It’s no surprise that the ever-growing list of BP critics includes its industry rivals.
The CEOs of a group of oil companies including Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and, of all people, ExxonMobil, were expected to testify at a House subcomittee on Tuesday, saying the Deepwater Horizon accident and subsequent undersea gusher could have been prevented by following modern safety practices. But the goal isn’t to take potshots at a felled competitor — the companies hope to tout their own practices as evidence toward lifting a suspension of new licenses for deep-sea drilling, currently under a six-month moratorium.
The companies argue that they’ve built enough safety practices into their drills to ensure blowouts like the one that doomed BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig will not occur. The execs hope to convince Congress that restricting where companies can drill will only lead to more dependence on overseas sources.
“These executives need to explain to the politicians that if you permanently shut us down in the deep water it’s going to wreak havoc with energy production and put the United States even more at the mercy of foreign oil producers,” Anthony Sabino, a business law professor at St. John’s University told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “A crucifixion of the whole oil industry for the sins of BP in the form of a ban on deep-water drilling isn’t a good idea because look at all the people it’s going to put out of work.”