<\/p>\n
Sixteen years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over approval of BP’s new massive ultra-deep oil drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n
In March, the administration approved a plan by BP to drill for oil even deeper than the Deepwater Horizon project, resulting in an explosion that killed 11 people, spilled more than 3 million barrels of oil into the ocean, and took 87 days to stop the leak.<\/p>\n
The oil-covered coastline spanned five states and caused severe damage to fish, wildlife such as whales and sea turtles, shoreline ecosystems and fishing communities.<\/p>\n
The British company’s new $5 billion project, known as Kaskida, will be located about 400 miles off the coast of Louisiana and will plunge a drilling rig 6,000 feet into Gulf waters.<\/p>\n
The drill will then be extended deeper into the ocean floor itself, reaching a total depth of about six miles (deeper than the height of Mount Everest). BP expects the drilling will tap around 80,000 barrels of oil per day from six wells, tapping a deposit that could hold a total of 10 billion barrels of oil, once production begins in 2029.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the 16th anniversary of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a coalition of five green groups filed a lawsuit aimed at revoking Trump’s Interior Department’s approval of Kaskida, arguing that drilling poses catastrophic risks to the environment and communities.<\/p>\n
“The Trump administration approved BP’s extremely high-risk ultra-deep-sea drilling project and fired up the entire Gulf region for the Deepwater Horizon sequel,” said Brettney Hardy, senior attorney at Earthjustice, one of the groups.<\/p>\n
“The green light for BP’s project sets a dangerously low bar for oil and gas companies wishing to drill in our nation’s public waters. We expect the Trump administration to challenge Kaskida’s illegal and derogatory approval in court.”<\/p>\n
The complaint alleges that BP has not provided legally required information related to the project and that the company has not been able to demonstrate that it can safely drill at extreme depths that would increase the likelihood of a “loss of well control” incident, as occurred at Deepwater Horizon.<\/p>\n
BP has also failed to demonstrate that it has the containment capabilities to prevent a much larger oil spill of about 4.5 million barrels from spreading across the Gulf Coast, the complaint alleges.<\/p>\n
BP, which is not a defendant, rejects the accusation that Kaskida is dangerous.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration aims to accelerate domestic oil drilling across the United States, including in the Gulf and in controversial new areas such as the California coast and the Arctic, to further strengthen America’s position as the world’s leading producer of oil and gas that, if burned, would cause dangerous overheating of the planet.<\/p>\n
Last month, amid the Iran war, the government granted the oil and gas industry an exemption from endangered species laws in the Gulf. The move could spell doom for rice whales, a Gulf-only species that lost about a fifth of its population after the Deepwater Horizon spill.<\/p>\n “Energy production in the American Gulf protects our nation’s energy independence, prevents our dependence on foreign adversaries, and is essential to our strength,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in announcing the exemption.<\/p>\n \u201cSolid growth in the Gulf region will maintain the resilience of our nation’s economy, stabilize costs for American families, and secure America’s position as a world leader for decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n But green groups, which are also suing to overturn the so-called “God’s Squad” of endangered species rules, said the new BP drilling was “appalling”. Rachel Matthews, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said: <\/strong>The project would “put Rice’s whales, sea turtles, and other Gulf wildlife in dire jeopardy. Ultra-deep-sea drilling is extremely dangerous and completely unsafe.”<\/p>\n BP said since 2010 it has overseen 100 safely drilled deepwater projects and new equipment designed to prevent disastrous spills.<\/p>\n “Deepwater Horizon changed BP forever,” a company spokesperson said. \u201cFrom stricter safety standards to increased oversight, the lessons we’ve learned and the changes we’ve made continue to be at the forefront of who we are and how we operate every day.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson called the lawsuit “baseless,” adding that it “names BP as part of an apparent broader effort to block not only the Kaskida project, but all future offshore oil and gas development in the United States.”<\/p>\n The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n “The department’s review of all permits and plans related to ocean energy projects incorporates the highest level of analysis and scrutiny…The Kaskida platform represents a major step forward, releasing more than 275 million barrels of previously unrecoverable oil in the U.S. Gulf,” the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Climate #change #group #sues #government #approval #project #Gulf #Mexico<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sixteen years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over approval of BP’s new massive ultra-deep oil drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. In March, the administration approved a plan by BP to drill for oil even deeper than the Deepwater … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1818,683,69,492,168,1819,1820,694,1817],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-approval","tag-change","tag-climate","tag-government","tag-group","tag-gulf","tag-mexico","tag-project","tag-sues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}