It’s a double whammy of trouble for them. First they’ll endure a barrage of painful and disruptive noise from the surveys, and should the oil platforms ever get built, their lives will be at risk daily from the inevitable spills. Two years after the BP Spill in the Gulf, have we failed to learn our lesson?

Blasts that Separate Mother and Calf

Baby dolphins, known as calves, will stay close to their mothers for up to 6 years. (Photo by J. D. Ebberly/Flickr)

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the cumulative noise of all sea-going vessels is an incessant drone of near-constant sound in a growing number of oceans regions. Seismic surveys, conducted during offshore oil and gas exploration, use rapid discharges of compressed air from air gun arrays. These send acoustic shock waves down through the water column that is reflected back from sub-sea rock strata. The blasts are emitted every 10 seconds and may be as loud as 250 decibels.

Other sources of acoustic pollution associated with offshore oil and gas activities include drilling, platform machinery, vessel traffic, low-flying aircraft and helicopters, and the movement of oil, gas or water through valves and under-sea pipelines. These intense sounds travel a long distance across the ocean. A 2009 workshop of experts, sponsored by Okeanos Foundation for the Sea, reported, “These surveys can last for months and the noise they produce is virtually ubiquitous in the world’s oceans.”

In the end, the most tragic thing may be the degrading of habitat. “Chronic ocean noise – the ubiquitous din of shipping and fishing vessels, seismic surveys, pile driving: all of it – slowly but surely degrades the quality of habitat available to acoustically sensitive species,” writes Dr. Rob Williams of Oceans Initiative. Unlike some of the more intractable threats facing aquatic life however, this one is very solvable he writes. We need to cut the noise, and that means turning down the volume on the underwater heavy metal concert, not turning it up.

Sick Dolphins Reported in Gulf

Dolphins are social and intelligent animals who live in large groups called pods. Here is a dolphin dance, off of Kona Coast, Hawaii. (Photo by SteveD/Flickr)

These dolphins have a low body weight, anemia, low blood sugar and symptoms of liver and lung disease. It is so serious that the fisheries arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared an “unusual mortality event” for cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in the northern Gulf of Mexico from February 2010 to the present.

As of March 25, there were 706 cetacean “strandings” or beaching events of which five percent stranded alive and 95 percent stranded dead. Repeat: 95 percent dead. Even in the aftermath of the BP/Deepwater Horizon spill, we need to remind the oil and gas industry and its backers that seismic surveys and oil drilling can have huge consequences. After the BP spill, NWF Senior Scientist Doug Inkley said, “The Gulf oil disaster is to marine life what smoking is to humans – it could kill you, and if it doesn’t your general health suffers.”

We are still living with the legacy of the BP spill. In fact, some of the results are just emerging. Let’s not have a Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Atlantic.

You can help NWF’s call for wildlife-friendly clean energy by donating to help us protect marine mammals and by learning more about our Gulf recovery efforts.

In a statement BOEMRE (the offshore regulatory agency) said that they “found no evidence that the proposed action would significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” The final outcome is contingent on a few more approvals – for safety permits and other things – but most observers believe the point is clear: the government wants drilling to happen and is working hard to make that a reality.

So what’s the big deal?  A lot of folks have pointed out the obvious: there’s no way Shell or any other company could control a blowout or clean up an oil spill in these conditions. They don’t (and won’t) have icebreaker ships to get to a spill. The skimmer ships and absorbent boom that BP used in the Gulf of Mexico were heartbreakingly useless, but even these measures wouldn’t work in the Arctic.

The Canadian Coast Guard ship Amundsen on an ice floe in the Beaufort Sea (photo: flickr/indigo-)

But don’t take it from me. According to US Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp:

“If the company fails, if the response plan fails, the federal government must in some way be able to back it up with some resources. We had plenty of resources, from bases to communication systems to helicopters, in the Gulf of Mexico. And if this were to happen off the North Slope of Alaska, we’d have nothing.”

