Page 2 - Acoustic Switch News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Our brian todd is following the investigation into the oil rig explosion and the spill. he's joining us now from venice, louisiana. brian? >> reporter: fred, bp officials clearly defending their safety record as they have been for the last couple of days. one of the questions we've been asking that has been raised in this investigation is, was a backup system that could have prevented the blowup from malfunctions or maybe shut down the well on its own, this is called an acoustic switch, a remote control switch that could have shut down the valve on its own even if the blowout preventer had fai...

Really are reflecting on how this got so out of hand in the first place. this backup system, apparently. there was one in place and possibly there was a problem that may have prevented all this in the first place? explain. >> in other countries, in norway and brazil specifically, they require massive rigs to have a one type of backup system that is an acoustic switch. by remote control it shuts off the wellhead when an explosion occurs and can prevent massive amounts of oil. in the united states they are not required. a bp official said we all weighed in on these acoustic switches. in their vi...

Safety. >> mike, are you telling our audience tonight that they were too cheap to spend $500,000 on heels of record profits to put in an acoustic switch which would have triggered the blowout preventer which could have stopped all of this? >> it's the most unrereported part of this story out there, ed. i done know why the media is not talking about this, but that's what it came down to. dick cheney changed political policy with the energy industry. we all remember when he met behind closed doors with the industry. this is one of the things that came out of there. >> they did all of this -- i m...

They did all parts of the environment. the s.e. krechv. you look at it, it's all deregulatory problem. we're stuck with a problem where 20 million gallons of oil are spilling into the gulf. there's no way to clean up. and in a perfect world, ed, think about this, in a perfect world if everything goes perfectly we're going to be able to get 20% of the oil from the gulf. and what ends up happening is the rest of that crude it becomes catastrophic for an entire eco system. >> i think the issue now is that the senate, somebody in the congress, has got to step forward and call for a hearing on this...