Panel: Gulf oil spill could happen again
By HARRY R. WEBER and DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press
Associated Press January 6, 2011 11:02 AM Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Disasters like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig could happen again without significant reform, according to the conclusions of a presidential panel that described systemic problems within the offshore oil and gas industry and government regulators who oversee it.
In a 48-page excerpt of its final report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, the companies involved in the nation's largest offshore oil spill once again blame each other for the failures.
The full report is due to the president Jan. 11. But key questions will remain, namely: Why didn't a hulking piece of equipment that sat at the wellhead and was supposed to choke off the flow of oil in the event of a blowout do its job? Federal investigators analyzing the blowout preventer at a NASA facility in New Orleans aren't expected to finish until February.
The Justice Department continues its own investigation, as does a joint U.S. Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement panel.
The oil spill commission said poor decisions led to technical problems that contributed to the April 20 accident that killed 11 people and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP's well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Inquiries by BP and Congress have found the same.
<SNIP>View entire article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/01/05/state/n141210S13.DTL#ixzz1AHfbwrzc
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