And for all of their assurances that we’ve come a long way since the Deepwater Horizon, BOEMRE still doesn’t do real-world testing of safety equipment (including blow-out preventers and capping stacks) for drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. So it’s ludicrous to think that they’ll do real-world testing in the Arctic, where there’s no response infrastructure in place.

Computer simulations and warehouse tests don’t cut it. Not to get cute but the only way to know if you can control a blowout in the freezing, icy, howling midnight is to, well, test equipment in freezing, icy, howling midnight.

Even so, Shell is claiming they will recover 90% of any oil that spills.  Funny thing is, BP only recovered 3% of the Deepwater Horizon oil and Exxon’s Valdez cleanup only accounted for 9%.  It would be a triumph of epic proportions to recover even 10 or 15% of a possible Arctic spill.  The reality is that Shell is lying, and the government seems to be fine with that.

Basic common sense says that if you want to increase oil production, you at least need to pay for more rig inspectors to handle the extra work.

But the new annual government spending bill introduced this week in the House of Representatives is an assault on common sense: not only does it under-fund BOEMRE (the oil watchdog agency) but it also includes a provision to speed up drilling offshore Alaska and re-write the Clean Air Act in favor of major polluters. Meanwhile, in the Senate, lawmakers are trying to put oil rigs off the coast of Virginia and in the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic drilling places endangered species -- like this Polar Bear -- in harm's way (photo: Amy Messere)

Would Congress be so eager to drill if they paid attention to the news?

Some recent headlines:

• “Oil and gas spills in North Sea every week, papers reveal” – July 5, The Guardian (UK)
• “After Gulf, now China spill spells doom” – July 21, The Times of India
• “Coast Guard checks reported oil spill off Louisiana” – June 8, Reuters
• “Oil slicks in Gulf of Mexico” – June 30, SkyTruth

Since the Gulf disaster we have learned that spills are the rule, not the exception, when it comes to offshore drilling. Many of them go unreported; the Guardian article cited above calls its findings just “the tip of the iceberg.”

Other accidents are kept quiet, [whistleblowers] claim, because workers fear they cannot report them in case they lose their jobs. One veteran said that although everyone is formally told to report anything that goes wrong, staff adhere to an informal code to remain silent to avoid a halt in drilling that loses money for the companies.

So the deck is stacked against safety from the beginning, and BOEMRE (The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement…whew!) already has its hands full: a senior staffer told us that the House’s budget is $35 million less than BOEMRE needs for inspectors and permit planning for future leases.  For an agency that already runs on fumes and table scraps, that’s a huge chunk of money.

In what world does this make sense? It’s another kick to the teeth of environmental and public health programs, which are being dismantled before our eyes by this Congress.  Make sure to check out National Wildlife Federation’s breakdown of the spending bill and then TAKE ACTION by sending a message to your representatives in Washington.

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Stop the stealth attack on wildlife!  Please speak up for wildlife TODAY, urging your federal officials to protect our nation’s bedrock conservation laws: http://bit.ly/defendwildlife

Exxon Mobile CEO Jed Clampett and family in search of black gold

The Exxon discovery is a display of the animal spirits that still live in the U.S. energy industry, notwithstanding the political efforts to stifle them. As much as Washington tries, the U.S. economy is hard to keep down.

And Scott Angelle, Secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Natural Rescources, was practically breathless:

This is a great day for the Gulf of Mexico offshore energy industry and a great day for America. One year since our fight to lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling began, ExxonMobil has made one of the largest Gulf of Mexico discoveries in ten years. This discovery proves that the Gulf of Mexico offshore industry is capable of finding the fuel that energizes America in a safe and responsible manner.

Mr. Angelle and co. seem happy to ignore an important fact: In no way has the industry proven it can act in a “safe and responsible manner.” Exxon’s oil sits under 7,000 feet of water, which is two thousand feet deeper than the Macondo well that exploded last spring. And thanks in large part to opposition from industry, Congress still hasn’t passed a single law to make drilling safer — the House of Representatives is actually trying to roll back safeguards and open up the entire coast to development.

