The New York Times editorial page says no. At least one DC media outlet has begun to question whether the President acted swiftly enough in providing federal assistance in stopping the spill from spinning out of control. And, of course, the inevitable comparisons with Hurricane Katrina are beginning to swirl. Is it too early to begin criticizing the Administration? I think so.
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I believe it is far too early to tell whether the federal response has been adequate, and far too early to begin condemning the Obama Administration and the President for it. However, I do think the current situation presents an interesting topic of discussion about how the media and, in particular, the blogosphere handles this kind of ongoing story. And I think it also presents an interesting, as-it-happens view on how this Administration handles a crisis.
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It makes sense that many – apparently on both sides of the aisle if the New York Times editorial is any indication – are already beginning to compare what is happening in the Gulf with Katrina. Given the location of the oil spill, it was inevitable that the comparisons would begin. However, I doubt sincerely that this will be Obama’s Katrina, if only because no one in the media seems as willing as they were during Katrina to highlight the federal response.
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When Katrina hit the Gulf, it was after 5 full days of warnings. In the immediate aftermath, the Coast Guard and other agencies responded well. However, once the levees broke and the damage became catastrophic, the slow federal response and the President’s failure to personally respond in a meaningful way almost single-handedly destroyed his second term. I recall seeing plenty of Democratic snark about the Air Force One flyover, and outrage in liberal quarters that as Katrina was hitting the Gulf Coast, Bush was helping John McCain celebrate his 69th birthday. He appeared woefully out of touch. And he capped it off with “heckuva job, Brownie.” All of this was documented in round the clock, 24 hour coverage, with criticism of the Administration coming from almost day one. Just four days after Katrina made landfall, Kanye West was famously proclaiming that George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. The criticism began almost immediately.
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Here, the Administration apparently took the word of BP that the spill was not significant at face value, and did not take serious action until five days after the rig exploded and sank. The potential damage is already being measured in the billions of dollars, and thousands of fishermen and oystermen may find themselves permanently out of work, not to mention the environmental damage. Yet despite the potential seriousness of the crisis, tonight, the President is at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, commonly referred to as “Nerd Prom” here in DC, cracking jokes. Yesterday, the White House announced the President wouldn’t be visiting the Gulf “in the next few days” and in less than 24 hours, the White House had reversed itself, saying the President was planning on heading to the Gulf on Sunday and ensuring his footprint would be “small.” If the same firestorm of criticism at Bush over Katrina manages to stick to Obama, it is likely the images from the Correspondents’ Dinner will be used in the same way “heckuva job Brownie” is used against Bush. I am very surprised that the White House did not cancel his appearance tonight.
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Here are a couple of other things that I find interesting. First, none of the top Democratic blogs in Virginia have criticized Obama for anything – not for his support for off-shore drilling, nor for the Administration’s response so far. While Blue Virginia has made multiple posts about the oil spill, all of them have focused on Republican support for offshore drilling, attacks on Sarah Palin for the “drill baby drill” sloganeering during the campaign, and criticism of Governor McDonnell for his support for off-shore drilling. Not a single word has been said about the President’s support for off-shore drilling. Even Miles Grant, Blue Virginia’s self-proclaimed environmental expert, didn’t even criticize Obama for his stance on drilling. Over at Not Larry Sabato, the exact same has happened. Not a single post questioning the President’s response to this crisis, but plenty of abuse heaped upon Governor McDonnell, and others, including yours truly, for supporting off-shore drilling. Nor did Ben or any of the liberal commenters over at NLS criticize the President for having said that oil rigs generally don’t cause spills after I drew their attention to the quote yesterday. It’s as if President Obama’s support for off-shore drilling and the Administration’s response to this issue don’t exist on those blogs.
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Things aren’t much better nationally. Daily Kos has plenty of posts about the oil spill – even one criticizing Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu for poo-pooing concerns about off-shore drilling – but criticism of the President is non-existent. Other than the New York Times editorial, I have yet to see any significant Democratic criticism of the federal response in the media. In fact, Reuters is specifically saying the response hasn’t risen to Katrina levels yet, and Media Matters is mocking those who have begun calling the oil spill Obama’s Katrina by pointing out this is the 8th major crisis that some have tried to pin the Katrina moniker on, even going so far as to call the comparison “ridiculous” and “absurd.” The only real criticism of the President’s plan seems to be coming from Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and handful of other Congressional drilling opponents.
