Bob on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, August 3, 2010

Looks like BP is finally going to kill, if not the well, the last best opportunity to independently estimate how much oil has been released prior to the cap being fitted. Any factual ambiguity is going to make it easier for BP to both delay and whittle down the ultimate payout. That is their ultimate strategy, and the Public Interest be dammed.

BP has consistently played the information management game to its advantage. It’s hard to ignore that practically every decision they make has the effect of increasing uncertainty. Beyond tight fistedness with company data, examples include exclusion of the press and independent scientists from documenting oil impacts to public areas and large scale hiring of scientific expertise on retainer. BP’s decision to use massive amounts of Corexit affected ecological and property damage patterns in ways that make them much harder to quantify. Skeptics like my self would also cite recent degradation of the underwater video feeds.

After a few months of laying low, BP is advertising heavily on television again. The midterm elections are fast approaching, and I for one will be very surprised if they and the rest of the industry don’t dispense unheard of amounts of cash to deregulation and damage cap friendly candidates.

BP made many early PR mistakes, but it’s amazing to see how they have regained the initiative once pictures of the underwater gusher stopped dominating the airwaves. BP is looking to towards making things as right as they have to for the least possible amount of money. I think they like their odds.