Congress' To-Do List

What’s really baffling is that drilling advocates should be the biggest proponents of safety, because another accident like the Deepwater Horizon could spell the end of that enterprise as we know it. Exxon and folks on Capitol Hill would do well to remember who caused the disaster in the first place (that would be BP, a charter member of Big Oil) instead of acting like the blameless victims of an environmentalist conspiracy.

And when you think about it, we’re not much better off today than we were before Exxon’s announcement. The discovery is certainly a big one, but from the way industry and their friends are backslapping you would think they just solved world hunger. Let’s put it in perspective: The United States used about 7 billion barrels of oil last year, and analysts say Exxon’s new find will only give us about 35 days of energy.  Max. And that’s assuming Exxon can pump it all (they won’t — they’ll probably recover less than half) and every drop stays in the US (it won’t — much of the oil is destined for export to foreign markets).  But hey, on the bright side, their stock went up on the news.

So before we get too excited about this, let’s be clear about what we’re cheering for: corporate profits, not energy security, environmental protection, or worker safety.

1. Highlight of the Week: Showdown: Drill Bills vs. Billions in Tax Perks
2. Quote: Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
3. Economic Story of the Week: Pain at the Pump, Who’s to Blame?
4. Editorial of the Week: The Return of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’
5. Kids Sue Govt for Failing to Win the Future
6. Climate Crisis Fuels Historic Floods
7. MD To Sue Over Fracking Spill
8. Happening this Week

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Highlight of the Week

Showdown: Drill Bills vs. Billions in Tax Perks

Oil rig, Cromarty Firth, djmacphotography.co.uk

After weeks of debate over high gas prices, and just a year after the Gulf oil disaster, the House passed the first of a series of pro-offshore drilling bills that would drastically expand offshore drilling. H.R. 1230  forces the Department of the Interior to offer four new lease sales and removes basic environmental protections.

Additional votes are expected this week on HR 1229, which would give DOI no more than 60 days to review offshore drilling permits, and HR 1231 which would open waters off California, Alaska and much of the Atlantic Coast to drilling.

Senate leadership, however, are working to bring legislation to the floor that would eliminate billions in tax subsidies for the world’s five largest Big Oil companies.

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Quote:

via Flickr, DOI

“I don’t have amnesia, and neither does the president. And much of the legislation that I have seen being bandied around…is almost as if the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well incident never happened.”

--Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, on amnesia about the BP oil disaster.

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Economic Story of the Week

Pain at the Pump, Who’s to Blame?

Ohio is set to build the first offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes

A Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll released new data on where Americans feeling pain at the pump are pointing their finger. The nationwide average price of regular gasoline rose to within a penny and half of $4 a gallon, the highest it’s been this time of year since 1990.

About one in three blame the combination of greed, speculation and oil companies. One in five say prices have increased as a result of wars and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. Nearly one in eight thinks it’s something political or policy-related. A similar proportion think it’s related to economic factors.

Clean energy initiatives across the country could reduce our dependence on gasoline. Cleveland-based Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) is ready to start construction on the first offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes. LEEDCo is hopeful that the demonstration will jump-start a freshwater wind industry across the Midwest while also bringing wind turbine manufacturing jobs to Ohio. The New York Power Authority is looking to follow their lead.

More on this story: Washington Post

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Editorial of the Week

The Return of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

(NY Times)

With the country again facing $4-a-gallon gasoline, the time would seem ripe for a grown-up conversation on energy. What we are getting instead is a mindless rerun of the drill-baby-drill operatics of the 2008 campaign….Then, as now, opportunistic politicians insisted that vastly expanded oil drilling would bring relief at the pump and reduced dependence on foreign oil. Then, as now, these arguments were bogus.

