Bill Randall, a North Carolina Republican candidate for Congress, is calling for a "thorough investigation" into whether President Barack Obama's administration colluded with BP to allow the Gulf oil spill.
"There were procedures that were violated by BP that the federal government signed off on, safeguards that decades of engineering wherewithal and knowledge told them that this way the way to do it," Randall told reporters earlier this week. "They intentionally bypassed that and the safety was compromised."
Randall continued: "I’m not necessarily a conspiracy person, but I don’t think enough investigation has been done on this. Someone needs to be digging into that situation. Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion."
Though Randall has insisted he doesn't know why the Obama administration would want to do this, his claim came in response to a question about whether he supported President Obama's six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling. That would suggest Randall may be reflecting the views of some conservatives who suspect the oil spill may have been caused on purpose by environmentalists or other people who want to turn public opinion against oil drilling and pass climate-change and green energy legislation.
At a follow-up press conference Thursday, Randall defended his call for an investigation into possible collusion between BP and the federal government but denied that his earlier comments suggested the spill was made to happen or allowed to happen.
