Four years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded and killed 11 workers, causing more than 200 million gallons of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, the Environmental Protection Agency has lifted a ban that excluded BP from new federal contracts. In a broadcast exclusive, we speak with Elizabeth Birnbaum, who was director of the Minerals Management Service in the Interior Department at the time of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. She was forced out soon after. In her first broadcast interview since her departure, Birnbaum warns the risk of another offshore oil drilling blowout is real. We are also joined by Jaclyn Lopez, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

 

Last week, the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed which ships are to be covered by the future environmental regulations for voyages in polar areas, The Danish Maritime Authority said.

 

The environmental regulations of the Polar Code

 

An international set of regulations on navigation in polar areas, referred to as the Polar Code, is still at the top of the IMO agenda. The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) intensively debated the environmental provisions in the Polar Code. The IMO decided, inter alia, that the environmental chapter of the Code is to apply to the same ships as the individual chapters of the MARPOL Convention. This means that the scope of application of the safety and environmental chapters of the Polar Code is not the same since the safety chapter applies to ships covered by the SOLAS Convention where the scope of application is somewhat narrower.

 

April 18, 2014

Just days before the four-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP announced that it’s ending the “active cleanup” of the Louisiana shoreline.

 

BP appears to be stopping just short of popping champagne in celebration of reaching this “milestone,” which John Mingé, chairman and president of BP America, called ”the result of the extraordinary efforts of thousands of people from BP, local communities, government agencies, and academic institutions working together.”

 

“The large-scale cleanup effort, combined with early restoration projects and natural recovery processes, is helping the Gulf return to its baseline condition,” the company’s press release goes on to say, “which is the condition it would be in if the accident had not occurred.”

 

The U.S. Coast Guard, on the other hand, has a slightly different read on the announcement. “Let me be absolutely clear:  This response is not over — not by a long shot,” Capt. Thomas Sparks, the federal on-scene coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon Response, said in a statement. 

 

 

(Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's plan to focus on cracking down on just the largest polluters will deliver "lasting returns" to the American public, its top enforcement official said on Thursday.

 

Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the EPA's office of enforcement, wrote in a blog post that the agency remained committed to punishing polluters that violate U.S. rules but needed to prioritize because of budgetary and staffing constraints.

 

"Focusing on large, high impact cases requires significant investment and long-term commitment. But this is the right way to invest our resources to achieve tangible and lasting returns to the public," Giles wrote.

 

In a strategic plan for 2014 to 2018 that it released on Thursday, the EPA said it would enforce fewer cases overall compared with recent years.

 

"This approach best protects public health not only by addressing the most serious pollution problems, but also by directing EPA's resources to important cases that may not be addressed by states," the plan said.

 

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