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The Administration proclaimed loudly and longly that they had learned the lessons of Katrina, most recently during the federal response to the Haiti earthquake. Yet, given the NY Times criticism, at least some out there don’t think they have. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days, particularly if the Coast Guard, BP and the rest of the federal responders are unable to cap the well.
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If I had to guess at how Democrats will respond to conservative criticism, I’d guess it will go something like this. First, this is all really BP’s fault, because they lied about the actual damage that occurred and waited far too long to ask for help. As usual, big oil doesn’t care about the environment, just their bottom line. Perhaps we’ll see something along the lines of “BP lied, seagulls died.” In addition to blaming BP, I can see the Democrats blaming Republicans in the Senate for not approving more of the President’s appointees faster. Had all of these agencies been fully manned and ready, that could have sped up the response. I can even see the inevitable charges of “hypocrite” being heaped at the feet of Republican Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour, two critics of the stimulus, for demanding federal help. In the end, however, I think the primary scapegoats in this crisis will be BP, regardless of whether they deserve the bulk of the blame.
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As I said before, I think it is too premature for any of us to begin attacking the Administration for what it has done or hasn’t done here. But I can’t help but recognize what appears to be a double standard here.
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May 01st by Brian S
This sounds a bit like asking if he’s stopped beating his wife. We know now that BP and the well drillers have been underestimating the severity of the leak, and they have also clammed up about what they know of how it happened. Obama is way down the list of anyone who should be blamed on this.
What should have been done but wasn’t, just as in the case of the coal mine disaster, was stricter regulation and inspection. More safety equipment, better procedures. It’s not Obama to blame for that deficiency when our Republican party has spent a generation or more fighting the fed for “excess” regulating and inspecting.
Man up. If we take the ridiculous position that all regulation is bad, we get the exploding coal mines, the collapsing mortgage markets, the catastrophic oil spills, and the various other preventable disasters that regulations are designed to prevent.
If Obama had somehow “sent in the troops” right away or started marching around acting like he was personally in charge, someone here would have been screaming about government overreaching and unnecessary expenditure of fed funds and socialism and who knows what else. The Coast Guard was on the scene fighting the fire while the rig was still above the water. The current spill (now that we know how big it really is, not how big BP was telling us it was) is of a size that is not manageable by any known technology. They have at least 4 underwater RPVs at the drill site trying to figure out how to cap it.
I’m as POd about it all as the next one, but not sure what Obama could have done that he didn’t do. It sounds as if the well drillers were probably asleep at the wheel while they were performing the well capping and they had a blowout under pressure where the auto shutdown failed or had been manually put offline, from what I heard an expert say on an interview on Fox News.
Next time you hear someone in one of those dreaded regulatory agencies talk about planning for the worst case, think of this one.
I look at it this way. Obama’s EPA approved the use of dispersants to break up the oil and sink to the ocean floor where, in all honesty, it will do a bit of damage since it will kill marine life at the bottom of the sea and then risk being stirred up with a major storm in the future.
That probably was probably a hard pill for the liberals to swallow, but it will help make the problem manageable… at least for now.
I agree, this isn’t Obama’s fault: it’s BP’s fault. As someone with some proud Irish genes, I want to point out that this is just one more reason not to trust the British. On the bright side, tax payers get to spend billions of dollars researching new ways to combat oil spills.
I’ve been meaning to have a word with you, Brian, about this “facts and reasonableness” syndrome into which you seem, tragically, to have fallen. Very little space for this kind of perversity in modern American political discourse, son. Straighten up, have a cup of Red Bull, and start screaming, if you want a future in this line of work.
The legal system that governs offshore drilling (and oil transport by ship) places immediate and complete responsibility for response on the rig or vessel owner/operator. That is a conscious choice designed to eliminate any ambiguity that might delay first response. Here you have a mile-deep well where the first event is a catastrophic fire/explosion. The response to that seems to have been pretty competent, but it will take some time to figure out what happened and how well industry and government actually performed. The next event is the leak. I can well imagine how difficult it would be to assess what’s happening beneath the surface in these situations and why both BP and the Coast Guard would not know right away about what volume of leakage was occurring. Again, the laws we have in place put first responsibility on BP. If BP was dissembling about what they knew, then go after them. It may be that wells at these depths should be regulated much differently than they are, if not forbidden altogether until more reliable technology for preventing blow-outs is found. There is no question that this is going to be a devastating ecological disaster. But the political story will be in how effectively the government determines the causes, and how intelligently the government finds solutions for the future.
