House Dem wants answers after ‘tainted’ BP investigation

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is pressing the Obama administration for answers surrounding an inspector general report that found a federal agency withheld information about an investigation into a BP oil and gas facility.

The investigation into the oil giant BP’s Atlantis rig, located in the Gulf of Mexico, was conducted in 2011 by the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management’s enforcement wing at the request of lawmakers.

{mosads}The report submitted by the bureau to Congress in 2011 assured members that there was “no evidence” that certain control problems on the rig created unsafe conditions.

But an inspector general report released last year found otherwise, and Grijalva now wants answers from the Interior Department.

The watchdog said “BP did not have a complete set of ‘approved for construction’ engineering documents for all subsea components of the Atlantis platform and related facilities when it began production in October 2007.”

And BP did not “have a complete set of ‘as built’ engineering documents for the Atlantis facilities that are currently in operation,” the report states.

In a statement on Thursday, Grijalva called the investigation by the bureau “tainted” and said it “suppressed contradictory findings by three engineers” during the investigation.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Thursday, Grijalva took issue with the bureau’s handling of the 2011 investigation.

“Congress has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight over the executive branch, and reports of a federal agency intentionally misleading lawmakers as they fulfill that duty are deeply troubling,” Grijalva said.

“The American people are already suffering enough from BP’s willingness to cut corners on the Deepwater Horizon rig — the last thing we need is the federal government serving as accomplice while BP tries to maximize profits at the expense of the public’s safety and wellbeing,” he added.

Grijalva also said the watchdog’s findings of “gas leaks, mysterious burn marks, and hydrates on wellheads,” are all examples of “more serious well integrity problems.”

In the letter to Jewell, Grijalva argues the status of BP’s Atlantis rig should be “reevaluated” and asks Jewell, who was not secretary at the time of the investigation, to notify Congress of all actions taken on the issue.