U.S. Exempted BP's Gulf Of Mexico Drilling From Environmental Impact Study

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U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact
study
 
LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
 
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico
drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last
year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the
area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

Scientists envision devastation for gulf
 
The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to
give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and
BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand
those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the
company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in
the gulf.

Rethinking the rules

Now, environmentalists and some key senators are calling for a
reassessment of safety requirements for offshore drilling.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who has supported offshore oil drilling in
the past, said, "I suspect you're going to see an entirely different
regime once people have a chance to sit back and take a look at how
do we anticipate and clean up these potential environmental
consequences" from drilling.

BP spokesman Toby Odone said the company's appeal for NEPA waivers in
the past "was based on the spill and incident-response history in the
Gulf of Mexico." Once the various investigations of the new spill
have been completed, he added, "the causes of this incident can be
applied to determine any changes in the regulatory regime that are
required to protect the environment."

"I'm of the opinion that boosterism breeds complacency and
complacency breeds disaster," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on
Tuesday. "That, in my opinion, is what happened."

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it
is important to learn the cause of the accident before pursuing a
major policy change. "While the conversation has shifted, the energy
reality has not," Gerard said. "The American economy still relies on
oil and gas."

While the MMS assessed the environmental impact of drilling in the
central and western Gulf of Mexico on three occasions in 2007 --
including a specific evaluation of BP's Lease 206 at Deepwater
Horizon -- in each case it played down the prospect of a major
blowout.

In one assessment, the agency estimated that "a large oil spill" from
a platform would not exceed a total of 1,500 barrels and that a
"deepwater spill," occurring "offshore of the inner Continental
shelf," would not reach the coast. In another assessment, it defined
the most likely large spill as totaling 4,600 barrels and forecast
that it would largely dissipate within 10 days and would be unlikely
to make landfall.

"They never did an analysis that took into account what turns out to
be the very real possibility of a serious spill," said Holly Doremus,
a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has
reviewed the documents.

The MMS mandates that companies drilling in some areas identify under
NEPA what could reduce a project's environmental impact. But Interior
Department spokesman Matt Lee-Ashley said the service grants between
250 and 400 waivers a year for Gulf of Mexico projects. He added that
Interior has now established the "first ever" board to examine safety
procedures for offshore drilling. It will report back within 30 days
on BP's oil spill and will conduct "a broader review of safety
issues," Lee-Ashley said.

BP's exploration plan for Lease 206, which calls the prospect of an
oil spill "unlikely," stated that "no mitigation measures other than
those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid,
diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources."

While the plan included a 13-page environmental impact analysis, it
minimized the prospect of any serious damage associated with a spill,
saying there would be only "sub-lethal" effects on fish and marine
mammals, and "birds could become oiled. However it is unlikely that
an accidental oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

Agency a 'rubber stamp'

"The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-
stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans," Suckling
said.

BP has lobbied the White House Council on Environmental Quality --
which provides NEPA guidance for all federal agencies-- to provide
categorical exemptions more often. In an April 9 letter, BP America's
senior federal affairs director, Margaret D. Laney, wrote to the
council that such exemptions should be used in situations where
environmental damage is likely to be "minimal or non-existent." An
expansion in these waivers would help "avoid unnecessary paperwork
and time delays," she added.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were talking Tuesday about curtailing
offshore oil exploration rather than making it easier. In addition to
traditional foes of offshore drilling such as Democratic Sens. Robert
Menendez (N.J.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.), Senate Majority Leader Harry
M. Reid (D-Nev.) and centrists such as Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and
Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said they are taking a second look at such
methods.

"It's time to push the pause button," Baucus told reporters.


Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this report.