Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert: BP should be banned from the Gulf of Mexico

Amid a lengthy anti-Obamacare rant on Wednesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said that British oil giant BP should be banned from the Gulf of Mexico because of its record of safety violations and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010.

"Crony capitalism has been amazing. How? You can pay over $600 billion to your buddies that you have known for years to create a Web site," he said on the House floor, referring to HealthCare.gov. "Oh, they forgot to do security. That is going to cost people billions of dollars to try to save their own identity information that has now been out there on an insecure Web site."

"You have a Web site that keeps breaking down. Why? Because crony capitalism kicked in and people that are buddies got the contract."

He then pivoted to BP.

"It is just like British Petroleum should have never been allowed to continue drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but they were buddies with the administration," Gohmert said. "At the time the Deepwater Horizon blew out, I read that they had people from BP talking to John Kerry about coming out in support of cap-and-trade, so they didn't want to shut them down."

"They had hundreds and hundreds of egregious safety violations, compared to others like Exxon and Shell. I think they had one or two or none."

"Well, they should never have been allowed to operate," Gohmert continued. "Why? Because crony capitalism is alive and well in this administration and with Democrats in control. Yes, we will let them keep operating. Never mind they are the unsafe drillers in the Gulf of Mexico. That is okay because they are on our side."

"America is sick of cronyism. They are sick of favoritism. We don't begrudge anybody getting wealthy, but what we begrudge is gaming the system so the middle class and the poor have no chance because the ladder has been pulled up behind ultrawealthy Democrats by a Democratic administration, and it continues."

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[Image via Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed]