I'm watching a bit of the House hearings with the BP CEO Tony Hayward. Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) actually apologized to him for what happened at the White House the other day, referring to the $20 billion put in escrow. Barton called this shakedown because politics shouldn't get in the way of crimes or some such thing. Digby has more including the video: Shakedown.
Digby also dug up an article, "Rep. Joe Barton has earned nearly $100,000 from an interest in natural gas wells that he purchased from a longtime campaign donor who also advised the congressman on energy policy, according to interviews and records."
And 538 found that a Top Corporate Donor to Barton Is Partner of BP on Deepwater Horizon. "Since 1989, [his top donor] has been the company Anadarko Petroleum, from which he's received $56,500 in PAC donations and another $90,000 in individual contributions. Anadarko has been making a lot of news lately, and none of it is good: they're a 25 percent partner in the Macondo Prospect, which was the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that is causing oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico."
So far not much has happened. Hayward has said all the stuff he said in his TV commercial. Investigations are still underway and he apparently has or is unwilling to talk much about any preliminary findings. He knew nothing about the well before the accident, or about any of the decisions made there so he keeps saying he doesn't know. And Congressmen keep asking him the same questions to show the Brit what US political theater looks like. Though it does seem like in the last 56 days, the Congressmen have learned more about the situation than Hayward has.
The NY Times has more.
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