I'm shocked I tell you -BP used excessive dispersants in Gulf oil spill [View All]

[malaise]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/01/gulf.oil.spill/?hpt=T1#fbid=YCrKhFEbgMU
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New documents released by a congressional subcommittee indicate that Coast Guard officials allowed BP to use excessive amounts of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite a federal directive restricting their use, the Coast Guard routinely granted exemptions, said Rep. Edward J. Markey, chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

In May, the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Coast Guard, ordered the oil giant to stop surface application of the chemicals during the oil spill except in rare occasions, according to a House subcommittee on energy and environment.

In rare cases, exemptions had to be requested, documents show.

"BP carpet bombed the ocean with these chemicals, and the Coast Guard allowed them to do it," Markey said in a statement Saturday. "After we discovered how toxic these chemicals really are, they had no business being spread across the Gulf in this manner."

The exemptions granted "were in no way rare," Markey said in a letter to retired Adm. Thad Allen, the former commandant of the Coast Guard who is now overseeing the federal response to the oil spill.
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