Today, the US National Commission released an excerpt of a report into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
This commission report highlights what industry doesn’t want to admit: offshore drilling is inherently dangerous and always will be. Any number of technical mistakes or simple profit-driven greed can lead to disaster at any time.
Right now, BP is drilling even riskier wells in the Arctic and in deep north Atlantic waters, and the company is still part of lobby groups opposing tougher safety regulations in the US.
Better blowout technology, increased regulations and stricter enforcement will never erase the risk of drilling in deeper, more remote and ecologically fragile places.
While it’s great that the truth is finally being published in the President’s Oil Spill Commission Report, it is what President Obama does with the report that will determine if we have learned anything from the BP oil spill disaster.
This must never happen again.
There are some leadership-sized decisions to make regarding the future of offshore drilling in the US and the environmental security of the nation. If they take this report to heart, the administration must, in good conscience, re-impose the moratorium on offshore drilling.
