[classicman]

Offshore drilling agency refuses to send witness to Senate oil spill hearing

The federal agency that regulates offshore oil drilling declined to send a witness to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s hearing Monday on the federal response to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said.

The committee had requested the appearance of a top official from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. Lieberman’s panel is probing the adequacy of BP’s federally approved oil drilling and spill response plans.

“I regret that the MMS leadership has chosen not to appear before our committee today because they really need to be asked the same questions I am going to ask Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and BP,” Lieberman said Monday afternoon as the hearing commenced.


The Monday hearing includes Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a top U.S. Coast guard official and BP America President Lamar McKay. Lieberman said that the committee may ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar or an MMS official to appear at a subsequent hearing.

Salazar is testifying Tuesday before two other Senate committees about the catastrophic accident at the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig: Energy and Natural Resources, and Environment and Public Works.

Lieberman opened the hearing with an attack on federal oversight of offshore drilling. He faulted MMS for approving inadequate BP plans.

“Did our government, through MMS, require an oil spill response plan adequate to the widest range of possible dangers, including the failure of a blowout preventer?,” Lieberman said, referring to a failure of device that is supposed to cut off damaged wells. “It sure appears that they did not.”

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