As President Obama observed in a March 30 address on energy issues, drilling alone cannot possibly ensure energy independence in a country that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while owning only 2 percent of its reserves….Only coordinated measures — greater auto efficiency, alternative fuels, improved mass transit — can address these issues. (More…)

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Kids Sue Government for Failing to Win the Future

via iMatter March

Though they may be too young to vote, young climate activists are using their right to legal action to force federal and state governments to curb carbon pollution. In 52 lawsuits and petitions filed by attorneys representing children and teens across the country, a youth coalition called Our Children’s Trust invoke the public trust doctrine, which dates back to Roman times, claiming that key agencies failed in their duty to protect the earth’s atmosphere as a public trust for future generations.

The youth are also conducting a series of marches and demonstrations across the U.S. and internationally. The iMatter March and the folks behind it, make the point that today’s generation of leaders should act as trustees for future generations instead of largely ignoring the problem and simply passing it on to those who will have to live with the consequences.

These new suits are analogous to a current Supreme Court case that’s being revisited. Several states and land trusts filed ‘nuisance’ lawsuits against the five largest utility companies in the country, claiming the pollution generated are causing harm to people’s health and the environment. In both cases the plaintiffs are “trying to use all the available options in view of the failure of Congress” to act on carbon pollution, according to Columbia University’s Center for Climate Change Law director, Michael B. Gerrard.

More on this story: NY Times, Wildlife Promise

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Climate Crisis Fuels Historic Floods

via Flickr, Natalie Maynor

The Mississippi River is experiencing its second “500-year flood” since 1993. That’s no freak occurrence – it’s a result of man-made carbon pollution changing our climate. “All extreme weather events are now subject to human influence,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, a climate & water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute, at a Capitol Hill briefing on Monday organized by the American Meteorological Society.

Flooding like the Mississippi River is seeing in 2011 used to be considered extremely unusual. But thanks to the climate crisis, floods are becoming more frequent and more severe over much of the Mississippi River basin. Just this week it the river rose to its highest level in nearly 75 years, inundating neighborhoods and acres of farmland and evacuating about 1,350 homes.

Dr. Gleick told the AMS briefing that increasing temperatures aren’t necessarily leading to more frequent rainfall events, but the climate crisis IS leading to more intense rainfall events. We’re seeing the same number of storms, but the ones we do see are more likely to be the kind that cause severe flooding. And that’s pushing our flood control system to a breaking point.

More on this story: WSJ, Wildlife Promise

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MD To Sue Over Fracking Spill

Maryland State Attorney General Douglas Gansler announced plans to sue the company whose gas well ruptured in Pennsylvania, spilling fracking fluids into a fresh water tributary that feeds the Susquehanna River and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.

While a company spokesman claims the April 19 spill had limited environmental impact, Gansler plans to sue Chesapeake Energy Corp for violating federal anti-pollution laws.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has appointed a panel to study hydraulic fracturing, the fast-growing method of natural gas extraction to make recommendations on how it can be done more cleanly and safely.

More on this story: CBS Baltimore, NY Times

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Happening this Week

Tuesday, May 10

Hearing: “to receive testimony on new developments in upstream oil and gas technologies,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, SD-366

Wednesday, May 11

Hearing: Hydraulic Fracturing Technology, House Science Committee, 10AM-2PM, 2318 Rayburn

Thursday, May 12

“Oil and Gas Tax Incentives and Rising Energy Prices”, Senate Committee on Finance, 10AM, 215 Dirksen

Hearing: to receive testimony on carbon capture and sequestration, Senate Energy and Natural Resources, 9:30 AM Dirksen 366

Hearing on Hydropower, House Subcommittee on Water and Power, 10AM, 1334 Longworth

Friday, May 13

The House Energy and Commerce Committee meets to review legislation that would streamline Clean Air Act permitting for offshore drilling operations. Rayburn 2322 at 9 a.m.

The House Natural Resources Committee questions Interior Department officials on “roadblocks” to wind and solar development on federal lands and waters. Longworth 1324 at 10 a.m.

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For more global warming news on Wildlife Promise click here.

Thousands of ships were deployed to help with containment efforts last April (photo: DVIDSHUB/flickr)

Now, that might still sound like a lot of cash, but it’s pocket change when you put it in context:

• In the 4^th quarter of 2010, BP had a $5.6 billion profit – meaning they made almost $62 million every day.
• The Deepwater Horizon rig cost $560 million to build.
• Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson made $21.5 million last year.

