The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused one of the worst oil spills in history
A major US report into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has called for wide-ranging reforms of the oil industry to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
The report comes from a US presidential commission investigating the spill.
The panel also said the US needed to expand and update drilling regulation and establish an independent drilling safety agency.
The April blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.
The Macondo well, about a mile under the sea’s surface, eventually leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, damaging hundreds of miles of coastline before it was capped in July.
The findings came in the final report of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which President Barack Obama convened in May to investigate the root causes of the spill and recommend changes to industry and government policy.
The report spreads blame for the disaster widely, criticising BP, which owned the Macondo well; Transocean, which owned the rig; and Halliburton, which managed the well-sealing operation.
It said the companies had cut corners to save time and money – decisions that contributed to the disaster.
It also takes aim at the US federal government, finding that regulation and legislation governing off-shore oil drilling failed adequately to protect oil workers and residents of the environmentally-fragile Gulf coast.
Deepwater Horizon inquiries
Presidential commission (January 2011)
The oil spill was an avoidable disaster caused by a series of failures and blunders made by BP and its partners, including Transocean and Halliburton, and government departments assigned to regulate them, the panel concludes. It also warns such a disaster would likely recur because of industry complacency.
BP internal report (September 2010)
BP admits its managers on the oil rig could have prevented the catastrophe had they picked up warning signs of a breach of the cement seal at the bottom of the well, as well as unusual pressure test readings, shortly before the explosion. But it places much of the blame on Transocean and Halliburton.
Also due:
Department of Justice criminal and civil probesChemical Safety Board investigation into regulatory approaches to offshore industryJoint inquiry by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy ManagementNational Academy of Engineering analysisVarious Congressional inquiries
“Our exhaustive investigation finds that none of the major aspects of offshore drilling safety – not the regulatory oversight, not the industry safety standards, not the spill response practices – kept pace with the push into deep water,” said panel co-chairman William Reilly.
Former Florida Senator Bob Graham, who sat on the panel, said the investigation showed the disaster was “preventable and foreseeable”, and described a shared “failure that was years in the making.”
“Federal government oversight utterly failed to provide an acceptable level of protection for those on the rig and for the Americans who call the Gulf their home,” Mr Graham said in a statement. “Our regulators were over-matched.”
Mr Graham cited “significant errors and misjudgements” from BP, Halliburton and Transocean.
The commission’s report recommends:
increasing budgets and training for the federal agency that regulates offshore drillingincreasing the liability cap for damages when companies drill offshorededicating 80% of fines and penalties from the BP spill to restoration of the Gulflending more weight to scientific opinions in decisions about drilling
Last week, the commission released an advance chapter of its report which said the firms involved had made decisions to cut costs and save time that contributed to the spill.
It said that the decisions, even if inadvertent, had significantly increased the risk the Macondo well would blow out.
“BP did not have adequate controls in place to ensure that key decisions in the months leading up to the blow-out were safe or sound from an engineering perspective,” the report found.
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A new KPMG-led study suggests the jobs market is “on the road to recovery”, with a strong rise in demand for staff.
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An accurate new DNA blood test for Down’s syndrome could save nearly all pregnant women from invasive procedures like amniocentesis, say experts.
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The follow-up care given to stroke patients once they leave hospital is lacking in England, regulators say.
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A rising number of tenants are struggling to pay rent to their landlords, according to industry figures.
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Manchester City’s Italian international striker Mario Balotelli is ruled out for a month with a knee injury.
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Arsenal are held up as a shining example by Uefa as European football’s governing body prepares to implement tough new financial restrictions.
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Bullets sent to Celtic footballer Paddy McCourt are discovered days after team mates were sent similar packages.
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Mr Illsley was re-elected in May 2010 with a majority of more than 11,000
The trial of an MP accused of dishonestly claiming parliamentary expenses is expected to begin later.
Eric Illsley faces three charges of false accounting relating to claims for council tax, maintenance, repairs and utility bills between 2005 and 2008.
Mr Illsley, who was re-elected as Labour MP for Barnsley Central at the general election, denies the charges.
