Legal Consequences of Environmental Crises:
What Librarians Need to Know About the Gulf Oil Disaster
This was the topic of the Law and Political Science Library Section (LPSS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) annual program at the meeting of the American Library Association held in New Orleans, Louisiana on Saturday, June 25. Brian Coutts, a member of the LPSS Board served as moderator and introduced the three speakers: Robert Gramling, a professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Socioeconomic Research at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Jonathan Ramseur, a Specialist in Environmental Policy at the Congressional Research Service (CRS); and Jenna Ryan, Reference Librarian for the School of Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Professor Gramling, author of the recent Blowout in the Gulf: the BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America (MIT Press, 2011) argued that the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig which had been drilling into an oil deposit under the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles from Louisiana, was caused by a series of human errors, any one of which could have prevented the catastrophe. BP’s response plan was inadequate to the task. Long term damage to the environment, while considerable, is not fully known at this time.
Mr. Ramseur, whose portfolio at CRS includes oil spill policy matters as well as climate change is the author of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Highlighted Actions and Issues issued recently by CRS. He spoke of the various laws relevant to the oil disaster and the $20 billion contributed by BP for the cleanup. Comparisons were made to the EXXON Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989 whose final settlement occurred years after the disaster. He discussed the legislation passed by Congress after that disaster, and how that is impacting current legal cases which may drag on for years.
Ms. Ryan began compiling the Oil Spill Subject Guide for LSU Libraries the day after the disaster and she demonstrated the rich collection of resources gathered about the oil disaster and various cleanup efforts.
A pathfinder and bibliography of resources on the topic prepared by the LPSS Instruction Committee is listed here (click hyperlink).
Many of these are available in WKU Libraries.