This has been in public since 16 JUN and the "judge" (with substantial financial investments in the energy sector) in Louisiana still found the Obama administration moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico unfounded and unjustified. Bet he's a tea-bagger....click the header for the story from Mother Jones, and the article on the judge's ruling from NPR follows.Since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, we've seen just how sad BP's planning for the event of a disaster has been. But we also got a glimpse of how ridiculous it was on paper. BP's 583-page Gulf plan, last updated in June 2009, included references to how to protect walruses and sea lions, which, as Energy and Environment subcommittee chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.) noted, "have not called the Gulf home for 3 million years." The plan also included the phone number of a sea turtle expert who has been dead for five years.
And it gets even worse: The other four oil giants are using almost the exact same plans.
In yesterday's hearing, representatives brought out the emergency response plans of Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP that had been drafted in case of an oil spill in the region. The cover photos of rigs and tankers are identical, just in different colors, and four of the five plans include the references to walruses, sea lions, seals, and sea turtle expert Dr. Peter Lutz. They list him as a staff member of the University of Miami, though he hadn't worked there since 1991, when he left for Florida Atlantic University. Oh, and he passed away in February 2005, so he probably wouldn't be able to offer much help now anyway.
"ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell are as unprepared as BP," said Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who called the responses "cookie cutter" plans. "When you look at the details, it becomes evident these [response] plans are just paper exercises."
Markey summed up the companies' response strategies pretty well in Tuesday's hearing: "The only technology you seem to be relying on is the Xerox machine."
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson defended the inclusion of Lutz. Just because he passed away, said Tillerson, "does not mean the importance of his work died with him." (He did grant that, "It's unfortunate that walruses were included.") Tillerson also defended the overlap between the companies' plans: "Cookie cutter should not come as a surprise. The industry relies on sharing resources."
All of the executives testifying yesterday maintained that the Gulf disaster was the fault of BP failing to uphold safety and environmental standards, not an industry-wide problem. Had this been their operation, they would have made better decisions, each said, decisions that would have prevented the blowout in the first place. "Most of us sitting here today would have handled it differently," said James Mulva, president of ConocoPhillips.
The companies are, however, very concerned about the media coverage. Exxon's plan has a 40-page appendix on dealing with the media, with 13 sample press releases. They range from what to say in case of a minor incident ("ExxonMobil deeply regrets the incident that occurred") to a major incident possibly involving fatalities ("We are greatly saddened by this tragic event and express our deepest sympathy to the families of those affected. We are working with [APPROPRIATE AUTHORITIES] at the site to investigate the cause of the incident").
They might be ready for the media, but none of the executives would testify that they could do much better than BP when it came to responding to this kind of disaster. "The fact of the matter is when these things happen, we are not well equipped to handle them," said Tillerson. "That's why the emphasis is on preventing them."
And when that doesn't happen? Well, then we apparently get what we're currently watching unfold in the Gulf. But don't worry – this is just BP's problem.
See all the response plans for the Gulf:
BP
ConocoPhillips
ExxonMobil
Shell
Chevron
Judge Blocks Moratorium On Gulf Offshore Drilling
Enlarge Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images A crane idles next to offshore oil rig supply ships at Port Fourchon, La., last week. More than 95 percent of the port's business is related to the oil and gas industry.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
A crane idles next to offshore oil rig supply ships at Port Fourchon, La., last week. More than 95 percent of the port's business is related to the oil and gas industry.
June 22, 2010
A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as rash and heavy-handed Tuesday, saying the government simply assumed that because one rig exploded, the others pose an imminent danger, too.The White House promised an immediate appeal. The Interior Department had imposed the moratorium last month in the wake of the BP disaster, halting approval of any new permits for deepwater projects and suspending drilling on 33 exploratory wells.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama believes that until investigations can determine why the spill happened, continued deepwater drilling exposes workers and the environment to "a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."
Heard On 'All Things Considered'
June 22, 2010
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and has owned stock in a number of petroleum-related companies, sided with the plaintiffs.
