Oh the oppression of regulations industries are forced to endure in their determination to make a buck.

Basically, then-Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Cass Sunstein met with a bunch of oil and chemical lobbyists, Sunstein sent around objections to the rule from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable, and even quotes from House Republicans opposed to the standards, and all that was enough to make the case for delay. Lucky for the White House, Cass Sunstein was hyping business community attacks to help them make their decision.

In addition to passing around oil industry talking points inside the White House, Sunstein also forwarded along more obscure industry talking points.

Dissenters’ Digest takes a look back at the week’s stories covering whistleblowers, watchdogs, and government accountability.

Like a lazy adolescent with senioritis, BP had been intimating that they might not need to finish up drilling the relief well that would permanently stop the Macondo well in the Gulf, arguing that the heavy drilling mud, cement and other containment strategies are holding. Admiral Thad Allen gave that idea the big no-go today.

While we fight for BP’s recovery workers, remember that they’re not alone. Much, much more needs to be done to protect all of America’s workers.

Earlier this month, Rep. Carolyn Maloney – one of the members of Congress who fought to protect 9/11 cleanup workers, and who is continuing that advocacy for workers cleaning up BP’s oil disaster – called on OSHA to explain how it would enforce the government’s respirator guidelines. Maloney also pressed the agency in charge of worker health and safety for more details on how it’s protecting workers in the Gulf.

Elana Schor, who’s been doing yeoman’s work on reporting about data in the BP oil disaster, published a new piece with Greenwire and the New York Times in which she reveals that OSHA and NIOSH have access to worker health data from BP and its coverup firm, CTEH, but are so far refusing to release the data.

Tomorrow afternoon, Congress will once again take up new legislative proposals to improve coal mine safety. After decades of repeated mining disasters, countless unnecessary deaths and injuries, and continual demands for remedial action, can Congress finally get mining safety legislation right? The outward signs are not encouraging.

“BP has either been blocking blood panels or they have been taking blood panels and not letting really anyone see what the blood panel works look like.”

— Riki Ott the marine biologist and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Virtually Speaking July 8, 2010.

Yesterday I went to GRITtv and spoke with host Laura Flanders and Louisiana author Jordan Flahrety about BP’s exploitation of working people in the Gulf Coast. We discussed just a few of the many problems facing fishermen, recovery workers, and residents of the Gulf that are all at the mercy of BP.