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Deep Water: A Special Report by National Oil Spill Commission Co-Chair Bob Graham
January 27, 2011
The co-chair of the presidential commission investigating the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico presented the commission’s exclusive findings Jan. 27 at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.
Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and Florida governor, headed the six-month investigation with William Reilly, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush. The discussion’s moderator–Lynn Scarlett, a leading environmental analyst–is a former deputy secretary and chief operating officer at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She currently serves as a Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C.
The presidential commission examined the causes and circumstances behind the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig explosion, which killed 11 workers before releasing an estimated 205 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. President Barack Obama charged the commission with developing options to guard against any oil spills associated with offshore drilling in the future. Their work also included recommending improvements to federal laws, regulations and industry practices.
The oil spill “was not the product of some cosmic force. It was caused by human beings who made a series of bad decisions which were unnecessary,” said Graham, who was considered one of Florida’s most environmentally astute governors, in a recent interview. He pointed out that deepwater drilling below 1,000 feet, which the Deepwater Horizon was involved in, is only a recent phenomenon. In 1990, there was virtually no deepwater drilling in U.S. waters. Today, roughly 70 percent of all offshore drilling in U.S. waters is below 1,000 feet.
“There’s been enormous technological advances in drilling in such difficult areas,” said Graham, offering a peek into some of the commission’s findings. “What didn’t happen was a commensurate improvement in safety and our ability to respond to an accident and we paid the price for that.”