By Phil Mattera

For
the past eight years, the oil giant formerly known as British Petroleum
has tried to convince the world that its initials stand for "Beyond
Petroleum." An announcement just issued by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency may suggest that the real meaning of BP is Brazen
Polluter.

The EPA revealed
that BP Products North America will pay nearly $180 million to settle
charges that it has failed to comply with a 2001 consent decree under
which it was supposed to implement strict controls on benzene and
benzene-tainted waste generated by the company's vast oil refining
complex in Texas City, Texas, located south of Houston.  Since the
1920s, benzene has been known to cause cancer.

Among BP's self-proclaimed corporate values
is to be "environmentally responsible with the aspiration of 'no damage
to the environment'" and to ensure that "no one is subject to
unnecessary risk while working for the group." Somehow, that message
did not seem to make its way to BP's operation in Texas City, which has
a dismal performance record.

The benzene problem in Texas City was supposed to be addressed as part of the $650 million agreement
BP reached in January 2001 with the EPA and the Justice Department
covering eight refineries around the country. Yet environmental
officials in Texas later found that benzene emissions at the plant
remained high. BP refused to accept that finding and tried to stonewall
the state, which later imposed a fine of $225,000.

In
March 2005 a huge explosion (photo) at the refinery killed 15 workers
and injured more than 170. The blast blew a hole in a benzene storage
tank, contaminating the air so seriously that safety investigators
could not enter the site for a week after the incident.

BP was later cited for egregious safety violations and paid a record fine of $21.4 million. Subsequently, a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former secretary of state James Baker III found
that BP had failed to spend enough money on safety and failed to take
other steps that could have prevented the disaster in Texas City. Still
later, the company paid a $50 million fine as part of a plea agreement on related criminal charges.

In
an apparent effort to repair its image, BP has tried to associate
itself with positive environmental initiatives. The company was, for
instance, one of the primary sponsors
of the big Good Jobs/Green Jobs conference held in Washington earlier
this month. Yet as long as BP operates dirty facilities such as the
Texas City refinery, the company's sunburst logo, its purported
earth-friendly values and its claim of going beyond petroleum will be
nothing more than blatant greenwashing.

Philip Mattera is director of the Corporate Research Project at Good Jobs First. This article originally appreared in Dirt Diggers Digest.