webhead
06-15-2010, 11:30 PM
'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Monday, June 141th, 2010
Read the transcript to the Monday show
updated 8:39 a.m. CT, Tues., June 15, 2010
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Good evening, Keith. Thank you.
And thanks to you at home for staying with us on this busy, busy news day.
We begin tonight with an announcement from the president of the United States. Not this one. I mean the last one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: [For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production. Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal. One of the most important steps we can take to expand American oil production is to increase access to offshore exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf or what's called the OCS. Today, I issued a memorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration on the OCS.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was President George W. Bush in July 2008 lifting the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. It was a presidential ban that had been first put in place by President Bush's dad in 1990 after the big Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
Here is why Bush II said he was lifting the drilling ban of Bush I.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Many advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: See, the technology is so safe now there's no need to worry about oil spills anymore.
Now, as I mentioned President George W. Bush here was rescinding the presidential drilling ban that his father put in place after the Exxon Valdez disaster. He was sort of trying to box Congress into repealing the Congress' drilling ban as well. Congress' ban was even older than the presidential ban. Congress' ban had been put in place starting in the early 1980s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress. Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: But why had Congress done that? Why had Congress restricted offshore drilling since the early 1980s? Ah, because of this-the Ixtoc oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. It blew up in 1979. They did not cap it until well into 1980. It released an estimated 140 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
And trying to figure out what to do about that, Congress decided to put a moratorium on drilling in hundreds of thousands of acres of federal waters. Sorry, no more drilling. Did you see what just happened, people?
After a huge spill like that, you can see how politicians at the time maybe might want to stop and reassess things for a while. After the big Ixtoc disaster, that's what Congress did. After the big Exxon Valdez disaster, that's what the first President Bush did. And after the most recent BP oil disaster in the Gulf, that's what President Obama has done-implementing a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling.
Moratoriums on drilling are what we have done in the past to respond to big oil disaster. The idea, presumably, is that we're going to make drilling safer before we allow it to expand again. And even though President Bush touted that supposed improved safety back in 2008 when he was lifting the presidential moratorium, we know longer have to take anyone sober assurances about things like that. That issue has now been factually, conclusively settled.
The oil industry in 2010 is proving, conclusively, day after every single freaking day that what they do is really not safe. That they are routinely drilling at depths where they have no idea how to respond if anything goes wrong. They admitted now in word and in deed every single day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
REPORTER: Tomorrow, BP plans to send down the containment dome to cover one of the two remaining leaks. But this has never been tried before at 5,000 feet under the sea.
REPORTER: Rice University Professor Satish Nagarajaiah says this has never been tried in water so deep.
JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: I hope it works.
It has not been used at that depth before.
REPORTER: These vessels started the long-awaited top kill procedure this afternoon, a maneuver never tried before a mile beneath the sea.
MEREDITH VIEIRA, NBC NEWS: They never attempted to put cement down at
this depth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something never done at that depth before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got the junk shot method and we've also got another method to pull a valve on top of the existing system or a new blow-out preventer.
VIEIRA: You've never attempted any of these at this depth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, Meredith. That's right.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: That's right. All-all of the techniques, the ones that sound good, the one that sounds dumb, the one that sounds made-up, all of them-all of them that have been tried so far to stop the BP oil disaster, all of them have never been tried before at this depth.
Doesn't that make you wonder how many other American wells are out there right now where if something went wrong they couldn't fix it? Doesn't it kind of seem like a wake-up call that the safety technology has to get way better before it can ever again be considered safe to drill that deep?
Not if you're an oil company. Here's Shell Oil in a posting on their Web site more than a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, celebrating the world's deepest offshore oil platform located 200 miles off the Texas coast. Whoo-hoo, top that!
The oil industry has already proven it doesn't know how to deal with a spill at 5,000 feet, but here is Shell Oil bragging about their new well which is moored in 8,000 feet of water.
Hey, Ayn Rand fans, hey, libertarians, if you were counting on the industry to police itself in the wake of the BP disaster? This is what that looks like.
This BP oil disaster may have spooked all of us watching it at home, but it clearly has not spooked the industry. And it apparently has not spooked politicians who love the industry, either.
Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi who met with President Obama as he toured the Gulf today pledged to deliver the message that Gulf Coast citizens want more deep-water drilling. There's no reason for it to stop, he says. There's no reason for this totally unnecessary moratorium.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. HALEY BARBOUR ®, MISSISSIPPI: We need to get to the bottom of it and find out what happened, make sure it doesn't happen again. But I think it is very reasonable to continue to drill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Don't you love this "We need to get to the bottom of this" thing? We need to find out what happened.
Here's a hint, Governor: the well blew out 5,000 feet below sea level so they can't fix it. Oil companies don't know how to fix it when something goes wrong in really deep water it turns out, which is my maybe - - why they should have to figure that stuff out before they keep drilling in really deep water. Really need a study for this? This idea is really that mystifying to you?
Joining us now is Bob Cavnar. He is a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. He most recently headed up Milagro Exploration, a privately held firm with operations along the Gulf Coast.
Mr. Cavnar, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
BOB CAVNAR, OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY EXPERT: Good evening, Rachel.
MADDOW: I know you started in the oil and gas industry in the mid-'70s. Can you tell us what substantial advancements have been made in cleanup and oil spill response technology since then, if there have been any?
CAVNAR: You know, Rachel, the amazing thing is, in the last 30-plus years that I've been in this business, we've had huge leaps in technology in terms of being able to drill deeper and farther and in deeper water. But there's been almost no growth or no money spent in safety systems and recovery from large oil spills. We're basically doing the same thing we were doing 30 years ago.
MADDOW: Is there concern within the industry about that, or is this just raw incentives that the incentives aren't there in terms of regulatory structure and legal liability to push the industry in that direction?
CAVNAR: You know, the problem with the oil and gas industry is, it often gets on the wrong side of a lot of really important issues. And regulation oversight and cleanup of large spills like this don't really make the top 10. And that's a lot of the problem we have in this industry where we don't focus on those issues that affect everyone besides just the industry.
MADDOW: One of the things that we've learned about over the past couple of months, as we've all learned to read these permit applications and these filings with the government, is that the oil industry predicted that the chances of a blowout like what happened at the Deepwater Horizon, they predicted that the chances of a blowout there were essentially zero.
One of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you tonight is I wanted to ask you if, just from your insight from inside the industry, did they actually believe that a chance of a blowout is zero? Or are they conscious that that's just what they have to say in order to get a permit?
CAVNAR: This is part of the complacent see that I've talked over the last couple months or so that the industry has experienced. The industry actually has thought that a chance of a blowout like this was zero or close to zero, or that they had the technology to stop it if it did happen.
The problem with drilling in deep water like this, it's sort of like driving a car from the back seat. You can reach the steering wheel, but you're not good at getting it to go to where you want it to go. And that's a lot of the problem in the deep water.
MADDOW: Do you think, just from your professional experience, that there is a way to safely drill in deep water? One of the things that us people, us laymen, us people who don't know the industry all that well, have been thinking about is the idea of this relief well. If that's really the only sure way to shut down an out-of-control well, should there be a relief well drilled with every production well, for example?
CAVNAR: Right. You know, we were talking-I've been talking a lot about the relief well with other people to the concept of drilling two wells at the same time. The problem there is that you have just as many safety issues with the relief well as you do with the primary well. The real issue here is making sure that the well is controlled at the seafloor with the blowout preventer, and I've got to tell you, right now, I have no confidence that what we have now is sufficient to continue drilling.
I support this moratorium. In fact, I'm not sure it's long enough to really do the redesign that needs to happen.
MADDOW: Over the course of the moratorium, which, again, you say you support, is there any way to make the industry innovate I guess, to make the industry concentrate on the safety field and develop in that regard, or should we expect them just wait out the moratorium and expect political pressure from governors, like Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal, to end the moratorium and put them back where they started, without having to spend any money on safety?
CAVNAR: Of course. I would call for the industry to step up and take those steps without government intervention. But I just don't think that's going to happen. I think it's going to require a fairly strict regulatory regime to get the industry to redesign seafloor control before we go back to drilling in the deep water.
MADDOW: Bob Cavnar, a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry-thank you very much for helping us to understand this tonight. Sir, I really appreciate.
CAVNAR: Happy to be here, Rachel.
