http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-front-center-110711-20111104,0,3741117.story

Orlando Sentinel
November 7, 2011

Just one more good reason to end the Cuban embargo.……DV

Florida’s former governor and senator, who co-chaired the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, says a planned oil rig off the north coast of Cuba poses a risk to Florida. Particularly because the two nations don’t have an agreement on how they’d cooperatively trouble-shoot an oil spill. Graham tells editorial writer Victor Schaffner that non-governmental delegations from the U.S. are meeting in Cuba, but, Graham says, “there’s going to have to be some involvement by the U.S. government” to bring about an agreement. “Time is not your ally” after a spill, Graham says. An accident off Cuba could threaten the Keys and the entire east coast of Florida. And, he says, the Chinese-built, semisubmersible rig could be drilling for oil as soon as January.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/nov/04/cuban-waters-test-oil-rig-florida-keys-US-monitor/

By ERIC STAATS
Posted November 4, 2011 at 9 p.m.

Spanish oil giant Repsol could begin drilling in late December or early January at a spot along the northern shore of Cuba about 90 miles from Key West. From there, the Gulf Stream could pick up any oil spill and carry it perilously close or even into mangrove islands and onto beaches in the Florida Keys, South Florida and up the U.S. east coast.

NAPLES – With an oil drilling rig on its way to Cuban waters from Singapore, U.S. officials are trying to piece together a strategy for what to do should a spill from the exploratory well threaten the Florida coastline. The job is complicated by diplomatic tensions between the United States and Cuba and the domestic politics of the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

“They’re proceeding cautiously, and in my opinion, a bit too cautiously,” said Daniel Whittle, senior attorney and Cuba Program director at the Environmental Defense Fund. The clock is ticking: Spanish oil giant Repsol could begin drilling in late December or early January at a spot along the northern shore of Cuba about 90 miles from Key West. From there, the Gulf Stream could pick up any oil spill and carry it perilously close or even into mangrove islands and onto beaches in the Florida Keys, South Florida and up the U.S. east coast.

The Interior Department and U.S. Coast Guard have made the rounds of House and Senate committees in the past few weeks to reassure lawmakers that they are on the job _ even without Cuba at the table. In talks with U.S. officials since February, Repsol has pledged that it will adhere to U.S. drilling regulations while working in Cuba and has agreed to allow the United States to inspect the rig before it enters Cuban waters, the company and U.S. officials say.

U.S. regulators, though, have no enforcement power and the inspections will not be as complete as they otherwise would be if they are conducted at the drilling site, Michael Bromwich, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, recently told a House subcommittee.

About a dozen inspection points normally performed on U.S. rigs would be skipped, including testing the blowout preventer and how well the rig is secured in place, Bromwich said. “It’s a lot better than nothing at all, but it’s no equivalent,” Bromwich said.
He said Repsol has an incentive to cooperate with U.S. authorities to protect extensive oil interests it has in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Company spokesman Kristian Rix said Repsol is just being a “responsible operator.” “We’re happy to cooperate with U.S. authorities and pleased they’ve taken a keen interest,” Rix said. U.S. Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, is among a contingent of South Florida lawmakers who say the Obama administration’s work with Repsol is inconsistent with U.S. policy toward Cuba. The lawmakers, including Rivera, whose district includes eastern Collier County, sent a letter to Obama this week asking that the Commerce Department conduct its own inspection of the rig to be sure it complies with U.S. trade laws. The letter also requests “clarity” about how the United States is applying embargo rules that prohibit the rig from having more than 10 percent U.S. parts.

The rig getting all the attention, the Scarabeo 9, is new – built in China for an estimated $750 million for Italian company Saipem, said Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors. “It’s a modern, even ultra-modern, rig really,” Hunt said, noting that a half-dozen similar rigs already are working in the field and have a good safety record.

Still, the Deepwater Horizon spill in the northern Gulf of Mexico was a wakeup call that deepwater drilling is inherently risky, said Whittle, with the Environmental Defense Fund. With friendlier countries, such as Mexico and Canada, the United States has detailed agreements about how they will coordinate responses to oil spills that threaten international borders. Whittle said the United States needs a similar protocol with Cuba, mirroring agreements by which the National Hurricane Center works with Cuban forecasters and sends hurricane hunter aircraft into Cuban airspace.

