Senate Hearings Prompting Spill Blame Game

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Senate hearings prompting spill blame game

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 36 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The blame game is in full throttle as Congress begins hearings on the massive oil spill threatening sensitive marshes and marine life along the Gulf Coast. Executives of the three companies involved in the drilling activities that unleashed the environmental crisis are trying to shift responsibility to each other in testimony to be given at separate hearings Tuesday before two Senate committees, even as the cause of the rig explosion and spill has yet to be determined.

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Copies of planned testimony, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, brought into the open fissures among the companies caught up in the accident and its legal and economic fallout. A top executive of BP, which leased the rig for exploratory drilling, focuses on a critical safety device that was supposed to shut off oil flow on the ocean floor in the event of a well blowout but "failed to operate."

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But Transocean CEO Steven Newman was seeking to put responsibility on BP. "Offshore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the operator, in this case BP," said Newman, according to the prepared remarks. His testimony says it was BP that prepared the drilling plan and was in charge when the drilling concluded and the crew was preparing to cap the well 5,000 feet beneath the sea.

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A Halliburton executive, Tim Probert, planned to assert that the company's work was finished "in accordance with the requirements" set out by BP and with accepted industry practices. He says pressure tests were conducted after the cementing work was finished to demonstrate well integrity. BP and Transocean are conducting separate investigations into what went wrong.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100511/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

[fasttense]

1. "Blame Game?"

What a load of crappy writing. As if the destruction of the entire Gulf Coast natural wildlife was just a little game.

They are to blame but it is no game.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. You beat me to it. Yahoo are well named. Perfectly named.

[CLANG]

3. Two Oil Firms Link Rig Blast to 'Plug'

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Executives from BP PLC, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. began pointing fingers on Monday over who bears ultimate responsibility for the April 20 oil-rig explosion that took 11 lives and is spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The question will loom large at a Senate hearing Tuesday that will hear from executives of the three companies.

BP, the well owner, blames the failure of a big set of valves on the sea floor, known as the blowout preventer, to halt the blowout once it started.

A different account comes from Halliburton, a contractor in the drilling. This account is corroborated to some extent by Transocean, as well as by two workers on the drilling rig, The Wall Street Journal has determined.

This account describes a failure to place a cement plug within the well. The plug is designed to prevent gas from escaping up the pipe to the surface.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704879704575236553480511416.html?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy

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Very interesting....

[happygoluckytoyou]

4. i would blame the plugs themselves, fucking liberal plugs, and progressive valves...