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Dems warned
us on BP Safety
Waxman and Stupak saw 'cost-cutting'
Excerpt:
In the months before BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig
sank in a ball of fire in the Gulf of Mexico, BP had four close calls
on pipelines and facilities it operates in Alaska,
according to a letter from two congressmen obtained by ProPublica.
In that letter, dated Jan. 14, 2010, Reps. Henry
Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich.
noted that the company’s efforts to cut costs
could imperil safety at BP facilities.
Between September 2008 and November 2009, three
BP gas and oil pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope ruptured
or clogged, leading to a risk of explosions,
the letter said. A potentially cataclysmic explosion was also avoided at
a BP gas compressor plant, where a key piece
of equipment designed to prevent the buildup of gas failed to operate,
and the backup equipment intended to warn workers
was not properly installed.
The letter was addressed to BP's president of
Alaskan operations, John Mingé. The congressmen have been investigating
BP's safety and operations since 2006, when a
4,800-barrel oil spill temporarily shut down the Prudhoe Bay drilling field
pipeline.
So, Waxman and Stupak wrote a letter?
Seems like, with the Gulf at stake, and maybe
the East Coast,
they could've done more than write some damn
letter.