Despite tough talk from the White House, BP continues to pull in hundreds of millions of dollars from US military fuel contracts, and at least one new contract has been signed since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

According to a report in today's Washington Post, in the current fiscal year, BP has fuel contracts with the US military worth at least $980 million. And the Environmental Protection Agency, before the oil spill, had looked into barring BP from all federal contracts due to its 2006 Alaskan oil spill and the deadly 2005 explosion at one of its refineries in Texas. If successful, the EPA would have cut BP off from signing contracts with the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which handles military fuel purchases. From The Washington Post:

Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently oversaw the review of BP's possible debarment, has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the Pentagon depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East. "My contact at DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces" in the region, Pascal said. She added that "BP was very fortunate in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in a military action or a war."

A Defense Department spokeswoman, Wendy L. Snyder, disputed Pacal's claims, saying the DESC "informed the EPA that there are adequate procedures and processes to protect the U.S. military missions should EPA determine that BP should be debarred." The Post talked to BP spokesman Robert Wine, who said he knew of at least one "big contract" agreed to between BP and the Pentagon after the Gulf oil spill, and:

He did not challenge Pascal's claim that BP's health, safety and environmental unit had been moved lower on the corporate structure before the gulf spill, reporting to the head of a business unit instead of directly to the top executive. But, Wine said, "what difference does that make?" "Safety comes through the organization through every root," he said, and remains "paramount in every part of the business."

Yeah, why should safety and people's lives be put in the hands of the person who actually runs the company, when you can pawn that stuff off to some desk jockey? But at least we know the government is living up to all of the big talk, right? We'll see. On June 2, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "If we find evidence of illegal behavior [by BP], we will be forceful in our response."

[Image via Getty]