It’s Responsible for One of the Worst Oil Disasters Ever. It’s Counting On Trump to Let It Do It Again.

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In April 2010, a state-of-the-art offshore oil rig operated by BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The blast killed 11 and ignited a fireball so large it could be seen from 40 miles away. For nearly three months, Americans watched as BP (formerly British Petroleum) tried desperately to cap the Macondo well 5,000 feet below the surface. More than 134 million gallons of oil blackened the Gulf from Florida to Texas.

The Deepwater Horizon spill remains one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. More than 15 years later, coastal communities in the Gulf are still recovering from the devastation of their economies and ecosystems. But the passage of time naturally dulls the horror for people farther away.

BP and the Trump administration appear to be counting on that. As the world fixates on Venezuela’s oil reserves, industry and regulators are quietly paving the way for reckless projects much closer to U.S. shores.

Indeed, the company responsible for Deepwater Horizon is trying to open its next chapter in the Gulf: a massive new hub for offshore drilling that could give it access to 10 billion barrels of crude oil. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is currently reviewing BP’s proposal for Kaskida, among the first of several planned ultra-deep-water oil projects. Although BOEM sent back BP’s initial proposal in August, the company has since resubmitted what the agency has characterized as minor modifications. BOEM now has until March to issue its decision.

The proposal itself is riddled with red flags, demonstrating that BP has not learned from the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It utterly fails to prove that the project could operate safely under the high temperatures and pressures of ultra-deep-water drilling. Instead, it seems the London-based company is hoping that Donald Trump’s obsession with fossil fuels will push it over the finish line.

I helped document the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster as the lead investigator for the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill commission. President Barack Obama convened our bipartisan group of science, policy, and industry experts a month after the Macondo blowout began—and a good two months before the industry was able to cap it. As millions of gallons of oil were pumping daily into waters owned by the American public, the president gave us a simple but important job: Figure out what happened so that the oil industry, the federal government, and Gulf communities could ensure it........

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