Oil companies have 'carbon copy' disaster plans

According to Bloomberg's BusinessWeek, top officials from Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron continue to get an earful in front of the House Energy Committee panel looking into offshore drilling regulations. The latest sticking point the executives face is that despite stated faith in their own disaster contingency plans, their plans appear to be exactly the same as the one BP followed to mitigate its rig disaster and subsequent Macondo blowout. They're identical because the same company devised all of them. What's more, the BP disaster has shown them to be inadequate. "The oil company response plans are great for public relations but these plans are virtually worthless in the event of a spill,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan). “It could be said that BP is the one bad apple in the bunch, but unfortunately, they appear to have plenty of company.” Read much, much more, here. Most surprising to Alaska Beat, the plans being interrogated make references to protecting walruses from crude oil in the event of an uncontrolled release, even for rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. As many of you may know, no walruses live there.