While talks with Repsol are good, it is no substitute for direct talks with Cuba, he said. Until then, he said, the United States remains unprepared to deal with a spill in Cuban waters. U.S. authorities have overseen tabletop oil spill response exercises at Repsol’s offices in Trinidad and, in the United States, are working with state and local agencies on contingency plans, Bromwich said.

“They have plans and you know, you just hope that they’ve put in all the safeguards they need and it doesn’t happen,” Gov. Rick Scott told the Naples Daily News editorial board. In an interview with the Naples Daily News editorial board in October, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said drilling off Cuba is Florida’s “biggest risk” for a spill. He said he has met with the Coast Guard to discuss response plans. “They have plans and you know, you just hope that they’ve put in all the safeguards they need and it doesn’t happen,” Scott said.

U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Brian Salerno told the House subcommittee this week that the Seventh District in Miami will conduct another spill response exercise later this month. The Treasury and Commerce departments are issuing licenses to U.S. companies to allow them to contract with Repsol to provide equipment to respond to any spill despite the Cuban trade embargo.

Critics say the licensing process is too cumbersome and that the federal government should instead issue so-called “general licenses” that can be issued more quickly and with less red tape.

Bromwich told the House subcommittee that he has a “high level of confidence” that the necessary licenses will be in place when drilling starts off Cuba. “I think we’re at a pretty good place right now to get everything that’s needed,” he said. Data from the Treasury and Commerce departments about the numbers of licenses issued and to which companies wasn’t immediately available.A Fort Lauderdale-based oil spill response group, Clean Caribbean and Americas, has made no secret of its license to provide equipment to contain a spill.

Another company, Houston-based Wild Well Control, also has been issued a license to send equipment that would cap a leaking well, but the capping stack is in Scotland and could take days to get to Cuba, said Hunt, of the drilling contractors association.
Hunt said another oil spill response contractor based in Houston, Helix Energy Solutions, has applied for a license to provide similar equipment.

Oil industry expert Jorge Piñon said it is naïve to think that a handful of licenses will be adequate to respond to a Cuban oil spill. He said general licenses are “urgently needed.” Piñon, a former oil company executive and visiting research fellow at the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, said his concerns about drilling in Cuban waters reach beyond Repsol. When Scarabeo 9 is finished at the Repsol tract, it will be moved to its next job at the site of another new well in Cuban waters planned by Petronas, the state-run oil company of Malaysia. “We don’t even have a phone number for somebody to call at Petronas,” Piñon said. “That to me is totally unacceptable.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056630/Fracking-DID-cause-earth-tremors-Blackpool–drilling-goes-on.html#ixzz1cepGj3zz

By Oleg Vukmanovic
LONDON | Wed Nov 2, 2011 1:58pm EDT

(Reuters) – Shale gas exploration triggered small earthquakes near Blackpool in northwest England earlier this year, UK firm Cuadrilla Resources said, adding to concerns about the safety of a technology that is transforming U.S. energy markets.

A spokesman said on Wednesday tremors were triggered by pumping vast quantities of water at high pressure 3 kilometres underground through drill holes in a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is designed to prop open shale rocks and release trapped gas.

“It is highly probable that the hydraulic fracturing of Cuadrilla’s Preese Hall-1 well did trigger a number of minor seismic events,” a report commissioned by the company said.

Environmentalists on both sides of the Atlantic have lobbied politicians to ban fracking on concerns it leads to pollution of ground water and leakage of gas into the atmosphere.

Britain suspended fracking following the May tremor and commissioned a report into the process, but Cuadrilla has since said there was little risk that the tremors in April and May of 2.3 and 1.5 on the Richter scale, respectively, would be repeated.

Cuadrilla said the drill site’s combination of geological factors is “extremely rare” and would be unlikely to occur together at future drilling locations.

