U.S. exempted BP rig from environmental study

[cal04]

Government oversight was ‘little more than rubber-stamping,’ expert says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36956650/ns/us_news-washington_post/

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.

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.

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.

[ixion]

1. oh yeah, gee, who could have anticipated an accident on a deep-water drilling vessel

:eyes:

[liberal N proud]

2. What could go wrong?

:sarcasm:

[enough]

3. Had this been Bush's Interior Department, they could hardly have been more servile

to the oil industry.

[GoCubsGo]

4. I suspect the ones who made that deciscion WERE Bush's Interior Dept.

Before Shit-for-Brains left office, he "burrowed" political appointees everywhere in the government by giving them civil service jobs. It wouldn't surprise me if it was some of his flunkees who exempted BP.

[enough]

5. Probably so. (nt)