The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling will allow corporate interests to spend unlimited amounts trying to influence voters, something they’ve... View Article
Continue readingCongress Needs to Respond to MMS Failures
Just as the Administration needs to incorporate transparency into their response to the failures of the Minerals Management Service, Congress... View Article
Continue readingWhere is the Government’s Blowout Preventer?
Just as there is now a new cap being fitted over the leaking oil well is patching a mechanical failure,... View Article
Continue readingWhat Does an Election Cost?
Sunlight feels strongly that Congress needs to respond to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and require disclosure for newly... View Article
Continue readingBarton plans Florida Keys fundraiser; Apologizes to BP
Texas Rep. Joe Barton, who apologized to BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward at a Congressional hearing today for having to create a $20 billion claims fund to help victims of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, is planning to host his “7th Annual Barton Family Fishing Trip & Florida Flats Fishing Tournament” the weekend of Oct. 15-18th on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
The event, which is in the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time database of fundraising invitations, will be held at “the beautiful Cheeca Lodge & Spa” and the requested contribution to attend the ... Continue reading
Oil & Gas Contributions to Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
The Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources is currently holding a hearing into responses to the Gulf oil spill... View Article
Continue readingCoast guard database makes oil spill penalties nearly impossible to track
The U.S. government has investigated potentially thousands of BP leaks, spills and other incidents but the information is stored in a Coast Guard database that keeps key details such as investigative findings and penalties out of the public’s reach.
More than 8,000 incident reports about BP’s U.S. spills, emissions, and leaks of oil and chemicals have been filed with the National Response Center during the past decade. They range from minor clumsiness such as a tipped drum of jet fuel to the deadly April 21 explosion on BP’s Gulf of Mexico rig. The center ...
Center for Public Integrity: Coast Guard logs contradict White House Deepwater timeline
From our colleagues at the Center for Public Integrity:
The Coast Guard grasped the potential threat of a catastrophic spill within hours of the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, estimating that 8,000 barrels a day of crude oil could possibly gush out of the well in the event of a complete blowout, according to Coast Guard logs.Continue reading
The logs, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and shared with The New York Times, provide a detailed account of the early days of the BP disaster and identify events that were omitted from the White House ...
CPI’s Jim Morris talks about BP’s OSHA violations
Our colleague Jim Morris, who runs Data Mine, our joint project with the Center for Public Integrity, talked about his story on BP's pattern of OSHA violations at its refineries on ABC yesterday. Jim appears at 10:10 in the clip; if the player below doesn't work it's available here.
Probably worth noting that Jim had to request the data under the Freedom of Information Act.
BP had no plan for Deepwater Horizon disaster
British Petroleum did not have an emergency response plan for its Deepwater Horizon drill rig; such plans direct personnel to the proper procedures for responding to incidents like the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on May 19, Liz Birnbaum, the former Director of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) who resigned yesterday morning, said the reason that BP did not complete an Oil Spill Response Plan was a reported decrease in the rig’s “worst-case scenario discharge” from 250,000 barrels a day to 160,000.
BP calculated the volume ...
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