I mean, $47 million is what the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter will make this season!  But Congress decided that their cost-cutting frenzy was more important than ensuring the safety of rig workers, wildlife, and the residents of the Gulf coast, so now officials are scrambling to do twice as much with half the resources. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Oceam Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) said yesterday that his agency was “under-resourced and outmatched by industry,” and warned that the slashed budget “won’t allow us to improve operations for the future to the extent – and in the ways – that we think are desirable and necessary.”

“We desperately need more engineers, inspectors and other safety personnel.  We desperately need more environmental scientists and more personnel to do environmental analysis.  We desperately need more personnel to help us with the permitting process.  And much more.”

Not to get too dramatic, but Congress should be ashamed of itself.  Members of the House of Representatives are fast-tracking bills that would speed up offshore drilling and weaken safeguards, but they can’t be bothered to pay for safety inspections and it’s obvious they’ve written off the chance of another spill happening. We need the exact opposite: better regulation, better funding for safety measures, and a more cautious approach to drilling.

Learn more about NWF’s work in the Gulf, including our efforts to protect wildlife and habitat, at www.nwf.org/oilspill.

Rachel Maddow, whose MSNBC show has tracked the BP spill from day one, came out swinging on Friday with some pretty disturbing information: the permitting agency (BOEMRE) has been letting oil companies move forward even without updated spill response plans.

Offshore rig (photo: Shane Lampman)

Late last month Noble Energy, Inc. received the first new permit to drill in deep water.  As Maddow describes it,

“The government says [that's] because the oil industry has been, quote, complying with rigorous new safety standards implemented in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.  According to [BOEMRE] these new permits show the industry has demonstrated the capability to contain a deepwater loss of well control and blowout.”

But when Maddow’s team asked to review Noble’s oil spill response plan, they weren’t able to find any proof backing up these claims.  “We wanted to see all of those ‘lessons learned’ from the BP oil disaster,” said Maddow, but the plan BOEMRE showed them was written in September 2009, the year before the disaster. Holy smokes.

“We contacted the government [...] after we obtained this document because we thought somebody must have sent us the wrong thing.  We thought we must have been sent by accident an old version of this oil response plan.  They informed us that, in fact, we do have the most up-to-date version on hand.  They also told us that in general rig operators are eligible to get new permits while they’re in the process of revising old oil spill response plans.  So what exactly is the permitting process reviewing?”

We’re wondering the same thing.

The government and industry have been bragging to everyone who will listen that they’ve stepped up safety measures since the BP spill.  But how can we take them seriously if they won’t offer proof? BOEMRE has made some of its permitting documents public, but according to John Amos of SkyTruth, none of them show how we could respond to a spill any more capably than a year ago.  NWF is filing a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of the Interior, seeking the complete permit applications, and we will share any relevant information with you.

Concerned yet?  If not, take a look at this.  Investigators just completed their report on the Deepwater Horizon‘s blowout preventer (BOP), the device that should have stopped the spill in its tracks, and it’s not a pretty story.

In Maddow’s words, “What we have learned this week [...] is that the blowout preventer in question was not built wrong.  It wasn’t broken.  And it was used as directed.”  Basically, the pressure from the blowout caused the well pipe to bend off-center, which prevented the safety mechanism from operating correctly.  You read that right: the problem that caused the accident also caused the backup safety device to malfunction. I’m not sure “engineering oversight” begins to describe how absurd that is.

For more about the Gulf oil disaster, visit www.nwf.org/oilspill

Chris Jones knows exactly what it means.  His brother Gordon was an engineer aboard the Deepwater Horizon, one of the 11 men who died in the massive blowout.  Chris, Gordon’s wife Michelle, and the rest of the Jones family were left with a gaping hole in their lives and a pain which has yet to heal over.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last week Chris testified before the House Natural Resources Committee.  He listened quietly as Rep. Doc Hastings and others railed against the slow pace of offshore drilling since the disaster, but when it came time for him to speak he gave a reality check that quieted the slogans, if only for a minute.  I urge you to watch the video—it’s a powerful reminder of the true costs of our energy production.

