Obama and the spill

Smaller government doesn't mean you would be lacking funds in a disaster - it means you have better control and wiser decisions that are made in a timely manner.

Obama screwed up - he had the help offered to him from other countries within the first few days and he didn't accept it. He lied when he said he was there from day one - he never even went down to the Gulf till over a month later - what he might have done on day one was to send down LAWYERS to the Gulf!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100619/...ill_commission

Nice to see that Barack is really choosing the oil experts for his "panel".

Did you plug the hole yet daddy? DAY 61

By international convention territorial waters are limited to 12 miles offshore. There is also a 200 mile zone offshore that it protected in the name of economic interests. One of those interests are natural resources. The Deepwater Horizon rig was 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana when it exploded and went down which means (at least to me) that it falls under the jurisdiction of the United States. Being on the outside looking in I believe there is a lack of centralized control. It seems like everyone is doing there own thing. One person needs to be calling the shots down there and it should be someone that has experience with cleaning up oil spoils (not someone from BP, and not a bureaucrat). Foreign assistance from the Dutch and Norweigans should have been accepted from the moment it was offered. Both countries have companies with extensive experience in drilling and cleanup from drilling in the North Sea. I think one of the reasons they were denied was because one of them used a dispersant that wasn't EPA approved. News flash: yes the oil is also toxic, but so are the dispersants. That being said, you can skim, soak, disperse, collect, and trap all of the oil you want right now, but it is a moot point while that hole is gushing hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day. If it wasn't for all of the methane in the water I wouldn't be against trying to collapse the hole with a nuke.

Here is what Obama is NOT doing. He was offered help in the way of foreign vessels with skimmers, pumpers, booms, etc. to come in and contain the mess. It would have required waiving the Jones Act (which Bush did after Katrina), but he didn't. A LEADER would have put aside his golf game, his evening with Paul McCartney, his invitations to host college sports teams, his bowling, his partying, etc., etc. to gather up all the EXPERTS from all DIFFERENT OIL COMPANIES, at a brain-storming session at Camp David or somewhere, and see if they can't come up with a SOLUTION of how to FIX AND REPAIR THE HOLE!

Gov. Jindal asked the government to build sand berms to keep the oil from washing on shore. Obama had to confer with HIS environmentalists, who apparently nixed the idea because of some perceived damage to the sand crabs or the clams, and instead the oil was allowed to enter the marshlands and destroy the pelican breeding grounds, and destroy (perhaps permanently) the fragile coastal environment that is home to many species. There was so much delay because of federal jurisdiction and involvement that there was paralysis instead of action, and the problem continued to worsen.

I have seen people on TV with shovels and rakes trying to clean up lumps of oil, when they should be using machinery like sifters. Shovels, rakes and plastic bags is just plain stupid, when there is equipment out there not being used.

And why is it that the clean up crew (volunteers?) are only around when a dignitary or film crew is in the area, and they disappear soon after? Who is overseeing this? And why doesn't the government HIRE some of the displaced oil rig workers (because of the deep water drilling moratorium), and PAY them to help clean up the mess. They can send the bill to BP later. And they could also HIRE the laid off hotel maids and food servers, etc. (because of the loss in tourism) to help clean up, and again bill BP for the cost later.

Congress, instead of grilling Hayward on what he knew and when he knew it, should have ASKED HIM WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO NOW TO FIX THE HOLE. The Congressional committee that was grilling Hayward was too focused on threatening punishment, and not nearly interested enough in fixing the leak, IMO. Plug the hole and worry about BP's punishment later.

The buck stops with Obama. The problem is that he was NEVER a leader, and he has NO EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE, which is one reason why I didn't vote for him. His lack of LEADERSHIP SKILLS is showing now in spades. He's a joke, and this crisis isn't funny.

I agree. Early on, he could have called a meeting of everyone he could think of who might could work together to solve this problem. He could have showed some real leadership and said "Cut the red tape, and get this fixed."
But instead he is associating with lawyers etc, and others who all they know is bureaucracy.

