Dems Demand That Salazar Stop Dragging His Heels And Investigate BP Whistleblower Allegations

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar still has yet to conduct a formal interview with Ken Abbott, a whistleblower from BP's Atlantis rig where operators are allegedly missing engineering documentation essential to averting another oil rig disaster.

This week, House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and 17 other members of Congress asked Salazar to sit down and talk to Abbott.

"A long, thorough investigation is certainly called for," wrote Slaughter and her colleagues, "but in the meantime... immediate steps are absolutely necessary in order to assure that the Atlantis does not turn into an even larger disaster than the Deepwater Horizon."

Abbott first brought his safety concerns before the Minerals Management Service last year, and this past June he testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals.

Lawmakers expressed dismay this week that Interior has not even attempted to confirm Abbott's allegations, instead letting the Atlantis continue operating only 190 miles south of New Orleans.

"If there is even a small chance that the Atlantis is a 'ticking time bomb' as some have called it, the pace at which the Department has worked to resolve the questions raised about the Atlantis' safety is worrisome," the congressional letter reads.

Though the Minerals Management Service -- now renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement -- had vowed to investigate Abbott's claims and report their findings in May, Salazar said last month that the probe had only just begun.

"Given the quantity of records and need for MMS to focus on responding to the Deepwater Horizon accident, the investigation is only approximately 10 percent complete," he said.

Comments

[Levi Erik]

01:25 AM on 07/26/2010

Last week, BP was once again caught lying to the public, this time indirectly, through photoshopped images the oil giant has been posting across their official response website. They disgust me.

Read the full story: http://www.bestfunnyblog.com/world-news/bp-photoshops-pictures-command-center/

[dhhh]

07:49 PM on 07/25/2010

Fire Salazar now he is in the pocket of big oil.

[noratoo]

07:37 PM on 07/24/2010

"Bureau of Ocean Energy Management"??? Sounds like an arrogant announcement that the Oil Rulers and their bagmen like Salazar have every intention of conducting Business As Usual in the coastal waters, drilling offshore with impunity.

Salazar is so arrogant about it, imo, that he feels he can ignore whistleblowers and STONEWALL the elected representatives of The People who OWN the public lands he leases!


Salazar must resign NOW!

He is an embarrassment and DANGER to us all.

Salazar is a weak-willed and very dependable Corporate bagman -- whether he is rubberstamping all the instructions he gets from BP on the Gulf situation or when he is ordering the slaughter/roundup/genocide of wild horses on public lands for developing the Ruby Pipeline and the expansion of the Meat Livestock Industry onto lands reserved BY LAW for the preservation of wild horses.

Salazar shows by his stonewalling of Congress that he cannot be trusted in an office with life-and-death responsibilities that require timely decisiveness and discernment.

Throw the BUM out!

[catcancook]

05:01 PM on 07/24/2010

Only 17 members are requesting a sit-down? Where are the other 400+ members..out to lunch with their lobbyist? This is discouraging and having to beg Salazar to do this seems fishy. Follow the money...BP money is likely to be hiding in so many closets or freezers in DC that it's getting suspicious when no one will act to interview Abbot! Do they want more rigs to blow?

[Levi Erik]

01:07 PM on 07/24/2010

Earlier this week, BP was once again caught lying to the public, this time indirectly, through photoshopped images the oil giant has been posting across their official response website.

Read the full story here: http://www.bestfunnyblog.com/world-news/bp-photoshops-pictures-command-center/

[BrianJDonovan]

07:37 AM on 07/24/2010

MMS also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the Gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.

“You simply are not allowed to conclude that the drilling will have an impact,” said one scientist who has worked for the MMS for more than a decade. “If you find the risks of a spill are high or you conclude that a certain species will be affected, your report disappears and they find another scientist to redo it or they rewrite it for you.”

