The US Congress called BP and its drilling partners to account on Tuesday for a “cascade of failures” behind the spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, zeroing in on a crucial chain of events at the deep-sea wellhead just before an explosion consumed the rig and set off the catastrophic rupture.
In back-to-back Senate inquiries, executives of the three companies at the heart of the massive spill were chastised by senators because of attempts to shift the blame to each other. They were asked to explain why better preparations had not been made to head off the accident.
“Let me be really clear,” Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, told the hearing. “Liability, blame, fault — put it over here.”
PHOTO: AFP
“Our obligation is to deal with the spill, clean it up and make sure the impacts of that spill are compensated, and we’re going to do that,” he said.
By “over here,” McKay meant the witness table at which BP, Transocean and Halliburton executives sat shoulder to shoulder. And despite his acknowledgment of responsibility, each company defended its own operations and raised questions about its partners in the project gone awry.
Lawmakers compared the calamity to some of history’s most notorious mishaps from sea to space in the first congressional inquiry into the April 20 explosion and so-far unstoppable spill.
PHOTO: EPA
In the crowded hearing room, eight young activists sat in quiet protest, with black T-shirts saying, “Energy Shouldn’t Cost Lives.” Several wore black painted spots near their eyes to symbolize teardrops made from oil.
“If this is like other catastrophic failures of technological systems in modern history, whether it was the sinking of the Titanic, Three Mile Island, or the loss of the Challenger, we will likely discover that there was a cascade of failures and technical and human and regulatory errors,” said Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The corporate finger-pointing prompted an admonishment from Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of oil-rich Alaska that “we are all in this together” in trying to shut off the oil and find a safer way to exploit vital energy.
“This accident has reminded us of a cold reality, that the production of energy will never be without risk or environmental consequence,” she said.
Still, she said, “there will be no excuse” if operators are found to have violated the law.
Failure to cap the leak was intensifying impatience, from the contaminated Gulf waters to the White House.
“The president is frustrated with everything, the president is frustrated with everybody, in the sense that we still have an oil leak,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “That includes us, that includes everybody that’s involved with this.”
After an icelike buildup thwarted a plan over the weekend to siphon off most of the leak using a huge containment box, a second, smaller box was lowered into the water late on Tuesday near the blown-out well.
The box was being slowly submerged to the seabed but it won’t be placed over the spewing well right away. BP spokesman Bill Salvin said engineers want to make sure everything is configured correctly and avoid another ice buildup.
Ramifications from the environmental crisis spilled over into landmark climate change and energy legislation that was scheduled to come out yesterday.
The bill from senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman proposes letting coastal states veto drilling projects off the shores of neighboring states if they can show the potential for harm.
Senators sought assurances that BP would pay what could amount to billions of dollars in economic and environmental damages.
McKay repeatedly said his company would pay for cleanup costs and all “legitimate” claims for damages, and not try to limit itself to an existing federal limit of US$75 million on such damages.
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