He was suspended by the party after being charged and now sits as an independent in the Commons.
The Crown Prosecution Service has alleged that the MP – being tried at Southwark Crown Court – falsely claimed more than £20,000 in payments towards his second home in London over a three year period.
Mr Illsley has been an MP since 1987 and was re-elected with a majority of more than 11,000 in 2010.
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Mr Clinton says reconstruction is now gathering pace
Former US President Bill Clinton says he is frustrated at the slow pace of reconstruction in Haiti, a year after the earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people.
But he said that after many delays the speed of recovery was now picking up.
Mr Clinton was speaking on a visit to Port-au-Prince in his capacity as UN envoy to Haiti.
The people of Haiti are holding two days of commemoration to mark the anniversary of the quake on 12 January.
“No one is more frustrated than I am that we haven’t done more,” Mr Clinton said as he visited a site where workers are crushing the rubble of destroyed buildings for use in concrete for rebuilding.
But after many delays, he said he was encouraged by the growing speed of reconstruction.
“If you look at how much faster it’s been going in the last four months, and if you look at the level of activities that we have in the streets, I think we are doing better,” he said.
He said the vital thing was to get hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the quake out of tents and into new houses.
“Housing is always the thing people want most, after a job,” he said.
Mr Clinton acknowledged that not all the money promised by international donors had reached Haiti.
“Only about 60% of what was allocated for the first year was disbursed,” he said.
The earthquake anniversary commemorations come amid continued political uncertainty in Haiti following disputed presidential elections last November.
The vote was widely denounced as flawed, with reports of fraud and intimidation at polling stations, and violent protests broke out when the provisional results were announced in December.
The second round was due to take place on 16 January, but has been postponed until next month as there is still no agreement on which candidates will be taking part.
Provisional results put the former First Lady Mirlande Manigat in first place and the government party candidate Jude Celestin in second, just ahead of the pop star, Michel Martelly.
But Mr Martelly insists he won more votes than Mr Celestin and should be in the run-off.
An expert mission from the Organisation of American States, which was brought in to evaluate the result, is reported to have found in Mr Martelly’s favour, but this has not been confirmed.
Outgoing President Rene Preval said on Monday that he had not yet seen the report.
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Five of the most distinctive record shops left in Britain
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The daughter of Tyrone Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte was strangled, a post-mortem has revealed.
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Control orders were introduced under the former Labour government in 2005
Related stories
The coalition is planning to replace control orders with a new package of restrictions to keep terror suspects under surveillance, the BBC’s James Landale and Laura Kuenssberg have learned.
One working title for the new curbs are “surveillance orders”.
They would restrict suspects’ movements but end overnight curfews.
The future of the controversial anti-terror measure has been a cause of tension between Tories and Lib Dems.
Introduced under the former Labour government in 2005, control orders allow ministers to place a terrorism suspect under close supervision that some say is similar to house arrest.
Opponents say this infringes civil liberties, but supporters argue it is necessary to protect the public. The Lib Dem manifesto pledged to get rid of the “house arrest” element.
Ministers have been locked in talks over what should replace control orders after Prime Minister David Cameron said they had not been a success.
The BBC understands the new orders would give the security services the power to:
Ban suspects from travelling to locations such as open parks and thick walled buildings where surveillance is hardAllow suspects to use mobile phones and the internet but only if the numbers and details are given to the security servicesBan suspects travelling abroadBan suspects meeting certain named individuals, but limited to people who are themselves under surveillance or suspected of involvement in terrorism
Under the planned new orders, the security services would lose the power to impose overnight curfews, force suspects to phone into a monitoring company every time they enter or leave their homes and lift the ban on them using mobile phones and the internet.
They would also lose the power to force suspects to live in a particular location, known as “relocation orders” or limit the visitors to their homes.
However, one detail that appears to remain unresolved is over the future of tagging.
This will no longer be used to enforce a curfew by informing the authorities whether or not a suspect is at their home.
