Newscast for Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Investigations on BP oil disaster focus on safety lapses before explosion
BP officials gave testimony in Houston again today, during the U.S. Coast Guard and Bureau of Energy Management’s joint investigation into the disaster. Commission members are trying to find out why the BOP, or blow out preventer failed. That was the device that should have stopped the flow of oil, had it been working.

BP’s Vice President for Drilling and Completions Harry Thierens indicated that Transocean made changes to the blow out preventer that hindered their efforts to shut off the flow of oil following the deadly explosion.

"There was a period of time, when Transocean was looking for what was referred to as points of interest or places of interest on the BOP stack. And if that time had not been necessary it could had expedited a faster response to the BOP."

Commission member Jason Matthews with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management wanted to know if BP was aware of changes that could have affected safety. He asked Thierens to read from notes he recorded on April 25, five days after the rig exploded.

THIERENS: "My concern right now is that Transocean made, possibly, an uncontrolled change to the system locally on the rig. It does not appear at this time that they have a controlled process for this change on something which is safety critical.

MATHEWS: And can you confirm today…you still think that’s a safety critical element?

THIERENS: Absolutely."

Meanwhile, in Washington, the President’s National Oil Spill Commission met today to look at how to prevent and respond to future spills. Much of the emphasis during today’s hearing was placed on how to alter the regulatory structure to prevent a disaster like the BP Oil Spill from happening again.  Michael Lawson has more from Washington.

UN study on oil damage in Niger Delta draws criticism for relying on Shell data
And as residents in the Gulf continue to feel the effects of the massive BP oil disaster, another region of the world is struggling with ongoing damage from oil spills. In the Niger Delta in Western Africa nearly double the amount of oil that has spilled into the Gulf - or 9 million barrels - has been gushing into the region over the past half century, according to Amnesty International. Much of that is from Royal Dutch Shell.

Now, a UN report investigating damage from the spills is coming under fire. Community and environmental groups say that the UN's Environment Program has used figures from Shell Oil and the Nigerian government in order to put blame on local militants for the cause of the spills rather than the multinational corporation.

In a statement released on August 23, the UN agency doing the study acknowledged the figures come from Shell and Nigeria's government but say that they do not represent the results of the study, which is ongoing.

To find out more, we called Audrey Gaughran, she's the director of Amnesty International's Global Thematic Issues Program and joins us from London.

Home rebuilding program in Louisiana has faced struggles, five years after Katrina
Five years after the flood caused by the failure of the levees in New Orleans, tens of thousands of homeowners remain displaced. The Louisiana Recovery Authority says that as of August, its Road Home program had spent over $9 billion to help homeowners rebuild. It was the largest disaster recovery operation in US history. Zoe Sullivan has more about the problems with the program and lessons that could be learned for the future.

US failing to protect immigrants in detention from abuse, report says
Human rights advocates have issued a report that says the US government is failing to protect immigrants in detention from sexual abuse. The report from Human Rights Watch follows an announcement that a guard at an all-female detention center in Texas has been charged with official repression and unlawful restraint for allegedly fondling women in his custody. FSRN's Renee Feltz has more.

Race to the Top program leaves out some rural and inner-city schools
The winners of the federal Race to the Top education grants were announced on Tuesday. The program is supposed to reward states that are aggressively tackling school reform agendas. But the program is under fire. Rural areas say the requirements don’t make sense for their schools and some inner-city educators say the program is biased against them too. Tanya Snyder reports.