BP's chief says he was out of loop

WASHINGTON - Channeling the nation's anger, lawmakers pilloried the boss of the oil company at the center of the Gulf of Mexico calamity in a withering day of judgment Thursday.

Unflinching, BP chief executive Tony Hayward repeatedly said he was out of the loop on decisions about the well that blew up and asserted, "I'm not stonewalling."

That infuriated members of the House panel even more, Democrats and all but one of the Republicans alike.

Hayward testified as oil still surged into the gulf and coated ever more coastal land and marshes. He declared, at various times, he was "so devastated with this accident," "deeply sorry," and "so distraught."

Yet the oil man disclaimed knowledge of any of the myriad problems on and under the Deepwater Horizon rig before the deadly explosion, telling the hearing he only had heard about the well earlier in April, the month of the accident, when the drilling team told him it had found oil there.

"With respect, sir, we drill hundreds of wells a year around the world," Hayward told Republican Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas.

"Yes, I know," Burgess shot back. "That's what's scaring me right now."

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R., Ga.) told the CEO: "I think you're copping out. You're the captain of the ship." Democrats were similarly livid.

"BP blew it," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.), chairman of the House investigations panel that held the hearing. "You cut corners to save money and time."

The verbal onslaught had been anticipated for days and unfolded at a relentless pace.

Hayward, 53, had only one sympathetic listener, Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas), who expressed regret for the pressure he said President Obama put on BP to create a $20 billion compensation fund. Hours later, facing fury from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Barton recanted.

With multiple investigations continuing and primary efforts in the gulf focused on stopping the leak, there was little chance the nation would learn much from Hayward's appearance about what caused the disaster.

Yet even modest expectations were not met as the CEO, at every turn, told members of the investigations panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee that he was not tuned in to operations at the well.

He said his underlings made the decisions and federal regulators were responsible for vetting them.

He spoke calmly in his British accent as he sought to deflect accusations - based on internal BP documents obtained by congressional investigators - that BP chose a particular well design that was riskier but cheaper by at least $7 million.

"I wasn't involved in any of that decision-making," he said.

Were bad decisions made about the cement?

"I wasn't part of the decision-making process. I'm not a cement engineer, I'm afraid."

Also, "I am not a drilling engineer" and "I'm not an oceanographic scientist."

What about those reports that BP had been experiencing a variety of problems and delays at the well?

"I had no prior knowledge."

At one point a frustrated Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, interrupted Hayward. "You're kicking the can down the road and acting as if you had nothing to do with this company and nothing to do with the decisions."

Hayward quietly insisted: "I'm not stonewalling. I simply was not involved in the decision-making process."

Waxman told the BP executive that in his committee's review of 30,000 items, there was "not a single e-mail or document that you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well."

Burgess slammed both the company executive and government regulators for proceeding with what he said was a risky drilling plan that never should have been brought forward.

"Shame on you, Mr. Hayward, for submitting it," Burgess said, "but shame on us for accepting it, which is simply a rubber stamp."

As the BP chief executive began to testify, a protester disrupted the hearing and was forcibly removed from the room by Capitol police.

The woman was identified as Diane Wilson, 61, a shrimper from Seadrift, Texas, near the Gulf Coast. Her hands stained black, she shouted to Hayward from the back of the room: "You need to be charged with a crime!"

Stupak, chairman of the investigations subcommittee and a former Michigan state trooper, noted that over the last five years, 26 people have died and 700 have been injured in BP accidents - including the gulf spill, a pipeline spill in Alaska, and a refinery explosion in Texas.

Hayward argued that safety had always been his top priority and "that is why I am so devastated with this accident." When he became chief executive, in 2007, Hayward said he would focus "like a laser" on safety, a phrase he repeated on Thursday.

Rep. John Sullivan (R., Okla.) questioned BP's commitment to safety.

BP had 760 safety violations in the last five years and paid $373 million in fines, Sullivan said. By contrast, Sunoco and ConocoPhillips each had eight safety violations and ExxonMobil just one, Sullivan said.

"How in the heck do you explain that?" he asked the BP chief. Hayward said most of those violations predated him. "We have made major changes in the company over the last three to four years," he said.

According to estimates, 73.5 million to 126 million gallons of oil has come out of the breached wellhead, a lot of it unchecked into the gulf and some of it captured.

The reservoir that feeds the well still holds 2 billion gallons of oil, according to the first public estimate Hayward has given of the size of the undersea oil field.

That means the reservoir is believed to still hold 94 percent to 97 percent of its oil. At the current flow rate, it would take from two years to nearly four years for all the oil to be drained from it.