The BP oil spill was not only one of the most defining incidents in 2010, it was also the largest offshore spill in history. Recently Congress met with the Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling (the Commission) to discuss what should be done to prevent such events from happening again. The discussion was centered on the Commission’s 380-page report, recommending a plan to overhaul the U.S. offshore oil and natural gas drilling practices and regulations. Co-Chairmen for the commission are William K. Riley, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Bob Graham, former U.S. Democratic Senator from Florida. Three major points to consider were brought up throughout the discussion:
Is it necessary to change an industry due to one mistake?
Republican Senator of Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, raised into question the fact that there would be a large reform in the oil and gas drilling industry due to the fault of the three companies involved in the incident. She believes it is an unjust action towards those companies who have not caused such a spill. She went on to compare the three oil companies involved with the spill as if they were two doctors in a hospital who made fatal errors with a patient: “… somehow, do you hold the entire hospital staff responsible? Is that a fair assessment of the report’s conclusion? And if that is the case, have we just basically been lucky for the past few decades…?”
Co-Chairman Riley responded to Senator Murkowski that they had been lucky in the past years that a catastrophe had not actually occurred. From 1996-2009 there had been at least 79 incidents where there was a loss in well control and it did not result in an explosion or spill. The fact that they did not result in blowouts or spills doesn’t mean that there weren’t mistakes, because the loss of control over a well shouldn’t be occurring in the first place.
Co-Chairman Riley went on to add that since the drilling is moving into deeper waters, the risk of spills/explosions will be increasing. In earlier days, drilling was performed in waters that were much shallower in comparison to the current drilling occurring in waters that are miles deep.
Is the plan and the commission credible?
The plan and commission were questioned by the Republican Senator of Wyoming, John Barrasso. He did not agree with having to retrain an entire industry based on the mistakes of the three companies. Senator Barraso did question the make-up of the commission due to the fact that there was a lack of engineers on the panel, and the panel contained an environmental leader This proved to be off-balance.
Democratic Senator of Louisiana, Mary L. Landrieu , was also uncomfortable with the membership of the commission. Her state was directly affected by the spill and stated that she was initially “uncomfortable” with the membership of the commission as well, but the membership aggravated both the White House and the Environmentalists, which was in a sense some type of balance since both parties were not satisfied.
As a side note, Co-chairman Bob Graham, former U.S. Democratic Senator from Florida, added that at least an estimated $500 million per year for over 30 years would be needed to restore the resources that had been degraded by federal activities along with oil and gas drilling. He stated that this is a chance they may never have again to restore these resources.
What needs to be done?
Due to the degradation of the Gulf’s resources, many senators suggested for the commission to engage the science community for better regulatory oversight. Democratic Senator of New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen, along with Democratic Senator of Colorado, Mark Udall and Democratic Senator of Washington, Maria E. Cantwel, intend to introduce legislation to increase the Gulf Research.
Co-Chairman Bob Graham stated that new research should be preventative instead of “crisis research.” By performing preventative research, it shows how ill-prepared the industry actually was. Preventative research would identify the errors in the way the industry was running prior to the spill. “Crisis research” will not be necessary given that the accident response would be improved by the establishment of an independent, industry-funded oversight Institute. This Institute would be recommended by another commission to conduct cleanup activities. They would also oversee the drilling practices that are being used.
Democratic Senator of New Mexico, Jeff Bingaman Jr. , asked if the American Petroleum Institute (API) could fill this position (the oversight Institute). Co-Chairman Riley responded, indicating that while the API has many technical resources to perform the necessary tasks, they are also an advocate of the industry. Consequently, it is inappropriate for the API to run an independent oversight institute.
Co-Chairman Reilly also indicated there needed to be an increase in the oversight funding due to the fact that funding has been decreasing since 1984, while the Gulf oil production has nearly doubled. For example, in California there are 6 rigs per inspector; where in the Gulf waters, there are 55 rigs per inspector.
In the meanwhile, drilling can take place if the industry maintains good drilling safety and accident response.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/89/8906gov2.html