MADDOW: So, you know how I've been ranting and raving for the last couple of weeks about what I just talked to Mr. Cavnar about, about how the oil industry didn't bother developing any technology to deal with oil spills, they put all their R&D into drilling deeper and none into how to clean up when drilling goes wrong? Well, get this-NBC's Tom Costello asked BP a direct question about that. And their answer? Duh.
First of all, they admitted-they admit they haven't done anything on safety, but their explanation for why they haven't done anything on safety will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. And if you do not have hair on the back of your neck, it will make you grow some like Wolverine. That's next.
MADDOW: Tom Costello from NBC News got a one-on-one interview with Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer of BP, on board a BP helicopter. And Tom asked a bunch of what I have been dying to ask BP.
Among his great pointy questions was one about the mythical Caribbean walrus and its role in BP's oil spill response plan. To refresh your memory, the regional oil response plan filed by BP, the one specific to the Gulf of Mexico, listed walruses, that only live in very, very cold water, they listed walruses among the species of wildlife you'd have on worry about in the event of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
And that gave away the fact that the company had obviously not even bothered to make a Gulf of Mexico-specific spill response plan. They just cut and pasted whatever they done from some place cold, some place with walruses, and then called it the Gulf of Mexico oil response plan.
My new hero, Tom Costello, asked Doug Suttles from BP about the walruses in the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plan, and here is the incredible response that he got:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM COSTELLO, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The spill plan that BP had that
has been reported widely, was talking about protecting walruses and sea otters and a main point of contact is somebody who had died five years before the plan was ever created. Did BP really take this seriously?
DOUG SUTTLES, BP COO: Well, I think you have to go in and look at that plan in detail. The document that refers to things like walruses and seals actually refers to species that can be heavily impacted by a spill and all species, not ones unique to the Gulf.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Really? That's funny because, again, I can't really stress this enough, but the plan in which walruses appear on a list of possibly affected species is called the BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico. So, oh, we meant to do that. We were talking about all species everywhere, plus unicorns.
That's not really an answer. At least it's not even a remotely believable answer. But that's not the worst or most embarrassing answer that Doug Suttles gave on that helicopter ride with Tom Costello. Tom Costello also asked Mr. Suttles from BP about the oil industry truth with which I have become obsessed since this disaster started you might have noticed. Tom Costello asked why the drilling technology has come so far so fast while the cleanup after a spill technology is the same as it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
And while I'm not exactly sure what I expected BP to say when somebody finally asked them this question, I definitely did not expect the answer you're about to hear from Doug Suttles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: You know, I think a lot of Americans are surprised that here we are dealing with the biggest oil disaster in U.S. history, and yet we're relying on technology to clean it up that is 30, 40, 50 years old. Has the technology to clean up a spill just simply not advanced? And if not, why not?
SUTTLES: Well, Tom, I'm not the best expert on the technology. But I think events like this typically advance the technology by leaps and bounds.
COSTELLO: We're still relying on booms, still relying on skippers, still relying on shovels 40 years after the Ixtoc spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why don't you have giant vacuums sucking tubes? Why don't you the most high-tech 21st century response to this?
SUTTLES: Tom, I think that probably part of the reason is, is there'd been so few big spills. The events haven't driven the technology change that's out there. I think this event properly will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Hold on a second. The cleanup technology hasn't been developed because there haven't been enough oil spills. If only there had been some oil spilled somewhere in the last 40, 50 years, the oil industry would have been forced to come up with a better way to clean it up. And the way they cleaned up, say, Santa Barbara in 1969, which is the same way we're trying to deal with this one 41 years later. If only-if only there had been some oil spills, that would have fixed this problem.
Mr. Suttles, can we talk? I know-I know this is going to be uncomfortable, so I will make you a deal. I'm not even going to talk about Ixtoc, even though Ixtoc was a huge environmental disaster on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, eerily similar to the current disaster except that happened more than 30 years ago in less than 200 feet of water, no reason that offshore oil disaster should be forced-it should have forced the industry to come up with better cleanup technology. We will just set Ixtoc aside. We won't talk about any spills from, say, the 1980s or 1990s.
