Gulf oil spill: Safety fete postponed

It was to be a celebration, but a federal agency in charge of offshore drilling has postponed next week’s annual luncheon in Houston, which was to extol the safety record of offshore oil drilling.

A new posting on the website of the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, or MMS, noted that the agency is busy and the unfolding tragedy that has cost lives and oil might conflict with the May 3 luncheon.

“The ongoing situation with the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling accident has caused the MMS to dedicate considerable resources to the successful resolution of this event, which will conflict with holding this ceremony next week,” the posting said.

Last year, BP America, operator of the deep-water rig that exploded and sank last week, was among the luncheon's winners, cited for “outstanding dedication and leadership in promoting improved medical care and evacuation capabilities for offshore facilities.”

The Minerals Management Service manages oil and gas drilling and production in federal waters and then collects and distributes royalties from any extracted minerals.

--Ken Weiss

Related:
Photos: Oil spill spreads in the Gulf of Mexico
Efforts to fight Gulf of Mexico oil spill are ramped up
Interactive: Burning spilled oil

Photo: Coast Guard Capt. Joseph Paradis (R), commanding officer of Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit in Morgan City, Louisiana, USA, briefs Tony Hayward, chief executive of British Petroleum, on the Deepwater Horizon incident on 28 April 2010. Staging areas are being set up along the Gulf Coast to actively identify, target and protect environmentally and economically sensitive areas. Credit: EPA/MARC MORRISON

Comments

[Jordan Fenton Brown]

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In Ohio there live 2 brothers, one of which has developed a product they are calling 360 and apparently it has the ability to absorb 30 times its own weight of oil, floats on water and is water repellent. It contains bacterial cultures that consume Hydro carbons, meaning it eats up the oil, gas or diesel that it absorbs making it safe to dispose of in land fills. Another pro is that after absorption the product can be squeezed and the oil recaptured. Pretty neat hu!. I want to help them make this a reality. Any suggestions? Pray for us and all those affected in this unfortunate disaster.

[Dr Claude Windenberger]

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[Andy]

The Minerals Management Service (MMS), was found by the IG to be literally whoring itself out to the Oil&Gas industry a few years back.

"An eye-opening series of reports in fall 2008 by the Department of the Interior’s inspector general disclosed a stunning level of corruption at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), and a coziness with industry officials that included a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” at the agency...
The inspector general concluded that officials in the MMS Royalty-in-Kind program '“frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”'
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1022/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html

[Bill Hannegan]

The "Drill, Baby, Drill" genius has been uncharacteristically silent for the last several days. What's the matter, sweetie? Has the massive unconstrained oil slick heading towards our coast revealed some small flaw in your plan? Still think opening up all that offshore drilling is such a hot idea?

[dana cobb]

America's most conservative weekly magazing, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, has an April 26, 2010 cover page article about energy policy written by Steven F. Hayward. [This edition of the magazine hit the newstands just before the oil spill started in the Gulf of Mexico]. In it, Mr. Hayward literally states that the concern over oil spills from off-shore drilling is unreasonable and obselete. He says that people who fear such a spill are like people who are afraid of flying because a prop-plane crashed back in the 1950's. Environmentalists and people with concern about off-shore drilling are simply too uneducated and too stupid for words, it would seem. Apparently Mr. Hayward learned all he needed to know about off-shore drilling from the oil industry and I imagine they assured him that an oil spill couldn't happen.... information which he obviously swallowed without question. A day later, the Horizon oil rig explodes and now we have an ecological disaster on our hands. Or course, Mr. Hayward is with the American Enterprise Institute (or what I like to call, the WFISG, or Whores for Industry Study Group).

[Zy Wachovich]

Safety fete postponed.
..the unfolding tragedy that has cost lives and oil might conflict with the May 3 luncheon."

This has got to go down as one of the classic understatements in recent history.

[Nuffer]

Might want to remove that "mission accomplished" banner the BP borrowed from Bush. Off shore drilling is not safe!!!! BP has just destroyed a whole bevey of men who depend on the ocean for their livelihood . And just like Exxon...they will get away with it.

[Beleck3]

living here in New Orleans, today I could smell the oil in the air.
only one response.... Drilll Baby, Drill.