The presidential panel that investigated the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April could have been expected to fault BP and its drilling contractors and lax federal regulation. And in its report last week, the panel indeed laid the blame at the feet of those parties. Its larger finding, however, is far more alarming than expected: It describes an industry and past government oversight that is so lax and so under-regulated that it inevitably will create a similar spill absent significant overhaul of both the industry and the government’s approach to making off-shore drilling safer and less prone to catastrophic error.
“If dramatic steps are not taken,” said former Sen. Bob Graham, co-chairman of the panel, “I’m afraid at some point in the coming years another failure will occur, and we will wonder why did the Congress, why did the administration, why did the industry allow this to happen again.”
To prevent another such spill, the panel recommended substantial regulatory reform and an independent, industry-financed safety board overseen by an appointed chief whose term would be fixed but who would not be answerable to the secretary of the Interior. If that seems an extreme position for the panel to take, its report makes clear the need to insulate any regulatory overseer from political intervention.
The bipartisan presidential panel was especially scathing in two areas. One was its scorching indictment of the industry as a whole for failing to adequately plan both how to prevent a spill, and what to do if a major spill occurs.
It was equally condemnatory toward the Department of the Interior and its inept regulation of off-shore drilling. Regulatory oversight was so poor, the panel found, that it amounted to no effective regulation at all. Given other reports over the past several years, that’s not a surprising finding.
Other investigations have shown that regulators have become so cozy with their industry counterparts that regulators have been fired for taking gifts, favors and drugs from oil and gas company liaisons with whom they have fraternized.
That history isn’t dampening the oil and gas industry’s resistance to the panel’s recommendations, which they claim would slow oil exploration and production and raise prices. Republicans, traditionally compliant friends of the oil and gas lobbies that shower campaign contributions on them, were equally quick to downplay the apparent need for regulatory reform.
The panel’s case surely would be stronger if it had been given subpoena power to compel witnesses and testimony regarding the questions its report leaves unanswered. These include: Why the blowout preventer on the seabed of the well the Deepwater Horizon was drilling failed to stop the blowout; and, why workers on the rig failed to respond to the buildup of gases in the well bore that ultimately caused the explosion last April that killed 11, injured dozens and spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
The damages of that spill have run into the tens of billions of dollars. The presidential panel thus reasonably recommended that the current $75 million cap on liability for drilling accidents be raised to an adequate amount. The industry, and its lackey congressional defenders, are fighting that as well.
Still, it should be apparent that companies operating in the nation’s public waters and extracting publicly owned oil should be competently regulated and supervised, and liable for their damages to public property. If the panel’s recommendations are not implemented because politicians are so greedy for the oil industry’s campaign donations and effective bribes, taxpayers should not hesitate to hold the politicians accountable.