Posted byOn June 16th, we published a blog article about the qualifications of the President’s Independent Commission to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon accident. Many of the readers here commented on the qualifications and the overall response was that they didn’t seem particularly well qualified to find the root causes of the well blowout, explosion, and spill. See the comments here:
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article, “The White House Get’s Drilled,” that pointed out the bias of the Commission. It said:
“By contrast, the President’s seven-member commission contains not a single expert on drilling or petroleum engineering and is instead loaded with such anti-oil and antidrilling activists as Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke and former Florida Senator Bob Graham.”
The also quoted Louisianna Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, who said:
“I would suggest to my Democratic friends that if the shoe were on the other foot, and President Bush was the President and he had submitted a list of names like this to us and everyone was related to the defense of oil companies, we would say this is not fair.”
In reviewing the commissions qualifications, the Journal article points out the following:
About Commissioner Reilly: “Mr. Reilly is well known as a green activist who once ran the World Wildlife Fund, which is precisely what made him attractive as a GOP political appointee and for ConocoPhillips. Both were looking for environmental cover.”
About Commissioner Beinecke: “‘Offshore drilling is a needless risk,’ said Ms. Beinecke in 2008, as part of her push for cap-and-trade legislation.”
About Commissioner Boesch: “‘We should be redoubling our efforts to get off oil,’ said fellow commission member Donald Boesch in May. He wants ‘transportation not powered by liquid petroleum.’”
About Commissioner Garcia: “Appointee Terry Garcia of the National Geographic Society rapped the Bush administration in 2008 for not doing more to ‘protect’ oceans from ‘commercial and recreational fishing, oil and gas exploration or deep-sea mining.’”
About Commissioner Murray: “Harvard’s Cherry Murray is president of the American Physical Society that recently rejected calls from 160 physicists to alter its doomsday position on climate change, which demands immediate reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions to avoid ‘significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health.’”
About Commissioner Ulmer: “The University of Alaska’s Fran Ulmer is on the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which wants the U.S. to curb its ‘oil addiction’ by requiring that cars get at least 42 miles to the gallon.”
The article goes on to comment of the Commission’s new Executive Director, Richard Lazarus. The article says:
“Underscoring its biases, the President’s commission has chosen prominent environmental litigator Richard J. Lazarus as its staff director. Mr. Lazarus has made a career out of suing private companies and governments to impose stricter environmental regulation.”
This week, the Commission’s Executive Director wrote back to the Wall Street Journal. In an editorial, published today, he said:
“The commission is co-chaired by two highly regarded public servants, former Sen. Bob Graham and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly. They are individuals of enormous integrity and highly respected by industry, by members of Congress and by state officials, regardless of formal political affiliation.”
He also said:
“You may also note that the commission recently named Richard Sears, a widely respected oil industry expert with 35 years experience, as its adviser on science and engineering, to augment the oil industry expertise of Mr. Reilly, who has served on the Conoco-Phillips board for over 15 years.”
So, I thought I would look for Bio’s of Mr. Lazarus and Mr. Sears. Here’s what I found…
First, Mr. Lazarus. Here’s a link to his bio:
http://www.sandiego.edu/law/academics/faculty/bio.php?id=749
The bio seems to confirm the Wall Street Journal’s rhetoric.
Next, Mr. Sears. The first thing I found was this presentation he gave at TED:
The I found a bio attached to a Washington Post Viewpoint paid discussion. I quote it here:
“Richard Sears is Vice President and Extra-mural Research Coordinator for Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. He is currently on loan to MIT for a period of three years, where he serves as Visiting Scientist in the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment. The intent is to create a research and technology relationship model for Shell with major US universities and manage Shell energy research activities at MIT as well as other research relationships in the Americas.”
“In his more than 30 years with Shell, Richard has gained significant domestic and international experience, frequently representing Shell to partners, governments and national oil companies, including presentations to governmental authorities and ministers of eleven countries. He has been an invited and keynote speaker at industry conferences in the US, UK, Africa and Asia.
