Independent review needed

If an internal report released by British Petroleum last week made one thing clear, it is that Americans need to demand a competent, independent investigation into what caused an oil rig to explode and spew an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP's report shed some light on the events leading up to the explosion, but the report clearly was an attempt by the company to position a defense against legal challenges. It generously spread the blame to Transocean, owner of the rig, and Halliburton, the cement contractor. The report said Halliburton did a lousy job cementing the well, which contributed to the blowout. The Transocean crew didn't respond properly to warning signs of an impending disaster, it said. While the report used the word "fault" 20 times, it never used it in the same sentence as the initials BP.

Not surprisingly, Transocean vehemently disagreed, calling the report self-serving and blaming BP's own well design for the explosion. Halliburton said the report was missing important information and was inaccurate. BP, not contractors, designs wells and makes decisions regarding testing procedures, the company said.

But when the government investigates the disaster, it will have some of its own conflicts to overcome. An Interior Department report in May revealed that inspectors who oversee oil drilling in the Gulf had accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from the companies they monitor. The report also said one inspector was negotiating a job with an oil company at the same time he was inspecting four of the company's rigs. In a theme that seems to be recurring regularly in everything lately from financial regulation to mine inspections, government oversight appears to have been lax and sloppy.

The BP report most likely was correct in concluding that a lot of separate mistakes led to the disaster. Those mistakes likely were made by Transocean, Halliburton, BP and government regulators. The science surrounding safety precautions on shallow-water off-shore drilling is much more settled than precautions for deep-water drilling. Government investigators have yet to begin studying the failed blowout preventer, which recently was brought to the surface. That may shed light on what happened.

Given the importance of energy extraction to the economies of the Gulf Coast region and the nation at-large, as well as its importance to national security, learning the exact causes of this disaster is of great importance. That can be done only by people who can examine the facts free from any concerns about protecting themselves from liabilities.