Embattled BP chief faces angry US lawmakers

Ringed in tight security as protesters waved blackened hands, BP boss Tony Hayward on Wednesday faced his first public grilling by US lawmakers who lashed him over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

He sat alone at a long table as members of a key House panel demanded he be "honest" and "contrite" and accept personal blame for BP's "complacency" about safety in sharp words that sometimes cast the disaster as a US-British clash.

"I'm sure you will get your life back, and with a golden parachute back in England. But we in America are left with the terrible consequences of BP's reckless disregard for safety," said Democratic Representative Bart Stupak.

Stupak, who chaired the hearing, was referring to a much-denounced statement in which Hayward had said he wanted the worst environmental disaster in US history to end so he could get his life back.

The Democrat also invoked BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg's comment, after a high-stakes White House meeting on Wednesday, that the British energy giant cares "about small people."

"We are not small people but we wish to get our lives back," said Stupak, who noted it had been 59 days since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform, sank the rig, and unleashed the catastrophic oil spill still gushing out of control.

Amid deep US public anger at the spill and the company, even traditional oil industry allies on the committee had sharp words for BP and for Hayward, who sometimes scrawled notes as lawmakers lashed him and the company.

"There is no question that British Petroleum owns the leak, that BP made decisions that people may question," said Republican Representative Joe Barton of Texas.

But Barton also denounced the White House meeting on Thursday, saying he was "ashamed" at President Barack Obama's successful push for BP to create a 20-billion-dollar special fund to pay for the catastrophe as "a shakedown."

"I apologize. I do not what to live in a country where any time a citizen or a coproration does something that is legitimately wrong is subjected to some sort of political pressure that is -- again, in my words -- amounts to a shakedown," said the representative.

Barton, one of a handful of US lawmakers to have called BP "British Petroleum," did so again but caught himself and said "BP, sorry, it's not British Petroleum."

Hayward sat impassively, hands clasped, as a video of widows of those killed aboard the platform demanded retribution, with one saying "this tragedy will not be in vain" if global energy titans are held to account.

While the embattled executive sat silently through lawmakers' often irate opening statements, he took pains in his prepared testimony to express personal sorrow over the disaster and vowed to "do the right thing" by those affected.

"The explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico never should have happened -- and I am deeply sorry that they did," said Hayward, who described himself as "personally devastated."

"None of us yet knows why it happened. But whatever the cause, we at BP will do what we can to make certain that an incident like this does not happen again," he said in the prepared remarks.

Hayward was due to face questioning about what lawmakers have characterized as "corner-cutting" on safety and ignored warnings about the well in the days and hours before the explosion.

"These warnings fell on deaf ears," said Democratic Representative Henry Waxman. "You were brought in to make safety the top priority of BP. But under your leadership, BP has taken the most extreme risks."

Hayward arrived to the hearing room a few minutes before the hearing, ringed in a cordon of US Capitol Police and BP aides before settling at the witness table, bare except for his microphone, a pitcher of ice water, and cups bearing the US flag.

As Hayward arrived to testify protestors raised blackened hands and waved signs denoucing him and BP.