Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster

[Ed Jewett]

White House Covers Up Menacing Oil "Blob"

Written by Wayne Madsen

In an exclusive for Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana. The Navy submarines have trained video cameras on the moving blob, which remains frozen at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Because the oil blob is heavier than water, it remains frozen at current depths.
FEMA and Corps of Engineers employees are upset that the White House and the Pentagon remain tight-lipped and in cover-up mode about the images of the massive and fast-moving frozen coagulated oil blob that is being imaged by Navy submarines that are tracking its movement. The sources point out that BP and the White House conspired to withhold videos from BP-contracted submersibles that showed the oil geyser that was spewing oil from the chasm underneath the datum of the Deep Horizon at rates far exceeding originally reported amounts. We have learned that it was largely WMR's scoop on the existence of the BP videos that forced the company and its White House patrons to finally agree to the release of the video footage.

The White House is officially stating that it does not know where the officially reported 10 miles long by 3 miles wide "plume" is actually located or in what direction it is heading. However, WMR's sources claim the White House is getting real-time reports from Navy submarines as to the blob's location. We have learned that the blob is transiting the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba, propelled by the Gulf's Loop Current, and that parts of it that is encountering warmer waters are breaking off into smaller tar balls that are now washing ashore in the environmentally-sensitive Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas.

Corps of Engineers and FEMA officials are also livid about the cover-up of the extent of the oil damage being promulgated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its marine research vessel in the Gulf, RV Pelican. NOAA stands accused by the aforementioned agencies of acting as a virtual public relations arm for BP. NOAA is a component of the business-oriented Department of Commerce.
Similarly, the Coast Guard, which takes its orders from the cover-up operatives at the Homeland Security Department, is denying the tar balls washing up on the Florida Keys are from the oil mass. WMR has been told the Coast Guard is lying in order to protect the Obama administration, which has thoroughly failed in its response to the disaster. The White House's only concern is trying to limit political damage to its image in the electorally-important state of Florida while the Pentagon has spent between $25 and $30 billion on oil spill operations in the Gulf and the Atlantic to date.

WMR sources also report that the oil mass has resulted in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico that have cut off oxygen and killed massive numbers of marine creatures and plant life. Seafood wholesalers from the Gulf Coast to New Jersey and New York have been told that the supply of shrimp, oysters, and other seafood from the Gulf is severely in short supply and that they can expect a possible total cut-off as the situation worsens. The shortage will also affect the supply of seafood, especially shrimp, to national seafood restaurant chains like Red Lobster and Long John Silver's.
There is also evidence that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean sank a drill to a depth of 35,000 feet at the Deep Horizon site some six months ago without the required permits from the federal government. WMR has learned from U.S. government sources that the drilling at 35,000 feet caused a major catastrophic event that required the firms' oil rig personnel to quickly pull up the drill and close the drill hole.

However, the Deep Horizon re-sank the drill some six months after the unspecified "catastrophe," resulting in another, more destructive chain of events following the explosion that destroyed the rig, killing eleven workers. When the Deep Horizon blew up, WMR has been told it also "blew down," cracking the the sub-seabed pipe that may have been re-drilled to a depth of between 25,000 to 30,000 feet, again, without a government permit.
Government sources also report that BP is intent on recovering as much oil as possible from the undersea geyser rather than simply plugging and capping the well, which would then place it off-limits to further drilling. The Corps of Engineers reports that BP is playing a game with Obama, convincing him of the feasibility of "shooting junk" into the subterranean pipe, which would stop up the pipe with a manufactured chemical compound called "MUD." However, WMR has been informed that BP actually intends to shoot cement into the pipe in an attempt to cap the well with the later intention of digging a trench for side drilling from the pipe to recover as much oil as possible. The technology that would be employed by BP is the same technology that was used by Kuwait to conduct slant drilling of Iraq's Rumallah oil field -- an event that helped trigger Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Corps of Engineers and FEMA sources also give a failing grade to both Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who stands accused of being woefully incompetent in handling the disaster, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Government sources say both secretaries should immediately step down or be fired.

Read Wayne’s first breakthrough article on the Oil Spill and other interesting pieces:
The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
8 Long Term Economic and Environmental Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill
Could There Be A Bright Side To the Gulf of Mexico Disaster
10 Geopolitical Predictions for 2010 & Short Term Strategic Outlook
By. The Wayne Madsen Report for Oilprice.com

[Ed Jewett]

LEAKING LEGITIMACY

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope... The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well. NYTimes.

Over the last month, it's become increasingly clear that there is a coordinated information operations campaign in place to downplay the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The US government and British Petroleum have imposed a scientific and media blackout to prevent the gathering of the information on the oil leak needed to generate precise estimates (specifically, updates to very low estimates made during the very early days of the crisis). Despite this blackout, credible outside estimates made possible by the little information that has trickled out show that the amount of oil leaking from the broken wellhead is upwards of twenty times the official British Petroleum and Government estimates -- nearly 4,000,000 gallons a day vs. 210,000.
No More Katrinas
Why is this effort in place? To reduce the political damage to both the government and BP. The information related to the amount of oil that is leaking from the broken wellhead is a critical factor in:

• Damage assessments. Lower estimates make this spill relatively small in relation to historical incidents.
  
• The immediacy and pace of the response. Lower estimates allow a more leisurely response and limits public outcry and anger.
  
• Evaluation of the solutions being proposed. There's no way to evaluate whether the response is useful or a waste of time. Less criticism.
  

