[StBernard] Gulf of Mexico oil spill response guided too much by BP, St. Bernard president says

[Westley Annis]

Gulf of Mexico oil spill response guided too much by BP, St. Bernard
president says
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 9:00 PM 
 Jonathan Tilove 
 
St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told a congressional panel
Wednesday that the federal response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico thwarted local efforts and, all too often, let BP call the shots.

"Louisiana law specifically states and grants emergency powers to the local
authorities during times of declared disasters," Taffaro said in testimony
before the House Homeland Security Committee. But, he said, "instead of
embracing the local authorities' involvement and resource capacity, local
authority was met with resistance, exclusion and power struggles."

"This decision, contemplated or not, resulted in adversarial relationships
between the local agencies, the state and governor's office, and BP and the
United States Coast Guard," Taffaro said. He said local parishes were left
to feel that the Coast Guard, which was in charge of the federal response,
was acting more in a "protective role than an enforcement role" in its
relationship with BP, the company responsible for the worst oil spill in the
nation's history.

Taffaro shared the witness table with the actor Kevin Costner, who recounted
his own frustrations in trying to bring his oil-water separation technology
to bear on the disaster, and his ambitious $895 million, 190-vessel plan to
respond to future oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a plan he has been
presenting to federal officials and Gulf Coast governors in recent weeks.

Taffaro joked that he was glad Costner spoke first because he did not want
to "overshadow" the Academy Award-winning actor and director, whose presence
had the hearing room full to overflowing.

Some local officials have, in fact, become celebrities of sort in the wake
of the oil disaster, with a number of members of the panel referring in
their comments to "Billy," as in Plaquemines Parish President Billy
Nungesser, who was not present Wednesday but has offered his own criticism
of the federal response in similar forums on Capitol Hill.

Costner, as well, said the first person to take his oil-water separation
technology seriously during the crisis was Nungesser, who had seen it
successfully demonstrated at a Texas exhibition some years earlier. Costner
said that BP, after testing his equipment, ultimately leased 32 of his
machines.

A number of administration officials on a second panel disputed the notion
that they had ceded too much authority to BP.

Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger, the Deputy National Incident Commander, said that
"in general terms, BP would often in the course of the response make
recommendations about how to implement what we ordered them to do, anything
from how we might deploy resources to the type of resources that might be
available, because they were paying for it."

On their relationship with local officials, Neffenger conceded the Coast
Guard was more accustomed to working with state governments, and assuming
they were "speaking for the whole population," and that in the future, it
would be better to work more closely with local officials more immediately.

Members of the committee seemed inclined to trust Taffaro's version of
events, suggesting that the disaster response had left the public with the
perception that BP was in charge.

Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, who was the ranking Republicans at the
hearing, said that especially early on, the government was leaning so
heavily on BP's technical expertise that it appeared the oil company "was
calling the shots," and that the lesson is that the government has to
develop its own comparable expertise.

"Somehow, at the genesis of this, BP stepped up the microphone, stepped up
to the world stage and presented an image of being not only in charge, to
the extent that they were the ones with the technical expertise, but that
this was their operation to manage," said Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, a New
Orleans native.

In his testimony, Taffaro gave a couple of examples of what he considered
the undue deference granted BP.

"Very early in the response, St. Bernard Parish requested BP to allow for
and support the establishment of a local environmental planning and
assessment team," Taffaro said. "This was disallowed by BP only to be told
some three and half months later by a visiting Coast Guard authority that
St. Bernard should have been involved in environmental assessment from the
start."

Taffaro also said that there was initial resistance to their request to use
the local commercial fishing fleet to help clean up the spill, and "the very
industry that was under siege ... had to fight their way into the response."