"If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are?" he asked. "Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed, and rather overbearing."
He also warned that the shutdown would have an "immeasurable effect" on the industry, the local economy and the U.S. energy supply.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement late Tuesday that within the next few days he will issue a new order imposing a moratorium that eliminates any doubt it is needed and appropriate.
Feldman's ruling was welcomed by the oil and gas industry and decried by environmentalists.
More From NPR's 'Political Junkie'
It was not clear whether Feldman still has any of the energy industry stocks. Recent court filings indicate he may no longer have Transocean stock. The 2008 report showed that he did not own any individual shares in big companies such as BP, which leased the rig that exploded, or ExxonMobil.
Feldman did not immediately respond to a request for more information about his current holdings.
Josh Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, said the ruling should be rescinded if the judge still has investments in companies that could benefit. "If Judge Feldman has any investments in oil and gas operators in the Gulf, it represents a flagrant conflict of interest," Reichert said.
Feldman's ruling prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held. At least two major oil companies, Shell and Marathon, said they would wait to see how the appeals play out before resuming drilling.
In his ruling, the judge called the spill "an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster," but said Salazar's rationale for the moratorium "does not seem to be fact-specific and refuses to take into measure the safety records of those others in the Gulf." Feldman said he was "unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium."
The judge said the blanket moratorium "seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger."
The lawsuit was filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, La. CEO Todd Hornbeck said after the ruling that he is looking forward to getting back to work. "It's the right thing for not only the industry but the country," he said.
Earlier in the day, executives at a major oil conference in London warned that the moratorium would cripple world energy supplies. Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean, called it unnecessary and an overreaction.
"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Newman said.
BP CEO Tony Hayward skipped the event after coming under fire for attending a yacht race in England on Saturday rather than dealing with the spill.
BP stock dropped 81 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $29.52, near a 14-year-old low for the company in U.S. trading. The stocks of other companies associated with the spill remained low despite Feldman's ruling.
The drilling moratorium was declared May 6 and originally was to last only through the month. Obama announced May 27 that he was extending it for six months.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, slammed the ruling.
"This is another bad decision in a disaster riddled with bad decisions by the oil industry," said Markey, who was at the forefront of the effort to force BP to make underwater video of the spill public. "The only thing worse than one oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would be two oil spill disasters."
In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal and corporate leaders had complained that the moratorium would cost the region thousands of lucrative jobs, most paying more than $50,000 a year.
Feldman agreed, writing: "An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country."
He said Gulf drilling accounts for 31 percent of total domestic oil production and 11 percent of domestic natural gas production, and an estimated 150,000 jobs are directly related to offshore operations.
Tim Kerner, mayor of the fishing town of Lafitte, La., cheered the ruling. "I love it. I think it's great for the jobs here and the people who depend on them," he said.
The American Petroleum Institute, one of the industry's main lobbying groups, also welcomed the decision: "With this ruling, our industry and its people can get back to work to provide Americans with the energy they need, and do it safely and without harming the environment."
In its response to the lawsuit, the Interior Department had argued the moratorium was necessary while the effort to stop the leak and clean the Gulf continues and new safety standards are developed. "A second deepwater blowout could overwhelm the efforts to respond to the current disaster," the department said.
The government also challenged contentions that the moratorium would cause long-term economic harm. There are still 3,600 oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf.
As Feldman was issuing his ruling, the people in charge of a $20 billion fund to compensate those whose livelihoods have been ruined by the spill were on the coast Tuesday to talk with officials about the claims process.
Kenneth Feinberg, tapped by the White House to run the fund, has pledged to speed payments to fishermen, business owners and others. He was to meet with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.
BP claims director Darryl Willis visited a claims center in a rundown strip mall in Bayou La Batre, Ala., and said the company has already cut 37,000 checks for $118 million. Claims totaling about $600 million have been filed so far.
"Anyone who feels like they have been damaged or hurt or harmed has every right to file a claim," Willis said. "These are complicated in some cases, and in some cases they're straightforward. But every person should file their claim, and they will be looked at fairly."
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