BP exempted from environmental impact study before drilling

[DavidRoss]

U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... l_headline