A new “conservative” meme is born.
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Disappointing.
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Double standards with political blogs? That’s just crazy.
“Drill, Baby Drill!!” Where are those cries from the R’s now? Come on guys! Let’s rally for more drilling – especially offshore! After all it is environmentally safe these days isn’t it?
What this should lead to is a REAL, true, bi-partisan (or non-partisan) move to non-fossil fuel based energy sources. You don’t think this disaster isn’t just another “cost” for our use of fossil fuels? How much of this money being lost here (to say NOTHING of the ecosystem damage) could have been spent in subsidizing non-fossil fuel energy sources? Can we not all agree that its time to move on. Drop the oil companies and let them shill their crack to other “developing” nations. Make the mantra that “fossil fuels” are NOT part of the solution. The cost is too high – costs in lives lost, costs in environmental damage, cost in losses to other industries (that means jobs, btw), costs in national security (if you think domestic drilling will remove our dependence on foreign supplies, you are buying too much of that crack), costs to the economy (remember oil is traded in US Dollars and is a big part of our trade deficit), costs at the pump (now nearly $3.00 a gallons again). Get the picture?
I will tell you another story about oil spills. MOST are not in the the ocean/gulf. Most are land based and smaller but happen each and every day – always have and always will. Pipeline leaks are the worse and most frequent and blow away what happens on the sea (which by comparison IS relatively “safe”). I was just involved in a 7000 gallons tanker that overturned (again happens every day) and spilled its contents into a tributary of the Allegheny River. By the time anything could be done, it was GONE. By gone I mean floating too far down stream to do anything about. On my site alone, we had multiple bird deaths from the oil (Canada Geese and mallards). It was ugly and is such a commonplace occurrence that it barely made a blip anywhere except one small article in a local newspaper.
Elder, it’s just way too soon to know what wasn’t done or was done, or to even begin placing blame. That’s my point. I have been counseling that everyone wait until the investigation is over and the response is over to figure out what happened.
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That being said, I can’t help but notice that the reaction to this crisis is radically different than the reaction to Katrina, and it seems to be based strictly on politics. That’s unfortunate.
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And, for the record, I believe those Republicans who have been advocating no regulation – let the free market do the regulating not the government – have been discredited…in the 1900s. I have always advocated for a balance in regulation, with cost/benefit analyses and removing bad regulation while leaving good regulation.
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Again, we don’t know whether the response has been adequate, but we can look at how the media is covering the issue. And so far they’re not even close to where they were during Katrina.
Eric, I agree. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been advocating for natural gas for a while. Unlike oil, you don’t have spills with natural gas. It simply evaporates. I think it’s the best bridge fuel until we can get renewable sources of energy where they need to be.
Brian S.
It is very hippocritical of you to post this attack on the Obama Admin which might be warranted and then claim you are a moderate on regulation. Almost without question Republicans criticize Obama about being a big government liberal but then you immediately criticize the lack of “response” by government. Where is the blame here? Where is the responsibility for the actions of the company managing the drill? Why aren’t they responding? Why are they not the ones spending the big dollars to fix this and clean up this mess? Are there no private contractors available for BP or their subsidiaries to hire that can respond quicker? Hell yes, but that would be expensive. This is just like the healthcare and every other debate. We the tax payer shouldn’t pay for a dime of this cleanup. Just like we the taxpayer shouldn’t pay a dime for the mess wall street and irresponsible individuals who took out big property loans. The problem is, they…the Responsible parties here, are not taking responsibility so those of us who are responsible are stepping in to bail them out. It is an inherent problem with the system and the actions by the players. We need to put responsibility back on the culprits here (not Obama) if you really want a solution to the “problem.”
Can Obama be criticized for a lack of response? Yes, but the real problem here is not Obama. The real problem is much larger.
“That being said, I can’t help but notice that the reaction to this crisis is radically different than the reaction to Katrina, and it seems to be based strictly on politics. That’s unfortunate.”