But some in government are pushing for the security services still to have the power to tag suspects simply so they can keep tabs on them by knowing if they are no longer sleeping regularly at one particular address.
The BBC has also learned that the government is drawing up tough new anti-terror laws that could be rushed through Parliament after a major terrorist incident – in case the new surveillance orders proved inadequate in the face of increased threat levels.
Whitehall sources said the draft legislation would – if enacted – give the police and the security services effectively the same powers they have now under existing control orders.
The so-called Terrorism Prevention Orders would be put before Parliament if the heads of the three intelligence agencies and the home secretary agreed there was a national emergency.
Downing Street said the Cabinet gave its “broad agreement” to the changes that will be made to control orders during a meeting on Tuesday.
It follows weeks of heated negotiations between the coalition partners over the proposals.
Speaking earlier this month, David Cameron said control orders “haven’t been a success” but there needed to be a “proper replacement”.
The terrorism review has still to be examined by the independent reviewer, Lord Macdonald, and so it is unlikely to be published for a couple of weeks.
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Dr Lemole, left, said Ms Giffords’s reactions showed “a purposeful level of consciousness”
The US congresswoman shot in a gun attack in Arizona is still in a critical condition in hospital but showing good signs, her doctor says.
Dr Michael Lemole said Gabrielle Giffords’s condition did not change overnight but that was “a good thing”.
A Mass for the six dead and Ms Giffords and more than a dozen others wounded in Saturday’s attack was planned for Tuesday in Tuscon, Arizona.
Jared Loughner, 22, is charged with the attack. He waived bail on Monday.
On Tuesday morning, Dr Lemole told NBC Ms Giffords’s brain was “working at a higher level” and she was responsive to commands.
Meanwhile, the White House has announced that President Barack Obama will attend memorial service on Wednesday evening at a basketball arena in Arizona.
He will address the crowd, and the service will include a Native American blessing, a moment of silence and a poetry reading.
And as the debate over personal security for US Congressmen – who typically have little or none – heated up in Washington DC, the US Senate sergeant-at-arms told US television he opposed lawmakers arming themselves against potential threats.
“I don’t think introducing more guns into the situation is going to be helpful,” Terrance Gainer said.
But he acknowledged that there had been 49 threats against US Senators over the past year, an increase on previous years.
The man suspected in Saturday’s attack, Mr Loughner, made his first court appearance on Monday in Phoenix.
He was charged with five federal crimes – the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, the first degree murder of two federal employees and the attempted murder of two federal employees – and may face additional state charges.
Mr Loughner walked into the courtroom in Phoenix, Arizona’s capital city, wearing handcuffs and in a prison uniform, with a cut on the right side of his head.
He was remanded to custody pending trial after US Magistrate Judge Lawrence Anderson ruled he was a danger.
Judge Anderson scheduled a preliminary court appearance for 24 January.
Mr Loughner is represented by Judy Clarke, a prominent defence attorney who represented an infamous parcel bomber and the man convicted of setting a bomb at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. He did not contest the detention order.
The attack occurred on Saturday during an open-invitation meeting at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, which Ms Giffords had arranged for constituents.
Ms Giffords, 40, was shot from close range by the gunman, who then began shooting into the crowd. Among the dead were a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge.
It is unclear whether the US justice department will seek the death penalty against Mr Loughner, should he be convicted.
Ms Clarke is known as a staunch opponent of capital punishment who successfully evaded the death penalty for Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber parcel bomber, and Eric Robert Rudolph, a militant anti-abortion activist convicted in the Olympics bombing and bomb attacks on abortion clinics.
A total of 19 people were shot.
Flags across the US were flown at half mast on Monday, and Mr Obama said the nation was “grieving and shocked”.
Bill Badger: ‘I held Arizona gunman by throat’
Lawmakers paid tribute to Ms Giffords and other victims of the mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol building, and in Tucson, small groups gathered in public spaces, in offices and in shops and stopped in silence for a minute.
Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, a gun control advocate from the state of New Jersey, announced plans on Monday to introduce legislation that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips, like the one used in Saturday’s attack.
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