Rex
Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil, has had the most revealing
testimony thus far. In response to probing questions by Rep. Dingell
concerning, once again, why the contingency plans are virtually identical to each other, Tillerson says that the similarity isn’t notable.
"The
‘cookie cutter’ description…should not come as much of a surprise."
The oil companies are all dealing with similar situations with regards
to the catastrophic hypotheticals of their drilling activities, and
make use of much of the same resources, so the fact that contingency
plans are largely the same should be expected.
Tillerson’s logic here makes sense. The problem here, of course is not only that
the plans are all the same, but rather that BP’s plan, resembling all
of the other plans, has demonstrably failed. It would be one thing if
BP’s plan was successful at containing the damages of the oil
spill–then the logical thing to do would be to call a hearing and
check that the contingency plans for the other four major companies were the
same. Instead, because BP’s plan has proven to be incompetent in
dealing with such a crisis, the fact that the contingency plans are
similar is quite troubling and screams for remediation.
Rep.
Stupak continues with this line of questioning on contingency plans,
and once again, Tillerson’s comments are quite revealing. Citing
ExxonMobil’s contingency plan for a "worst-case scenario", Stupak lays
bare the fact that since all the plans purport to use the same amount
and types of resources that BP did, they are simply not prepared to
deal with the breadth and depth of the damage resulting from a spill.
"We are not very well-equipped to deal with [such crises]," Tillerson
admits.
Tillerson argues that no company can truly limit the
damages resulting from such a catastrophe. The focus then, in
Tillerson’s view, should be on prevention and not on what to do after
the catastrophe has occured–a bit myopic, don’t you think?