Waxman: BP’s Hayward failed to review risks at Deepwater Horizon

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) savaged BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday, alleging the CEO paid no attention to safety risks at the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig.

Waxman said the committee has probed whether Hayward was briefed on risks surrounding what one BP engineer warned was a “nightmare” well in the days before the blowout.

“We could find no evidence that you paid any attention to the tremendous risks that BP was taking,” Waxman said at the opening of a packed hearing Thursday. The hearing was Hayward's first appearnce before lawmakers since the beginning of the Gulf Coast oil spill.

“There is not a single e-mail or document that showed you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well,” Waxman added.

Waxman also said the investigation shows that other top BP executives — including Andy Inglis, who heads BP’s exploration division, and Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles – were also “apparently oblivious to what was happening.”

“BP’s corporate complacency is astounding,” Waxman said. “Now the whole Gulf Coast is paying the price.”

Waxman and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) — who heads the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee holding the hearing — say their probe revealed that BP took numerous safety shortcuts in the drilling of the Macondo well in order to save money.

The April 20 well blowout and explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and touched off what has become the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Stupak, in his remarks Thursday, mocked statements by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and by Hayward in blasting the company’s safety practices.

“We are not small people and we wish to get our lives back,” Stupak said, adding that it will be years before the people of the Gulf Coast get their lives back and that the families of the killed workers may never get their lives back.

Svanberg on Wednesday said that BP cares about “small people,” while Hayward weeks ago said he wanted his “life back.” Both subsequently apologized for their comments.

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