So far, this information operation is working (it has been so successful, the blackout has even being extended to blocking coverage of the damage being done to public coastlines and marshes). The lower estimates have successfully beaten the media cycle. In the first week of the crisis, most news analysis of the spill downplayed its importance due to lowball estimates. As a result of this news analysis, coverage of the crisis has dropped and the continual denial of information required for analysis has prevented any resurgence of coverage. From the perspective of the government and BP, this information operation has achieved its objectives: it has drastically limited political damage and criticism of previous decisions, which is in stark contrast to the damage generate by the media coverage of Katrina.
Onward to the Hollow State
Of course, this type of behavior is extremely bad over the longer term. Why is it so bad? For an increasing number of people it is yet another example of an approach, reinforced by ongoing global financial disasters, that uses media manipulation and confidence boosting as a substitute for real solutions. It fails to punish bad behavior due to the need for collusion between the government and the offending corporations to construct the information campaign. It fails to construct real solutions since the facts are not known and the number of people able to address the problem is extremely limited. Also, since these people are the same people that caused the crisis, real solutions are avoided to prevent adverse publicity. Most importantly, it is yet another body blow to the nation-state and the global market system as legitimate organizational constructs.


Posted by John Robb on Thursday, 20 May 2010 at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

[Ed Jewett]

Fmr. EPA Investigator Scott West: US Has Told BP "It Can Do Whatever It Wants and Won’t Be Held Accountable"

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/20/fmr_epa_investigator_scott_west_us


One month after the BP oil spill, we speak to Scott West, a former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency who led an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra. Before West finished his investigation, the Bush Justice Department reached a settlement with BP, and the oil company agreed to pay $20 million. At the same time, BP managed to avoid prosecution for the Texas City refinery explosion that killed fifteen workers by paying a $50 million settlement.


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Guest:
Scott West, former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency. Led a 2006 investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra.
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Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - =amt&donation[amt_selected]=25]$25, =amt&donation[amt_selected]=50]$50, =amt&donation[amt_selected]=100]$100, More... Related Links

• Truthout: "How Bush's DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP That Threatened to Net Top Officials"
  
• Scott West: "BP – Beyond Prosecution”
  
• Newsweek: "Slick Operator: How BP Works Washington"
  

JUAN GONZALEZ: It was a month ago today when a catastrophic explosion set fire to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing eleven workers and triggering one of the nation’s largest oil spills. A month later, the BP oil spill is still growing and rapidly spreading in the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy black oil can now be seen in the sensitive marshlands of Louisiana. Parts of the oil slick have entered the Gulf loop current, which could carry the oil to the Florida Keys and even possibly up the Atlantic Coast.

At a congressional hearing Wednesday, a professor at Purdue University told lawmakers that the oil spill may be nineteen times larger than BP’s estimate. Steve Wereley estimated the spill is leaking 95,000 barrels of oil, or four million gallons, a day. BP has put the spill at 5,000 barrels a day.

Also on Wednesday, a group of Democratic lawmakers called on the Interior Department to shut down the Atlantis, BP’s second-largest oil and gas rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantis operates in 7,000 feet of water, 2,000 feet deeper than the Deepwater Horizon.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about BP, we’re joined by a former top investigator at the Environmental Protection Agency. Up until his retirement in 2008, Scott West was a special agent in charge for the Criminal Investigation Division at the EPA.

In 2006, Scott West led an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska’s North Slope that spilled 250,000 gallons of oil on the Alaskan tundra. Before West finished his investigation, the Bush Justice Department reached a settlement with BP, and the oil company agreed to pay $20 million. At the same time, BP managed to avoid prosecution for the Texas City refinery explosion that killed fifteen workers by paying a $50 million settlement.

Scott West joins us from Seattle, where he now works for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Thank you very much for joining us, Scott West. Lay out that previous investigation that was shut down by the Bush Justice Department that you did.

SCOTT WEST: Yes, good morning, Amy.

In August of 2005, I was introduced to Chuck Hamel, who spoke to me about employees and workers on the North Slope providing information that the transit lines were full of sludge and were likely to suffer catastrophic failure due to corrosion and that then there would be a tremendous loss of oil onto the slope. Chuck made these employees available to me, and I was able to get this information beforehand. I wanted to get in front of that upcoming spill and prevent the spill from occurring, but I found that the EPA and the federal government really had no controls over the operation of that pipeline. So we were in a wait pattern.

Finally, in March of '06, I got a phone call from the slope from one of these workers that I had spoken with telling me that indeed the anticipated rupture had occurred and that a tremendous amount of oil was out onto the frozen tundra. We were lucky that it was wintertime, because the lake that it got into was frozen solid and it made the cleanup a lot easier. Had it been summertime, there would have been a tremendous sheen of oil flowing into the Beaufort Sea. But anyway, knowing that these workers had information that the pipeline would rupture and had provided that to their management and senior management and nothing had been done, that made that a criminal negligence, at the very least. And so I dispatched criminal investigators from EPA CID and sent them to the North Slope to begin a criminal investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: And what happened?

SCOTT WEST: Well, as we dug into it, we realized that we had a very large issue going on and that information that we were preliminarily receiving indicated that high-level management within BP, not only in the United States, but across the ocean and into London, were aware of the policies on the North Slope to forgo maintenance in exchange for saving money and that there was awareness at very high levels that this particular transit line was in jeopardy. And so, that made the investigation become very complex and generated a lot of interest within the EPA and the Department of Justice of being able to get into very senior levels of the corporation and hold them accountable for their decisions, which led to the corrosion rupturing the pipeline.

