The members of the Oil Spill Commission established by President Obama after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster have issued the first report card, "Assessing Progress: Implementing the Recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission" (pdf). Here are the grades for the three key actors identified by the commission: the Obama administration earned a "B", the oil industry earned a "C+", but Congress earned a "D". Clearly the lessons of the worst oil spill in U.S. history have not been learned.
The commission, which was co-chaired by former Sen. Bob Graham and William K. Reilly, head of the EPA under President George H.W. Bush, wrote that since the potential for another oil spill disaster is significant, they are not satisfied with "just issuing a report."
In just the past 10 months, at least 3 offshore oil and gas rigs around the world have experienced significant leaks, demonstrating again and again how risky this activity is and emphasizing the need for the types of controls and protections the Commission called for. The risks will only increase as drilling moves into deeper waters with harsher, less familiar environmental conditions. Delays in taking the necessary precautions threaten new disasters, and their occurrence could, in turn, seriously threaten the nation’s energy security. Everyone will benefit if the needed improvements are made properly and expeditiously.
The principle obstacle in enacting the commission's recommendations is Congress and despite the guarded optimism in much of the report card, they do no spare their criticism for Congress. The commission wrote that it's been nearly two years since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and Congress "has yet to enact any legislation responding to the explosion and spill."
Regarding improving safety and environmental protection, the report card notes that "Congress has done nothing to make permanent the improvements that have been made." So despite the improvements made by the Obama administration, the commission fears those changes will be undone by the next administration.
Congress, on the other hand, has not taken the steps necessary to codify these changes as a permanent reorganization of a previously troubled, conflicted, and politicized agency.
It's obvious why Congress hasn't done anything. In a word — Republicans. The House is controlled by a Republican idiocy agenda and the Senate is paralyzed by deference to the Republican minority's procedural control by blocking cloture votes via the filibuster threat. Those who control Congress have not incentive to increase the effectiveness of our federal government and they are setting our country up for failure when the next oil spill disaster happens. For example:
The Commission also recommended that Congress amend applicable law to give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one of the federal government’s leading scientific agencies, a formal consultative role during the development of offshore leasing plans and sales. Congress has not acted on this recommendation, but the Department of the Interior and NOAA have signed a comprehensive cooperative agreement that assures NOAA a significant role in planning and permitting.
The ideology of letting the markets influence corporations to do the right thing has obviously failed. BP is still in business and still drilling new wells in the Gulf of Mexico. According to BP's new CEO, Bob Dudley, the corporation believes
$37.2 billion will be all that is needed to cover the costs of the disaster.
"We are fully back to work in the Gulf of Mexico," Dudley said, adding that BP has not felt any discrimination in applying for permits.
Great news for BP, but there is still a mess caused by BP's well in the Gulf. Just ask the
coral or the
dolphins if the oil from the spill has disappeared.
As President Obama said in Cushing, Oklahoma last month:
Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years... Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high.
U.S. oil production is increasing and offshore drilling is expanding, but yet the problems that contributed to the BP Gulf oil disaster remain. "It is unfortunate that two years after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Congress has yet to take action to bolster the government’s program for managing offshore activities," the commission wrote in their report card.
But it isn't just inaction by Congress, the fact is, as the commission explained, the House is actually actively trying to increase the likelihood of environmental disaster from offshore drilling. They wrote:
...the House has passed several bills (for example, HR 1229, 1230, and 1231) containing provisions, such as requirements that extensive offshore areas be leased without adequate review, that actually run contrary to what the Commission concluded was essential for safe, prudent, responsible development of offshore oil resources.
No review, no regulation, just drill baby, drill and be damned! The lives and livelihood of people living by the Gulf of Mexico have been negatively impacted by the 2010 disaster. Parts of the region are
still struggling, NPR reported in Feburary. Chris Nelson, vice president of Bon Secour Fisheries, a Gulf seafood processing company said business is depressed.
"We're nowhere near back to where we were before," Nelson says, referring to life before the April 2010 well explosion...
"The biggest impact is people's loss of trust in the goodness of what we have, the wholesomeness of what we have," he says.
Despite government monitoring and assurances that Gulf seafood is not contaminated, Nelson's business is still down about 40 percent.
With increased drilling and intentionally negligent oversight, it isn't a matter of if there will be another oil drilling disaster off the American waters, but when it will happen. The environment and people who depend on it for their existence, which is everyone, will be negatively impacted. With the inevitable oil spills, the commission reports that "Congress has provided little support" for spill response and containment too. So, the country remains unready to respond to the next disaster.
Lastly, Congress has failed to make regulatory programs self-funded. So each year, the administration must request funding to prudently manage the country's resources. Congress has not passed any legislation to make oversight self-funding and have the "offshore drilling industry bear the costs associated with leasing and permitting review."
Additionally, Congress has not "taken action to adjust the existing unrealistic limits on liability and response funding." The damages from offshore spills are capped at $75 million by the Oil Pollution Act, which was enacted in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster. The commission noted that a "ceiling established over 20 years ago" is far lower than "the costs likely to be incurred today".
Another unrealistic constraint imposed under existing law is a limit on the funds available from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to support the government’s response to an oil spill. The Commission recommended the amount available for an incident be raised, but Congress so far has not acted.
So, while the Obama administration has been opening up more areas for drilling, the Republican-controlled House and the ineffective Senate have been at best doing nothing to responsibly oversee offshore oil drilling and at worst been proactively trying block oversight.
The commission is being generous when it gave Congress a "D" grade. "Congress has provided neither leadership nor support for these efforts," the commission wrote summarizing nearly two years of inaction.
We need to do better electing people to represent us and our nation's interests. More oil at the expense of our country's environment is not the solution.