Donald Vidrine + Robert Kaluza personally indicted by feds for disaster

Who should shoulder the blame for this travesty? Was it the climate of the oil exploration and extraction culture, the lax regulation and the lawmakers who allowed it, was it Haliburton, or the "captain" of the floating platform/ ship? Or was it the two men who personally made the command decisions on whether to keep "drilling" or shut down the well despite ominous well test reports that clearly indicated trouble?

In a move that signaled a change in the way the US DOJ has handled prosecutions involving industrial accidents past, the two men, both BP executives who had personal authority and command and control over the Macando well, which blew up killing eleven men and causing the worst oil spill in the history of deepwater exploration have been charged with manslaughter.

This NYT story has the basics, and is worth a read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/business/energy-environment/in-bp-indictments-us-shifts-to-hold-individuals-accountable.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&pagewanted=print

It's my opinion that this is just and right and I hope all the evidence is brought to court in this case, because it certainly appears that these two "tool pushers" operated in a climate of criminal disregard for the safety of workers and all the residents of the gulf of mexico. In the recent past, the DOJ settled for going after the corporations and not the executives responsible for industrial disasters, which means that many individuals have dodged personal responsibility for the reckless loss of life and damage to the ecosystem. If political conservatives libertarians and "tea party" members want to blather about personal accountability they should applaud this action. Are they doing so?

Margaret Brown's upcoming film The Great Invisible claims to address the role executives played in this disaster. I've not yet seen the film but these issues are at the heart of the disaster and I am looking forward to the film, made by a talented film maker and a gulf coast native. Both Vidrine and Kazula are essentially in hiding, and lawyered up, pleading the 5th, etc. I'm not expecting to see them on camera but other execs in the industry can speak to the culture these men exist in, and where the blame deserves to be put. The buck has to stop somewhere.

What's not covered in the NYT story is the visit by higher-up execs less than 48 hours before the explosion. Were these top execs there to celebrate, or to push for more of the reckless disregard for safety? Millions of dollars were at stake. If memory serves correctly, Kaluza claimed a medical emergency and Vidrine simply openly defied a request to testify before congress when hearings were held in NOLA in the wake of the spill.