Democratic Montana Sen. Max Baucus Wednesday put pressure on Exxon Mobil Pipeline Company President Gary W. Pruessing and the pipeline administration for answers about what went wrong before the July 1 Yellowstone River oil spill.
Following his testimonies in two key House hearings last week, Pruessing’s appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure offered no new revelations on what caused the Montana spill that spread nearly 42,000 gallons of crude at least 80 miles downstream.
Cynthia Quarterman of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said once flood waters recede, investigators will have access to the pipe, remove it and begin to determine a cause. That process isn’t likely to happen until August, she said.
At that point, the investigation is expected to last two or three months and will likely conclude about mid-October.
Pruessing said Exxon Mobilwill continue to work with the Environmental Protection Agency and Montana officials to get answers.
“Obviously something happened here that we’ve not yet understood, something very unusual,” Pruessing said. “We’re very anxious to complete our investigation, as well.”
Baucus pressed Quarterman to define that administration’s role in pipeline management. Quarterman said her agency oversees Exxon Mobil’s operating and maintenance processes and may act only if investigators see imminent concern in how the company operates the pipeline.
Previous inspections of the Silvertip pipeline showed one minor “anomaly” that did not require the agency’s action, she said.
“It’s the operator’s responsibility to operate the pipeline safety,” Quarterman said repeatedly. “They are supposed to put in place a continual process for improving their pipeline.”
Quarterman said she didn’t know the accuracy of the surveys Exxon conducted to determine how much earth was covering the pipeline as flood waters rose prior to the rupture.
“To be honest, ma’am, it sounds like you’re not really on top of this,” Baucus twice said during the hearing.
Baucus, the lone senator toward the end of the hearing, cornered Pruessing about the issue of property damage for Montana residents years down the road, following the spill.
“My question was can you commit to me today to make them whole?” Baucus said. “It sounds like you’re kind of pulling the punches a little bit.”
“I would certainly ask our people who handle claims to get involved in that,” Pruessing said.
When asked about how much Exxon Mobil has budgeted for the cleanup effort, Pruessing didn’t give a firm answer. “Right now we’re not worried about budgets, we’re worried about putting the resources and getting this spill cleaned up,” he said.
In a separate Senate committee hearing Wednesday, BP oversight in the Gulf oil spill last year came under attack.
The Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee discussed how to prevent another spill like the April 20, 2010 explosion. Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson criticized the key players in the Unified Command response team and said BP had too much control following the leak that covered 1,600 miles of Gulf Coast with oil. A Unified Command coordinates the organizations responding to a disaster.
“We had a failed decision-making apparatus,” Nelson said. “[It] was not quick enough and there was too much leeway for BP.”
In response to Nelson’s repeated questions about how to change Unified Command responds, David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested better communication and improved response training. He said the scope of the spill complicated the response effort. “I’ve never seen anything that even approached the complexity of the issues that we had to deal with,” he said.
Florida’s Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson called for reform of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which sets the rules for the Unified Command team. Robinson called the disaster plans the team provided Florida officials — before allowing them to implement their own plans — ineffective and a waste of money.
“Local government has a place in the planning, coordination and implementation of disaster strategies and decisions,” he said, “and its omission will lead to failure as seen in May and June of 2010.”