Report card on second anniversary of disaster gives the Obama administration a 'B'; industry a 'C+'
WASHINGTON -- Nearly two years since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, the former members of the federal Oil Spill Commission have given the Obama administration a B, industry a C+, and Congress a D for their responses to the catastrophe. "Across the board, we are disappointed with Congress' lack of action," said former Florida Sen. and Gov. Bob Graham, the commission's co-chairman.
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President Barack Obama, accompanied by BP Oil Spill Commission co-chairs former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, left, and former EPA Administrator William Reilly, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington in June 2010. "Two years have passed since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers, and Congress has yet to enact one piece of legislation to make drilling safer."
The commissioners, who have banded together as Oil Spill Commission Action to press for implementation of their recommendations, mostly faulted Congress for not enacting in statute the regulatory reforms devised by the Interior Department, and for not establishing a dedicated long-term funding source to ensure adequate resources to oversee offshore drilling.
"The only legislation that is close to being implemented would dedicate, as the Commission recommended, 80 percent of the penalties paid by BP and other parties under the Clean Water Act to long term restoration of the Gulf's ecosystem," said commission member Don Boesch, a New Orleans native who is president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "But even here, Congress seems to have stalled."
But on the plus side, co-chairman William K. Reilly, a former EPA administrator, said, "We are encouraged by the progress being made, particularly by the Department of Interior and industry, in adopting our recommendations to improve safety and environmental protection. Significant progress has also been made in industry's ability to respond to spills that do occur.
"For instance, there are two new corporations in place in the Gulf of Mexico with capping stacks ready for deployment if a well were to experience a blowout. When the Macondo well blew out, there were none."
The commissioners were also pleased with industry's creation of a new Center for Offshore Safety to raise the bar on safety standards, and liked the choice of Charlie Williams as executive director, but renewed their call for the American Petroleum Institute to relinquish any control over the center to ensure its independence and credibility.
"Although this Center has had a slow start and is not as independent of the industry's chief advocacy and lobbying organization (API), as we had recommended, we are pleased with its new leadership," the commissioners wrote in their report. "We continue to believe this new Center holds promise of helping to ensure that the firms involved in offshore drilling perform at the top of their game. However, we believe that, if it is to establish widespread credibility, it should become completely independent of API once it is fully operational."
Reilly also said that his conversations with officials from companies involved in joint ventures with BP were encouraging.
"The culture of BP appears to be transforming," said Reilly. "They are behaving very differently than they did a few years ago."