Let's just talk about oil spills from the last decade in one country on earth. Let's just pick the United States. For example, in 2003 a large barge hit some rocks near Westport, Massachusetts. Massachusetts-let's see, ahem, dumped almost 100,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay. Several oil spills in Louisiana during Hurricane Ivan in the year 2004. It's going to get crowded down there in Louisiana, I'll warn you.
Also in 2004, the Athos I tanker dumped more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the Delaware River in New Jersey. That same year, the ship wreck -- remember the ship wreck turned oil spill off the coast of Alaska island, which, of course, because it's called on Alaska, it's here in Alaska.
In 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, there were oil spills all over the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, in Venice, in West Potash, in Naim (ph), in Chalmette, in Port Fourchon, in Point a la Hache, in Pilottown. According to Coast Guard estimates, it's more than 7 million gallons of oil from a variety sources that were spilled during Hurricane Katrina.
There was the devastating Prudhoe Bay oil spill in Alaska in 2006. The amazing thing about that one is that it wasn't even discovered until five days after the spill started up there. That didn't go well.
Oil spill at the Citgo refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that same year. They blamed heavy rain-heavy rain was found to have caused the 3 million gallon oil spill down there.
In 2007, a cargo ship hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and dumped oil into the bay. Remember that one? Oh, yes. We're not leaving you out, west coast.
Then there was another oil spill in Louisiana in 2008, when a tanker ran into a barge that messed up a John McCain photo-op, a "drill, baby, drill" photo-op. That was really awkward.
This year in January, there was a collision at that caused a spill in Port Arthur, Texas. That spill, of course, was followed by the explosion and the ensuing disaster in the Gulf.
Oh, and since then-oh, there's more. Just this weekend crude oil pipeline burst in Salt Lake City.
So, again, though, it's only because there haven't been any spills that the oil industry hasn't bothered to come up with new cleanup technology. If only there had been some spills, say, in the last 40 years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUTTLES: I think that probably part of the reason is, there have been so few big spills.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: See, now, though, they're paying attention to this spill. This time, it's going to be different. This spill will surely be enough to get the oil industry to update their clean up technology for the first time since the 1960s. It's only because they didn't notice those spills.
This time-this time, it will be different. I'm sure they'll steep up right up and take care of it. I'm sure they will.
[Only registered and activated users can see links]
Read the transcript to the Monday show
updated 8:39 a.m. CT, Tues., June 15, 2010
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Good evening, Keith. Thank you.
And thanks to you at home for staying with us on this busy, busy news day.
We begin tonight with an announcement from the president of the United States. Not this one. I mean the last one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: [For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production. Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal. One of the most important steps we can take to expand American oil production is to increase access to offshore exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf or what's called the OCS. Today, I issued a memorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration on the OCS.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was President George W. Bush in July 2008 lifting the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. It was a presidential ban that had been first put in place by President Bush's dad in 1990 after the big Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
Here is why Bush II said he was lifting the drilling ban of Bush I.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Many advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: See, the technology is so safe now there's no need to worry about oil spills anymore.
Now, as I mentioned President George W. Bush here was rescinding the presidential drilling ban that his father put in place after the Exxon Valdez disaster. He was sort of trying to box Congress into repealing the Congress' drilling ban as well. Congress' ban was even older than the presidential ban. Congress' ban had been put in place starting in the early 1980s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress. Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: But why had Congress done that? Why had Congress restricted offshore drilling since the early 1980s? Ah, because of this-the Ixtoc oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. It blew up in 1979. They did not cap it until well into 1980. It released an estimated 140 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
And trying to figure out what to do about that, Congress decided to put a moratorium on drilling in hundreds of thousands of acres of federal waters. Sorry, no more drilling. Did you see what just happened, people?
After a huge spill like that, you can see how politicians at the time maybe might want to stop and reassess things for a while. After the big Ixtoc disaster, that's what Congress did. After the big Exxon Valdez disaster, that's what the first President Bush did. And after the most recent BP oil disaster in the Gulf, that's what President Obama has done-implementing a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling.
Moratoriums on drilling are what we have done in the past to respond to big oil disaster. The idea, presumably, is that we're going to make drilling safer before we allow it to expand again. And even though President Bush touted that supposed improved safety back in 2008 when he was lifting the presidential moratorium, we know longer have to take anyone sober assurances about things like that. That issue has now been factually, conclusively settled.