We still have people dying in several spots around the world. Why should this be his TOP priority. Priority, yes, but why TOP?

What is the capability of these ships? Can they collect oil suspended below the surface? Is their equipment sufficiently sealed to operate in a methane environment? How are their hulls vented? What is the composition of their crews? Can they operate in shallow inlets and channels? If in shallow water churning up bottom debris with their props, how much sand ingestion can their engines take? Do they require support vessels? If so, same as above? How maneuverable are they at operating speeds? What is their draft? How do they emit their exhaust? And so on...

These are all questions that have to be considered, and probably were, by people that know the answers.

And I honestly don't know this one...who are the experts at stopping runaway wells a mile deep? I've not heard of any... How do we know that he hasn't already called everyone, and NO ONE KNOWS?

The hugest ecological disaster of this country's history just seems like it deserves to be top priority.

IMO, people dying is a far more pressing issue. The Gulf situation is very bad, and must stay on the front burner...the continuing loss of our military personnel is worse. I do understand completely that some conservatives are trembling in their socks over the idea that if businesses and livelihoods are effected in the Gulf states, they may have to actually let go of a few pennies to help them out. But, IMO, it still plays second fiddle to people dying.

I found some info that said that Reagan did NOTHING about the Exxon-Valdez spill when it happened. It wasn't considered to be something the president should deal with. What's changed this time?

The change is that this provides yet another opportunity to bash Obama and blame him for another problem.

What did you expect him to do? President Ronald Reagan was NOT president on March 24, 1989.

I wonder what would be our current environmental policy if all this emotional response had occurred when the Valdez spill happened. If the government had actually addressed the policy issues associated with the oil industry back then, perhaps this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

I find it highly appropriate that Obama has policy people on his panel. A problem such as this has been 100 years in the making due to the neglect in setting the appropriate regulations for the industry. This issue needs a 2 prong approach - a tactical approach to stopping the flow and a strategic approach to prevent it from happening again. I personally think that the strategic plan is far more difficult than the tactical one.

Obama is the type of person who is more strategically than tactically aligned. I think the same way so can recognize it easily in him. The fault of people such as myself is that operating tactically can be a stretch, which is why I always delegated that type of work to others (which is what Obama has done with appointees). I don't think that he should make this his sole priority (as Mike pointed out), but I don't have a clear view on how much time he is spending with his appointees to ensure that they are getting the work done. It's hard to place any judgement on Obama at this point in time because it is too early to see how this will all play out (I know, spoken like a true strategist).

And some people believe that Barack Obama should be given a free pass on everything.

Fact, Exxon Valdez was the tragedy we learned from and made many changes because of, so it would never happen again. See my links above.


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/na...-95942659.html

Much more at the link. Oh yeah that big, bad GOP darling, BP is turning out to be the darling of the Democrats and Obama. You just can't make this stuff up.

But, I'm sure this will be ignored and Barack given a pass for his continuous lies, just like everything else.

Kind of answers the question of why Barack took more than 50 DAYS to even SPEAK to BP, doesn't it? Pathetic.

One of the reasons for the delay on "flush and berms" was because it directly threatened OTHER livelihoods to do so. Now even more people are out of work, not because of the oil, but because Jindal's "fresh water flush" is killing the oysters. And he is apparently trying to keep it "on the down low" so that the fact that his idea is putting his own citizens out of work won't get in the way of him awarding the contracts for the BP funded berms to his "bestest good ole' boy buddies".

The oil hasn't affected the oyster beds at all. The cure is! They simply aren't being worked because BP pays the oyster boat crews more to clean up oil than the oyster companies can for harvest.

And, on top of that, Jindal's highly lucrative, no-bid contracts for berm building is apparently being accused (by locals) of cronyism and favoritism. And several scientists that have lived on the delta all their lives are highly critical of the whole thing.

But, I suppose all the science and the wisdom of the marsh dwellers themselves will be completely ignored in favor of using the delays on worthless berm building to bash the administration. Pathetic.

