Timeout on Offshore Drilling

The oil industry has sworn that it has virtually eliminated the risks of offshore production, but the blowout in the Gulf vividly shows that these assurances cannot be trusted.

After the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, the nuclear power industry hit on the notion of “safety culture.”

Meaning, that one more spectacularly catastrophic accident broadcast live into America’s living rooms would bury nuclear power’s prospects permanently. Self-preservation dictated fostering a no-nonsense approach to operating a high-risk technology well within demanding margins for error.

In the wake of the spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, the offshore oil industry ought to call in a few nuclear power executives for some helpful hints about tightening up operations. While they’re at it, bring in some oilmen from Norway, which runs offshore oil drilling operations in the stormy North Sea with crisp attention to safety and environmental protection.

The Obama administration’s call for a temporary halt to offshore leasing is a prudent step – as long as the industry and the bureaucrats take a step back, figure out what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon rig, revisit their assumptions, and institute truly protective safeguards to prevent such catastrophic accidents in the future – which is especially important as the industry pushes into ever deeper waters and its concomitant higher risks.

The oil industry has sworn up and down that through technological advances it has virtually eliminated the risks of offshore oil production. Its filings with the federal government promise the ability to handle worst-case scenarios. Slick advertising by the American Petroleum Institute assures Americans daily that they need not worry about threats to commercial fisheries, wildlife, or beach tourism from expanded drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The blowout in the Gulf, along with BP's struggle to contain the resulting spill, vividly show that those oil industry assurances cannot be trusted. Before oil platforms go up off the coast of Florida, Alaska, or Virginia, the oil industry and its regulators will need to demonstrate that they’ve learned the right lessons from the Deepwater Horizon accident.