The oil industry in 2010 is proving, conclusively, day after every single freaking day that what they do is really not safe. That they are routinely drilling at depths where they have no idea how to respond if anything goes wrong. They admitted now in word and in deed every single day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
REPORTER: Tomorrow, BP plans to send down the containment dome to cover one of the two remaining leaks. But this has never been tried before at 5,000 feet under the sea.
REPORTER: Rice University Professor Satish Nagarajaiah says this has never been tried in water so deep.
JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: I hope it works.
It has not been used at that depth before.
REPORTER: These vessels started the long-awaited top kill procedure this afternoon, a maneuver never tried before a mile beneath the sea.
MEREDITH VIEIRA, NBC NEWS: They never attempted to put cement down at
this depth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something never done at that depth before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got the junk shot method and we've also got another method to pull a valve on top of the existing system or a new blow-out preventer.
VIEIRA: You've never attempted any of these at this depth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, Meredith. That's right.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: That's right. All-all of the techniques, the ones that sound good, the one that sounds dumb, the one that sounds made-up, all of them-all of them that have been tried so far to stop the BP oil disaster, all of them have never been tried before at this depth.
Doesn't that make you wonder how many other American wells are out there right now where if something went wrong they couldn't fix it? Doesn't it kind of seem like a wake-up call that the safety technology has to get way better before it can ever again be considered safe to drill that deep?
Not if you're an oil company. Here's Shell Oil in a posting on their Web site more than a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, celebrating the world's deepest offshore oil platform located 200 miles off the Texas coast. Whoo-hoo, top that!
The oil industry has already proven it doesn't know how to deal with a spill at 5,000 feet, but here is Shell Oil bragging about their new well which is moored in 8,000 feet of water.
Hey, Ayn Rand fans, hey, libertarians, if you were counting on the industry to police itself in the wake of the BP disaster? This is what that looks like.
This BP oil disaster may have spooked all of us watching it at home, but it clearly has not spooked the industry. And it apparently has not spooked politicians who love the industry, either.
Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi who met with President Obama as he toured the Gulf today pledged to deliver the message that Gulf Coast citizens want more deep-water drilling. There's no reason for it to stop, he says. There's no reason for this totally unnecessary moratorium.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. HALEY BARBOUR ®, MISSISSIPPI: We need to get to the bottom of it and find out what happened, make sure it doesn't happen again. But I think it is very reasonable to continue to drill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Don't you love this "We need to get to the bottom of this" thing? We need to find out what happened.
Here's a hint, Governor: the well blew out 5,000 feet below sea level so they can't fix it. Oil companies don't know how to fix it when something goes wrong in really deep water it turns out, which is my maybe - - why they should have to figure that stuff out before they keep drilling in really deep water. Really need a study for this? This idea is really that mystifying to you?
Joining us now is Bob Cavnar. He is a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. He most recently headed up Milagro Exploration, a privately held firm with operations along the Gulf Coast.
Mr. Cavnar, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
BOB CAVNAR, OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY EXPERT: Good evening, Rachel.
MADDOW: I know you started in the oil and gas industry in the mid-'70s. Can you tell us what substantial advancements have been made in cleanup and oil spill response technology since then, if there have been any?
CAVNAR: You know, Rachel, the amazing thing is, in the last 30-plus years that I've been in this business, we've had huge leaps in technology in terms of being able to drill deeper and farther and in deeper water. But there's been almost no growth or no money spent in safety systems and recovery from large oil spills. We're basically doing the same thing we were doing 30 years ago.
MADDOW: Is there concern within the industry about that, or is this just raw incentives that the incentives aren't there in terms of regulatory structure and legal liability to push the industry in that direction?
CAVNAR: You know, the problem with the oil and gas industry is, it often gets on the wrong side of a lot of really important issues. And regulation oversight and cleanup of large spills like this don't really make the top 10. And that's a lot of the problem we have in this industry where we don't focus on those issues that affect everyone besides just the industry.
MADDOW: One of the things that we've learned about over the past couple of months, as we've all learned to read these permit applications and these filings with the government, is that the oil industry predicted that the chances of a blowout like what happened at the Deepwater Horizon, they predicted that the chances of a blowout there were essentially zero.
