Alabama Newspaper Says BP “Buying Upâ€

[The Minx]

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More on the BP front:

[quote]BP’s soul-less lawyers are on the move around the Gulf States region, in what appears to be an attempt to prepare for the impending lawsuit concerning the spill from the Deepwater Horizon incident. Their latest target are scientists from universities along the Gulf, who they hope are willing to shirk science in exchange for a crap-load of almighty dollars. According to the Mobile Press-Register, BP has been offering handsome payouts to scientists in exchange for their support, and they already have some takers.

The Press-Register has learned that BP is offering lucrative signing bonuses and steep paychecks to scientists, including one attempt to hire the entire marine science department of an Alabama university. The newspaper obtained a copy of a contract offered to university scientists. It prohibits them from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists, or even speaking about the data they collect for at least three years. The University of South Alabama rejected such a proposal, telling BP that there was no way they would ever allow the scientific process to be controlled a corporation, much less BP. The head of the marine sciences department said he doesn’t expect BP to return to their school again. Nevertheless, the university can’t explicitly prohibit their scientists from doing outside consultation work for up to 8 hours a week. According to one scientist, he was offered $250 dollars an hour to work with BP. At 8 hours a week, that is over one hundred thousand dollars per year.

Robert Wiygul, an environmental lawyer from Ocean Springs, reviewed the contract offered by BP to scientists, and was appalled by the language of the document. â€