For more information, visit: http://renergie.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/bp-is-not-the-only-responsible-party/

[OzarkAggie]

01:14 AM on 07/24/2010

Get a clue, the president appoints these people because he feels comfortable working with them. Obama is as corporate as any of them. Holder has given a pass to all the scalawags in the Bush admin, Jackson at the EPA approve the use of Corexit, and Salazar doesn't talk to "little people" who would trash his colleagues in the oil industry, and Vilsack dumps on a woman who could give him lessons on discretion.

Obama is Clinton redux with the usual cast of characters form the DLC. If only he would learn to play the sax he could blow us some blues. Guess I'll just have to cue up some Charlie Parker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1bWqViY5F4&feature=channel "Summertime"

[snowballinhell]

03:45 AM on 07/24/2010

Right oh, Daddy O! Dig those grooves. Good Choice. I chose Frank Zappa's "It Can't Happen Here" earlier on another thread. Speaking of which..."Nice threads"

[noratoo]

07:50 PM on 07/24/2010

Well said!

Corporatists hire scientists to do their bidding in pursuit of PROFITS; but when it comes to REAL objective Science -- these Corporatists ignore and censor it! This is UNACCEPTABLE and must end.

Disgusting.

These corporatists are a danger to humans and the Planet -- as their repeated behavior in rubberstamping all Gulf oil drilling PROVES BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT. The BP Toxic Spewage was NO accident, but a PREDICTABLE result of the Corporatist sense of PRIVILEGE.

If bagmen for Corporations like Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (a real handmaiden of BP even when he was on the University of California faculty!), and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack (who has never met a GMO he didn't like) are in Obama's cabinet -- then Obama is either a fool or a Corporatist -- or both.

This MUST not continue. We must change course and start to use science instead of allow these Corporatists to MANIPULATE science for their PERSONAL gain.

[springsm]

11:31 PM on 07/23/2010

Salazar was a mistake. He isn't about to want to go after BP. Obama needs to fire him but since he won't, he needs to demand that Salazar do the job. He was lazy about the MSM too. I was shocked when he was picked for Sec. of the INt...big energy, big rancher period. Tho I do have to give him credit for some of the things he has stopped...but they didn't touch big oil. So...What now, Sec. Salazar? What now?

[springsm]

11:32 PM on 07/23/2010

Oops...MMS not msm...tho I have some opinions about them too.

[Benblanken]

10:59 PM on 07/23/2010

Stop dragging his heels? He can't do that until he stops dragging his knuckles, especially with regard to the agency he's supposed to lead. The guy gives the oil industry a bad name, if that's possible.

[quidam56]

10:55 PM on 07/23/2010

MMS needs to be investigated !

http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138

[Commonsensus]

10:52 PM on 07/23/2010

Meanwhile, a judge turns over a moratorium designed to prevent just this kind of thing. Where...where I ask you, is the common sense?

[Give Peace A Chance]

10:51 PM on 07/23/2010

If he was a black 62 yr old woman, he would have been fired along time ago.

[Ozy]

10:45 PM on 07/23/2010

Salazar needs to be fired as well. This nonsense of appointing people so invested in corporations like Salazar is with Monsanto is insanity and beyond bad ideas!!! Obama needs to clean house immediately!

[lightist]

10:43 PM on 07/23/2010

Unstoppable pressure on the one who's in the position of greatest responsibility in this BP investigation. If it's Salazar who's head's on the block, then lets bring out the executioner so he knows the time is nigh!
Otherwise, it's us, the populace who are bought and sold as much as the 'responsible' executive.

[tribilin219]

10:25 PM on 07/23/2010

I'd like to know why Obama is dragging his feet getting rid of this sell out?

[springsm]

11:34 PM on 07/23/2010

Remember his highness, King George, the Lesser? He had dumbos in position too and he kept them. Loyalty meant more than job productivity. Obama probably wants Salazar to clean up his part of the mess. I wonder what November will bring. It would be timely to have some change in several offices.