As we built up our investigation, it became very difficult. BP is known by its workers to be extremely retaliatory. And these workers did not want to lose their jobs or be blacklisted from other work in the oil industry, and so they were reticent about speaking with the investigators directly, which caused us to have to impanel a grand jury and issue subpoenas for these individuals to testify. So, once ordered by the court to come in and testify, they were protected from retaliation. So they would come in. We would interview them through the unwieldy process of using the grand jury, which slowed the investigation down, but also netted us a significant amount of information. In addition, we issued subpoenas for documents. And then in the response to those documents, we were buried. We received the equivalent of about 62 million pages of documents that were going to require a great deal of time to sift through and develop the leads and the information from that information.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Scott—

SCOTT WEST: So, by—yes, yes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Scott West, in this particular situation, you had the perhaps unusual situation—or how unusual is it to have so many workers basically providing inside information on what was going on and the problems involved, but yet at the same time, as you say, they were afraid to publicly come forward because of possible retaliation? How frequently does that happen in these kinds of situations, especially with oil companies?

SCOTT WEST: Well, it's pretty common in the—in industry. Workers do not want to lose their livelihoods, and so they’re reluctant to discuss openly about what’s going on in their companies. I found, through my career as an environmental investigator, that it was often easier to get witnesses to give up information on friends, co-workers and spouses before they would give it up on their employer. But ultimately, most people come around and do the right thing and provide the information that they have about criminal activity. In this particular instance, though, the vindictiveness of BP, as understood by the employees and conveyed to the investigators, was extreme. And so, it made it much more difficult.

But in terms of where my investigation was going, by June of '07, we had several investigators working on the case. We had several prosecutors from the Department of Justice, both from the US attorney's office in Alaska and from the Environmental Crimes Section at main Justice. A tremendous amount of man hours were being devoted to this case. And, in fact, the director of CID had told about that time that the investigation that we had in Alaska was one of the top two criminal cases that EPA had at the time. So there was a lot of momentum, a lot of interest in this case.

But by August of '07, something had shifted dramatically, and we were told by the US attorney's office in Alaska that the case would settle out for corporate misdemeanor. And at the meeting that I attended there in late August, the question was asked, if we had to go to trial today, what could we prove? And I had to admit that a trial at that moment, the most we could prove was a corporate misdemeanor. And then I said, "But we’re not done with our investigation. We’ve only just begun. We need another couple of years to really vet this out." And they said, well, can I guarantee that I would be able to convict individuals. And I said, "Of course not. You can’t guarantee anything like that in the criminal investigative arena." And so, with that, they said, "Well, then we’re done." And I was in shock. It’s unheard of for a special agent in charge to be denied the opportunity to complete an investigation that was so far from nearing its end. And then—

AMY GOODMAN: So you have the EPA considering penalties of upwards of, what, 800—or $672 million, possibly felony charges against BP executives, and they end up settling for $20 million?

SCOTT WEST: Yes, they ended up settling for $20 million. And I was told there was a couple of reasons for that $20 million figure. One, we have to go back to the Olympic Pipe Line case. The Olympic pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, Washington in 1999, and the resulting spill of gasoline into a stream caught fire. Three individuals were burned to death, and a stream was destroyed. That case was investigated by EPA out of the Seattle office. In '99 and 2000, it was considered a very significant criminal case in the US attorney's office in Seattle, which was at that time under the Clinton administration.

When the Bush administration took over at the Department of Justice, and the US attorney came in, it was—became a bottom-of-the-barrel case and was ultimately settled out for a very low amount of money. And I have been talking with one of the investigators on that case, and he said the amount of money that was determined as the fine in that matched what the insurance companies were willing to pay. So Olympic Pipe Line essentially did not have to actually pay the fine, but it was covered by their insurance company. Now, that Olympic Pipe Line settlement became the benchmark, within the Bush Department of Justice, for environmental crime.

So then we had the Texas City explosion by BP that resulted in a number of deaths and injuries caused by failure to maintain the same sort of corporate practices that I saw in Alaska. And that case got wrapped up at the same time that mine did, and the settlement there, based upon the Olympic Pipe Line precedent, was set at $50 million. So they said, well, then, my spill case in Alaska could not get anywhere near that amount, because that had fatalities, and so they settled it for $20 million.

Now, for BP, $20 million is a rounding error, when you look at the amount of profits they make on a daily basis. It made no impact into changing their practices. The only thing that could really change the practices had been if we had been able to pursue and hold individuals accountable for their decisions. As you well know, the corporations do not make decisions; the individuals within them do. And so, to hold those individuals accountable would have been the proper conclusion to the investigation.

Now, now we’re seeing the same sort of thing in the Gulf, in this catastrophe. And information is coming to light that corners were cut and that employees’ concerns were being ignored. It’s the exact same pattern that we saw with BP in Alaska and with BP in Texas City. And I understand a couple of—

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to take a break, Scott West—

SCOTT WEST: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —and then come back to this discussion. Scott West, former special agent in charge—

SCOTT WEST: Certainly.

AMY GOODMAN: —of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaking to us from Seattle. And we’re going to also talk about how rare it is to pierce the corporate veil and go from fines on a multi-billion-dollar corporation to actually charging corporate executives.

This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, Scott West, former special agent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency, he went after BP for criminal prosecution in the Alaska oil spill several years ago, was looking for criminal prosecution of the executives, but the Bush Justice Department ended up shutting down the investigation. As he was doing his investigation, the Texas City refinery, BP’s refinery, blew up, and fifteen workers were killed. Now, of course, recently in the latest oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, eleven workers were killed. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Scott West, you said you were shocked when the decision was made not to pursue criminal charges. What was your reaction subsequent to that, and has any retaliation or mistreatment occurred toward you afterwards?

