US DOJ says oil spill 'top enforcement priority' in 2011

Washington (Platts)--13Jan2011/631 pm EST/2331 GMT

Investigating and litigating the Gulf of Mexico spill will be the "top enforcement priority" in 2011 for the US Department of Justice's environment and natural resources division, Ignacia Moreno, an assistant attorney general, said Thursday.

Moreno, whose division oversees prosecution of environmental crimes and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, would not say when or if any criminal charges might be brought against BP, Transocean, Halliburton and six other companies named by the Presidential Oil Spill Commission as having been culpable in the spill.

But she did say that Obama administration lawyers plan to begin interviewing witnesses Tuesday in the civil lawsuit the government has filed against BP and eight other companies, stemming from the April 20 BP Macondo well blowout that destroyed the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig, killed 11 workers and caused the worst marine oil spill in US history.

Lawyers in the DOJ's environmental enforcement division and the US Attorney for Eastern Louisiana's office, have "been going full throttle" investigating the spill and who should be held accountable, Moreno said Thursday in a briefing with reporters.

The Obama administration filed its civil suit against the companies involved in the oil spill in December, a few weeks before the president's spill commission completed its work. Although the spill panel named Halliburton as one of the companies responsible in part for the spill, in connection of its cementing work done on the Macondo well, federal lawyers have not filed any charges against the company.

Moreno would not say whether the company is under any consideration by Justice, only saying that "no inference should be drawn from whether a company was named or not named."

--Tom LoBianco, tom_lobianco@platts.com

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