Presidential panel faults Congress for inaction on offshore drilling after BP oil spill
By JOHN M. BRODER
17 April 2012 WASHINGTON – Members of the presidential panel that investigated the 2010 BP oil rig explosion and spill sharply criticized Congress on Tuesday for refusing to act on any of its recommendations and gave the Obama administration and the oil industry mixed marks. Their report [pdf] said that federal regulators and major oil companies had generally improved the safety and oversight of drilling operations since the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in the nation’s history. But the group said that Congress, hostile to new regulation and mired in partisan gridlock, had utterly failed. “Across the board we are disappointed with Congress’s lack of action,” said Bob Graham, a co-chairman of the panel and a former Democratic governor and senator from Florida. “Two years have passed since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers, and Congress has yet to enact one piece of legislation to make drilling safer.” The group said that the Interior Department had imposed new standards for rig safety, well design, blowout preventers and spill response, but that the new systems had not been adequately tested and the regulatory changes had not been written into law. And while the commission recommended highly detailed and specific environmental impact studies, the report said, those remain inadequate. The group warned that, even as the Obama administration moves toward approving the start of exploratory drilling this summer, critical research remains incomplete and spill response plans have yet to be tested. The panel’s members did not recommend a moratorium on Arctic drilling, but said that an icy and remote environment presented unique challenges. The commissioners also noted that the Interior Department had dismantled the office formerly in charge of offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, and replaced it with three offices responsible for leasing, safety, and revenue collection to avoid conflicts of interest. But Congress has not set the changes into law, and they could be quickly undone by a future administration. The Senate has passed a bill dedicating 80 percent of any future Clean Water Act penalties levied against BP to restoration of the gulf. The House has not acted on the measure. […]