SCOTT WEST: Well, my reaction was just shock. I had never seen that happen. It’s one thing to have thoroughly investigated a case, and you can have the lead investigator, who’s invested a lot of his or her personal energy and time into a case, and having concluded, looking under every rock and turning every stone, be frustrated with the fact that the evidence just isn’t there, even though that investigator is convinced that something should be done. But in those cases, you recognize, OK, we shut it down, and we move on. But in this particular instance, we had all of these documents that had not even been looked at and a whole list of individual witnesses that still needed to be interviewed.

And then you had the special agent in charge—at that time, I was the SAC in Seattle. And you had the special agent in charge going to the Department of Justice and asking for an extension of time. When they first said, "No, we’re going to settle this," I kept asking, you know, "Why the rush to settlement? I need at least a couple more years." And they said, "No, we’re not going to do that." And I said, "Well, give me a year." And they said, "No." And I said, "Six months." "No." "Three months." "No, it’s over." And I was incredulous, and I was making a lot of noise about that. And a very frustrating part was that my own management in Washington, DC failed to back me up. They fell right into lockstep with the Departments of Justice decision and accused me of being a zealot and all sorts of things and said that seventeen months was a perfectly adequate time to investigate a case like this, when they all know, from their own experience, that that’s a ridiculous statement.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott West, do you think if BP—

SCOTT WEST: So I was quite—yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think if BP executives were brought up on charges that we would see what we’re seeing in the Gulf of Mexico today?

SCOTT WEST: Well, I doubt we would be having this discussion and we’d be dealing with a catastrophe like this in the Gulf. What the government has done over the past several years is taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable. So, decisions have been made, very poor decisions have been made, to increase profits and put workers at risk and been allowed and endorsed by the federal government. So, there’s been no—[no audio]

AMY GOODMAN: Lost him. Sorry, that was the satellite connection to Seattle, which is what we were afraid of. But that was Scott West, former special agent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency. He now works with the group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Again, was the one who attempted to bring BP executives up on charges, criminal charges, which is extremely rare in these corporate cases, from BP to Massey Energy in West Virginia. And this is an issue we will continue to investigate.
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[Ed Jewett]

Lessons from the Gulf

Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2010-05-21 07:27

• Energy
  
• Environment
  

Lessons from the Gulf
By Stephen Lendman
On April 22, AP reported the news - an initial April 20 explosion, then a larger one igniting Deepwater Horizon's oil drilling platform that burned for more than a day before sinking and releasing thousands of barrels of oil daily into surrounding waters, enough potentially to cause the greatest ever environmental disaster if not sealed in time to prevent.
Transocean Ltd. owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon platform under contract to BP Exploration and Production Inc., a division of BP - 4th on Fortune Global 500 with $239 billion in 2009 operating revenue and $14 billion in profits. It ranked fourth behind Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart. Of the world's 10 largest companies, six are oil giants. Transocean, an offshore drilling contractor, owns operates about 140 drilling rigs. More on its culpability below.
On April 29, the Institute for Southern Studies published "Facts and Figures" about the Gulf explosion and emerging disaster saying:

• the rig operated 41 miles off Louisiana's coast;
  
• the explosion and fire occurred on April 20;
  
• 126 crew members operated the platform, 11 remain missing and are presumed dead;
  
• since 2001, 69 deaths and 1,349 injuries have occurred from Gulf drilling operations as a result of 858 fires and explosions on 90 big rigs and 3,500 production platforms;
  
• the US Minerals Management Service (MMS) issued 150 reports "documenting non-compliant offshore drilling operations;"
  
• 172 Gulf spills exceeding 2,100 gallons have occurred in the past decade;
  
• as of late April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated about 5,000 barrels a day being leaked; new information places it much higher; more on than below;
  
• at first, BP officials lied in reporting leakage of 1,000 barrels a day; they're still lying about the problem's severity; so is the complicit Obama administration and major media to cover up the magnitude of the crisis;
  
• investigative journalist Wayne Madsen calls it a potential "mega-disaster....volcanic-level in size (that if) not stopped within 90 days (will cause) irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems (in the Gulf), north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond (and, according to) some Corps of Engineers experts....it could take two years to cement (the) gaping chasm;"
  
• the Gulf threatened area is top ranked "with the largest total seafood landings in the lower 48 states;" it produces 50% of the nation's wild shrimp and contains over 400 species, now threatened;
  
• in total, the Gulf accounts for about 20% of America's commercial fishing; the growing slick threatens to devastate it and the regional economies; continuing to spread, NOAA reported that it threatens the coastal areas of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and potentially Texas, Florida's east and west coasts, its Keys, and beyond.
  

