Exxon CEO: As an industry, ‘we are not well equipped’ to handle oil disasters.

By Brad Johnson

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson told Congress we must do everything possible to prevent offshore drilling disasters, because once they occur, there is not any way to stop the damage. By admitting the unavoidable risk of catastrophe, Tillerson exploded the myths — promoted by the oil industry and right-wing supporters — that offshore drilling is “environmentally safe,” and that the industry can handle these disasters when they occur. Tillerson made the shocking admission that the industry is “not well equipped to prevent any and all damage” under questioning from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), the chair of the oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, during a hearing that featured top executives from the five largest private oil companies:

There will be impacts as we are seeing. We have never represented anything different than that. That’s why the emphasis is always on preventing these things from occurring because when they happen we are not well equipped to deal with them. And that’s just a fact of the enormity of what we’re dealing with.

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The only fail-safe way to prevent oil drilling disasters, in fact, is to stop drilling for oil — in other words, “The only winning move is not to play.” This is yet another reason this nation needs an energy policy that puts a cap on oil pollution and ends our toxic addiction.

Transcript (watch the full Stupak-Tillerson exchange on YouTube):

STUPAK: So if you can’t handle 40,000 [barrels of oil a day], how are you going handle 166,000 per day?

TILLERSON: The answer to that is is when these things happen, we are not well equipped to deal with them.

STUPAK: So when these happen, we can’t handle them?

TILLERSON: There will be impacts as we are seeing. We have never represented anything different than that. That’s why the emphasis is always on preventing these things from occurring because when they happen we are not well equipped to deal with them. And that’s just a fact of the enormity of what we’re dealing with.

STUPAK: We call upon the same resources. No matter which one of the oil companies before us had the blow-out, the resources are not enough to prevent what we are seeing day after day on the gulf. Not only the loss of 11 people, but we — we are on day what? 56 or 57 of oil washing on shore. There is no way to stop it until we cap the well? Correct?

TILLERSON: Right.

STUPAK: But it could be Exxon tomorrow or Chevron tomorrow?

TILLERSON: Not if we follow our practices and procedures it won’t be.

STUPAK: But if it does we can’t handle the spill. This worst case scenario is pie in the sky and oil in our waters.

TILLERSON: The MMS and Coast Guard require us to calculate using their methods and that’s why it’s in there. I think that’s all that matters is the point is we have to take every step to prevent these things from happening. When they happen, it is a fact that we are not well equipped to prevent any and all damage. Damage will occur.

STUPAK: We satisfy the application but in reality we can’t respond to a worst case scenario.

TILLERSON: Response is underway. It is having some effect. But there is nothing to guarantee you will not have an impact.

Update In his first Oval Office speech, President Barack Obama noted that "no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk":

One of the lessons we've learned from this spill is that we need better regulations better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling. But a larger lesson is that no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk. . . . The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash American innovation and seize control of our own destiny.

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Merkley: It’d Be Jindal’s ‘Last Term In Office’ If He Were A West Coast Governor Calling For More Drilling Now

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Despite the serious unanswered questions about the safety of offshore drilling the BP spill has highlighted, a number of prominent conservative leaders have doubled down on their calls for an immediate expansion of drilling, even before the investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is complete. One such leader is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). His state has been hit the hardest by the Gulf spill, yet Jindal wrote a letter to President Obama earlier this month “criticizing his decision to implement a temporary moratorium of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico” and calling for more drilling now.

In an interview with ThinkProgress this morning, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said Jindal’s call for more dilling in the wake of the disaster would make this his “last term in office,” if he was a West Coast governor:

TP: So I’m curious about your response is to Republicans, conservatives, such as Governor Jindal whose state is clearly being ravaged by the Deepwater Horizon spill, but is still calling for more drilling tomorrow. [...]

MERKLEY: Well I can tell you, if he were governor on the West Coast, it’d be his last term in office. Becasue the senators all came together on the West Coast unanimously — all six, California, Oregon, and Washington — and said that drilling is not in the best interests of our states. … So we don’t want drilling at 30 miles, we don’t want it at 50 miles, we don’t want it at 100 miles, because that oil may end up both foul our commercial fisheries, our ecosystems, and our coastlines, and it’s not a risk worth taking.

