HOLY FUCK!!!!!! Federal Board: Keep companies from oil spill evidence

Dec 23, 2010 6:10 PM CST Updated: Dec 24, 2010 6:10 PM CST

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The credibility of the investigation into the Gulf oil spill is being undermined because representatives of companies that made or maintained a key piece of evidence - the blowout preventer - have had too much access to it as it is being analyzed, a federal board says.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which is being allowed to monitor the analysis, demanded in a letter Thursday to the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement that testing stop and not resume until Transocean and Cameron officials are removed from any hands-on role in the examination of the 300-ton device.

An employee of Transocean - the owner of the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf - has been removed as a consultant for the Norwegian firm conducting the testing, but the ocean energy bureau says that otherwise the companies have provided their expertise appropriately. The board claims conflicts still exist.

The board, like the companies and other parties involved, has been granted limited access to the testing, but it says its representatives have been shut out of tests that have included multiple representatives of Transocean and Cameron International, which made the blowout preventer.

The board also wants the firm leading the testing, Det Norske Veritas, terminated or at least supervised by a neutral third party. It's also demanding photo and video evidence of work conducted while its representatives were shut out of testing.

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Last Edited by BROKEN on 12/26/2010 08:44 PM