http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/13/1628453/congress-wants-to-know-why-mms.html
Miami Herald Friday, 05.14.10
Congress wants to know why MMS aborted tougher drilling rules
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD, LESLEY CLARK AND DAN CHANG
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON – Engineers launched their latest effort to curb the crude oil gushing from a busted underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday as lawmakers on Capitol Hill wrangled over the liability limits for oil companies and continued to probe the mishaps and regulatory failures that caused the mammoth spill.
The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which regulates oilrigs, came under more scrutiny as congressional investigators scheduled hearings to find out why the federal agency never completed rules that would have required additional controls on blowout preventers – the safety equipment that failed to stop the spill.
Staffers from the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, who traveled to Louisiana this week to sit in on the U.S. Coast Guard-led inquiry into the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig, said they learned from the testimony of Mike Saucier, an MMS regional supervisor for field operations, that new rules had been proposed.
Saucier said the agency prepared but never completed regulations in 2001, the first year of George W. Bush’s presidency, that would have required secondary control systems for blowout preventers.
“As far as I know, they’re still at headquarters,” Saucier said.
The devices have been at the heart of the inquiry into what caused the explosion that killed 11 and continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The House committee also will be examining the agency’s ties to the oil industry and whether a cozy relationship kept it from enacting tougher regulations. McClatchy reported last week that nearly 100 standards set by the American Petroleum Institute are included in the MMS’ offshore operating regulations.
The chairman of the committee, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W Va., asked the MMS on Thursday to provide all documents related to regulations that it proposed but never finalized. He also asked the agency to turn over inspection reports from the oilrig, and a list that details potential noncompliance with MMS regulations.
Meanwhile, efforts on Capitol Hill to raise the liability cap for oil companies from
$75 million to $10 billion ran into a roadblock when Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, objected to the proposal.
Murkowski said she supports lifting the cap, but contended the $10 billion figure would prevent smaller, independent companies from drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., mocked the idea of independent companies as “mom and pop” oil companies and questioned why smaller companies shouldn’t be held responsible in the event of a catastrophe.
“Ten billion dollars is a drop in the bucket,” Menendez said, noting that BP, the owner of the runaway well, posted profits of more than $5 billion for the first quarter of 2010.
Menendez said that he and other lawmakers plan to try to push the bill again.
“We’re going to see who stands with the average citizen, community, fishermen and others and who stands with Big Oil,” he said.
Six West Coast senators and Florida representative also introduced separate bills that together would have the effect of banning offshore drilling permanently.
The legislation by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., would permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the outer Continental Shelf of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The bill by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon and Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington would permanently ban oil and gas drilling off the California, Oregon and Washington coasts.
Special thanks to Richard Charter