Action Diary Deep water Drilling US Senate Committee

Rescheduled for May 11th the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is having a hearing on deep water drilling.

RESCHEDULED FULL COMMITTEE HEARING: to review current issues related to offshore oil and gas development (SR-325). OVERFLOW ROOM, SD-366.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

10:00 AM

The purpose of the hearing is to review current issues related to offshore oil and gas development including the Department of the Interior’s recent five year planning announcements and the accident in the Gulf of Mexico involving the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon (SR-325). OVERFLOW ROOM, SD-366.

Note: originally scheduled for May 6, 2010.

There are some serious questions being raised on how safe and environmentally friendly off shore drilling is. Hopefully there will be some accountability by the following speakers.

Witnesses

Panel 1

Dr. F.E. Beck , Associate Professor, Texas A&M University

Mr. Danenberger , Former Chief, Offshore Regulatory Program, Minerals Management Service

Panel 2

Mr. Lamar McKay , President and Chairman , BP America, Inc.

Mr. Steven Newman , President and Chief Executive Officer, Transocean Limited

Mr. Tim Probert , President, Global Business Lines; Chief Health, Safety and Environmental Officer, Halliburton

The Disaster in the Gulf was something that needs to be addressed before anymore experimental wells in our fragile ocean ecosystem are drilled.

As per Easy Bourse

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday will hold two hearings on a mile-deep oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, setting up a public debate on the safety of deepwater drilling as BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) struggles to shut off a leaking well.Lamar McKay, the head of BP’s U.S. unit, will testify before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and also before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He will be joined by Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Chief Executive Steve Newman, whose company owned the rig that BP leased, and Halliburton Corp.’s (HAL) chief safety officer, Tim Probert.

“Now we know: the safety valve is not so safe,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in a statement. She sees “frequent problems” with blowout preventers and said she intends to “directly address the questions raised by this spill,” including through a bill to address “vulnerabilities” with the equipment. Federal regulators have at times relied on the industry to fix its own problems. In 2000, the MMS said it would leave it up to oil companies to decide the best practices for each cement job, due to the complexity and variety of cementing operations. The agency said that poor cementing causes “are among the main primary causes of sustained casing pressures on producing wells.”

Bud Danenberger, the former chief of the offshore regulatory program at MMS, will also testify at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. He has said that cementing will be a part of the government’s investigation into what went wrong in the most recent disaster.

As per Wall Street Journal:

BP said it has already spent $350 million in cleanup costs, and paid out $3.5 million in initial claims to businesses along the Gulf Coast. BP’s effort to stop the flow, which already involves an additional rig drilling a relief well to ease pressure on the leak and will soon include another rig, could also cost well over $1 million a day. The company also faces dozens of lawsuits for damages. The question of who shoulders the blame for the disaster will loom large Tuesday at the first set of congressional hearings on the oil spill. Testifying will be Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America Inc.; Steven Newman, chief executive of Transocean Ltd., which owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon rig; and Tim Probert, a top official at Halliburton Co., which was brought in to cement the well. “What we did [there] is well outside our comfort zone,” Mr. Inglis said in a recent interview. “We drilled a discovery well at greater depth than anyone else has achieved. We’re doing something really new at the frontiers of technology.”

Now for the call to action here is a list of the Senators that will be on the committee tomorrow. Let’s see if we can make some noise and let them know we voted them into office and we want the drilling to stop. Here are the links to their official pages where you can find all the contact information you need.

Democratic and Independent.

Chairman Jeff Bingaman (NM)

Byron L. Dorgan (ND)

Ron Wyden (OR)

Tim Johnson (SD)

Mary L. Landrieu (LA)

Maria Cantwell (WA)

Robert Menendez (NJ)

Blanche Lincoln (AR)

Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)

Evan Bayh (IN)

Debbie Stabenow (MI)

Mark Udall (CO)

Jeanne Shaheen (NH)

Republican

Lisa Murkowski (AK)

Richard Burr (NC)

John Barrasso (WY)

Sam Brownback (KS)

James E. Risch (ID)

John McCain (AZ)

Robert Bennett (UT)

Jim Bunning (KY)

Jeff Sessions (AL)

Bob Corker (TN)

To get an idea of how serious this damage can be President Obama will be advocating for an increase in the damage cap on oil spills.

Kudos to triciawyse in coauthoring this diary

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  1. reply to my reply there as to how and I’ll do it.

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