I’m only going to give you one reason. Let’s set aside BP’s atrocious safety record, and clear history of cutting corners to save a buck. Let’s forget the fact that BP is capable of standing before us and announcing the sun doesn’t rise in the east, as we watch day break with them. Forget the fact that at this moment, BP is operating another rig in the Gulf, the Atlantis, this one at 7,000 feet, without proper or current safety documentation. Wait, let’s don’t forget all that:

Kenneth Abbott, a project control supervisor BP contracted to work on the Atlantis, and the environmental group Food & Water Watch filed suit against the federal government on May 17seeking a temporary injunction to force the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to shut down the platform. Abbott claims that his contract was terminated shortly after he alerted management to the rig’s lack of crucial engineering documents in late 2008.

According to Abbott, the BP Atlantis lacks more than 6,000 documents that are key to operating the rig safely. Abbott has said that the vast majority of the project’s subsea piping and instrument diagrams were not approved by engineers, and the safety systems are out of date. In March 2009, Abbott took his concerns about the rig to MMS, the Department of Interior office responsible for regulating offshore drilling. He says the agency requested some of these documents from BP, but failed to seek specific diagrams of key components necessary for ensuring the rig’s secure operation.

An internal BP email that came out in the course of Abbott’s dispute refers to the potential for “catastrophic operator errors” on the rig due to these lapses. The suit argues that without these documents, the rig operators “are flying blind, and have no way to assure the safety of offshore drilling operations.” Food & Water Watch began pushing for lawmakers to intervene on the rig back in August 2009.

Consider this: If we believe that BP is truly expending all their resources to contain the Deepwater Horizon leak and to clean the damage from the spill (and considering the stellar job they are doing using those resources) we MUST consider what happens if another rig blows and we end up with another leaking well head. BP is maxed out, so they say, on this clean up.

BP simply does NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO FIGHT ANOTHER SPILL. We cannot take on this risk on top of our existing crisis. All BP operations should be frozen until thorough inspections can be done (preferably by people not being paid off by BP – if you can find anyone fitting that description). And, perhaps it’s time we take a lesson from our friends to the north, and require that EVERY offshore drilling permit be accompanied by a requirement for a relief well.