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I haven’t picked up on this tone, other than from the lefty blogs. I’d give the administration a solid “B” so far, for throwing the kitchen sink at the problem after they got engaged. Points off for the initial USCG response and Holder’s unhelpful rhetoric.
“more reliable technology for preventing blow-outs is found”
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There is, we just don’t require its use in the U.S. Something to think about….
This whole thing is a ridiculous mess. Someone should probably go to federal prison for the failur of the blow-out preventer. On the Sunday morning shows, it looks like the Obama administration folks are doing all they can to avoid taking over this operation so they can avoid responsibility. This wasn’t their fault, but they seem to be more worried about the potential political fallout than the ecological fallout. This may be the worst ecological disaster in our lifetimes.
this is completely different from katrina, of course the response is different….what’s your point in that comment?
New Commenter – you completely missed the point of this post. I am not criticizing Obama’s response. I have stated, multiple times, that it is too early to criticize anyone. My focus has been on the media reaction to the crisis. If I am being critical of anyone, it is on those who blasted the Bush Administration’s response to Katrina from day 1 and have barely begun to comment on the situation in the Gulf and the Obama Administration ten days after the crisis began and five days after its potential scope became known.
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LI, I have to agree – if we were playing a drinking game for every time Salazar or Napolitano said “from day 1″ we’d be in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
Brian, the point of the liberal blogs arguments and of Senator Bill Nelson for that matter is that this one spill means we should not drill offshore for oil. This is an attempt to leverage this disaster into a policy change that they have long advocated. And you are not disputing them on the argument they are making.
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It is these types of arguments that must be dispelled. It is incumbent on folks who support offshore drilling (Obama, Landrieu, McDonnell, me) to counter the claims made by advocates on the other side of the issue. And frankly, I am saddened that more Republicans who do support offshore drilling are not out there defending this. It is really telling when it’s just Sen. Landrieu on the floor defending this.
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To your point about natural gas, and for everyone who supports it, hydrocarbon exploration covers all hydrocarbons. When you go exploring offshore for hydrocarbons, you might find something that is primarily natural gas or primarily crude oil. If we drill off Virginia’s coast, we may very well have all gas production wells. But we may not. We won’t know until we explore; and once we explore, we are going to produce what we find.
I actually agree LI, and I agree with Brian – I am in an agreeable mood this morning. The blow out preventer, last resort cut-off failed. The manufacturer of this piece of equipment and subsequent testing is where the fault lies, in addition to the investigation into the cause/reason for the initial blast. Response is yet to be tabulated.
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The politics of blame are fascinating, if the response was lacking, or regulations was not what is should have been – I highly suspect Obama will not take any blame.
I’m afraid I’m with Brian on this one for a very simple reason: we don’t yet know 1) what caused the explosion in the 1st place and 2) what caused the failure of the emergency systems that are in place. If the explosion was an intentional act of someone who moved to circumvent the safety protocols, then it’s hardly a matter of corporate negligence, particularly if that someone was an outsider. In the same manner, if the emergency cut-offs failed because someone intentionally caused them to fail, then it’s not the fault of the manufacturer of that gear.
Are either of these scenarios what happened? We don’t know and until we know, suggesting that this situation proves this or that or even demands a particular course of action is premature. We know we need to get assets in there that have a shot at stopping the oil flow and that decision looks – to me – to have been a bit tardy. Without knowing the details, I just can’t say for sure.
tx2vadem, trust me – I’m still supporting off-shore drilling and I’ve been arguing over at NLS in favor of it, as well as on here. I’ve already made it clear that it’s ridiculous to shut down all drilling outside of the gulf simply because of an accident, the cause of which is still unknown. And I have also been making your exploration argument as well.
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The bottom line is that there are too many unknowns to make any major policy decisions as a result of this spill.
“The bottom line is that there are too many unknowns to make any major policy decisions as a result of this spill.”
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Actually, I’m fairly certain that we need to make a few policy changes based on available data. First, we can require redundant BOP mechanisms like the UK does if you want to sink a deepwater well in the North Sea. Secondly, we need some sort of indigenous government capability to accurately assess risk: we can’t accept without question what the operators provide.
