The Environmental Protection Agency has temporarily suspended BP from any new contracts with the federal government. In a statement, the EPA attributes this action to “BP’s lack of business integrity as demonstrated by the company’s conduct with regard to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion, oil spill, and response, as reflected by the filing of a criminal information.”

So now we have an answer to the talk of a settlement in the BP oil disaster case. The company will pay a total of $4.5 billion in fines and payments, as well as admit to criminal charges. But the fines and payments do not include civil violations of either the Clean Water Act or the Oil Pollution Act, which carry additional fines of up to $21 billion.

The US government has still not reached a settlement with BP over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, though talks continue. The issue concerns an upcoming lawsuit over violations of the Clean Water Act. A ruling that BP acted with “gross negligence” in their role in the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico triples the damages for the company, which is based on the amount of oil that spilled out of the well. This would come to roughly as high as $25 billion. The most precise figure we have is that 4.9 million barrels, or 205.8 million gallons, poured into the Gulf.

The Justice Department, which has been more active in closing cases than pursuing them lately, has accused BP of “gross negligence” in a court filing. The language has a very particular significance; if successful, BP would owe quadruple the amount of damages under the Clean Water Act, which could lead to a total of $21 billion in fines.

Everyone is looking forward to the three days of arguments next week in the Supreme Court on the individual mandate and the health care law. But regardless of that outcome, the court is well on its way to expanding the rights of corporations over the individual, and curtailing Americans’ access to the courts for redress.

From Maine to Monterey, Utah to Utica — big energy corporations like Halliburton are bribing your local officials for the right to pump “proprietary chemicals” into open fractures beneath the earth that flow into local water formations. We want to know who they are, and we need your help in finding out.

Today, the EPA flat-out revoked the permit for one of the largest mountaintop removal projects in the nation.

The Obama Administration and its DOJ owes the citizens a better effort than they have mustered to date. It is funny they are out trying to prosecute Guantanamo defense attorneys for doing their jobs and are still hell bent to persecute inconsequential marijuana crimes, but have no burning desire to go hard after BP, the biggest environmental criminal in history. How can that be?

OK, this is just bullpucky. The government is doing all sorts of handwringing about how it can’t force BP to disclose information about what’s actually going on in the gulf. From McClatchy BP, the company in charge of the rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, hasn’t publicly divulged the results of [...]