EDITORIAL
Failure in the Gulf
Published: January 6, 2011
The document released Wednesday by the presidential commission investigating last spring’s oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is a riveting and chilling indictment of “systemic failures” throughout the oil business and of the federal agencies that allowed themselves to be captured by the people they were supposed to regulate.
The commission will offer specific recommendations for reform in its full report next Tuesday. But the chapter it decided to release early is, by itself, a powerful summons to the Obama administration to press rapidly forward with stronger regulations, and to the industry as a whole to behave far more responsibly than it has.
Another tragedy like the one in the Gulf of Mexico could well occur, the report suggests, unless there is “significant reform in both industry practices and government policies.”
The panel traced the blowout to three main factors:
MANAGERIAL FOUL-UPS: The most significant failure and “root cause” of the blowout was a seemingly endless series of fateful missteps and oversights by BP and its partners — Transocean and Halliburton — that, in retrospect, could have been avoided. These decisions included not installing enough devices to stabilize the well, not waiting for the results of tests on the foam used to seal the well, and ignoring the results of an important pressure test. Taken together, these and other blunders allowed gases to enter the well and rise with explosive and ultimately disastrous force to the drilling rig.
SYSTEMIC FAILURE: Though BP in particular has been accused of putting profit before safety, the report avoided linking any individual decision to cost considerations. Even so, BP and its partners repeatedly chose the riskier, speedier course instead of a slower and safer alternative. As Bob Graham, the commission co-chairman, noted in a separate statement, “This disaster likely would not have happened had the companies involved been guided by an unrelenting commitment to safety first.”
The report further asserted that this risk-taking was not unique to BP or its partners in the well, that the blowout was “not the product of a series of aberrational decisions” made by a rogue company, but, instead, reflected an industrywide proclivity for risky behavior. “Do we have a single company, BP, that blundered with fatal consequences,” asked the other co-chairman, William Reilly, “or a more pervasive problem of a complacent industry?” Sadly, Mr. Reilly said, it is the latter.
REGULATORY WEAKNESS: As expected, the panel took federal regulators in the old Minerals Management Service to task for a range of mistakes, like rubber-stamping drilling permits and failing to oversee operations on the rig. These failures are hardly new. For years, the service has had neither the will nor the resources to police the industry.
Since the blowout, the Obama administration has reorganized the regulatory apparatus to give it greater independence. It has also issued and is now enforcing specific safety regulations and increased surveillance on individual rigs. All this is welcome, but the administration has a long way to go. What is at issue here is nothing less than remaking the culture of an entire industry
.
.
Carpetbagger Video