Prior to his current assignment, he shared responsibility for developing Shell strategy for deepwater exploration and development worldwide and was one of three vice presidents within Shell E&P responsible for the work of over 800 technical professionals across the globe from over 15 distinct geoscience, engineering and business disciplines.”
“Previous positions within Shell have included exploration geophysicist, technical instructor, economist, strategic planner, and general management.”
“He is the author of numerous internal publications including field studies and case histories, geophysical research reports, and technical training manuals.”
“Richard has been a member of the Stanford University School of Earth Sciences Advisory Board since 2004. He is a Licensed Professional Geoscientist in the State of Texas, an active member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers.”
“He earned his Master of Science degree in Geophysics and his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Stanford University.”
To me, he seems well qualified. But I wish I knew more about his oil drilling (not just oil exploration geophysical) experience and his experience leading accident investigations.
With that said, what influence does a consultant to the Commission have? He isn’t a commission member. I guess his influence is yet to be seen.
What do you think?
Does a well qualified consultant change your opinion on the qualifications of the President’s Independent Commission to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon accident? Let me know by posting your comments here.
Category: Accidents, Current Events, Investigations
6 Comments »
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Here’s more info about Mr. Sears:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/shell.html
Comment by Mark Paradies — July 15, 2010 @ 11:48 am
Here are two more bios for Mr. Lazarus:
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/lazarus/
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/facinfo/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=FullTime&ID=282&InfoType=Bio
Comment by Mark Paradies — July 15, 2010 @ 11:55 am
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Pingback by Oil Spill News — July 15, 2010 @ 1:00 pm
I suspect Mr Sears is window dressing for the public perception. His findings or recommendations will be included as background material but will be overwhelmed by the lopsided bias against the offshore drilling opponents. Mr Lazarus is a Lawyer and Academic with no working experience in industry, only enviormental law.
Also Mr Sears is a consultant, and has no say on what is written in the report, only the commission members will have that say. His report if it ever see’s the light of day will be a footnote. His only say with the report after it is published is if they quote him in the document and it is out of context or positioned in the document to support a conclussion he was not intending then he can publicly correct what his statement was intending to communicate.
The commission membership should have an equal balance of industry experts and alternative viewpoints including the enviornmental community if their charter is to infact provide direction on the future of offshore drilling practices with a balanced approach.
If their charter is to evaluate the event root causes and remediate the damages done, then the only ‘expertise’ needed is for deepwater oil rig management including emergency management, oil rig maintenance, and engineering expertise that no on that commission based on their resumes comes close to even understanding what those activites are.
This commission membership appears so biased it would be interesting to see if they or their organizations were big $$ supports of the current administration. It is unfortunate that we have politicized every aspect of public life, even science and technology has been currupted by this shift in American Politics.
Comment by Don — July 20, 2010 @ 9:51 am
It should be quite interesting how this unfolds. The main question I have, regardless of any of these updates, is who still has the experience to lead an investigation as complicated as this? Perhaps Mr. Sears, but we can’t tell that from his bio, but he’s not leading it anyway, he’s merely a consultant.
Another question to be answered is what sort of agreement Mr. Sears has to sign prior to taking on his role with the commission. Is he basically signing away any ability to talk publicly about the report after it comes out? I would hope that would not be the case, but confidentiality agreements are often part and parcel of these types of commissions.
I think Senator Landrieu’s point is the bottom line, though. Had Bush still been president and put forth 7 oil company people with one environmental consultant, the media and the Democrats would have had a field day.
Comment by David Kilborn — July 23, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
I have been on your site a few times and I always leave with a gem. I only thingking it fair to leave my comment as a way of showing appreciation. I honestly think you know what you are talking about. Out of your passion, you have become an authority. Congratulations.
Comment by goblet — September 19, 2010 @ 10:09 pm