Cato, do we know that there wasn’t redundant BOP mechanisms in place? As I understand it – based on listening to ADM Allen this morning – the failsafe that failed had three separate means of securing the pipe, all of which failed.
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I agree that need some kind of government capability to assess risk, but it’s entirely possible that we already have it and it simply wasn’t deployed. I’d like to get more information.
“Cato, do we know that there wasn’t redundant BOP mechanisms in place?”
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You’re right – there’s no official report but I listened to a fellow who was on the rig being interviewed Friday night who indicated that there weren’t. I should have been more specific and said “acoustic backups” rather than “redundant BOPs.” What I am certain of is that, compared to most other nations, our regulations as to what equipment must be present on deepwater rigs is somewhat less stringent and they probably shouldn’t be.
We knew that double-hulled vessels were needed for oil tankers long before the Exxon Valdez disaster. The industry knows very well what BP’s driller did and didn’t do on this rig. Just almost no one is talking.
There is a role for government. Government is not always the enemy. Government is not always the problem. The question is whether the Republican party can manage to be grown up enough to moderate its shrill and simplistic pro-corporate and anti-government message of the past years. In the past, populist Republicans who knew well the dangers of corporate greed were able to promote strong and common-sense regulation in a wide variety of industries. Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts, for example. Now what do we have, Sarah Palin cheerleading for unregulated drilling. How far we’ve fallen.
Now thanks to decades of coziness between the oil industry and the US government–both parties but (face it) primarily the Republican party–drilling in US waters is NOT covered by the kind of safety regulations that are in place in all those “socialist” European regimes, where, shazaam, they still do oil drilling and corporations still make money.
This is a prime example of where our fringe’s fixated ideology and a culture of legalized graft and corruption have combined to come back to bite us.
Mines can be safer, oil rigs can be safer, food can be safer, cars can be safer, investments can be safer, it all just costs money and takes regulation. Public knowledge of such issues may lag behind industry knowledge, and trusting corporations to regulate themselves is like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house. This is the kind of evidence that we should have been able to see the guest lists and the transcripts of Dick Cheney’s famous oil industry confab.
Just checked a couple of Sunday talk sites, and the news is not good. There are three leak sites now at the well. It’s presumed there has been further degradation of pipes or other equipment at the well head. Both the satellite mappers and Sec. Janet Napolitano say that the leak is probably on the order of tens of thousands of barrels a day. The mappers estimate 26,000 barrels a day. Current estimates are that it will likely take 90 days to recap the well or drill a relief well. That will lead to a spill 9 times the size of the Exxon Valdez. That will be the biggest oil-related disaster in history (move over Saddam, here comes BP). That will cover the entire Gulf, go into the Gulf Stream and contaminate the US East Coast all the way up to Virginia Beach. It could go into Chesapeake Bay.
If you want to fault Obama, fault him for so recently having joined the drill baby drill crowd, but first fault the Republican party for having toadied to the petroleum oligarchs for decades. Yes, that’s right, the petroleum oligarchs. This spill could change our lives forever. Our country is in for a big world of hurt, and it is a world of hurt that was caused for the sake of some corporate jets, designer clothes, Lamborginis, dinners at Mark’s American Cuisine or Quattro, golf at River Oaks and Pebble Beach, custom boots from Little’s, and condos in the Caymans.
Elder, that’s nonsense. You’re acting like oil isn’t a daily part of life for every American. Instead of corporate jets, designer clothes, etc. you should recognize that the oil went into heating homes, making cribs for babies, getting people to and from work, generating electricity, making clothing – all of the things that are critical for every day life. Many of them come from petroleum. Those “oligarchs” you complain about wouldn’t exist if there was no market for their products.
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And there’s plenty of blame to go around if you want to talk about “toadying” to big oil. I seem to recall a certain Texan president who wouldn’t have made it out of the Pedernales without oil money.
The reality is that the Administration is trying to have it both ways on drilling. Their announcement a few weeks ago on the Five Year Plan was nothing but a big head fake. The truth is the Administration effectively does NOT support offshore drilling. The new Five Year Plan takes almost everything that was available in the previous two Bush Administration Five Year Plans and places it in a “study area.” Which conveniently will be studied until right after the 2012 elections. Axlrod, Pelosi and Browner are not pointing out that their announcement in support of ocs exploration actually didn’t support any exploration, and they are completely correct.