One of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you tonight is I wanted to ask you if, just from your insight from inside the industry, did they actually believe that a chance of a blowout is zero? Or are they conscious that that's just what they have to say in order to get a permit?
CAVNAR: This is part of the complacent see that I've talked over the last couple months or so that the industry has experienced. The industry actually has thought that a chance of a blowout like this was zero or close to zero, or that they had the technology to stop it if it did happen.
The problem with drilling in deep water like this, it's sort of like driving a car from the back seat. You can reach the steering wheel, but you're not good at getting it to go to where you want it to go. And that's a lot of the problem in the deep water.
MADDOW: Do you think, just from your professional experience, that there is a way to safely drill in deep water? One of the things that us people, us laymen, us people who don't know the industry all that well, have been thinking about is the idea of this relief well. If that's really the only sure way to shut down an out-of-control well, should there be a relief well drilled with every production well, for example?
CAVNAR: Right. You know, we were talking-I've been talking a lot about the relief well with other people to the concept of drilling two wells at the same time. The problem there is that you have just as many safety issues with the relief well as you do with the primary well. The real issue here is making sure that the well is controlled at the seafloor with the blowout preventer, and I've got to tell you, right now, I have no confidence that what we have now is sufficient to continue drilling.
I support this moratorium. In fact, I'm not sure it's long enough to really do the redesign that needs to happen.
MADDOW: Over the course of the moratorium, which, again, you say you support, is there any way to make the industry innovate I guess, to make the industry concentrate on the safety field and develop in that regard, or should we expect them just wait out the moratorium and expect political pressure from governors, like Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal, to end the moratorium and put them back where they started, without having to spend any money on safety?
CAVNAR: Of course. I would call for the industry to step up and take those steps without government intervention. But I just don't think that's going to happen. I think it's going to require a fairly strict regulatory regime to get the industry to redesign seafloor control before we go back to drilling in the deep water.
MADDOW: Bob Cavnar, a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry-thank you very much for helping us to understand this tonight. Sir, I really appreciate.
CAVNAR: Happy to be here, Rachel.
MADDOW: So, you know how I've been ranting and raving for the last couple of weeks about what I just talked to Mr. Cavnar about, about how the oil industry didn't bother developing any technology to deal with oil spills, they put all their R&D into drilling deeper and none into how to clean up when drilling goes wrong? Well, get this-NBC's Tom Costello asked BP a direct question about that. And their answer? Duh.
First of all, they admitted-they admit they haven't done anything on safety, but their explanation for why they haven't done anything on safety will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. And if you do not have hair on the back of your neck, it will make you grow some like Wolverine. That's next.
MADDOW: Tom Costello from NBC News got a one-on-one interview with Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer of BP, on board a BP helicopter. And Tom asked a bunch of what I have been dying to ask BP.
Among his great pointy questions was one about the mythical Caribbean walrus and its role in BP's oil spill response plan. To refresh your memory, the regional oil response plan filed by BP, the one specific to the Gulf of Mexico, listed walruses, that only live in very, very cold water, they listed walruses among the species of wildlife you'd have on worry about in the event of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
And that gave away the fact that the company had obviously not even bothered to make a Gulf of Mexico-specific spill response plan. They just cut and pasted whatever they done from some place cold, some place with walruses, and then called it the Gulf of Mexico oil response plan.
My new hero, Tom Costello, asked Doug Suttles from BP about the walruses in the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plan, and here is the incredible response that he got:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM COSTELLO, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The spill plan that BP had that
has been reported widely, was talking about protecting walruses and sea otters and a main point of contact is somebody who had died five years before the plan was ever created. Did BP really take this seriously?
DOUG SUTTLES, BP COO: Well, I think you have to go in and look at that plan in detail. The document that refers to things like walruses and seals actually refers to species that can be heavily impacted by a spill and all species, not ones unique to the Gulf.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Really? That's funny because, again, I can't really stress this enough, but the plan in which walruses appear on a list of possibly affected species is called the BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico. So, oh, we meant to do that. We were talking about all species everywhere, plus unicorns.
