It’s been almost a month since a BP oil tanker exploded off the coast of Louisiana, leaving a gushing oil well that has not stopped since. There is still no certain measure of the amount of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico, and Keith Olbermann believes there’s a very good reason for that: BP, he claims, has a financial incentive in not measuring the spill, because the amount of oil released is what juries use to determine fines.

On last night’s Countdown, Olbermann accused BP of “preventing anyone from measuring the oil,” and noted that, because the amount of oil is necessary to determine how much money BP will be fined, the company has been doing everything they can to make it more difficult to measure the amount, including introducing toxic dispersants into the ocean:

We were lied to. BP knew determining the amount quickly was critical, but the company had a financial incentive to prevent anyone to prevent what it was. We were also told that dispersants, both undersea and from the air, were the best way to deal with the oil, to prevent it from reaching shore, but environmental advocates testified today that dispersants, where are considered themselves toxic, make it more difficult to remove the oil, not less.

“BP has a massive financial incentive to prevent people from measuring the spill,” he continued, because juries determine fines based on the amount of oil released. The more oil they can measure, the higher the fine.

Olbermann also had water quality expert Taylor Kirschenfeld, who has been near the Gulf and is using an independent laboratory to study the oil washing ashore, on the show for further scientific analysis.

Video of the segment below:



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