Some help is better than no help, and the issue for Jindal and others along the coast is to keep it off the shore line. That could probably have been accomplished by using a combination of methods, like corraling it and sucking it up, and burning off some. But Obama didn't act to make that happen within a reasonable time frame.

If he had called a summit conference of oil experts and executives, we would have heard about it. Obama would never let that go by without headlines. Besides, the idea is not to phone them up, but to put them in a room with their collective expertise together to brainstorm. We absolutely know that none of that has been done.

What we DON'T absolutely know, is if they were called and declined to participate. Does anyone really, I mean really think that all these companies, most of which are currently working wells deeper than 2800 feet themselves, are going to go on record saying that if one of them failed, they have no idea what to do?

There will never be one cure that satisfies everyone. If the oysters aren't being poisoned, well the world can live without oysters on the menu for awhile. Unfortunately, there are many species that are being threatened because of this mess, and there is widespread concern that the oil in the water is killing many marine animals and fish because it is choking off their oxygen supply.

And like I've advocated before, if workers are needed to clean up the mess, then hire the displaced workers to do the clean up.

We would know it. Trust me on that.

Unless, of course, no one mentions it, then we wouldn't know it. Other Oil companies are under no obligation to supply experts or information, so there's no reason to make any issue of them declining to help.

It would appear that the "science" behind Jinda's ideas in the number of voters he can make happy, vs. the number he will ruin with his plans.

The oysters ARE being poisoned, by fresh water. They are salt water mollusks, and the "flushing" from the Mississippi river is flooding their beds with fresh water. How many creatures dying in the oil are brackish and salt water creatures being forced there by this "flush"?

So are you saying that the state should be forcing people out of work for the sake of hiring them to clean up BP's mess? Or are you saying that it's ok to destroy one groups livelihood to assist another? (aka "Peter to pay Paul") Or is it just "misery loves company, so let's ruin everybody?"

Don't put words in my mouth. I said none of the above. There will always be vested interests whose primary goals conflict. That's life. It's important to look at the WHOLE picture, and not just a little snippet. The discomfort of a few oysters and those who fish and sell them may pale in comparison to destroying the entire marine life of the gulf waters. Decisions need to be made, and they are not always popular with everyone. That's life.

ETA: Are you aware that the Mississippi River changes course continually along the mouth because of mud deposits?

I live in Central California, and there is a huge conflict between the farmers on the west side who need water to grow their crops, and the environmentalists who want to bring salmon back into the San Joaquin River. It's huge, and there is no right or wrong, since both sides have their vested interests.

I'm not trying to bash you here, but how on earth would we know this? Do we have an "in" with these corporations that I'm not aware of?

1. The Federal Government DID address, "the policy issues associated with the oil industry back then". I guess you missed my links I posted above this post of yours I quoted. Much easier to absolve Barack if one says nothing was done after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, for some, I guess. Or so it would seem.

2. No one ever said Barack should make the nation's largest ecological disaster in its' history his "sole" priority. I said it should be his "TOP" priority. You must have missed where I said that also.

3. It is not hard to avoid placing blame on Barack for his initial, slow response to this huge disaster. It seems the Obama administration was working closely with BP on getting Cap & Trade passed in Congress so I have to wonder how much that had to do with Barack's hesitation.


I know what you are saying and any resasonable person would agree. If Barack had called a summit and they oil experts refused to come, it would be shouted from the roof tops by Barack, in the interest of transparency and all.

If you REALLY think that is a possibility then I don't know what to tell you.

What we DO know for a fact is, Barack waited more than 50 days to even pick up a phone and call BP. That information was given by the BP CEO and has NOT been denied by Barack.

Cindy answered that below, and I completely agree!

Exactly. And how long does it take to gather enough information to look at the WHOLE picture, when both options are destructive?

And yes, the Mississippi changes course, constantly, slowly, naturally, and the gulf life moves with it, constantly, slowly, naturally.

Diverting the river through man made canals in the course of a few hours though...that is a completely different story.