What Tony Hayward Should Have Said Today

Ladies Gentlemen of the Committee,

Thank you for inviting me to this important hearing regarding the Gulf Coast disaster. It's important, not because any new information will be uncovered that will help you and us avoid incidents like this disaster in the future, or because any other sort of meaningful change, justice, reconciliation or fact-finding will result, but because this is an election year and you need to get your faces on tv and demonstrate things like "empathy" and "anger" and you need to create the illusion of "accountability."

The people you'll be asking to vote for you have very short attention spans. So short they probably can't grasp the definition of the word accountability for more than 30 seconds at a time. But they know they like it, and they want it, and they're just so used to turning to idiots like you to come up with it. They are utterly incapable of defining what accountability would look like for people like me and my company, and god help them if you asked under what authority this Committee or the Congress of which it is a part has to impose real accountability, they might suffer an aneurysm on the spot and die. So, as it goes, none of you has an answer to those questions either because none of you need one. You just need to say the word "accountability" and act angry, and indeed, all of you, to a man, recognize that that is each of your sole purposes for having this hearing today.

Would that you were honest and concerned about getting at the truth, you would grant me my status as a crude and calculating CEO concerned exclusively about my company's bottom line. For that is exactly what I am, no more, no less. Instead of scolding my moral choices and failings, for not prioritizing safety enough, or not developing a back up plan to counter exactly this unprecedented scenario, you would instead recognize that I am an amoral creature, who cared exactly enough about safety as I was able to gauge and calculate the costs associated with safety risks. Obviously I was not indifferent to safety, to disaster. I was concerned about these things. But, I was admittedly not so out of concern for peoples lives, or worry about our environment. I was interested in building a well that would not explode because wells and rigs are expensive to build and replace. I was interested in building a well that would not leak because leaks are costly to clean up, and collecting oil makes my company money. Today you will paint me as a monster at worst, or as a cold and indifferent man at best, but I am nothing more than a rational actor (though perhaps influenced by the irrationality of the unprecedented risk) in a for-profit industry. You cannot accuse me of immorality without accusing your Committee and Congress of dereliction of duty. Your accusation may convey anger and the illusion of accountability, but they also tell the American people - the people you are about to pander to - that your legislative approach to this issue, your practice of looking out for their best interests and safety, your level of concern over the possibility of these disasters was hands-off, lax and low, respectively, based entirely on your faith in the morality of a man you had never met and had an enormous company to run.

The information wasn't hidden to you, Committee Members. As we all know, your Congress established an agency to monitor our safety and our engineering, to monitor environmental risks. This Committee oversees that agency. I would presume it would take no more than an hour for anyone of you to access information on this rig at any time before this disaster. My company gave your agency a whole lot of information, even information about where we were "cutting corners." But what did your agency do? They proceeded to give my company exemption after exemption. And we worked closely with this agency, they knew our company well. Indeed many of the bureaucrats employed at your agency used to work for my company, and employees and government workers spent a great deal of time together partying, exchanging gifts, having relationships etc. I call it "your agency" because that agency answered to this body. If this hearing's focus was honesty, truth and prevention then each Committee member would recount what information was available, what questions he or she asked, and what actions he or she took. But doing this would doubtless cause you embarrassment and possibly even cost you elections, so this will be avoided.

You oversaw a corrupt agency that you created and charged with the conflicting and corruption-inviting mission of collecting revenue and regulating safety of the oil industry. But, I doubt any part of today's hearing will focus on what Congress could have done better. Who among you voted for a $75mil cap on liabilities of companies like mine? What kind of message does that send to profit-conscious companies about focusing on managing risks and taking extra safety precautions? One would expect that none of you who voted for that measure will sit here today and criticize my lack of focus on safety. But one would be crediting you with possessing some modicum of shame, and in that they might err.

My point is, Ladies and gentlemen, that I am almost certainly guilty of very bad, terrible judgment; obviously I desperately wish to go back in time and spend an extra billion dollars taking every conceivable safety precaution to ensure averting this disaster; my company will take decades to recover; my reputation as a business man and human being are forever destroyed; and I do truly feel sympathy and grief for those who have been harmed or killed by this disaster. I am also guilty of greed. But we knew that. You knew that. You had to know it. Not the greed that drives a man to kill and destroy in the name of making a buck, but greed that makes a man singularly focused on profits and efficiency, and dividends and stock prices, excluding all other interests. I was a CEO living in the real world. My motivations were cost/(risk)/benefit analysis and compliance with regulations. You, this committee and the Congress it belongs to, skewed the former in favor of more reckless behavior, and you created, oversaw and tacitly condoned a horrifically broken system of the latter.

Have at me all you will if it will help you sleep at night, I imagine that's not so easy for any of you these days.