Regulators Let BP Blow Off Wildlife Permits

Endangered species protections simply ignored
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted May 14, 2010 6:59 AM CDT
Updated May 14, 2010 7:52 AM CDT
Regulators Let BP Blow Off Wildlife Permits
An oil soaked bird struggles against the side of the HOS Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.   (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

The Minerals Management Service appears to have blatantly ignored a law requiring new oil drilling operations to get permits from the agency that assesses risk to endangered species. The MMS gave the okay to the Deepwater Horizon rig and dozens of others without getting the permits, the New York Times reports, even though the agency that's supposed to issue them, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, kept protesting and issuing strong warnings about the wells' impact on the Gulf.

The MMS's own biologists and engineers also say they were consistently ignored when they raised safety or environmental concerns, and pressured to change findings predicting an accident or harm to wildlife. An MMS spokesman says the agency consults the NOAA, but wouldn't respond when pressed on specific rigs. “Under the previous administration, there was a pattern of suppressing science in decisions,” she said, “and we are working very hard to change the culture.” (More Gulf oil spill stories.)

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