Halliburton Co. warned BP two days before the deadly Deepwater Horizon accident that it could have a severe problem with natural gas escaping from its Macondo well if it stuck with an existing well plan, according to an internal report that emerged in an investigative hearing Tuesday. The April 18 report was sent to BP officials on land and on board the Deepwater Horizon and made recommendations about the cement job being used to secure pipe-like casing to the walls of the Macondo well. A faulty cement job by Halliburton has been cited as a possible factor in the April 20 blowout that killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon two days later and launched the worst U.S. oil spill. The emergence of the report, however, suggests that BP may have ignored warning signs about potentially dangerous conditions in the well in the days leading up the accident. - Questions also arose in the hearing over whether BP should have stopped drilling the Macondo well weeks before the accident when it discovered leaks in the blowout preventer on the seafloor. One of two control pods on the blowout preventer was leaking hydraulic fluid as of mid-March, but Sepulvado said the leaks did not affect the functioning of the blowout preventer, the last line of defense against loss of well control. Federal offshore drilling regulations state that if control stations or pods on a blowout preventer don’t function properly, drilling operations should be suspended until they’re fixed. (Houston Chronicle)
posted: 7/22/10   |   0
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keywords: Big Oil, British Petroleum, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf Of Mexico, Halliburton, Houston, Macondo, Minerals Management Service, Oil Spill, Ronald Sepulvado, Ross Skidmore, Stephen Bertone, Switzerland, Texas, Transocean, US Coast Guard, US Congress, United States 
Transportation leads agenda for session - The special legislative session that starts today includes measures to allow private companies to build more toll roads across the state - an idea opponents have dubbed “the largest tax increase in history.” (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 7/3/09 | 0
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keywords: John Carona, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rick Perry, Robert Nichols, Texas, United States
Amid a wave of publicity about drug-related gun violence along the Mexican border and police killings in U.S. cities, more Americans than ever oppose new government efforts to regulate guns (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 5/11/09 | 3
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keywords: Barack Obama, Drug Cartels, Gun Control, John Culberson, Mexico, National Rifle Association
Child died in a Houston hospital after being transported from Brownsville (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 4/29/09 | 4
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keywords: Brownsville TX, Centers For Disease Control, Houston TX, Swine Flu, Texas
With free trade issues looming large in the race to replace him, President Bush this week convenes his final North American Leaders' Summit, focusing on trade, economic and security issues with counterparts from Mexico and Canada. Bush is hosting Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in New Orleans for a two-day conference starting today. It is the fourth annual meeting of a summit that first convened in 2005 in Waco. "We'd like to enhance and strengthen an already dynamic and strong relationship, to deepen the cooperation by building on the common interests of our citizens," said Dan Fisk, senior director of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the National Security Council. "The North American relationship works; we believe it works well for all three countries, but we also believe we can make it work better." (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 11/5/10 | 0
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keywords: Afghanistan, Canada, Center For Strategic And International Studies, Dan Fisk, Drug Cartels, European Union, Felipe Calderon, George W Bush, Hurricane Katrina, Immigration, John Diamond, Lou Dobbs, Merida Initiative, Mexico, Military, New Orleans, North American Free Trade Agreement, North American Union, Peter Deshazo, Rice University, Security And Prosperity Partnership Of North America, Stephen Harper, Texas, US National Security Council, United States, Waco, War On Drugs, White House
The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries. (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 2/18/10 | 0
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"It just looked like somebody just dropped a bunch of metal out of the sky," Wally Miller said. (Houston Chronicle)
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posted: 5/14/09 | 3
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