Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, has had a long and painful morning at the House of Representatives energy and commerce committee but he can thank Joe Barton, a Republican member of the committee, for seizing the spotlight.
Mr Barton’s comment that the government had subjected BP to a “$20bn shakedown” drew a rapid response from the White House, which called for Republicans and Democrats to repudiate it. It clearly believes it can win any political tussle over the escrow fund for compensation.
Meanwhile, Mr Hayward has been attempting, to use cricketing parlance, to play a dead bat to most of the questions from the committee. Having opened by apologising for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, he has withdrawn into a firmly defensive posture.
Mr Hayward’s only obvious mistake so far came at the start of the hearing, when he was interrupted by a protester just as he was starting his opening statement. He allowed his mournful look to break into what looked uncomfortably like a smirk.
He has also missed a few opportunities to take direct responsibility for what happened – as he did in his opening statement. Instead, he has reiterated that he did not know about the decisions taken on the rig before the accident.
Apart from that, he has performed as he was presumably coached to do – looking remorseful and grim and refusing to be drawn into specifics about the causes of the accident.
Instead, he has kept on repeating his talking points about safety:
“I have focused on safe, reliable operations . . . I think it is too early to reach conclusions, the investigations are ongoing . . . I believe we should await the results of the investigations before we draw any conclusions . . . The investigation is still ongoing, as you know.”
This, of course, has been extremely frustrating for the committee members and has drawn a bit of fire about Mr Hayward stonewalling and refusing to answer questions.
As Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, said:
“I am amazed at this testimony. You are kicking the can down the road and pretending you have nothing to do with this accident.”
If Mr Hayward keeps this up, however, Mr Barton’s comments will make better headlines than anything he says, which is about the best BP can expect.
Live coverage of the hearing by Anna Fifield continues here.
