Tweak Cuban embargo for sake of safe drilling, Sen. Bob Graham says

Posted on Thursday, 05.29.14

Tweak Cuban embargo for sake of safe drilling, Sen. Bob Graham says
BY DAN CHRISTENSEN
BROWARDBULLDOG.ORG

Concerned about the impact of a spill if Cuba drills for oil offshore,
environmentalists and former Florida Sen. Bob Graham are pushing to
change the U.S. trade embargo to allow Cuba to buy state-of-the-art
safety equipment from U.S. sources.

"We're not doing the Cubans a favor," said Graham, who led an American
delegation to Havana in January to meet with Cuban officials. "We are
protecting ourselves by decreasing the chances of an event which would
be extremely damaging to the United States and, in particular, South
Florida."

Graham was co-chairman of the 2010 national commission on the BP
Deepwater Horizon spill.

The tide in the Straits of Florida between Cuba and the Keys, where the
Cubans would drill, runs west to east, then turns north along Florida's
coastline.

In the event of a spill, "the entire east coast of Florida would be at
risk. The Gulf Stream could potentially carry oil from a major spill up
the coast as far as North Carolina before it veers off into the
Atlantic," said Dan Whittle, Cuban program director for the
Environmental Defense Fund.

"What we're shooting for is basically a world without the embargo with
respect to offshore oil exploration," Whittle said.

Earlier this month, Graham met with a White House official to discuss
the matter. "He seemed receptive to the argument that the U.S. is the
most at-risk party," said Graham, who did not name the official.

The Council on Foreign Relations, the New York-based think tank that
sponsored Graham's Havana trip, will hold a private, invitation-only
event to alert certain South Florida business interests about the
pollution threat a large spill would pose.

"The council is seeking to organize a workshop primarily focused on the
tourism industry, which would be the most immediately effected if there
was a major spill," Graham said.

Anti-spill efforts by nongovernmental organizations like the council
have been accompanied by recent governmental action.

In March, after several years of talks, officials in the United States
and Cuba joined with other nations in a little-noticed agreement to
adopt nonbinding procedures that seek to streamline international
cooperation efforts in the event of an oil spill. Also participating are
Mexico, the Bahamas and Jamaica.

The intent of the so-called Wider Caribbean Region Multilateral
Technical Procedures (MTOP) "is to build a responder-to-responder
network so that in the event of a large oil spill, participating
countries can work effectively together to minimize environmental
impacts," according to the 60-page document.

Cuba's renewed interest in finding oil in its sovereign waters about 50
miles south of the Florida Keys, in waters a mile deep, is motivated by
its desire to have greater control over its energy supply. Today, Cuba's
primary source of oil is an unstable Venezuela.

Twice before, while working with a Spanish oil firm, Cuba drilled dry
wells. According to Graham, however, the Cuban officials he met with
believe that recent seismic data was sufficiently compelling to justify
further exploration in the deep water of the Florida Straits.

The Cubans told Graham their future partners in any search for oil would
likely be from Brazil or Angola.

"The concern that a number of us have is that other than those failed
efforts by the Spanish, Cuba has had no experience with deep-water
drilling and we learned with BP how fragile that process can be," said
Graham. "Cuba also has limited access to the kind of technology which
would mitigate against an accident during the drilling process and has
no capability to respond were there to be one."

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of
Mexico on April 20, 2010, killed 11 workers, injured 16, and spilled oil
that ultimately spread across more than 1,000 miles of shoreline in
Louisiana, Mississippi Alabama and Florida, according to the National
Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration. BP has spent more than $25
billion in cleanup and settlement costs.

Graham and Whittle agreed that a similar spill in the Florida Straits
could be worse.

"There are more entities that would be affected. It would also have a
deleterious effect on the coral reefs and the mangroves and the fish,"
Graham said.

"Marine life in the Gulf Stream would be damaged," said Whittle.
"Ecosystem damage would also happen along the northwest and north
central coast of Cuba. Seagrass, mangroves and coral systems could be
devastated."

They say a modification of the U.S. trade embargo is necessary to allow
Cuba access to advanced U.S. technology, like blowout preventors and
rigs, needed to lessen the likelihood of a spill.

Under the embargo, items that have more than 10 percent U.S. content
cannot be sold to Cuba.

The embargo should also be changed to allow Cuba to participate in the
24-hour response capability established by oil companies in the Gulf
since the Deepwater Horizon spill, Graham said.

The embargo has been changed before to protect U.S. interests regarding
sea search and rescue, weather information sharing and drug trafficking.

Broward Bulldog is a not-for-profit online only newspaper created to
provide local reporting in the public interest. www.browardbulldog.org
954-603-1351

Source: Tweak Cuban embargo for sake of safe drilling, Sen. Bob Graham
says - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/29/4145923/tweak-embargo-for-sake-of-safe.html