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'Obama's Katrina': an Illustrated Timeline
Directorblueblogspot ^
| May 01, 2010
| Doug Ross
Posted on 05/02/2010 12:16:54 PM PDT by Matchett-PI
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To: All
161
posted on
05/25/2010 10:48:04 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
Proof we need more “regulators”. Then more regulators to regulate those regulators. What a joke.
May 25, 12:36 PM EDT
IG report: Meth, porn use by drilling agency staff
By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GULF_OIL_SPILL_WASHINGTON?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-05-25-12-36-20
WASHINGTON (AP) — Staff members at an agency that oversees offshore drilling accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography, according to an Interior Department report alleging a culture of cronyism between regulators and the industry.
In at least one case, an inspector for the Minerals Management Service admitted using crystal methamphetamine and said he might have been under the influence of the drug the next day at work, according to the report by the acting inspector general of the Interior Department.
[......snip.......] bttt
162
posted on
05/25/2010 10:58:37 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
2005 Katrina Flashback
FEMA:
Oil Spill Recovery 95 Percent Complete In Louisiana
https://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=20320
Release Date: November 4, 2005
Release Number: 1603-141
BATON ROUGE, La. — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness are coordinating with other federal, state and local agencies to clean up and reduce the environmental impact of the oil spills in Louisiana. Just two months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita spilled more than nine million gallons of oil, the oil recovery effort is now 95 percent complete according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has led the oil recovery effort. To date they have recovered 3,888,808 gallons of oil. More than four million gallons of oil has either evaporated or dissipated naturally. Additionally, 403,578 gallons of oil, or five percent of the total oil spilled, remains to be removed. The USCG has nearly completed waterway oil recovery and is working closely with the Louisiana DEQ to complete the recovery.
While the overall environmental impact of the oil spills remains unknown, Environmental Protection Agency and Louisiana DEQ have damage assessment teams throughout the area evaluating the impact of the spill.
With more than nine million gallons of oil spilled in Louisiana, this disaster approaches the magnitude of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1992, when an oil tanker ran aground in Alaska, releasing approximately 11 million gallons of oil.
163
posted on
05/25/2010 11:11:35 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
Lyle W. Ratliff/European Pressphoto Agency
BP has stationed one oil rig above the mile-deep wellhead to siphon the leaking oil and two other rigs to drill relief wells.
Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead
By IAN URBINA Published: May 23, 2010
WASHINGTON In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.
The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Asked about the permits and waivers, officials at the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf. ..."
[...snip...]
Comment:
"Okay, Envirowhackos....dirty little secret is, Obama can’t afford to blow up the fragile world economy by shutting off oil drilling and boosting the price to $200 a barrel.
"That would result in the immediate collapse of Europe, chaos in China and the outbreak of five or six major wars. And there aren’t enough windmills you can possibly build which could stop it.
"Sorry, guys. Reality wins. You LOSE!!"
164
posted on
05/25/2010 12:25:54 PM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
165
posted on
05/25/2010 4:22:57 PM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
The Gulf of Ocean
Rich Galen - Mullings.com
Wednesday May 26, 2010
http://www.mullings.com/currentissue.htm
Excerpt:
“MULLINGS will be making a personal inspection tour of the oil spill on Saturday. As personal punishment I will be traveling from Washington, DC to New Orleans by train. By AMTRAK train. It is expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient. It takes about 27 hours and that is only if all the cars stay on the tracks the entire way.
“I suspect someone leaked my excellent plan to the White House staff because they announced yesterday that the President will be making a trip to Louisiana to look at the oil spill on Friday.
“Obama has been roundly criticized for planning on attending fund raisers and other political events in California while forcing Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to be the public faces of the increasingly inept government handling of the increasingly destructive oil spill in the Gulf of Ocean.”
166
posted on
05/26/2010 4:53:29 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
167
posted on
05/26/2010 7:14:19 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
168
posted on
05/26/2010 10:43:18 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
Media Research Center
http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/realitycheck/2010/20100526033414.aspx
Media Reality Check.
“Media Double Standard on Gulf Coast Disasters; MRC Study: Networks Pounced on Bush Right After Katrina, but Obama Granted Four Weeks of Breathing Space”
Below is the text of a new Media Reality Check study conducted by the MRC’s Rich Noyes and Kyle Drennen:
Now the text of the May 26 Media Reality Check:
Media Double Standard on Gulf Coast Disasters
MRC Study: Networks Pounced on Bush Right After Katrina, but Obama Granted Four Weeks of Breathing Space
For more than a month, the American Gulf Coast has been threatened by a gigantic oil spill, caused by the April 21 explosion of a British Petroleum deepwater rig. Yet unlike five years ago — when the media were quick to put the onus on the Bush administration for its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — for four weeks, ABC, CBS and NBC failed to scrutinize the administration’s ineffectual response to this disaster, now blasted even by such Democratic stalwarts as ex-Clinton operative James Carville.
On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, Carville accused the President of “political stupidity” for not making the oil spill a top priority. “It just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!” Carville specifically faulted Obama for not deploying sufficient federal resources to protect the valuable marshes in southern Louisiana.
