U.S. Government Exempted Oil Company from Environmental Impact Study before Disastrous Leak

Washington Post

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/05/politics/washingtonpost/main6462513.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionsArea;cbsnewsSectionsArea.3


May 5, 2010

WP: BP Gulf Drilling Got "Rubber Stamp"

U.S. Government Exempted Oil Company from Environmental Impact Study before Disastrous Leak

• (Washingtonpost.com) The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.
• The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.

Why did the Obama MMS give BP a "categorical exclusion" from the NEPA?  I thought all of this was the fault of republicans? Just ask a democrat.
We must research what the politicians feed us as truth.  They feel they have no obligation to be honest with their constituents.