He talked about Michelle, who was 8 months pregnant with Gordon’s second son at the time of the explosion, and about the industry’s single-minded focus on profits.  “I promise,” he told the committee, “that spending one day in my shoes, or in Michelle’s shoes, will give you an entirely different perspective on the topic of worker safety.”

The Deepwater Horizon on fire (photo: US Coast Guard)

He pointed out the fact that the new Republican majority in Congress has all but turned the page on legislative action, even though these reforms are desperately needed.

“I’m from Louisiana and have lived in Louisiana all my life—no one needs to tell me the importance of the oil industry to my state. […]  However, as Gordon’s brother, and uncle to two little boys who won’t even remember their father, I plead with you to consider the repercussions of not ensuring the safety of these workers before allowing BP and others to keep doing business as usual.”

Rig workers, Chris said, “shouldn’t be forced to choose between providing for their families and working on a rig where safety, not speed, is what is most important.”

“I find it interesting how hard the oil industry is working to get back into the Gulf.  BP and others want to put this disaster behind them.  Meanwhile, no one with BP has bothered to place a single phone call to anyone in my family—not once.  I don’t expect a profuse apology for widowing my brother’s wife or killing the father of my nephews.  I don’t expect them to accept responsibility for Gordon’s death because that would likely be asking too much.  All we expected was for someone from BP to call and tell us they were sorry for our loss.  Maybe they were too busy hiring public relations firms and producing commercials.  Clearly they were too busy moving forward trying to continue drilling and making more money while we were left to pick up the pieces.”

BP and Rep. Hastings may have moved on in the wake of the disaster, but the families of the Deepwater Horizon victims are still waiting for closure, or at least the assurance that their tragedy won’t be repeated.  And they’re not the only ones—the spill took a harsh toll on sea turtles, brown pelicans and other Gulf wildlife, and crippled the Gulf fishing and tourism industries for months.  All because BP and Halliburton couldn’t be troubled to protect their workers.  The “Drill, baby, drill!” crowd shouldn’t forget whose side they’re on.

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Learn more about the National Wildlife Federation’s response to the Gulf oil disaster at NWF.org/OilSpill

The cap is a pretty simple concept: it limits the amount of money a driller has to pay in the event of an accident.   Right now the cap is set at $75 million, so a company like BP is only liable for $75 million in economic damages from their massive disaster.  They still have to pay cleanup costs and penalties for the oil they spilled, but aren’t legally bound to compensate folks like, say, the restaurant owner whose seafood supply was suddenly cut off, or the hotel staff who were laid off because tourists stayed home.

Oil spill make it so you can't buy fish for your restaurant? Too bad. (photo: Steve Linder)

Under heavy pressure from President Obama, BP set up a fund to cover some of these damages, but many Gulf residents have been turned away or forced to endure long waits.  And according to a report from the federal Oil Spill Commission, “If a company with less financial means had caused the spill, the company would likely have declared bankruptcy long before paying anything close to the damages caused.”

The obvious solution to this problem is to raise or eliminate the liability cap.  It’s a matter of accountability—if you knew you could wreck your rental car and only pay a $75 penalty, I bet you would go a little heavy on the gas pedal.

But BP is trying to make it about an altogether different issue: in a National Journal article yesterday (subscription required) Dudley was quoted as saying “The tough question is: How many companies do you want operating in the Gulf’s deep water? The higher the liability cap gets, the fewer companies that will operate in the Gulf.”

Well yeah, Bob…that’s true, but it’s not like deepwater drilling is exactly a mom-and-pop industry. We’re talking about some of the most expensive equipment in history—according to Michael Kearns of the National Ocean Industries Association, a deepwater rig can cost $600,000 a day to operate.  The little guys simply can’t afford to play the game in the first place.