That's not really an answer. At least it's not even a remotely believable answer. But that's not the worst or most embarrassing answer that Doug Suttles gave on that helicopter ride with Tom Costello. Tom Costello also asked Mr. Suttles from BP about the oil industry truth with which I have become obsessed since this disaster started you might have noticed. Tom Costello asked why the drilling technology has come so far so fast while the cleanup after a spill technology is the same as it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
And while I'm not exactly sure what I expected BP to say when somebody finally asked them this question, I definitely did not expect the answer you're about to hear from Doug Suttles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: You know, I think a lot of Americans are surprised that here we are dealing with the biggest oil disaster in U.S. history, and yet we're relying on technology to clean it up that is 30, 40, 50 years old. Has the technology to clean up a spill just simply not advanced? And if not, why not?
SUTTLES: Well, Tom, I'm not the best expert on the technology. But I think events like this typically advance the technology by leaps and bounds.
COSTELLO: We're still relying on booms, still relying on skippers, still relying on shovels 40 years after the Ixtoc spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why don't you have giant vacuums sucking tubes? Why don't you the most high-tech 21st century response to this?
SUTTLES: Tom, I think that probably part of the reason is, is there'd been so few big spills. The events haven't driven the technology change that's out there. I think this event properly will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Hold on a second. The cleanup technology hasn't been developed because there haven't been enough oil spills. If only there had been some oil spilled somewhere in the last 40, 50 years, the oil industry would have been forced to come up with a better way to clean it up. And the way they cleaned up, say, Santa Barbara in 1969, which is the same way we're trying to deal with this one 41 years later. If only-if only there had been some oil spills, that would have fixed this problem.
Mr. Suttles, can we talk? I know-I know this is going to be uncomfortable, so I will make you a deal. I'm not even going to talk about Ixtoc, even though Ixtoc was a huge environmental disaster on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, eerily similar to the current disaster except that happened more than 30 years ago in less than 200 feet of water, no reason that offshore oil disaster should be forced-it should have forced the industry to come up with better cleanup technology. We will just set Ixtoc aside. We won't talk about any spills from, say, the 1980s or 1990s.
Let's just talk about oil spills from the last decade in one country on earth. Let's just pick the United States. For example, in 2003 a large barge hit some rocks near Westport, Massachusetts. Massachusetts-let's see, ahem, dumped almost 100,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay. Several oil spills in Louisiana during Hurricane Ivan in the year 2004. It's going to get crowded down there in Louisiana, I'll warn you.
Also in 2004, the Athos I tanker dumped more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the Delaware River in New Jersey. That same year, the ship wreck -- remember the ship wreck turned oil spill off the coast of Alaska island, which, of course, because it's called on Alaska, it's here in Alaska.
In 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, there were oil spills all over the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, in Venice, in West Potash, in Naim (ph), in Chalmette, in Port Fourchon, in Point a la Hache, in Pilottown. According to Coast Guard estimates, it's more than 7 million gallons of oil from a variety sources that were spilled during Hurricane Katrina.
There was the devastating Prudhoe Bay oil spill in Alaska in 2006. The amazing thing about that one is that it wasn't even discovered until five days after the spill started up there. That didn't go well.
Oil spill at the Citgo refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that same year. They blamed heavy rain-heavy rain was found to have caused the 3 million gallon oil spill down there.
In 2007, a cargo ship hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and dumped oil into the bay. Remember that one? Oh, yes. We're not leaving you out, west coast.
Then there was another oil spill in Louisiana in 2008, when a tanker ran into a barge that messed up a John McCain photo-op, a "drill, baby, drill" photo-op. That was really awkward.
This year in January, there was a collision at that caused a spill in Port Arthur, Texas. That spill, of course, was followed by the explosion and the ensuing disaster in the Gulf.
Oh, and since then-oh, there's more. Just this weekend crude oil pipeline burst in Salt Lake City.
So, again, though, it's only because there haven't been any spills that the oil industry hasn't bothered to come up with new cleanup technology. If only there had been some spills, say, in the last 40 years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUTTLES: I think that probably part of the reason is, there have been so few big spills.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: See, now, though, they're paying attention to this spill. This time, it's going to be different. This spill will surely be enough to get the oil industry to update their clean up technology for the first time since the 1960s. It's only because they didn't notice those spills.
This time-this time, it will be different. I'm sure they'll steep up right up and take care of it. I'm sure they will.
[Only registered and activated users can see links]