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Lawmakers ask oil majors for Gulf spill plans
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key U.S. lawmakers investigating the BP Plc oil spill have asked major energy companies for information on their response plans after it was discovered some companies' plans had errors including protecting species that don't live in the Gulf of Mexico.
In a hearing earlier this month, U.S. Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, both Democrats, blasted major oil company executives for "virtually worthless" and "cookie cutter" plans to handle a deepwater oil spill.
On Monday, they wrote a letter to the chief executives of Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell seeking more information about their plans.
"No oil company appears to be better prepared for a disastrous oil spill than BP was," they wrote in the letter to the executives. "Each of the oil companies' oil spill response plans are practically identical to the tragically flawed BP oil spill response plan," they wrote.
The lawmakers said in the hearing on June 15 that company response plans included references to protecting walruses and other animals that do not live in the Gulf of Mexico in the event of an oil spill.
Markey had blasted the companies for mentioning walruses -- which have not been found in the Gulf of Mexico for millions of years -- in their plans and for including the name and phone number of a specialist who died in 2005.
The lawmakers asked the companies to say if their response plans would protect the region from an undersea blowout similar to the one at BP's well. It also asked them where they would expect to get equipment in case of a spill, whether they will update their response plans and when.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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In any case the plans had been submitted to the MMS, so what were the staff there doing before they approved them?
Markey and Waxman have been noticeable throughout this event for their unending and ill informed criticism. They would both do well to zip it till the event is over. It would be far better if all politicians and agencies worked together with BP to solve the problem and save the criticism until proper investigations have been carried out once this is over.
It seems that the US has forgotten that is was a sponsor of the 1990 International Convention on Oil Pollution Response and CO-OPERATION (OPRC 1990)passed by the International Maritime Organisation, following the lack of Government and industry co-operation at the Exxon Valdez spill.
Shooting off your mouth at this stage as both Obama and Waxman have done and grilling BP by Congressional Committees when no definitive answers are available yet, is legally unfair. Clearly BP cannot answer many of the allegations except in court and such comments and hearings inflame an already very upset coastal population. Nor does it help the many dedicated people who are trying to fix this thing.
What’s Waxman and Markeys angle anyway? I know there are mid term elections, but they must have some reason for being so violently anti oil company. Of course they drive (large)automobiles, run their house heating and cooling using oil. But that oil now mainly comes from other countries that are unstable and have lower environmental standards than the US. The destruction of the Niger delta environment for example. But you can’t see that so that’s OK.
The US, with 4% of the world population uses 25% of the world’s oil. You have oil round your shores and I am afraid that the occasional oil spill, regrettable it will be is the price you have to pay for being so profligate with oil. The more you produce yourselves the more there will be for the rest of the world and the less chance of transportation accidents like Exxon Valdez or Mega Borg.
Its time to stop the carping and pull together to fix the job. Then hold a proper independent inquiry, call to account those found responsible, make and enforce whatever technical modifications are necessary to drilling procedures and get on with producing as much of your own oil as you can, whilst at the same time reducing your independence on fossil fuels, through nuclear, wind, solar and water sourced energy.
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