Obama Administration Complicity
On May 11, 2009, Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar (rancher, former Colorado senator, and notorious pro-business flack with a dismal environmental record), filed a legal brief in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn or amend an earlier ruling blocking new drilling in the Gulf's outer continental shelf, including the Deepwater Horizon site. In July, it was partly approved provided an environmental impact study assessed the risks and found them acceptable. It's not been completed and perhaps never seriously undertaken.
Like its predecessors since at least the 1980s, the Obama administration has close industry ties across the board, including Big Oil. It thus bears equal responsibility for the consequences as a willing co-conspirator. In fact, it actively intervened to exempt BP from preparing an environment assessment on the Deepwater Horizon site, and after the incident continues to grant "categorical exemptions" for deep water drilling - 27 in all, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
In March, Obama exceeded the oil-run Bush administration in proposing offshore exploration from Delaware to Florida as well as the latter state's Gulf coast. Those plans are on hold but remain in place unless state officials can stop them. Avoidable accidents happen because of decades of regulatory laxity and oversight, at least since the Carter administration, in deference to powerful industry interests, including Big Oil.
BP's History of Violations
On May 5, Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum reported that BP has "the worst safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America." In recent years alone, it pled guilty to two crimes (among many), paying over $730 million in fines and settlements to the federal and state governments and civil lawsuits for "environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets."
It paid the largest fine in OSHA history ($87 million) for willful negligence, causing the deaths of 15 workers and 170 injured from its March 2005 Texas City Refinery explosion. In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for 296 "Egregious Willful Violations" and others related to the explosion, fining the company another $21 million.
In August 2006, spills caused by pipeline corrosion shut its Prudhoe Bay, Alaska operation. In March 2006, National Geographic News reported the spillage of 267,000 gallons (about one million liters) in the North Slope's tundra, "raising a new round of questions from environmental groups about proposed plans to open more land" to drilling.
In September 2001, OSHA fined BP $141,000 after an explosion killed three workers at its Clanton Road facility. OSHA levied additional fines in September 2005 for 301 violations, and in April 2006 for two "willful violations" over its shutdown procedures.
In 2009, OSHA found BP in non-compliance of 270 "notifications of failure to abate" and 439 new "willful violations," resulting in the $87 million fine.
In 2007, a US Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board concluded that: "The Texas City disaster was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation." Warning signs were there, but company management ignored them. In 2004, OSHA fined BP $63,000 for violations at the same facility. In December 2009, a Texas jury awarded workers $100 million for their injuries at Texas City.
At the time, Bloomberg.com reported that victims accused BP of having "a long 'rap sheet' and a disturbing pattern of violations and unfulfilled promises to correct them," saying that "Meaningful change will occur only if forced by strict oversight through the court system." Unfortunately, the courts, especially federal ones, are stacked with pro-business justices so getting their help rarely happens and almost never enough to matter.
In April 2010, OSHA fined BP $3 million for "willful safety violations" at one of its Ohio refineries. In April 2006, it paid a $2.4 million fine for similar safety and health violations at the same facility.
In 1999, the EPA cited BP Exploration & Oil for chemical violations at 24 of its Ohio facilities, assessing over $295,000 in fines. It also issued a 926 count administrative complaint against the company.
In March 2003, California sued BP for $319 million over thousands of clean air violations at its Carson refinery. The south Coast Air Quality Management District accused the company of repeatedly breaking rules on its storage tanks over an eight year period.
In 2004, Alaska state regulators accused BP of safety violations, proposing to fine the company for the second time. The other was for earlier August 2002 violations causing a well explosion that seriously injured a worker.
Minerals Management Service (MMS) fined BP numerous times:

• in February 2001, $20,000 for workplace violations causing a serious injury;
  
• in January 2002, $20,000 for workplace violations causing another one;
  
• in May 2002, $23,000 for a workplace safety violation causing a worker injury;
  
• in September 2002, $39,000 for missing 13 monthly tests of an "oil low level sensor;"
  
• in January 2003, $70,000 for a faulty fire water system; in the same month, another $80,000 for bypassing "Relays for the Pressure Safety High/Low for four producing wells;"
  
• in November 2003, $25,000 for a subsurface safety valve "blocked out of service;"
  
• in February 2004, $25,000 because "The Rig's Gas Detection System was bypassed with ongoing drilling operations being conducted;"
  
• in July 2004, $190,000 for safety violations related to a fire;
  
• in October 2006, $25,000 for unsafe operations; another fine in October 2007 for various safety violations; and
  
• in the same month, $41,000 for similar safety violations.
  