Even if tremors occurred, the magnitude of any future tremors would be no more than around 3 on the Richter scale as a “worst-case scenario”, it said.

“Cuadrilla’s water injection operations take place very far below the earth’s surface, which significantly reduces the likelihood of a seismic event of less than 3 on the Richter scale having any impact at all on the surface,” the company said in a statement.

The Lichfield-based company has said its site near Blackpool had 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in place – enough to cover UK demand for years.

However, experts questioned the size of the find, and a financing conducted by a key shareholder in Cuadrilla suggested gas reserves were below the company’s estimate.

ACTIVISTS SLAM FINDINGS

Cuadrilla has proposed implementing a seismic early warning system to make local people feel safer. But activist and environmental groups say the measure would mask the real risks of fracking in Britain.

WWF-UK has called for a moratorium on shale gas exploration until environmental risks have been properly assessed.

“These findings are worrying and are likely to add to the very real concerns that people have about fracking and shale gas,” Nick Molho, head of energy policy at WWF-UK said.

France banned shale drilling in July in the face of concerns about potential environmental damage due to the large amounts of water and detergents used in fracking.

On top of earthquake risks, the U.S. experience shows shale drilling sucks funding away from renewable energy projects while at the same time polluting air and water supplies, according to Friends of the Earth.

However, legal experts say findings presented to the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change signal that a suspension on fracking in the UK is not likely to last.

“In the U.S., where significant shale gas development has been underway for many years … there have been very few instances of water contamination,” said Lynne Freeman, partner at law firm Reed Smith.

“Those instances have largely resulted from surface spills or improperly cemented well casing, and the fracking process has earned a strong safety and environmental record,” she said.

PROTESTERS STORM RIG

Ahead of the fracking report’s publication, nine protesters from Frack-Off, a UK anti-fracking group, ran on to the company’s drilling site at Hesketh Bank before dawn and scaled the rig using climbing equipment, the group said.

Frack-Off says it intended to draw attention to the harmful effects of shale drilling on local environments and bring operations to a standstill “for as long as possible”.
Cuadrilla said it is working with police to remove four protesters attached to a rig.

(Additional reporting by Tom Bergin; editing by Jane Baird)

________________

excellent graphics online at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056630/Fracking-DID-cause-earth-tremors-Blackpool–drilling-goes-on.html#ixzz1cZGUkh9O

Daily Mail, UK

It’s official: Fracking DID cause earth tremors in Blackpool… but drilling goes on
* Controversial gas drilling process blamed for tremors
* Protesters scale a shale gas rig near Southport
* There is an estimated 200trillion cubic feet of natural gas under Lancashire
* This is a huge amount of fuel – enough to power Britain for 50 years

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 2:56 PM on 2nd November 2011

A controversial ‘fracking’ technique to extract gas from the ground was the ‘highly probable’ cause of earth tremors which hit Lancashire’s Fylde coast earlier this year, a report concluded today.

One tremor of magnitude 2.3 on the Richter scale hit the area on April 1 followed by a second of magnitude 1.4 on May 27, prompting locals and environmental campaigners to blame the fracking technique being used locally by oil and gas firm Cuadrilla.

Fracking involves extracting gas reserves from underground by a process of hydraulic fracturing of shale rock using high pressure liquid to release gas – a process green groups claim is damaging the environment.
Protesters scale a Cuadrilla shale gas rig bringing a halt to work at the site near Southport, Merseyside. Gas drilling by the company did cause a series of earthquakes along the Lancashire coastline, a report today said Fracking involves extracting gas reserves from underground by a process of hydraulic fracturing of shale rock using high pressure liquid to release gas – a process green groups claim is damaging the environment

The firm commissioned a report by independent experts to investigate any links between the tremors and fracking work at their Preese Hall-1 well in Lancashire.
Today a summary published by the company said it is probable the fracking caused the tremors.

It said: ‘The report concludes that it is highly probable that the fracking at Preese Hall-1 well triggered the recorded seismic events.

‘This was due to an unusual combination of factors including the specific geology of the well site, coupled with the pressure exerted by water injection.

