In response to one of the greatest oil disasters in history, the U.S. Senate will do nothing. Republican opposition to the limited oil industry reform package assembled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (S. 3663) has led him to pull the bill — and the BP-friendly Republican alternative (S. 3643) — from the floor. Pressed for time, Reid chose not to force his opponents to cast a vote on behalf of their oil sponsors. Reid’s package is almost exclusively made of bipartisan pieces of legislation:

— Interior Department drilling reform, co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

– Natural gas trucks retrofitting, co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

– The “cash for caulkers” Homestar energy efficiency program, co-sponsored by Bingaman and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

These initiatives would have held BP accountable, created jobs, protected the environment, cleaned the air, and strengthened energy security.

However, Murkowski, Hatch, and Graham joined their Republican colleagues — as well as the oil-fueled Democrats Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Begich (D-AK) — in opposing Reid’s bill because it lifted the $75 million liability cap for oil companies like BP responsible for a major oil spill.

“It should be an affront to those who are serious about enacting good policy,” bloviated Murkowski, who had singlehandedly blocked a vote on lifting the liability cap in May. “Unlimited liability pretty much puts the big nail in the coffin,” said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon.

The Republican counter-proposal would have replaced the liability cap with a complicated formula that essentially kept the cap unchanged, keeping the American taxpayer on the hook for any future big oil bailouts.

Johnnie Burton, former MMS director

Johnnie Burton, the director of Bush’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) from 2002 to 2007, has no regrets about her tenure, saying in an interview that she found no problems within the agency, now disbanded in disgrace. Burton — at 70 now a case worker for Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) — defended her record to the Caspar, WY, Star-Tribune. Under Burton, the “mismanaged, unaccountable” agency was so corrupt that even pro-drilling Republicans like Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) bashed the agency. Burton responded with insouciant calm, telling the Star-Tribune “when I was there it seemed to work well“:

As for allegations of lax enforcement at the Minerals Management Service, grossly inadequate spill response plans and other regulatory shortfalls, Burton said that as MMS director she was unaware of those problems. “I can’t answer all these questions at this point because when I was there it seemed to work well,” Burton said.

The agency worked so “well” that investigators found evidence of “cronyism and cover-ups of management blunders; capitulation to oil companies in disputes about payments; plunging morale among auditors; and unreliable data-gathering that often makes it impossible to determine how much money companies actually owe.”

Burton was in charge during the development of the offshore drilling plan that expanded drilling to the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Her Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2007-2012 included 2008′s Lease Sale 206, in which BP purchased Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (MC252) for $34 million. MC252, also known as the Macondo Prospect, has been flooding the Gulf of Mexico with oil for months now. Burton’s plan dismissed the environmental threat of that sale, primarily because no huge disasters had taken place since the Ixtoc I blowout in 1979, as these excerpts show:

The analysis above shows that with regard to potential oil spill impacts, areas that contain wetlands and marshes such as the Central GOM are particularly sensitive. However, lessees have been producing oil and gas from the Central Gulf and other areas for over 50 years with a remarkable record of environmental safety. For more than 30 years, there have been no significant oil spills from platforms anywhere on the OCS. [p. 92]

No Environmental Justice impacts from accidental oil spills are expected because of the movement of oil and gas activities further away from coastal areas and, also, the demographic pattern of more affluent groups living in coastal areas. [p. 60]

The Central Gulf coastal area ranks second in marine primary productivity only to the Mid-Atlantic. The marine primary productivity of the Central Gulf does not appear to have been appreciably diminished by offshore exploration and production activities. The same is true of other areas of the OCS with existing operations and production. Thus, the size, location, and timing of lease sales in the PFP are consistent with the marine primary productivity of the areas in which lease sales will be held. [p. 95]

Overall, impacts on national parks, national wildlife refuges, national estuarine research reserves, and national estuary program sites due to routine operations are expected to be limited under the proposed action because these areas are restricted from development. Impacts from oil spills are unlikely because it is anticipated that 75 percent of the hydrocarbons developed, as a result of the 2007-2012 leasing program in the GOM area are expected to occur in deep water (>330 m) usually located far from the shoreline. [p. 57]

Any single large spill would likely affect only a small proportion of a given fish population within the GOM, and it is unlikely that fish resources would be permanently affected. [p. 57]

In areas with a large proportion of impact-sensitive industry, such as tourism, the potential incremental impacts of oil spills would likely result in a one-time seasonal decline in business activity. [p. 59]

Impacts of accidental releases to water quality would depend on the size of the spill, type of material or product spilled, and environmental factors at the time of the spill. However, there would be no long-term, widespread impairment of marine water quality. [p. 60]

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As the Senate dithers on clean energy reform, every branch of the government — Congress, the Obama administration, and the courts — is investigating the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana that has killed 11 workers and left three in critical condition. The obliterated hulk of the Deepwater Horizon rig has sunk to the ocean floor, the shattered drilling apparatus now leaking thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf. Attempts to shut down the leaks by underwater robot have failed, so authorities are considering building an underwater dome and setting the growing oil slick ablaze before it reaches shore. The rig is owned and operated by BP America and Transocean Limited.