BP's Deepwater Horizon site didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch, an acoustic device some other oil producing countries require (including Brazil and Norway) to protect against underwater spills. When they occur, they work automatically to prevent small problems from becoming greater.
BP has also been charged with numerous environmental violations, felonies and at least one criminal misdemeanor, paying out about $153 million in fines, penalties and settlements. It was fined another $363 million for "price-gouging consumers and taxpayers." Nonetheless, it legally avoided paying $172.5 million in taxpayer royalties on its Gulf operated leases.
BP is a serial scofflaw, earning billions while assessed pocket change in fines, penalties and settlements for a company its size. Despite its history of repeated violations, it's allowed to conduct business as usual because effective crackdowns aren't imposed in an environment of regulatory laxity. And, of course, it's as true across the board in deference to all predatory giants in all sectors, preying on the public and environment for profit with complicit government help.
BP Whistleblower Warns of More to Come
In his April 30 Truthout article, Jason Leopold cited a whistleblower (unnamed for his protection), saying to expect more Gulf catastrophes based on BP's history of breaking federal laws and its own internal procedures.
He "first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world's largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008."
He "was hired to oversee the company's databases," containing Atlantis project documents. On the job, he learned "that the drilling platform had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved documents it needed to run safely, leaving the platform vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster," as bad or potentially worse than the current spill.
BP knew of the problem, yet did nothing to address it, showing its reckless disregard for public and environmental safety and its own employees. Once a violator, always one, short of regulatory crackdowns and criminal prosecutions, telling all violators what to expect. Not in America, a scofflaw's paradise.
Transocean's Troubled History
On May 10, Wall Street Journal writer Ben Casselman headlined, "Rig Owner Had Rising Tally of Accidents," saying:
"Nearly three of every four incidents that triggered federal investigations into safety and other problems on (Gulf) deepwater drilling rigs....since 2008 have been on rigs" the company operates, according to federal data.
Its oil company clients also saw a drop in its safety performance. From 2005 - 2007, "a Transocean rig was involved in 13 of the 39 deep-water drilling incidents investigated by MMS...." After merging with rival GlobalSantaFe, MMS found that it "accounted for 24 of the 33 incidents."
It raises troubling questions of company negligence related to the current spill. So far, no cause has been determined, but at least two areas will be investigated - a cement seal in place to keep oil and gas from escaping, and the blowout preventer, ocean floor valves meant to close off the well in an emergency. MMS records show Transocean's troubled history with both, including in 2006 when regulators found a blowout preventer failed, partly from poor maintenance. In 2005, a failed cement seal caused drilling fluid to leak.
Until now, company violations have been minor, but small problems warn of potentially greater ones, the current incident a prime example.
Transocean "specializes in a new frontier, drilling from huge floating rigs that are either anchored to the sea floor or kept in place with satellite-controlled thrusters." BP is its biggest Gulf client. Although its overall safety record, measured by injuries per hour worked, surpasses the industry average, it's especially worse than competitors on deep water projects.
In recent years, this type drilling has increased rapidly, forcing operators to compete for a limited number of skilled workers. As a result, less experienced ones are used, suggesting a greater potential for accidents, including serious ones like on April 20.
After its 2007 GlobalSantaFe merger, Transocean's rankings were close to the bottom in many categories of customer satisfaction. In 2008 and 2009, it ranked last among deep water drillers for "job quality" and second last in "overall satisfaction." Pre-merger, it was near top ranked on both measures - more evidence of the destructiveness of monopoly or oligopoly size and the best reason to break up giants in all sectors to prevent it.
The Halliburton Connection
Besides its war-profiteering history, Halliburton's notoriously shoddy on-the-job performance was suggested in Russell Gold and Ben Casselman's April 30 article titled, "Drilling Process Attracts Scrutiny in Rig Explosion," saying with regard to the Gulf incident:
Halliburton's role in a cementing procedure "is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion (resulting in) one of the biggest oil spills in US history, drilling expert said Thursday (April 29)."
Cementing is done to prevent oil and gas leakages by filling gaps between "the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor." Cement is also used to plug wells once drilling is completed.
For Deepwater Horizon, cementing was finished and the required areas temporarily plugged, but it's not known if the entire process was done before the explosion. Regulators found cementing problems the cause of other well blowouts, "in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force." When cementing is improperly done and cracks develop, it happens, and because gas is highly combustible, it's "prone to ignite."
Halliburton is the largest company in the global cementing business. It was contracted for the Deepwater Horizon rig. Transocean said the process was completed. According to Robert MacKenzie, FBR Capital Markets Managing Director of energy and natural resources:
"The likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement."
Other drilling experts agree, saying a faulty bottom of well cement plug may be to blame. In 2007, a Minerals Management Service (MMS) study found that faulty cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 Gulf blowouts over a 14 year period. Halliburton was involved before - one instance being a major 2009 Timor Sea explosion, causing fire and tens of thousands of barrels leaked for over 10 weeks. MMS' recently retired regulatory affairs head, Elmer Danenberger, believes poor Halliburton cementing caused the Timor problem.
It's shoddy work may be a factor in the Gulf, but Transocean and BP share culpability, based on their disturbing histories, besides regulatory and oversight laxity allowing it.
A Much Greater Disaster than Reported
According to Ian MacDonald, Florida State University biological oceanographer, about one million gallons of oil are leaking daily, based on NASA data he studied. If so, the incident already exceeds the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe (topping 11 million gallons) from which affected areas haven't recovered and won't for decades, perhaps longer, from any spill that large. Already, said MacDonald, as of May 7, around 6,200 square miles are affected, a figure growing daily as long as leakage continues.
Other scientists agree, suggesting an estimated 25,000 daily barrels spilled, or over one million gallons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports a worse potential if a so-called bent "riser pipe" deteriorates further. If so, daily leakage could more than double to over two million barrels.
Already, vast parts of the Gulf are at risk as well as marshes, other type wetlands, estuaries, beaches, fishing, wildlife, the mouth of the Mississippi River, East Coast, Florida Keys and Everglades, parts of the Atlantic up to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and beyond if Gulf Stream currents are affected, as well as inland cities, towns, rivers, and lakes if Gulf hurricanes spread oil-contaminated rain - a vast ecosystem threatened by corporate criminal negligence and government complicity, the usual combination behind virtually all destructive acts.
Public health is also affected from contaminated fish, water, rain, and air from oil smoke and vapors - problems that won't abate for years because oil is a toxic brew and enough contaminating the environment causes an array of health problems, including potential chemical poisoning (hydrocarbon pneumonia).
According to Columbus, Ohio Nationwide Children's Hospital Pharmacology and Toxicology head, Dr. Marcel Casavant:
"Smoke from burning oil contains many chemicals; some are potentially lethal poisons and some are nuisance irritants, but even these....can trigger breathing problems in people with asthma or emphysema or other lung disease(s)."
Why is because burning oil smoke contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organics, and other toxins - all harmful to human health. Once ingested, serious problems can result affecting the heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, liver, pregnancy, other bodily functions, and the potential for cancer and other diseases. It'll be years before the full impact is known, but it's already clear what happens when government and business share the same bed. The public always suffers - this time, like others, disastrously.
###
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

[Ed Jewett]

requiem for the gulf - music: lux aeterna by clint mansell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOkPGnaXsg8&feature=player_embedded#!

