Cost did not trump safety in oil spill

Continuing with the reporting of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill comes this latest from the New York Times -- Spill Investigator Sees No Sign That Cost Trumped Safety:

Fred H. Bartlit Jr., a prominent trial lawyer hired to lead the panel’s inquiry, disputed the findings of other investigators, including members of Congress, who have charged that BP and its main partners, Transocean and Halliburton, had cut corners to speed completion of the well, which cost $1.5 million a day to drill.

“To date we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety,” Mr. Bartlit said on Monday. The statement came near the beginning of a detailed presentation Mr. Bartlit gave on the causes of the April 20 disaster on a drilling rig off the Louisiana coast, which killed 11 workers and led to the biggest offshore oil spill in American history.

“A lot has been said about this, but we have not found a situation where we can say a man had a choice between safety and dollars and put his money on dollars,” Mr. Bartlit said. “If anybody has anything else to say about that, we’re happy to hear it.”