Subcommittee Democrats Question Industry’s Progress in Assuring Safe Deepwater Drilling
(Washington, DC) - On Wednesday, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing to review the offshore oil and gas industry’s progress in developing safer and more environmentally responsible drilling technologies. Democrats sought to understand what lessons the industry has learned about the inherent risks of deepwater and ultra-deepwater drilling in the year since an explosion onboard the Deepwater Horizon killed eleven men and resulted in one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history. Democrats focused on the Deepwater Horizon’s failed Blowout Preventer (BOP), newly-developed systems for containing blowouts at the wellhead, and the lack of market and regulatory incentives to innovate in these areas.
The Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), highlighted the technological sophistication of deepwater drilling, but cautioned that it comes with new and serious risks. “As the world’s largest oil consumer, but with less than 8% of technically-recoverable global reserves, our reliance on oil has driven domestic production to ever deeper waters in search of more productive fields. As Chairman Hall has taught us over the years, this is no small feat of engineering. These companies have pushed the boundaries of technological innovation in finding and extracting oil under nearly impossible conditions.”
However, he continued, “By almost all accounts, in the race to deeper waters the industry’s investment in advancing worker and environmental safety has not kept up with these increasingly dangerous conditions. To anyone that disputes that, I ask you to tell me how an explosion killed eleven men and sank one of the most technologically advanced drilling rigs in the world? Why did it take three months of failed attempts by a massive team of government and industry experts to stop the oil gushing from the disabled blowout preventer thousands of feet below the surface, creating one of the largest and most expensive environmental disasters in U.S. history? It is because nobody was prepared.
Prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the BOP was commonly considered to be a drilling rig’s failsafe device should a blowout occur. However, an investigative report done by Det Norske Veritas for the Department of Interior concluded that the BOP failed because the drill pipe was buckled and off-center, thus obstructing its blind shear rams in making a clean cut through the pipe and sealing the well. Rep. Miller noted in the hearing that this could have been anticipated since, on two occasions in the last decade in the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of Interior reported that obstructions within the BOP appear to have caused uncontrolled blowouts.
In a statement submitted for the record, full Committee Ranking Member, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) pressured the industry to not lose sight of the importance of innovation. She stated, “Regardless of the contribution to our economy, no industry has a right to neglect public health and environmental safety. Instead, the oil and gas industry should take responsibility and devote some of its intellectual and technological capacity to developing safer drilling practices and advancing the technologies to respond to spills when they happen.”
She also reminded the Committee of other unfortunate consequences of the Nation’s dependence on oil. “My constituents spend a lot of time in their cars, and feel the pains of high gas prices. But, contrary to the claims of some, this pain is not caused by President Obama’s drilling policies. Instead we should acknowledge that the price of oil is, by and large, out of our control…. In the long-run, our only recourse is to wean ourselves off of oil. It is an addiction we cannot afford.” She continued, “The Nation should be protected from the potentially devastating effects of an unpredictable global oil market. We must diversify in the fuels we use to power our transportation sector, and we must do so in the most environmentally benign way possible.”
Committee Democrats also expressed concern about the economic incentives for oil and gas firms to innovate in drilling safety and spill containment. One panelist, Senior Fellow and Research Director at Resources for the Future, Molly Macauley, echoed these concerns. “Deepwater Horizon revealed a failure of spill containment… The opportunity created by momentary attention to containment should not be lost. Other measures are needed as well, including attention to incentives that are blunted by liability limits, consideration of a wide range of failure scenarios, use of third-party review, and commitment to ongoing innovation in spill containment to match the pace of innovation in drilling.”
Mr. Miller captured the Democratic Members sentiment in saying, “We owe it to the public to hold this industry’s feet to the fire, and ensure that there is relentless innovation in worker safety and environmental protection in the oil and gas industry.”
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