‘This combination of geological factors was rare and would be unlikely to occur together again at future well sites.

‘If these factors were to combine again in the future, local geology limits seismic events to around magnitude 3 on the Richter scale as a worst-case scenario.’

The report said a ‘number of factors coincided to cause the seismic events’.

First, the gas well encountered a ‘pre-existing critically stressed fault’ which ‘accepted large quantities of fluid’, and the fault was ‘brittle enough to fail seismically’.

The two tremors were ‘most likely’ induced by ‘repeated direct injection of fluid into the same fault zone’, the report states.

But it goes on to say the probability of a repeat occurrence of a ‘fracture-induced seismic event’ with similar magnitude is ‘very low’.

The report was published at 9am today, hours after protesters stormed the firm’s gas exploration site.

Environmental campaign group Frack Off entered the shale gas rig at Banks, near Southport, at around 5.30am.

HOW MUCH SHALE GAS IS BENEATH LANCASHIRE?

British energy consortium Cuadrilla Resources has discovered that Lancashire is sitting on one of largest reserve of ‘shale gas’ in Europe.

According to results from its test wells, there are 200trillion cubic feet of natural gas under the ground, trapped in a layer of compacted mud.

If the gas can be recovered, it could provide Britain with enough fuel to last 50 years, plug the looming energy shortfall caused by reduced North Sea gas supplies and create 5,600 jobs.

And it could turn Blackpool from the leisure capital of the North, to the centre of England’s oil and gas industry – a Texas-by-the-sea.

Two hundred trillion cubic feet is an unimaginably vast amount of gas. It is ten times more than all the gas known to be left under the North Sea. It’s one-fifth the size of the biggest gas field in the world, and the volume of 66,666 Royal Albert Halls.

The prospect of 400 gas wells across Lancashire and thousands of new jobs – not to mention all those tax revenues – couldn’t have come at a better time for the Chancellor. But there is one problem – in gas and oil exploration, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

The report, titled Geo-mechanical Study Of Bowland Shale Seismicity, was commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources and carried out by a team of independent experts from across Europe, according to the company.

The report goes on to say the water-injection fracking technique is used more than 3km (about two miles) below ground and this ‘significantly reduces the likelihood of a seismic event of magnitude 3 or less on the Richter scale having any impact at all at the surface’.

The theoretical maximum seismic event of magnitude 3 would not present a risk to personal safety or damage to property on the surface, the report states.

It proposes an ‘early detection system’ to monitor seismic activity at Cuadrilla’s drilling site which would ‘build in an extra layer of safety’.

It proposes steps to reduce the chance of further tremors ‘exceeding safe limits’.

Fracking has also been blamed on spoiling water supplies by fluid used in the process seeping into underground waterways.

The report states fracking carried out by Cuadrilla in the Bowland basin occurs at a depth of around 3km, whereas groundwater aquifers do not exist beyond a depth of around 300metres (1,000ft).

The Frack Off protest at Cuadrilla’s drilling site was timed to ‘highlight the hypocrisy’ of the Shale Gas Environmental Summit in London today.

The campaign group said the event, sponsored by companies involved in the oil and gas industry, will try to promote rapid expansion into the untapped fossil fuel.

Campaigners are also expected to stage a ‘Frack Mob’ mass event outside the summit at 3pm. At the drill site in Lancashire six protesters climbed up the rig to erect a banner before police were called.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Police said: ‘At around 5.30am around seven protesters gained entry to the Cuadrilla gas drilling site in Banks.

‘Six out of the seven have climbed up a rig on the site and have erected a banner.

‘One protester remains on the ground. Police are in attendance and a cordon has been put in place around the site. We are liaising with the site owners and the protesters to bring about a peaceful resolution.’

A spokesman for the company said they were assessing the situation and police had sealed off the rig.

Frack Off spokeswoman Jenny Boykin said: ‘Fracking uses huge amounts of water mixed with toxic chemicals, a large fraction of which are never recovered.

‘The fracking fluid also leaches chemicals like arsenic out of the rocks when it is used, making it even more toxic, and so the fluid that is recovered becomes a big disposal problem.

