Disasters

Consulting firms helped the BP and other oil companies draw up flawed drilling plans and environmental assessments -- which the Minerals Management Service, under pressure from Congress, the industry, and the Bush administration, then approved. While the Obama administration is cracking down on oil companies and federal regulators, the consultants who helped make the Gulf catastrophe possible are getting far less scrutiny.

"A lead congressional committee investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has broadened its inquiry, now checking if tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking or even being monitored for leaks."

"Beleaguered BP will find its reputation further tarnished tomorrow when a British criminal court passes sentence on a company it half owns over safety breaches connected with the worst explosion and fire since the second world war."

The BP oil spill's damage to the oyster industry is not just to the oystermen themselves, but to a whole chain of regional businesses that depend on them.

On Thursday two powerful House committees approved separate drilling reform bills, raising the possibility that the House would meld and pass them soon.

"For the first time in the nearly three months since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank off the Louisiana coast, there was no oil leaking from the blown-out Macondo well into the Gulf of Mexico  on Thursday afternoon, BP said."

"Four years after tragedies in Kentucky and West Virginia prompted sweeping mine safety changes, a House panel Tuesday split along party lines over the need for additional reforms."

"Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment."

"BP engineers working to choke the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico found a leak on a line attached to the side of the new well cap and were trying to fix it Thursday before attempting to stop the crude."