U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study

WaPo ^ | May 5, 2010 | Juliet Eilperin

[bamahead]

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.

--SNIP--

In one assessment, the agency estimated that "a large oil spill" from a platform would not exceed a total of 1,500 barrels and that a "deepwater spill," occurring "offshore of the inner Continental shelf," would not reach the coast. In another assessment, it defined the most likely large spill as totaling 4,600 barrels and forecast that it would largely dissipate within 10 days and would be unlikely to make landfall.

"They never did an analysis that took into account what turns out to be the very real possibility of a serious spill," said Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has reviewed the documents.

[SunkenCiv]

This happened in April 2009, during the first 100 days of the Obama administration. Thanks Liz.

[2harddrive]

BP = Barak Petroleum?

[TexasCajun]

and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions

And just who was it that was lobbying for the BP exemption from the Obamah Adminstration?

Tony Podesta, NOT DICK CHENEY!!