It was only the media and perhaps some of the bloggers that think they did support drilling.
We are wholly reliant on oil and we will be for the forseeable future. We import 60% of our oil and that amount will grow. We don’t have the infrastructure to do anything else–all this talk of electric cars is fine, but we ever had a significant part of fleet on electric we’d have blackouts all over the place. So either we import oil or develop it ourselves. The crowd that wants to ignore the reality of us sending billions to dangerous regimes will use this incident to argue against offshore drilling. The rest of us need to stand strong while ensuring that all global best practices are followed by oil companies.
Here we go. Sigh.
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Eric the 1/2 troll wrote ““Drill, Baby Drill!!” Where are those cries from the R’s now? Come on guys! Let’s rally for more drilling – especially offshore! After all it is environmentally safe these days isn’t it?”
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Actually, it is pretty safe. If you look at the tremendous amount pumped v the amount spilled, we’re getting a good deal. Ending off-shore production over this makes as much sense as ending production of aircraft whenever there’s a big crash. The adult way to respond to this is not through childish anti-oil industry and anti-Republican rants but to 1) wait until we have the facts on what happened, and then 2) revise our regulations and technology accordingly.
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“move to non-fossil fuel based energy sources.”
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Such as? Conveniently you don’t offer any specifics. Wind and solar are expensive yuppie jokes. Ditto with hydrogen. Producing ethanol, either with corn as we do or sugar cane or sugar beets as the Brazilians do would use up and destroy more farmland.
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Brian S wrote “I’ve been advocating for natural gas”
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Tell me, did you research to find out how much of it we (might) have before you wrote that? Do you know for a fact that we have enough natural gas replace on a 1 to 1 basis petroleum?
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new commenter wrote “It is very hippocritical of you to post this attack on the Obama Admin which might be warranted and then claim you are a moderate on regulation. Almost without question Republicans criticize Obama about being a big government liberal but then you immediately criticize the lack of “response” by government.”
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What nonsense. Conservatives are and have always been in favor of a large government response to natural disasters. This is not “regulation” as we mean it. We object to micromanaging the economy and our lives. We object to regulation as in ObamaCare, not responding to emergencies.
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Elder Berry wrote… a childish rant not worth responding to.
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I note that no one has mentioned nuclear power. If we are to have electric cars, we must charge them. If we are to replace oil fired power plants, it must be with something reliable. Nuclear must be in the mix
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In the end, a responsible policy will incorporate all technologies that provide an acceptable return on investment. This precludes wind and solar (for reasons that would take me too long to explain here). They incorporate oil, natural gas, nuclear, and yes, research into alternatives. If we need to revise our regulations then by all means let’s do so. But let’s avoid childish rants about Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, the oil industry, Republicans, or the other assorted leftist boogeymen.
As recently as March 31, 2010, Department Of Interior issued a report stating “Impacts from oil spills are unlikely because it is anticipated that 75 percent of the hydrocarbons developed, as a result of the 2007-2012 leasing program in the GOM [Gulf of Mexico], area will occur in deep water (> 330 m) usually located far from the shoreline.” See http://www.doi.gov/whatwedo/energy/ocs/upload/PRP2007-2012.pdf The Republicans made them say it one would think if one listened to the Not Larry Sabato crowd
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NLS nation reaches back into prior administrations to ascribe blame and cast aspersions. In this case, NLS may have a point. There are fingerprints pointing back to prior administrations.
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Let’s consider a statement in 2000 by the then Deputy Secretary of Interior,
“We have supported efforts to increase oil recovery in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico;….
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He went on to say,
“The present annual production of about 5 trillion cubic feet from the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] will increase to about 8 Tcf. Most of this increase will come from deepwater production (that is, production from water depths greater than 200 meters). The Gulf of Mexico OCS is expected to play a significant and increasing role in meeting the demand for natural gas.”
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And the gentleman continued, supplying a litany of supporting detail,
“The Administration supports leasing, exploration, and development where appropriate as evidenced by the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 1997 to 2002 developed by the Minerals Management Service and approved by the Secretary. The leasing program is the first step in the process to ensures a reliable supply of domestic petroleum resources. And the statistics from the program are impressive.
