BP spill takes center stage for busy week of Congressional hearings
Washington (Platts)--14Jun2010/527 pm EDT/2127 GMT
The US Congress will kick off another week of hearings on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Tuesday when executives from five major oil companies take the hot seat to testify on the safety of their drilling and production operations.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hear testimony from the heads of ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Shell Oil. The hearing -- "Drilling Down on America's Energy Future: Safety, Security, and Clean Energy" -- begins at 9:30 am EDT.
The House committee, headed by California Democrat Henry Waxman, will question the executives on their companies' plans to prevent another major spill like the one in the Gulf, and on their investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
On Thursday, four congressional committees will meet on matters related to the spill, the largest offshore spill in US history.
On the Senate side, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on a bill sponsored by chairman Patrick Leahy, Democrat-Vermont, that would increase liability for criminal violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The bill would target incidents like the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which killed 11 workers on April 20 and resulted in the gusher from BP's Macondo well.
Also Thursday, the Senate Small Business Committee will hear testimony on small businesses seeking contracts to help with oil spill cleanup.
In the House on Thursday, the Energy and Commerce Committee will grill BP CEO Tony Hayward on his company's construction of the Macondo well, and whether BP included sufficient safeguards to prevent the blowout and oil spill that occurred.
The Energy and Mineral Resources subpanel of the House Natural Resources Committee will also hold a hearing Thursday on the Minerals Management Services' regulation of offshore drilling operations.
--Jean Chemnick, jean_chemnick@platts.com
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