B.R. father of Deepwater Horizon victim sees big omission in BP talks

In his latest column, The Houston Chronicle‘s Loren Steffy talks with Keith Jones of Baton Rouge, whose son Gordon Jones was among the 11 men killed aboard the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded on April 20, 2010. But Jones is also a lawyer involved in the case. He has heard about the government’s negotiations over criminal charges related to the disaster, and amid all the talk of multibillion-dollar fines he sees a glaring omission. “Nobody has done anything to prosecute the people who were directly responsible for these deaths,” Jones says, adding that he’s “somewhat mystified” that all the talk involving the government’s criminal claims against BP, the rig’s operator, and Transocean, its owner, have been about fines for pollution crimes. From the beginning, the sense of accountability for the lives lost has been supplanted by environmental liability, and Jones worries that the companies involved already are looking past the potential fines, eager to get on with business as usual. Despite his loss, Jones isn’t being vindictive, Steffy writes. He doesn’t believe anyone at either company intended for the rig to blow up 2˝ years ago, unleashing the country’s worst offshore oil spill. No one, in Jones’ view, thought the decisions they were making would lead to disaster. Their incentives, though, were misplaced: They were rewarded for saving money, which overrode the seemingly remote concerns for the safety of those on the rig. Read the complete column here.