Administration officials Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the “the next steps for the investigation that is underway into the causes of the April 20 explosion that left 11 workers missing, three critically injured, and an ongoing oil spill that the responsible party and federal agencies are working to contain and clean up.” There is a joint investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard (under Napolitano) and the Minerals and Mining Service (under Salazar) into the explosion’s death and destruction.

In the House of Representatives, energy committee chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and oversight subcommittee chair Bart Stupak (D-MI) launched an investigation into “the adequacy of the companies’ risk management and emergency response plans for accidental oil and gas releases at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and other offshore deep water or ultra-deep water drilling facilities.” In letters to BP America CEO Lamar McKay and Transocean CEO Steven Newman, the lawmakers cite the “apparent lack
of an adequate plan to contain the spreading environmental damage” and request documents by May 14.

In the Senate, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) have called for a joint hearing by the Senate commerce and energy committees to oversee the efforts by the federal agencies involved (NOAA, MMS, and the Coast Guard).

A lawsuit has been filed in the federal courts by the wife of one of the victims, charging Transocean, BP America, and Halliburton with negligence. Halliburton “was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap,” which may have failed and caused the explosion.

In 2005, an explosion at BP’s Texas City Refinery killed 15 workers. In response to safety violations at that facility, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration levied a record fine of $87 million against BP, which BP promptly challenged in court. Since 2006, there have been 509 fires resulting in at least two fatalities and 12 injuries on rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Even as the sordid details of the Drill, Baby, Drill sex, drugs, and oil scandal in the Minerals Management Service are revealed, conservatives continue to press their drill-drill-drill agenda in Congress. They continue to repeat the Big Oil lie that opening America’s coasts to further drilling would lower gas prices, despite the clear finding by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium would not affect oil prices.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the news media has mindlessly amplified that lie. The hundreds of broadcasts on “proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the United States” almost completely ignored the EIA report:

CNN — whose news coverage is sponsored by the coal and oil industry — was particularly egregious, talking about the drill-drill-drill agenda 139 times but mentioning the EIA’s debunk only once on August 7 (actually, I was able to find one other mention that same day).

From the American News Project comes a telling video report on how conservatives are “just lying to the American public” by promising lower gas prices from expanded drilling. Climate Progress‘s Joe Romm is interviewed, and he explains the dirty money connection:

It is conservatives who get ad campaigns and who get contributions from the oil companies. The oil companies get bigger profits when oil prices are high. So it is not surprising that conservatives have for twenty-five years opposed higher fuel economy standards. And it is not surprising that conservatives have steadfastly opposed alternative energy and renewable energy. They don’t want people to get off of fossil fuels and traditional energy because conservatives get paid by those companies.

Digg It!

Watch it: Read more

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

During the Republican National Convention, delegates repeatedly demonstrated their obsession with offshore oil drilling by chanting “drill, baby, drill!” It turns out they were literally describing the relationship between Department of Interior royalty collectors and the oil industry.

Multiple reports released on September 10 by the Department of Interior Inspector General found that the Mineral Management Service officials responsible for collecting royalties from oil and gas producers are accused of accepting gifts, trips, and special favors from producers. The report described “A culture of ethical failure… [and] a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity.” These government overseers also abused alcohol and cocaine with officials from energy companies that they were supposed to collect royalties from, and “had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The MMS employees are responsible for collecting royalties from producers for oil and gas produced on public lands, which can be paid in cash or “royalty in kind.” The latter allows the producer to pay its royalties by delivering oil and gas to the federal government, which is either stored in government reserves or sold on the open market. The total royalty tab is about $10 billion annually, and is one of the largest sources of federal revenue aside from taxes.

The DOI Inspector General previously found that the Department under collected billions of dollars of revenue owed the U.S. taxpayer from oil companies that produce and sell oil and gas from public lands and waters. The IG found that DOI provides mediocre oversight of oil and gas companies to ensure that they are paying the full royalties owed to the U.S. treasury. The result was billions of dollars of uncollected royalties owed to the federal government. These officials, in effect, helped subsidize oil companies already engorged with record profits that averaged $236 per driver over the past year.

This “sex, drugs, and oil” agency is the same one that would oversee the expansion of offshore oil drilling into protected ocean areas. No wonder coastal businesses that depend on clean beaches and ocean are so worried about the potential for harm from expansion of offshore oil drilling from Malibu to Miami to Maine. The federal watchdogs are in bed with the oil companies that they are supposed to oversee.