Safety Board Finds Oil Industry Failing to Learn From Past Disasters

"Independent federal experts investigating the blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig are finding major parallels between this year's disaster and a 2005 blast that killed 15 workers at a BP PLC refinery in Texas -- indicating the industry has failed to overhaul safety rules, they said [Wednesday].

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB), a 20-year-old agency created to examine industrial accidents, is inquiring into the demise of the now-infamous Gulf of Mexico rig alongside the Interior Department and other arms of the government. At a public hearing today, CSB lead investigator Don Holmstrom raised pointed questions about whether the same risk-management failures identified during the board's probe of the 2005 BP blast were behind the Deepwater Horizon blowout."

Elana Schor reports for Greenwire December 15, 2010.

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