Washington, DC - The oil industry has insisted technology and safety have advanced enough that new drilling operations off coastal states including Florida would be safe and environmentally clean.
But the blast three days ago that sank a rig off Louisiana and left 11 workers missing is bringing calls for increased congressional scrutiny on the safety issue.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) late Thursday asked the U.S. Interior Department to investigate and then provide a comprehensive report on all U.S. drilling accidents over at least the last decade. He also wants a congressional investigation by the Senate Commerce Committee on which he serves and which oversees two agencies with key roles in oil spill cases – the U.S. Coast Guard and National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.
While calling for the probe of industry safety practices in his Thursday letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar [ attached ], Nelson said the immediate priorities need to be the Coast Guard’s search and rescue effort for the 11 missing workers in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and containing the oil spill from the rig that reportedly is 10 miles wide.
The spill is reported by Bloomberg News to be more than half the size of Manhattan Island. It was estimated to be about 43 miles south of Venice, Louisiana, some 100 miles from Mississippi’s coast. Officials say they don’t expect any landfall within the next 48 hours. Although no one is suggesting that winds could carry the spill as far as Florida, it currently is about 150 miles southwest of Pensacola. The Coast Guard says no new oil is leaking from the well head on the Gulf floor.
Besides Nelson, Sen. Mary Landrieu also has called for an investigation – but just into this rig explosion. She wants the Coast Guard and federal Minerals Management Service to investigate the cause and report their findings to Congress “as soon as possible.”
And New Jersey Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg issued a joint statement calling into question the credibility of safety claims by the oil industry for its expanded shoreline drilling effort. “Big Oil has perpetuated a dangerous myth that coastline drilling is a completely safe endeavor, but accidents like this are a sober reminder just how far that is from the truth,” the two senators said in a statement issued yesterday.
As for the industry’s push to expand domestic drilling closer to shore, it was just last month that President Barack Obama moved to eliminate a federal ban on coastal rigs that Nelson helped hammer out five years ago. The decision came amid an industry effort to explore in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida and along the U.S. Atlantic coastline.
While Nelson won assurances from the administration that there would be no new drilling operations from nine nautical miles to 125 miles off Florida’s west coast, the Louisiana accident brings into question the industry’s claims about safety and advanced technology. In state-controlled waters – which extend out nine nautical miles – the industry and some members of the Florida Legislature have been pushing to allow drilling in the area that close to the shore.
“The tragedy off the coast of Louisiana shows we need to be asking a lot more tough questions of Big Oil,” Nelson said today. “I think we need to look back over 10 years or so to see if the record denies the industry’s claims about safety and technology.”
As a part of the effort to expand drilling, the oil industry as recently as Tuesday was pressing the government agency responsible for leasing offshore lands to quickly proceed with a study of the effects of surveying for oil off the Atlantic coast. That came just hours before the Tuesday night explosion.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that while oil rig fires are rare, there were at least three in the Gulf this year before this week’s incident and 14 last year.
But the blast three days ago that sank a rig off Louisiana and left 11 workers missing is bringing calls for increased congressional scrutiny on the safety issue.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) late Thursday asked the U.S. Interior Department to investigate and then provide a comprehensive report on all U.S. drilling accidents over at least the last decade. He also wants a congressional investigation by the Senate Commerce Committee on which he serves and which oversees two agencies with key roles in oil spill cases – the U.S. Coast Guard and National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration.
While calling for the probe of industry safety practices in his Thursday letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar [ attached ], Nelson said the immediate priorities need to be the Coast Guard’s search and rescue effort for the 11 missing workers in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and containing the oil spill from the rig that reportedly is 10 miles wide.
The spill is reported by Bloomberg News to be more than half the size of Manhattan Island. It was estimated to be about 43 miles south of Venice, Louisiana, some 100 miles from Mississippi’s coast. Officials say they don’t expect any landfall within the next 48 hours. Although no one is suggesting that winds could carry the spill as far as Florida, it currently is about 150 miles southwest of Pensacola. The Coast Guard says no new oil is leaking from the well head on the Gulf floor.
Besides Nelson, Sen. Mary Landrieu also has called for an investigation – but just into this rig explosion. She wants the Coast Guard and federal Minerals Management Service to investigate the cause and report their findings to Congress “as soon as possible.”
And New Jersey Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg issued a joint statement calling into question the credibility of safety claims by the oil industry for its expanded shoreline drilling effort. “Big Oil has perpetuated a dangerous myth that coastline drilling is a completely safe endeavor, but accidents like this are a sober reminder just how far that is from the truth,” the two senators said in a statement issued yesterday.
As for the industry’s push to expand domestic drilling closer to shore, it was just last month that President Barack Obama moved to eliminate a federal ban on coastal rigs that Nelson helped hammer out five years ago. The decision came amid an industry effort to explore in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida and along the U.S. Atlantic coastline.
While Nelson won assurances from the administration that there would be no new drilling operations from nine nautical miles to 125 miles off Florida’s west coast, the Louisiana accident brings into question the industry’s claims about safety and advanced technology. In state-controlled waters – which extend out nine nautical miles – the industry and some members of the Florida Legislature have been pushing to allow drilling in the area that close to the shore.
“The tragedy off the coast of Louisiana shows we need to be asking a lot more tough questions of Big Oil,” Nelson said today. “I think we need to look back over 10 years or so to see if the record denies the industry’s claims about safety and technology.”
As a part of the effort to expand drilling, the oil industry as recently as Tuesday was pressing the government agency responsible for leasing offshore lands to quickly proceed with a study of the effects of surveying for oil off the Atlantic coast. That came just hours before the Tuesday night explosion.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that while oil rig fires are rare, there were at least three in the Gulf this year before this week’s incident and 14 last year.
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