BP's Dudley: "Don't chase off the little guys!" (photo: BP America)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Congress is taking its sweet time bringing liability legislation up for a vote.  So long, in fact, that new deepwater permits are being issued without a new law in place.  When the bill eventually takes shape, it’s likely to create a two-part system with one cap for deepwater rigs and another, cheaper cap for shallow water rigs.  The idea there is that smaller companies already operate in shallow water and folks don’t want to chase them out of the Gulf.  Also, as we witnessed so painfully last summer, it’s a LOT harder to stop a spill five thousand feet below the ocean surface than it is in shallow water.  We need a bill that forces drillers to make safety, not speed, the priority.

Big Oil is fond of saying they have a good safety record (a slightly absurd claim, according to the numbers) but if that’s true, what do they have to fear about accountability?  The fact is these companies know they were incredibly lucky to avoid a major spill for so long, and they grew accustomed to easy profits while taxpayers carried all the risk.

Oh, and that new deepwater well that’s being drilled?  BP owns half of it.

Tony Hayward testifies on Capitol Hill, June 2010 (via Flickr's EnergyCommerce)

Former BP CEO Tony Hayward is back in the news – and once again, he’s putting critical wildlife habitat at risk.

Hayward was unceremoniously shipped to Siberia by BP last July. He’d had become a symbol of British Petroleum’s remarkable combination of arrogance & incompetence, declaring he wanted the Gulf oil disaster over so he could have his cushy life back, then enjoying a day on a yacht while oil washed ashore in Louisiana & Florida.

Now Tony’s back on his feet – and once again drilling for oil in sensitive wildlife areas:

Vladimir Putin used a Russian proverb to explain why he’s granting BP Plc access to 125,000 square kilometers (48,000 square miles) of Arctic water: the man who’s been beaten is worth two who haven’t.

The Russian prime minister is betting that BP has learned from the trauma of last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill and won’t repeat the same mistake. The Jan. 14 meeting with Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley in a ceremonial room at Putin’s country retreat sealed an agreement to swap BP shares for a holding in OAO Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer.

The summit ended negotiations that started when Dudley’s ill-fated predecessor Tony Hayward visited Russia to seek support as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatened to destroy the London-based company. Talks gained pace after Dudley took the helm at the start of October, and over hundreds of meetings the agreement that puts BP at the centre of Russian oil exploration took shape, people involved in the deal said.

Polar bear in Manitoba, Canada

The deal will allow BP to drill in the South Kara Sea, home to the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, one of the largest nature reserves in the world. The Kara Sea large marine ecosystem (LME) supports a diversity of wildlife:

Bearded seals, walruses, and narwhals breed and rest on the coastal areas of the Kara Sea. The polar bears hunt for seals on the frozen edge of the sea. There is an abundance of fish such as Arctic cod, flatfish, and smelt.

That wildlife is already under attack:

The Kara Sea LME is impacted by a variety of anthropogenic contaminant sources. Oil and gas development and fisheries impacts pose severe threats to the region. Radioactive materials dumped into the Kara Sea LME may be severely impacting the ecosystem, resulting in the deaths of sea stars, shellfish, seals, porpoises and fishes. … The Siberian rivers discharging into the Kara Sea LME encompass industrial and agricultural regions within their watershed. In these industrial regions the air, water and soil are polluted by harmful substances. Obsolete technologies and the lack of facilities for processing industrial waste are major ecological problems.

Obsolete technology? Lack of facilities? Gee, doesn’t sound like they’d have any problems responding to a major oil disaster, does it?

But this story illustrates the shortcomings of America’s own response to the Gulf oil disaster – Congress hasn’t taken any steps to change our energy sources. Even if we tailor our drilling policies to drill in the most responsible manner & only where it can be done safely, if we don’t change our energy policies to curb our addiction to oil, we’re just shifting the risks to wildlife & precious places in other parts of the world.

Please take a moment right now to tell Congress we need to protect the Clean Air Act. It can help us protect polar bears & other wildlife both now & in the future – cutting our need to drill in the short term & reducing our global warming pollution in the long run.