‘The contamination of irrigation water means that everyone’s food supplies could potentially be affected. Fracking in the United States has already resulted in numerous spills of these fluids.’

A spokesman from the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: ‘Cuadrilla’s geomechanical study was given to the Department of Energy and Climate Change today.

‘The implications of this report will be reviewed very carefully – in consultation with the British Geological Survey, independent experts, and the other key regulators, HSE and the Environment Agency – before any decision on the resumption of these hydraulic fracture operations is made.’

OPPOSITION TO FRACKING INTENSIFIES

Opposition to fracking is intensifying in Britain as the jury is still out on whether the controversial gas extraction process will poison drinking water and cause major environmental damage.

Energy companies have said the process is safe but environment groups warn it could pose human health risks.

Mark Miller, chief executive of Cuadrilla, has said the process does not pose a threat to UK groundwater.

But horror stories have emerged from the US, where fracking is common, including reports of tap water igniting when a match is lit and claims of contaminated water making people ill.

Such concerns have led to bans or moratoria on fracking in some places.
France has banned fracking from shale rock and New York state has introduced a moratorium.

Environmental groups in the UK have been calling for a moratorium at least until environmental and safety impacts have been addressed.

In Australia, ground water and soil contamination fears have led farmers and green groups to form an unlikely alliance against fracking.

Concerns have also been raised that fracking could pose a threat to Bath’s world-famous hot springs.

Bath and North East Somerset Council said in September that two resource companies have applied for planning permission to test- drill for gas but the council fears that, if allowed to go ahead, it could harm the springs.

_________________________

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Lawmakers-with-Cuban-roots-blast-offshore-2249368.php

I have to agree that drilling so close to Key West is madness. How did we get into this mess? Its time to end the embargo… DV

By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, WASHINGTON BUREAU
Updated 07:45 p.m., Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement–the federal offshore energy regulator, speaking to the Houston Chronicle Editorial board, Friday, Feb. 11, 2011, in Houston. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) Photo: Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle

Ileana Ros-Lehtinenof Florida is the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Michael Bromwichconcedes that the U.S. inspection of a rig will be con-strained.

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of lawmakers with Cuban roots on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for not doing more to block oil and gas drilling in Cuban waters.

Instead of working to prevent the drilling, the lawmakers complained, the Interior Department has coordinated with the first of several companies set to explore in the area.

“We are extremely concerned over what seems to be a lack of a coordinated effort by the administration to prevent a state sponsor of terrorism from engaging in risky deep-sea oil drilling projects that will harm U.S. interests as well as extend another economic lifeline to the Cuban regime,” the lawmakers said in a letter to President Barack Obama.

The letter signers included the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., as well as Reps. David Rivera, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Albio Sires, D-N.J. All are of Cuban descent.

At issue are plans by Repsol, a privately owned Spanish company, to drill an exploratory well in Cuban waters less than 100 miles from the Florida coast as early as December.

U.S. embargo

The U.S. has no say in the company’s drilling or in the Cuban regulations that will govern the work. And America’s power to influence the planned drilling is even more limited because of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which generally bars commerce with the nation and caps the amount of American-made components in offshore drilling vessels and other equipment at 10 percent.

Nevertheless, the Interior Department has used its leverage with Repsol, which has leases to drill in American Gulf waters, to extract a commitment that the company will follow U.S. standards for its Cuban drilling.

Repsol also has agreed to allow Coast Guard and Interior Department inspectors to evaluate the Scarabeo 9 rig that will drill the well, before that vessel crosses into Cuban waters.

“They have an interest in backing up that pledge because they have interests in U.S. waters,” Michael Bromwich, the head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Other state-owned oil and gas companies, including Russia’s Gazprom and Malaysia’s Petronas, are planning to search for oil and gas in deep Cuban waters after Repsol finishes its well. But unlike Repsol, none of them holds U.S. drilling leases.

Bromwich said the federal government does not have active plans to reach out to those companies, as it has with Repsol.