•The combination of technological advances and legislative incentives like the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (DWRRA) caused leasing in the Gulf of Mexico to increase almost ten fold between 1992 and 1997.
•From 1993 to 1999, 6,538 new leases were issued covering approximately 35 million acres of the OCS.
•More than 40 million acres of Federal OCS are currently under lease. Approximately 94% of the existing OCS leases (7,600) are in the Gulf, and about 1,500 of these leases are producing.
•Lease Sale 175 in the Central Gulf of Mexico, held on March 15, 2000, offered 4,203 blocks (22.29 million acres) for lease. We received 469 bids on 344 blocks. It was the ninth OCS lease sale held subject to the DWRRA. Indicative of industry’s interest in shallow and deepwater areas, approximately two-thirds of the bids were on blocks in relatively shallow water with heavy bidding coming from independent companies.
•The proposed Eastern Gulf of Mexico sale recognizes the high potential for the development of the significant natural gas reserves in the area and the potential for an extension of deepwater development.
A survey of the issues from last month’s Oil Daily provides further evidence of the positive results of the Administration’s policy. Arabian Oil Company will boost natural gas output from a field in the Gulf of Mexico after discovering a new gas structure with estimated recoverable reserves of 30 billion cubic feet (March 14, 2000, p. 7). BP increased estimates of recoverable oil from the Alaska OCS Northstar field by 36 million barrels (March 16, 2000, p. 8). Day rates for mobile offshore rigs improved for a ninth straight month (March 21, 2000, p.7). Improvement in day rates reflects an increasing level of drilling and exploratory activity. Total Fina Elf announced its Aconcagua appraisal well is successful, confirming a deep offshore discovery made in January 1999 in the Gulf of Mexico (March 31, 2000). Finally, Forest Oil reported a significant natural gas discovery at South Pelto 6 in the Gulf of Mexico (April 6, 2000, p. 8).”
Source:
http://www.mms.gov/ooc/testimony/041200.htm
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Who was the Deputy Secretary of Interior in 2000 who trumpeted the Federal Government’s lease of exploration and development rights in the area where the blow up occurred? Why he was none other than revolving door lobbyist David Hayes, who is also the current Deputy Secretary of Interior. That is the very same David Hayes who traveled down to the Gulf Coast from his Arlington home the day after the explosion, where he led the response team that in the first weeks minimized reporting of the effects. It’s too bad Obama didn’t go down as well so we could have had a recording of him saying “Good job, Davey.”
Tom, when I say I’ve been advocated for natural gas, I wasn’t simply talking about domestic gas production. I also support gas importation. I worked for a long time to get Americans back into the LNG importation business and helped draft language to give incentives for U.S.-flag and/or U.S. crewed LNG tankers. I’ve also worked on permitting issues for LNG import terminals.
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Gas is the bridge fuel and I hope to see more widespread use of it in the future.
[...] as anything the Bush administration did during Katrina, as even the New York Times reports. But as Brian S. over at Too Conservative has written, it’s way too early to be attacking the administration over what has or hasn’t been [...]
A minor quibble with Elder Berry’s comment about double hulls (to the effect that we knew long before EXXON VALDEZ that double hulled tankers were the way to go). While the legislative response to VALDEZ was a double-hull phase-in requirement for tankers, if the VALDEZ had been a double-hulled vessel, the disaster would have been far worse. One of my naval architect friends said that when Congress started to design airplanes, he’d stop flying, and he wished they would have kept their hands off vessel design. As it was, VALDEZ lost only a portion of its cargo and was salvageable. In a casualty of that type, had there been double hulls, the likely result would have been a total loss of vessel and cargo. Double hulls help in certain situations (soft groundings and punctures of moderate depth) but probably put the ship and cargo at greater risk in hard, raking groundings and collisions.
If you are interested, there is a fascinating discussion on theoildrum, here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6421#more
I watched this afternoon’s White House press conference about this. Hey Gibbs. we all understand by now that BP is the “responsible party”. Now it is time to federalize the operation, no mater what the feared political repurcussions may be. This is the most nationalized disaster we’ve had in years. Enough with trying to keep blame at bay.
I hear that Limbaugh has said this was enviro-terrorism, perpetrated by environmentalists.
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The depravity of that guy often astounds me.
