Obama orders oil companies to resubmit drilling plans similar to BP's

[imurhuckleberry]

Source: McClatchy News

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration late Wednesday moved swiftly to plug a hole in its much touted six-month ban on new deepwater drilling when the Interior Department ordered oil companies to overhaul and resubmit dozens of exploration plans that had already been approved but were virtually identical to BP's and that called major spills and environmental damage "unlikely."

The action came after McClatchy informed the White House and Interior officials that it had reviewed 31 deepwater exploration and development plans approved for the Gulf under the Obama administration and found that all of them downplayed the threat of spills to marine life and fisheries.

The language scarcely varied from company to company, suggesting that the plans were pumped out like boilerplate. Of the 31 plans McClatchy reviewed, 14 were approved since the April 20 explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig,

The administration had failed to include the plans in its moratorium, and experts told McClatchy that the filings could clear the way for drilling new wells when the ban was lifted. Following inquiries by McClatchy to White House and Interior officials, the Bureau of Land Management announced late Wednesday that oil companies would need to resubmit the plans with additional safety information before they'd be allowed to drill new wells.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html#ixzz0pkMXTzbG


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html

[saracat]

1. Isn't it time to fire Salazar? So much for those who said this wasn't true.

[imurhuckleberry]

4. OR "Bush Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees Political Positions Shifted"

To Career Service Jobs....

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts.


The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703537.html

[saracat]

6. Seems as if this was something the Sec. of the Interior ought to have taken as a warning.

[pnorman]

8. I didn't even know that could be done!

I thought a`Civil Service job required a lengthy process, involving tests and evaluations by competent boards!!

[Angry Dragon]

2. Colusion??

Just a thought

[Trillo]

5. "pumped out like boilerplate" n/t

[neverforget]

3. It's past time to put the regulators back in regulations.

[saracat]

7. Anybody want to apologize to the Center For Biological Diversity?

[Thor_MN]

9. They should not be allowed to drill another deep water well until they have proven their equipment

at depth. And add a damn valve that is operable by an ROV. How expensive is one valve?

[Nihil]

10. 1) Agreed. 2) They had one - it broke. 3) ~$500K (n/t)

[Thor_MN]

11. Agreed and have to disagree, a bit.

They had a Blow Out Preventer that failed. If they had simply added that huge valve with the big wheel, that we have seen in every movie where the hero spins the wheel and shuts off the gusher, they could have turned that with an ROV and shut off the oil. Instead they had a multi-million dollar tower of useless junk that can not be operated by an ROV.

Incompetent plumbers pipe the house with no shut off valves. If you don't want a flooded basement, one has multiple, redundant ways to shut the water off completely.