Bush junta overturned Clinton process on preparing for oil spills, thereby guaranteeing BP disaster

[Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names]

If you were developing a plan for responding to an oil spill caused by
deepwater offshore drilling, it seems like you should be required to
include a model in which you assume that the spill takes place below
the surface in deepwater conditions, right?

Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, despite the seemingly
obvious nature of that proposition, Federal regulators in the Bush
administration eliminated that requirement. Instead of modeling
deepwater spills in deepwater conditions, the Minerals Management
Service -- the agency charged with regulating offshore drilling --
limited its models to surface spills, allowing the oil industry to
develop response plans based on faulty data.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703900004575325131111637728.html?mod=ITP_pageone_0&mg=reno-wsj#printMode

-- quote
BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to
a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections
that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a
spill much larger than the current one.

The government models, which oil companies are required to use but
have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would
rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks
since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven
these models, prepared by the Interior Department's Mineral Management
Service, wrong.
-- end quote

During the Clinton administration, the federal government had
announced plans to require spill models for deepwater drilling to be
based on deepwater conditions, but under Bush, that decision was
reversed, and models for deepwater drilling were developed using the
same assumptions as surface spills.

-- quote
Researchers have spent the past decade trying to improve modeling of
oil spills. The biggest challenge: to update the models to reflect the
new reality of deep-water oil drilling. Spills thousands of feet below
the surface behave very differently than spills on the surface.
Underwater currents, for example, can grab plumes of oil and transport
them far from the scene of the initial spill, scientists say.
Deep-water releases tend to break into smaller oil slicks, further
complicating efforts to forecast where they'll go.

MMS said in early 2000, in a notice to lessees, that it planned to
require oil companies operating in deep-water to use new oil-spill
predictions specifically designed for deep water.

That regulation never came into effect. Oil companies today still base
their contingency plans on the government's models, designed only for
surface spills.

In 2001, the then-head of the MMS environmental division wrote a paper
that warned "the oil spill trajectory models currently used by the oil
industry for the preparation of oil spill response plans may not be
adequate for deep water."
-- end quote

http://www.mms.gov/ooc/press/2001/press1120.htm

When that 2001 paper was written supporting the Clinton decision, the
head of MMS was a Clinton-era holdover, Dr. Thomas Kitsos. By early
2002, the Bush administration had tapped a new head of MMS, a former
GOP state legislator from Dick Cheney's home state of Wyoming named
Rejane "Johnnie" Burton. Burton, you'll be shocked to learn, was in
the energy industry and in her announcement touted the fact that she
"began her career in the oil and gas industry." It was under her
leadership that MMS began to rapidly deteriorate, failing to address
even the most basic safety issues for new offshore drilling.

If the Bush administration hadn't reversed the Clinton decision
requiring accurate models, companies involved in deepwater drilling
would have been forced to develop a mitigation plan for undersea
deepwater spills. Instead, thanks to the Bush administration, federal
regulators allowed deepwater operators to base their plans on surface
spills, which are far less complex than deepwater undersea spills and
don't take into account things like undersea plumes, undersea
application of dispersant, and (last but not least) what to do about a
months-long blowout gushing tens of thousands of barrels per day.

So while it's fair to be tough on President Obama, let's not forget
this key difference between his administration and the last: when
President Obama falls short, at least he's trying to do the right
thing. The previous administration wasn't. They represented the oil
industry, not the public. And we're still paying the price.