####

[/FONT]No Time for Fake Activism

Submitted by mflowersmd on Fri, 2010-05-21 02:40

• Activism
  

Some people find my words on activism abrasive. My words are not welcome to all audiences. However, present realities compel me to say them. And I hope that for those who are shocked, that they feel some internal conflict, that my words stir their too comfortable minds to stretch and think.
My words are based on my direct visualization of the realities in a nation that is now a plutocracy, an empire ruled by corporate power. This is not the time to go through the motions of activism. The ruling class no longer hides its excess, but acts boldly and dares us to challenge it. Every day we see increasing abuses against our land and people but are fooled by the kool-aid of hope and change, hope and change. Isn’t that what we voted for and won?
Hope and change require more than voting. We must reflect honestly on the factors that brought us to this point in time and commit to effective change. Corporate power controls the media and our government. What we must do to shift power back to the people is based on the principles of clarity and uncompromising independence.
We must be clear about exactly what we require as a people. We can no longer be lulled by fantastical words like hope and change. We must know what we mean in concrete terms and have the courage to demand it. For too long in this nation, we have been accepting crumbs. We’ve been grateful for tiny increments of change because we are told that it is all we can have.
We must be uncompromising in our demands. We are talking about our livelihoods, our families, our future, our lives. Every inch that we concede means more for the ruling class and less for the people who are struggling to make ends meet and who are demoralized by the lack of respect for their wellbeing.

• mflowersmd's blog
  
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• Read more
  

[Ed Jewett]

Here is live round-the-clock streaming video of the underwater oil gusher, which BP is providing in response to Congressman Edward Markey's demands to BP:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/h...eo-of.html

Due to high traffic, the video stream may be intermittent at first. This is not due to technical difficulties at my site, but of the main servers hosted by BP. Check back periodically.

[Peter Lemkin]

Hey Ed!....you seem to be on top of this topic!.....I've come a few times with things hot off the internet 'press' only to find you'd already posted them..... :beer:

[Ed Jewett]

An excerpt (the bottom end of the article):

"... The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.

The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida's Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a "dead zone" if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama's Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida's Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.

Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR's FEMA sources.

There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.

There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems."

http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spil...aster.html

[Ed Jewett]

Thanks, Peter. My outrage fuels the effort. You and I have both read much of Derrick Jensen. Ruppert's "Confronting Collapse" book and DVD and lecture are available. The event, however horrible it is, may be the thing that gets people to act and move, perhaps along with the video of the taunting and assassination -- over a span of five minutes -- of an Iraqi man. We seem to entering a Dark Age.

[Ed Jewett]

Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?

Strange and dangerous hydrocarbon offers no room for human error

• In pictures: oil reaches the coast

• David Sassoon for SolveClimate, part of the Guardian Environment Network
  
• guardian.co.uk,
  
• Thursday 20 May 2010 11.34 BST
  
• Article history
  

The deadly explosion caused 3 million gallons of crude oil to pour into the Gulf. Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

The vast deepwater methane hydrate deposits of the Gulf of Mexico are an open secret in big energy circles. They represent the most tantalizing new frontier of unconventional energy — a potential source of hydrocarbon fuel thought to be twice as large as all the petroleum deposits ever known.
For the oil and gas industry, the substances are also known to be the primary hazard when drilling for deepwater oil.
Methane hydrates are volatile compounds — natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume.
Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean's surface.
Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume — something that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.
Scientists are well aware of the awesome power of these strange hydrocarbons. A sudden large scale release of methane hydrates is believed to have caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago. Among planners concerned with mega-disasters, their sudden escape is considered to be a threat comparable to an asteroid strike or nuclear war. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Livermore, Ca.-based weapons design center, reports that when released on a large scale, methane hydrates can even cause tsunamis.
So it is not surprising to anyone who knows about the physics of these compounds that the Deepwater Horizon rig was lost like a waterfly crumpled by a force of nature scientists are still just getting to know.
Number One Deepwater Drilling Issue
SolveClimate contacted scientists at the Colorado School of Mines, Center for Hydrate Research, who focus on the fundamental science and engineering of methane hydrates to gain further insight. They did not want to speculate on the role that methane hydrates could have played in the BP disaster, but they were willing to provide a basic understanding of the nature and behavior of these familiar but little understood substances.

"Gas hydrates are the number one flow assurance issue in deepwater drilling," Carolyn Koh, an associate professor and co-director of the Hydrate Center, told us in an exclusive interview.

She explained that the oil and gas industry has a lot of experience with methane hydrates, because they have to be kept from forming in pipes or they will clog the lines, stop the flow of oil, and pose a danger. Drillers use inhibitors such as methanol to keep the hydrates from crystallizing inside drill rigs operating at great depth, where conditions for methane hydrate formation are ideal.
This film clip of an experiment conducted on the ocean floor near the Deepwater Horizon drilling site demonstrates how quickly and easily methane hydrates can form. It was conducted by the Gulf of Mexico Hydrates Research Consortium aboard the Seward Johnson in September 2006. The voices of the scientists conducting the experiment are clearly audible.
The clip shows with remarkable clarity a robotic arm maneuvering a clear tube over a stream of hydrate bubbles emanating from a crater on the sea floor. Within minutes, gas trapped in the tube begins to form a visible solid — a white ice matrix — thanks to the extreme cold and pressure of the ocean depth. When the tube is inverted, the hydrate, less dense than seawater, floats out of the tube, dissociating into its components, gas and water.
Oil and gas drillers encounter far greater volumes of methane hydrate than the gentle stream of bubbles escaping from a small fissure that are shown in the film.
Amadeu Sum, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines and also a co-director of the Hydrate Center, explained that methane hydrates can be encountered by drillers in the deep ocean where methane hydrates are trapped in sediments beneath the ocean floor.
Vast Deposits in Ocean Sediments
Professor Sum explained gas and oil flow up the pipe together in normal drilling operations. These hydrocarbons occur naturally together in conventional drilling operations. The deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico, and other places where methane hydrates exist, present drillers with special safety challenges.
For one thing, methane hydrates are believed to exist in vast deposits underneath the ocean floor, trapped by nature in ocean sediments. Deepwater drillers could find themselves drilling through these natural hydrate deposits.
Professor Sum said geologists know much less about these hydrate-bearing sediments than conventional ocean sediments, and that there is "little knowledge of the risks" of drilling into them.
The Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling in Block 252 of an area known as the Mississippi Canyon of the Gulf, thought to contain methane hydrate-bearing sediments, according to government maps. The platform was operating less than 20 miles from a methane hydrate research site located in the same canyon at Block 118.
From the sea floor a mile down, the Deepwater Horizon rig had penetrated another 18,000 feet — almost another five miles down — into the earth's crust with pipe.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, which published a bullish report on the energy potential of methane hydrates,

"Industry practice is to avoid methane-bearing areas during drilling for conventional oil and gas resources for safety reasons."

