All apologies
Joe Barton’s apology to BP (which he retracted after being told by the GOP leadership that if he didn’t he would lose his committee position) indicates the extent to which politicians in states like Texas are in pocket of the oil industry. Someone like Barton is so completely bought and paid for that he can’t even remember that there’s an actual limit to the willingness of at least the national GOP to serve the interests of Big Oil (apparently that limit is reached when a foreign corporation’s negligence threatens to destroy the entire Gulf of Mexico).