General Accountability Office Warned of an Environmental Disaster...in 1994

There are over 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico, despite regulations requiring companies that own these wells to present plans that they are going to reuse or plug up the wells within a year.

This problem has been ignored for decades. No one - not the industry, not the government - is checking to make sure these wells aren't leaking.

Haven't we learned anything from our mistakes?

The BP oil spill was caused by an abandoned well that was being temporarily sealed when it blew on April 20. It has become one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation's history.

Obviously, these temporary abandoned wells, like BP's, are just too dangerous.

And it comes as no surprise that BP owns over 600 of these abandoned wells.

Problems like this have even happened before. The US Environmental Protection Agency reported that other abandoned wells have leaked before - in places such as Louisiana and Texas.

But what is the most surprising is that Congress has actually received warnings that this would happen...

...in 1994.

The General Accountability Office told Congress in 1994 that abandoned wells could cause an environmental disaster. Furthermore, they even asked Congress to investigate the issue, but nothing was done on the matter.

Then in 2006 the Environmental Protection Agency admitted that the plugging up of temporary abandoned wells was not sufficient, and the wells could still leak.

So why wasn't anything being done?

Read this article for the full story.

And that's my two cents.