The Obama Environmental Protection Agency blocked BP from any new federal contracts.
The Washington Post reported:
The Environmental Protection Agency has suspended BP from bidding on any new federal contracts as a result of the company’s conduct during the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster that led to 11 deaths and the largest U.S. offshore spill.
The temporary contracting ban came early on the day the Interior Department held a sale of leases on 20 million acres of offshore oil and gas prospects in the western Gulf of Mexico, which the department said attracted $133 million in bids. Sources close to BP said the company did not submit any bids.
The EPA said the suspension would not affect BP’s current contracts or leases, which are crucial to the company. The London-based oil giant is the largest leaseholder in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico, with more than 700 leases, and it is the gulf’s largest producer of oil and gas from more than 20 fields there.
In 2011, BP was also the largest supplier of fuel to the U.S. military, with contracts worth about $1.35 billion.
The EPA move follows BP’s agreement to settle criminal charges for $4.5 billion, the largest such payment ever in a criminal settlement with the Justice Department.