Today, the presidential oil spill commission issued its final report concluding that the blowout of BP's Macondo well was certainly preventable, was caused by identifiable mistakes made by BP and its contractors, and resulted from complacency and poor risk management--placing doubt on the safety culture of the oil and gas industry as a whole. The commission also pointed out that the regulatory agencies charged with oversight were outclassed by the industry and failed to keep up with rapidly developing technologies of deepwater exploration. The combination of these failures resulted in the BP disaster.
The commission's conclusions are surprisingly astute for a panel that had no member from the oil and gas industry. Though I don't agree with all of the panel's conclusions as to who is to blame for the catastrophe, their recognition of systemic failures and inadequacies of both safety policy and systems were spot on. However thorough the conclusions and recommendations are, though, they are of little consequence outside the world of media and Washington politics. Because the White House ignored calls for a more inclusive commission--including not just environmentalists, academics, and politicians, but representatives from the technical disciplines and the industry itself--the conclusions and recommendations of the commission have already been dismissed by those most in need of them, members of the industry itself.
No industry likes to be preached to and scolded as the oil spill commission has done in this report, no matter how well deserved. There was an alternative, though. The objective of the commission was to determine the causes of the blowout and subsequent spill, then make recommendations to prevent this kind of disaster from occurring again. The problem is that in order to initiate necessary changes, something actually has to be done. That means getting the industry itself to admit mistakes and accept changes to their way of operating. We all knew that the industry as a whole would resist changes to offshore operational and safety procedures for two reasons. The first is simple: money. The second is that the industry believes it knows better than everyone else how to drill big, deep oil wells in deepwater because it's complicated and they've been doing it for years. To them, no environmentalist, bureaucrat, or politician is ever going to tell them what to do. In our deregulated nation, oil companies remain free to keep profit as their top priority, and set their own safety standards.
That could have been different. The Obama administration missed a golden opportunity for a teachable moment in this tragedy due to its own proclivity to push the oil and gas industry away. That distance from the industry is the key reason the White House was so far behind in its response to the blowout to begin with: there was no one close at hand who knew what they were looking at or who recognized the potential scope of this disaster. You could tell in the early White House statements that the president wasn't being well advised. In establishing the commission, the administration continued on this path, excluding any industry representation on the commission itself and hiring engineers and scientists only in staff or lower-level advisory roles. The panel itself was appointed to meet political objectives, relegating its primary objective--improving safety--to secondary importance.
Because the administration made little more than a token effort to include influential industry representatives on the commission, the results are predictable. The industry will reject the report's important conclusions and recommendations wholesale, and the new Republican controlled House will support that rejection. Since much of the significant change must be legislated, if the industry doesn't support that change, the House leadership will simply do the same; therefore, nothing will improve. . Had there been an industry member on the commission, that member could have sold the industry, and the Congress, on making critical changes to make drilling in the deepwater safer.
Clearly, it's a missed opportunity.
Bob Cavnar, a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry, is the author of Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout. He is CEO of Luca Technologies.
Follow Robert L. Cavnar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dailyhurricane
It's simply never going to happen.
Putting industry reps on the commission would just result in watered-down recommendations. And industry will kill any regulatory/legislative initiatives stemming from those recommendations anyway through intensive lobbying efforts that remain out of public view. And industry's lackeys in Congress and the executive branch agencies (if not in the WH) will wool the recommendations around for years before they take any kind of half-hearted measures to address the problems, measures that will instantly be appealed to a "non-activist" judiciary that takes years to ultimately reverse any kind of regulatory effort.
No, America is screwed . . . doomed to relive these events again and again . . . and taxpayers will foot the bill to bail industry out for its negligence and greed.
Hear, hear for the commission. Sure its recommendations will be ignored, never implemented, etc. But at least we got a relatively honest appraisal of the massively screwed up machinery that constitutes government in the US.
What has happened to the American people? Even at the height of the information age the dress Paula Abdul wore on last nights show generates more interest than one of the worst environmental disasters of all time.
This entire article seems a classic case of ignoratio elenchi, and a false case of argumentum ad hominem, in that it made false claims about the qualifications of the members of the Commission.
The oil companies ignore the commission's conclusions at peril: liability for the next crisis will be effected by the conclusions, whether they are ignored or not.
The only way to improve gas and oil industry worker, public and environmental safety performance is to introduce safety standards through a centralized regulatory body and force every company to comply. If a company is found to cause an accident due to negligence they should face criminal prosecution as well as fines and damages without any cap on the amount of those damages.
While the necessary improvements in regulation may not be easy to achieve, I bid good luck to the next oil company and contractors who needlessly run up liability and cause loss of life in light of the recommendations.
You don't get much more engineer than Prof Murray.
However, they will get sued. Their insurance companies are certainly going to raise their standards. They can't drill without insurance. Sophisticated investors don't want to see the value of their stock fall. They'll clean up to the extent that they have to. To the extent that they can buy off the political system they'll do as they please.
Drug Dealers don't like the FBI, but we don't resort to their counsel to produce reports they'll accept.
The fact that this was not done decades ago clearly shows just how corrupt industry and government have been. Why do we even pay taxes when an industry capable of causing such horrendous damage and loss of life is allowed to do as they wish and place profits above all else?
The industry would argue against any recommendations that involve additional oversight and increased standards. The Republicans can be expected to support the industry over the rest of the nation at every turn. It matters not at all that the industry wasn't highly involved with the commission.
For this report it was correct to keep the oil industry out of the mix. If the government handles this correctly they should involve the industry in developing safety standards that all companies must follow. Every company should have to comply with a single set of standards. Up until now these companies have been able to do whatever they want in regards to well design and safety. BP proved in this case that it can't even follow their own design and safety standards where profits are concerned. What they are getting away with is criminal negligence. If I were the US government I would make an example out of BP, Halliburton, Transocean and any other contractor found to be at fault. They would pay penalties that put fear into them so that this never happens again. I would also make BP responsible for every piece of equipment on the sea floor for 100+ years. If it fails they are at fault and pay any clean up costs and damages.
If an accident like this happens on another BP well the US government should sieze all US assets and revoke their right to do business in the US. If it puts them out of business then so be it.
Yes. Because the ones who are really at fault here are the regulators and environmentalists who were drilling for oil for their own profit without the proper safeguards.
I don't give a rat's you-know-what if BP's feelings were hurt by the commission's report. I highly doubt that the industry's acceptance of the conclusions would have changed if there was an "industry insider" on the commission. It will cost money to change, that's the bottom line. No matter who tells them they need to cut into their profits to protect the environment, they are not going to do it without being forced. An insider on the panel wouldn't force them, or even embarrass them.
What people don't seem to understand is that these companies will always place profits above all other concerns unless they are forced to do otherwise. This is exactly why we pay taxes. Our government was asleep at the wheel here so they have to take some blame. The question is what will be done to make certain an accident like this NEVER happens again? A slap on the wrist and a "please don't do it again" won't cut it. If you want to get the industry to pay attention then make an example of the players in this accident. Hit them with the hugest fines mankind has ever seen. Fines so big that the all of the CEOs are fired.