Professor Sum explained that because "with oil there is usually gas present," it is possible for methane hydrates to form in the pipe even when not drilling through hydrate-bearing sediments. The pressure and cold of the deepwater create conditions that encourage gas flowing into the pipe to form hydrates, and if the rate of crystallization is rapid enough, the hydrates can clog the pipe.
The cofferdam that BP lowered over the broken pipe gushing oil to contain the spill was almost immediately clogged by methane hydrates, which formed spontaneously. Gas escaping with the oil from the well, when trapped in the steel structure with cold water under great pressure, rapidly accumulated into an ice-like matrix.
Documented Explosive Hazard
In a book about methane hydrates, which Professor Koh co-authored, brief mention is made of a case in which methane hydrates caused a gas pipe to rupture on land, leading to loss of life.
Two workers were attempting to clear a line in which a hydrate plug had formed. The authors say that "the impact of a moving hydrate mass" caused the pipe to fail. The explosion caused a large piece of pipe to strike the foreman, killing him. The book then quotes from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Hydrate Guidelines to describe proper procedures for safely removing a hydrate plug in a pipe on land.
SolveClimate was not able to find more detailed public documentation of this incident in Alberta, but mention is made in an article in a publication of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,a federal research center associated with the Department of Energy, of a different unspecified incident on a drilling rig.

"Forces from methane hydrate dissociation have been blamed for a damaging shift in a drilling rig's foundation, causing a loss of $100 million," the article reports.

Although public discussion of damage from methane hydrate accidents appears to be minimal, the danger is well-recognized within the industry. Last November, one Halliburton executive gave a presentation before a meeting of the American Association of Drilling Engineers in Houston, titled "Deepwater Cementing Consideration to Prevent Hydrate Destabilization."
It recognizes that the cementing process releases heat which can destabilize methane hydrates, and presents something called Cement System 2 as a solution to the problem. One of the graphs shows that the system doesn't achieve gel strength for four hours.
Yet according to an eyewitness report broadcast on Sunday on 60 Minutes, BP managers made the decision to decrease pressure in the well column by removing drilling mud before the cement had solidified in three plugs Halliburton had poured.
When a surge of gas started shooting up the well, a crucial seal on the blowout preventer at the well head on the ocean floor failed. It had been damaged weeks before and neglected as inconsequential by Transocean managers, according to the CBS news broadcast, even after chunks of rubber emerged from the drilling column on the surface.
According to the Associated Press, the victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion said the blast occurred right after workers "introduced heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead." It is not known if Halliburton was employing Cement System 2, and testifying before the Senate last week, a Halliburton executive made no mention of methane hydrate hazards associated with cementing in deepwater.
A Promising Substance
Professors Koh and Sum are concerned that a focus on the dangers of methane hydrates in deepwater drilling will obscure their promise as an energy solution of the future. They are conducting research in the laboratory to create methane hydrates synthetically in order to take advantage of their peculiar properties. With their potential to store gas (both natural gas and hydrogen) efficiently within a crystalline structure, hydrogen hydrates could one day offer a potential solution for making fuel cells operate economically. Still at the fundamental stage, their work on storage is not yet complete enough to apply to commercial systems.
At the same time, there is an international competition underway to develop technology to harvest the vast deposits of methane hydrates in the world's oceans. Japan has joined the US and Canada in pursuit of this energy bonanza, motivated by the $23 billion it spends annually to import liquefied natural gas.
According to a Bloomberg News article called "Japan Mines Flammable Ice, Flirts with Environmental Disaster," the Japanese trade ministry is targeting 2016 to start commercial production, even as a Tokyo University scientist warned against causing a massive undersea landslide that could suddenly trigger a massive methane hydrate release.
The U.S. has a research program underway in collaboration with the oil industry, authorized by the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 1999. The National Methane Hydrates R&D Program is housed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the Department of Energy.
The National Academy of Sciences provided a briefing for Congress last January on the energy potential of methane hydrates based on its report which asserts that "no technical challenges have been identified as insurmountable" in the pursuit of commercial production of methane hydrates.
In the wake of the BP oil disaster, SolveClimate attempted to contact Dr. Charles Paull of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the lead author of the report. He was unavailable for comment, attending an international workshop on methane hydrates research in New Zealand from May 10-12, and according to his assistant, out of email contact.

• More on this story
  
• 
  Deepwater Horizon survivor describes horrors of blast and escape from rig
  Stephen Davis recounts how he was flung against a wall by explosion and kept at sea on work boat for 40 hours after rescue
  
• Obama takes tougher line on oil spill
  
• BP bows to demands from Congress and scientists for live feed of oil leak
  
• Greenpeace activists scale BP's London headquarters in oil protest
  
• Gulf oil spill chemical dispersant too toxic, EPA orders
  
• Deepwater Horizon oil spill reaches the coast
  
• Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill day by day
  
• Gulf oil spill: How big is the slick from BP's Deepwater Horizon?
  

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