Waxman: BP decisions appeared to increase danger of well failure

Two senior House Democrats have told BP chief Tony Hayward that a congressional inquiry into the Gulf oil spill has found that BP “appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure.”

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) wrote to Hayward on Sunday in advance of his scheduled testimony on Thursday before a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

{mosads}“The committee’s investigation is raising serious questions about the decisions made by BP in the days and hours before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon,” the lawmakers wrote.

They cite company documents obtained during their investigation, including an e–mail from a BP engineer that refers to the doomed Macondo well as “a nightmare well” five days before the explosion that killed 11 workers and set off a massive oil leak that is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico nearly two months later.

“In spite of the well’s difficulties,” Waxman and Stupak write, “BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure. In several instances, these decisions appear to violate industry guidelines and were made despite warnings from BP’s own personnel and its contractors. In effect, it appears that BP repeatedly chose risky procedures in order to reduce costs and save time and made minimal efforts to contain the added risk.”

The letter indicates that the congressional inquiry has only confirmed suspicions about BP’s actions that lawmakers have been expressing for weeks. They have accused the oil giant of cutting corners and favoring profit over safety in constructing its deepwater wells. And the letter sets up what is likely to be a contentious week of hearings for BP executives on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers vent weeks of public outrage over the crisis.

Waxman is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, while Stupak heads the panel’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), said on MSNBC Monday that lawmakers believe BP’s investments in the Gulf “drove the decisions, rather than safety consideration, which should have been paramount.”

“The warnings [about the well] didn’t occur just on the day of the accident. They were occurring in the days and weeks before the accident,” Markey said.

Ben Geman contributed to this report.