“There is, we just don’t require its use in the U.S. Something to think about….
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You’re right. In Norway, which does quite a bit of off-shore drilling, (INCLUDING BP) they have regulations to prevent this kind of thing from happening. There’s some safety piece of equipment (I can’t come up with the exact name) that prevents this. Norway mandates it, we don’t, guess who has the oil spill? This is separate from the pro/anti-drilling debate, btw. If you’re for offshore drilling you should want it done in the safest manner possible, I would think.
Corporations are amoral, if a safety measure will eat into their profits they’re not going to implement it unless told by the government.
Okay – now I’m getting mad. Apparently, despite claims to the contrary, the Coast Guard did not actually implement any of the in situ burn plans at all. Not a single ounce of oil was burned. http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html
BTW let me just say that Sarah Palin (!) has actually been the voice of reason on the right wing during this episode. Yes, I’m shocked I’m saying this, too!
Here are a few new articles that have been coming out lately talking about the issues I brought up here.
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1) AP – questioning the Administration’s claim that they were going at 100% from day one: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLiUWM39KjSOCwqEl9nZDVncfSlgD9FFSJ8O0
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2) Politico – saying the White House is in a “panic” about protecting the President’s public perception of his Administration’s competence: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36722.html
When Politico says you’re losing, you’re winning.
The week the economic crash started in 2008, they were still harping on the “lipstick on a pig”.
I’m tired of my hard earned money being used to support these lazy louts in Louisiana!
Where does it say in the U.S.Constitution anything about oil spills?
So some fisherman who vote Republican lose their jobs. Let them move to Alaska or Arizona.
Brian S,
Why was Governor Jindal waiting for the Coast Guard to act?
Had he read any Republican blog or listened to Republican members of Congress, he would have known our Commander in Chief is a Kenyan Muslim Terrorist Who Hates America who introduced and signed leglistation that allows Death Panels to kill our grandparents.
Surely, he should have had the good, hard working citizens of Louisana ready for any emergency.
Again, why should my hard earned money now subsidize Jindal because he failed to anticipate the consequences?
Barry, it isn’t. As the President and others have said, BP will pay the cost of the clean up. In any event, the states do not have the resources to handle something like this. It has always been a federal issue, as marine issues have traditionally been federal issues, since the founding of the Republic.
Sorry Brian,
Who is paying for those booms, helicopters, Coast Guard vessels and the supporting workers? Who is going to pay for the lost wages, retraiing and other benefits Gov. Jindal wants taxpayers in Illinois, New York and elsewhere provide to his Republican constituents?
Call me a cynic, but somehow I don’t think all those funds are going to from the shareholders of BP.
As Gov. Jindal, Gov. Palin and President Reagan before them correctly said Washinton is the problem and not the solution.
And why rely on the resources of the federal court system with some frivilous lawsuit (tort reform remember?)
I suggest that the Governor Jindal urge his constituients not to seek any remedy through the courts but to rely on the power of the free market. Let them buy shares of BP and seek control of the board.
WHo’s fault? BP’s, Transoceanic, and the Government Regulators. Get on with the response.
On the 29th of April BP asked for the Navy’s help from Obama. Do you think that is an indicator of the size of this thing? I’m sorry but Obama is going to get pilloried for this anemic response to resolving “the LEAK”. Has he pushed getting an Engineering Tiger team from Navy Research Labs, NASA, or any of the Major universities that specialize in under geology and oil exploration? Did he bring over Russian scientists that exploded nukes to shut off their own similar disaster’s? No, he just spent time pointing the finger at BP and transoceanic.
That is the parallel to Katrina you are going to get. Stop the flipping leak MR. President!!! Stop pointing fingers until the really big problem of the leak is solved. Do you think BP is going to come up with radical approaches for securing this leak 5000 feet below the surface without Government or military help? Do you think they are are going to understand the yield trade-off or feasibility of a tactical nuke to collapse the well hole?
I am sick for all the folks along the gulf and east coasts, and the watermen that use them for their livelihood. What a sad excuse for a leader the President is.
What we don’t need now is a catagory 5 pass thru and spray oil inland. Wonder what this would look like? Would the utility power lines, transformers, etc and lightening strikes not likely to spark the fuel? Could this be the greatest fire desaster since chicago