Relevant segment, with Hugh Kaufman and Dahr Jamail, starts at about 27:48.

With BP having poured nearly two million gallons of the dispersant known as Corexit into the Gulf of Mexico, many lawmakers and advocacy groups say the Obama administration is not being candid about the lethal effects of dispersants. We speak with Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and a leading critic of the decision to use Corexit.

Hugh Kaufman is a wonderful source of information about what's going on in the Mad Mad Mad Mad World of BP. Why? Because he keeps me updated constantly, and he has real cred. He's a senior policy analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

Today he appeared on Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman. I am so glad he did, because now you can finally hear him say, in his own words, what I have been posting about all this time.

As you watch and listen, you'll hear Hugh refer Jerrold Nadler's efforts, Larry Fink, and Blackrock, among other things. Those are links to posts on each so that you can go back and catch up on the back stories. Most of my Hugh Kaufman posts can be found here, including what he talks about at about 35:00, the dangerous Corexit ingredients that EPA knew about, as opposed to "flying blind" as was claimed.

The use of dispersants (at about 36:30) is intended to cover up, to try to hide, the volume of oil that has been released, saving BP a tankerload of money.  Dispersants make it extremely difficult to clean up the gooey mess, making it impossible to skim the oil out of the water and impossible to quantify.

Hugh also compares the respiratory problems at 9/11's Ground Zero with those of the Oil Volcano. He notes EPA's false statements back then are eerily similar to what is happening in the Gulf. The air is NOT safe, nor is the water. Dispersants mixed with oil are not being tested properly, he says, nor is air pollution.

OSHA and others use BP's contractor for doing air testing; that would be the same company that is used by other companies to prove they don't have a problem. It's a "massive cover-up".

This link takes you to the exploding water video referenced by Hugh. Oil waste was in Alabama's water, not noticeable to the human eye, and children were exposed to it while playing at the beach. EPA claims it has tested the water and says it was safe. Then, from, Mobile, the video surfaced. Explosive news, in every sense.

At about 45:00, Dahr Jamail's (a wonderful journalist who worked with me briefly on an unrelated story) segment begins, and in it he said the following:

Kenneth Feinberg ... in charge of this 20 billion dollar compensation fund for victims...is being paid by BP to do this job...

Ken Feinberg... a BP salesman.

Can of worms doesn't even begin to describe this horrific, multi-layered situation.

In an e-mail today, Hugh said:

BP has, so far, has paid an average of $3,000/claim. That's very little money, given the magnitude of the damages. BP's incessant TV commercials (Link to a peek at the BP ads here) blaring how good a job they're doing making things right, costs orders of magnitude more than that.

He then linked me to this. And this.
And finally, last night Hugh also linked me to the following video:

iReport —

The National Contingency Plan prohibits the use of sinking agents on oil spills.  Why are we debating them?

Hugh:

If this young lad gets the cover-up, how long til more adults do?