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United States News Title: Bush-Era Regulators Downplayed Risks Of BP's Oil Rig In the wake of the growing environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is being blamed for discounting the potential for a massive oil spill and underestimating its effects. But the federal agency tasked with oversight of offshore oil drilling may be even more responsible for understating the impact of a spill in the environmentally-sensitive area. In a 2007 environmental impact statement for the Western and Central Planning Area Sales, which includes the Macondo Prospect where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service downplayed the potential for environmental damage. (h/t Professor John Bonine at the University of Oregon School of Law) In the document which covers oil drilling leases from 2007-2012, MMS assesses the potential impact of oil spills and blowouts on wetlands, marine mammals, commercial fishing, economic impacts, and water quality, among other factors (emphasis mine): - "Offshore oil spills resulting from a proposed action are not expected to damage significantly any wetlands along the Gulf Coast... Overall, impacts to wetland habitats from an oil spill associated with activities related to a proposed action would be expected to be low and temporary." - "Non-market effects such as traffic congestion, strains on public services, shortages of commodities or services, and disruptions to the normal patterns of activities or expectations are also expected to occur in the short term. These negative, short-term social and economic consequences of an oil spill are expected to be modest in terms of projected cleanup expenditures and the number of people employed in cleanup and remediation activities." In response, the state of Louisiana, which is bearing the brunt of the damage caused by the recent disaster, lashed out at the agency for its faulty analysis: In a January 5, 2007 letter to MMS, the acting assistant secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources's Office of Coastal Restoration and Management, Gerald Duszynski, was scathing in his criticism, slamming the agency for deferring examination of drilling's environmental impact and "masking" the indirect and cumulative effect of offshore oil production: In addition, Duszynski notes: "Many of these documents appear to be generated by desktop programs, with little or no actual inquiry into the on-the-ground environmental impacts..." "It underestimates wetland losses attributable to OCS activites. It minimizes the importance of estimated wetland losses, characterizing such losses as "negligible" when they are anything but." Click here for the full environmental impact statement. In addition, as HuffPost's Dan Froomkin reports, an Interior Department draft report on the safety of offshore oil production was heavily criticized by National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration officials, who claimed that it dramatically underestimated the frequency of offshore oil spills and understated the risk and impacts of a spill.
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