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Merkley and the five other senators representing the West Coast came together last month to propose legislation that would permanently ban new drilling in the Pacific. They want to restore a moratorium on new leases for offshore drilling in federal waters that was in place from 1981 to 2008. The West Coast has experienced the dangers of massive oil spills first hand. In one of the biggest spills in American history, 200,000 gallons of oil gushed from a well off of Santa Barbara, California for 11 days in 1969. This “environmental nightmare” prompted the congressional moratorium that Merkley and the other senators are trying to reinstate.

ThinkProgress spoke with Merkley before an event at the Center for American Progress on the need to reduce our dependence on oil.

BP Worked With FreedomWorks And The Chamber To Build ‘Grassroots’ Support For More Drilling

By Lee Fang BP has long touted itself as a “green” company interested not only in oil and other fossil fuels, but in

renewable energy like wind and solar. But as Rebecca Lefton reported on ThinkProgress last week, BP barely invests anything in clean energy — most of its green campaign is actually just a massive advertising gimmick to conceal the truth about the company.

While BP has spent hundreds of millions building its brand, it has offshored the dirty work of promoting expanded drilling to right-wing front groups and trade associations. In a 2007 PowerPoint presentation obtained by ThinkProgress, BP appears to have been interested in fighting to open up protected waters to new offshore drilling. The presentation, organized by the BP-funded front group “Consumer Energy Alliance,” was delivered at the American Gas Association’s marketing meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The presentation calls for a five-year plan to build grassroots support to open wide swaths of both the East and West coasts to new drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf:

– Slide 5 depicts a map of “undiscovered technically recoverable resources on Federal OCS” along the East coast, from Maine to Florida, and on the West coast, from Washington to California.

– Slide 7 notes that expanding OCS access “provides univeral benefits to all sectors.” The page pitches the campaign to aid both the oil and natural gas industry.

– Slide 9 lists the 5 year plan “strategic priorities,” including “military/veterans groups,” “energy consumers,” “editorial boards/letters to the editor,” and “academia & think tanks.”

– Slide 14 lists the groups involved in doing grassroots outreach. Under “affiliated groups,” FreedomWorks — a right-wing “grassroots” group that helped plan the tea parties and continues to lobby aggressively against clean energy reform — is listed along with the 60 Plus Association, the American Conservative Union, and others. U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute are some of the trade associations involved. Slide 14 also shows that BP is one of the member companies supporting the campaign.

Trade associations openly represent the needs of industry, so many industry groups like API have delicately tried to defend offshore drilling, but without explicitly defending the actions of BP. However, FreedomWorks portrays itself as simply a citizen-based group. In reality, FreedomWorks has a long history of orchestrating public support for its corporate and lobbyist backers.

Gov. Bob McDonnell travels to BP-funded conference to push for more oil drilling.

By Alex Seitz-Wald As crews take action to stop the massive flow of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, “Virginia leaders are reconsidering their support for drilling off the state’s coast.” Both of Virginia’s senators, who support drilling, said they agree with President Obama’s decision to halt all new offshore drilling until a full investigation is completed about the BP disaster. Rep. James Moran (D-VA) wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, “urging him to reconsider allowing offshore drilling.” The mayor of Virginia Beach, the state’s largest city, who has also supported drilling, said the BP spill “gives me great concern.” Meanwhile, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) “continues to lobby aggressively to drill for oil and natural gas without delay”:

McDonnell (R), who has made drilling off Virginia’s coast one of his administration’s top priorities, flew to Houston on Monday to tout the benefits of offshore drilling at an industry-sponsored conference. He told reporters before he left that he does not want to postpone drilling but to learn from the accident off Louisiana’s coast.

“What we do as Americans is we find out what went wrong and how can we do things better,” McDonnell said. “I think that’s the spirit of the American people.” [...]

McDonnell said he wants to see a full investigation into the Louisiana accident, but he still thinks that drilling could begin off Virginia’s coast as soon as next year or early 2012.

McDonnell was speaking at the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference, which “was sponsored by a variety of companies and associations, including BP.” McDonnell joins a number of other Republicans and conservatives who have crassly used the Gulf spill to call for more drilling. Despite the massive devastation his state is likely to endure in coming days, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) exploited the disaster to call for new offshore drilling subsidies for Louisiana.