The looming Cuban drilling puts the administration in a politically precarious position, angering Cuban-Americans who say the White House is helping the Communist regime by assisting Repsol and at the same time alienating environmentalists, who worry that the trade embargo will block U.S. companies from swiftly responding to any oil spill in the region.

Being pragmatic

Obama administration officials have insisted that they are being pragmatic in working with Repsol to boost the safety of its drilling. Bromwich said he is assuming that Repsol’s drilling is “a given,” so working with the company makes more sense than stepping aside or trying to pressure Repsol to back down.

It “could lead to lots of undesirable developments if we tried to stop activities in waters that don’t belong to us,” Bromwich told reporters. “So we have rejected that alternative and instead have tried to do what we can to protect American interests.”

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., noted that after the Scarabeo 9 enters Cuban waters, it will be off limits to U.S. regulators. “It will be as if it has crossed into a Bermuda triangle of safety,” he said.

Bromwich conceded that the U.S. inspection – expected in December – will be constrained because it will be taking place far from the well site.

“It’s a lot better than nothing,” he said, but “there are certain things – about a dozen things – we will not be able to do.”

Fears of a spill

For instance, U.S. officials will not be able to conduct a test of emergency equipment on the rig as it is deployed at the subsea well.

Environmentalists warn that in case of an oil spill, the trade embargo and bureaucratic red tape could prevent American companies from responding with equipment and assistance.

jennifer.dlouhy@chron.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter
Published: Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Let’s hope that if it were up to the U.S. to determine whether we should drill for oil a few miles downstream from Key West, that the answer would be a resounding NO. DV

Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey today stood up for American companies’ ability to drill for oil — off Cuba.

Calling the long-standing embargo against Cuba the “real moratorium” on drilling, Markey accused Republicans of focusing on a “make-believe” moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico they say has been imposed by the Obama administration. He noted that Cuba’s waters will be open to drilling for the government of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

“I would think my Republican colleagues would rather have this drilling done by Chevron, rather than Chavez,” Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said at a subcommittee hearing.

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said he would not mind seeing U.S. oil majors drilling off Cuba.

“I strongly support putting people back to work in the Gulf, so if U.S. companies were allowed to drill there that would be great,” Bromwich said after leaving a hearing of the Energy and Mineral Resources subpanel. “But that’s not the world we live in.”

Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) contrasted the Obama administration’s decision to assist companies involved in Cuban
drilling with what he said is the slow pace of permits being issued for drilling off Louisiana and Texas.

“We see agencies helping Cuban drilling go forward,” Lamborn said. “I wish there was equal effort to help our own companies to produce in the outer continental shelf.”

He also criticized the Obama administration for failing to send witnesses from the departments of State, Treasury and Commerce, which have been involved in monitoring the Cuban drilling, to testify at the hearing.

Lamborn said the administration’s handling of the Cuban drilling situation indicates a willingness to undermine the embargo against the country.

“There has been growing concern that companies will be allowed to expand their engagement with Cuba and that this administration will weaken the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a state sponsor of terror,” Lamborn said.

Cuba is working with Spanish company Repsol to begin drilling a well in its waters before the end of the year. American lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced opposition to the plan to drill up to 16 wells, but the project is beyond the reach of U.S. regulators.

Because of that, Bromwich said the administration decided to engage Repsol, rather than isolating or punishing companies that deal with drilling in Cuba.

“The administration made a conscious decision that’s not the responsible course of action to try to stop activity in waters that
don’t belong to us,” Bromwich told reporters.

Several lawmakers have proposed legislation that would penalize foreign companies for working with Cuba.

But Democratic Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey said the hearing was held to air “fears rather than facts” and ignored the implications of other countries’ moves to produce oil from the Arctic seafloor.

“There’s a black gold rush,” Holt said. “The United States is sitting on the sidelines.”

Under friendly questioning by Holt, Bromwich offered mild criticism of the CEOs of the companies involved in last year’s deadly explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico — BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Cameron International Corp. — for their refusal to testify at a hearing of the committee this afternoon (E&E Daily, Nov. 2).

“With the litigation they are facing, I understand their decision, but I’m disappointed by their position,” Bromwich said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter