineered to be resistant to Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide Roundup, when they were first deregulated in 2005. Monsanto says the judge’s action does not question the safety or benefits of the genetically en-
Sugar beets are the source of more than half of U.S.produced sugar.
USDA ARS
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intended to ensure that BP makes “critical safety upgrades” as quickly as possible. “The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP’s disregard for workplace safety,” she added in a statement. The company has also agreed to spend $500 million by 2016 to correct problems that OSHA identified at the plant and to have the work monitored by independent experts. BP noted in a statement that the company had already spent some $1 billion to improve workplace safety, and it will accelerate an ongoing multiyear program to overhaul process safety practices. However, since the 2005 accident, there have been several more accidents at the Texas City refinery and four deaths (C&EN, Nov. 9, 2009, page 12). As part of the settlement, BP will also improve safety corporation-wide by establishing a liaison between OSHA and its North American and London boards of directors. According to OSHA, the arrangement will allow safety issues to be raised to the top levels of the company. Still outstanding are some $30 million in proposed OSHA fines for 439 new “willful violations” at the Texas refinery, which were identified by the 2009 OSHA investigation. These proposed fines have not been resolved and are not part of the $50.6 million settlement.—JEFF JOHNSON
gineered crop and would not have a significant impact on its business. The Sugar Industry Biotech Council, of which Monsanto is a member, notes that USDA can adopt interim measures to allow future plantings of Roundup Ready sugar beets. USDA is mum on the possibility but says it will not be able to complete an impact statement until April 2012. Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California wrote in his order that he was “troubled by maintaining the status quo that consists of 95% of sugar beets being genetically engineered while [USDA’s] Animal & Plant Health Service conducts the environmental review that should have occurred before the sugar beets were deregulated.” The environmental groups maintain that Roundup Ready crops, which also include soybeans and corn, “have led to increased use of herbicides, proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds, and contamination of conventional and organic crops.” John Roberts, an analyst with investment research firm Buckingham Research, notes that although sugar beets are not as important a crop as soy and corn, both of which Monsanto and others firms such as DuPont and Syngenta have genetically engineered, “they’re part of the broadening of biotech acceptance to a wider range of crops.” Roberts adds that “wheat is the next mega-crop” that biotech firms are targeting. Success for biotech there “will clearly rely on broader acceptance of biotech,” because wheat is mostly intended for human consumption.—MARC REISCH
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