Little Scrutiny of Obama’s Oil Mess (ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, April 21 to May 20)
Stories with at least some criticism of administration: 9 (5%)
No criticism of Obama administration: 148 (95%)
TOTAL: 157 stories
While the media fancy themselves as government watchdogs, such criticisms were virtually absent from the first four weeks of the networks’ oil spill coverage. MRC analysts studied all 157 stories about the spill aired on ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening newscasts from April 21 through May 20. We discovered that only two of those stories (a measly 1%) actually centered on evaluations of how Obama and his top officials were handling the crisis, while another seven stories included minor references to criticisms of the administration. Thus, in the first full month after the spill, 95 percent of network evening news stories were devoid of any criticism of the President and top officials.
In contrast, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast five years ago, the networks waited barely 72 hours to blast the federal response. NBC’s Brian Williams, on the September 1, 2005 Nightly News, channeled the complaints of those who demanded to know: “Why isn’t more being done, and faster?” Over on CBS that night, anchor Bob Schieffer cast the President as “under growing criticism for a slow response,” while correspondent John Roberts (now with CNN) touted how “editorial pages across the nation aimed sharp barbs at Mr. Bush.”
This time around, rather than expecting action from the President, network reporters chronicled Obama’s “frustration” and “anger” at slow cleanup efforts as if he was a concerned bystander rather than the nation’s Chief Executive. On the April 29 NBC Nightly News, correspondent Anne Thompson empathized: “Frustration with the pace of the cleanup reaches all the way to the White House.” Two weeks later, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric declared: “President Obama doesn’t often show his anger in public but he did today....[he] blasted the companies responsible.” The same day on NBC, White House correspondent Chuck Todd cheered: “...the President decided it was finally time to get angry...”
The networks’ accommodative stance only began to wane on May 21, after an astonishing four-week grace period. From May 21 through May 24, the networks aired eight pieces critiquing Obama’s performance — barely one-fifth of their oil spill coverage during those days (37 stories), but a marked shift from their earlier role as White House stenographers.
On the May 22 Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt suggested Obama’s appointment of a presidential commission “may be too little, too late for many frustrated and angry residents of the Gulf.” On that night’s CBS Evening News, White House correspondent Bill Plante saw “an increasingly serious political problem” for the White House, as “some in the President’s own party are urging the administration to do more than just continue to rely on BP.” For her May 24 broadcast of ABC’s World News, anchor Diane Sawyer flew to the Gulf of Mexico and spoke of “no leadership from Washington”:
“Tonight on World News, from the Gulf coast of Louisiana. Last chance. The governor tells the White House and oil company to stop the spill or get out of his way....Good evening, from Louisiana. All day long, the people of the Gulf have told us they want Americans to remember this day as the day they said, enough is enough. If there is no leadership from Washington, no help from the oil company, they’re going to try to save the land themselves.”
Belatedly, the media have now discovered weaknesses in the Obama administration’s handling of oil spill. But if this accident had occurred on George W. Bush’s watch, does anyone doubt that the networks would have demanded action much sooner?
169
posted on
05/26/2010 3:09:01 PM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
David Horowitz News Real Blog
VIDEO:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/26/marxist-preacher-on-the-bp-oil-spill-%E2%80%9Cits-a-religious-issue%E2%80%9D/
Marxist Preacher on the BP Oil Spill: “It’s a Religious Issue”
2010 May 26 by Rhonda Robinsontags
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who worship the Creator and those who worship the creation.
Those who worship the Creator were charged with working the land and caring for it. But alas, these words of old have been long forgotten.
The Creation worshipers began to create laws, and more laws, and still more laws, until one day a father could no longer take his son fishing on a Sunday afternoon—without a permit. A man could not hunt on his own land—without a license.
While we were sleeping a new morality and a new “Christianity” has emerged—and with the BP oil spill—they have a new crisis to implement it.
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball” made the perfect choir-boy for Rev. Jim Wallis to preach to on the morality of the oil spill.
Wallis, the leftist who dreams that more Christians “will come to view the world through Marxist eyes” is the editor of Sojourners, a left wing radical magazine, that promotes “social justice” and political activism, under the guise of Christian ministry. Wallis, in his twisted theology, is a man who managed to remain silent on Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge genocide, but found his voice to lecture us on the immorality of BP and our wicked oil addiction.
Wallis commenting on the oil spill:
These things feel almost apocalyptic. I think it’s a sign of our oil addiction. Chris, as you know, we know that addictions make your life not work. So this oil spill is showing how our oil addiction is making our lives not work. So we have to deal with this. So for people of faith, it’s a moral issue, it’s a religious issue. It’s not just a political issue here.
Matthews:
Do you think the president has been morally correct in letting BP take the lead?
Unfortunately, Matthews slid off into one of his usual blathering rants, not allowing his guest to answer his question. This time he rattled on about “Captain Nemo” which David Forsmark covered well.
Most of us are astounded at that depth and power of the environmental laws and agencies, and their impact on private property and industry. For this, as a Christian, I feel in part responsible. There was a void—and someone else filled it with their morality.
Without question the oil spill is a disaster. But there are disasters all around us. The spill itself is not anymore immoral than a flood. Crisis will also divide people into two categories—those whose morality shines in the face of disaster, and those who see a crisis as an opportunity to seize more power.
170
posted on
05/26/2010 3:15:32 PM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
Comment #171 Removed by Moderator
To: All
Obama Will Take Credit for Whatever Finally Stops the Leak
May 26, 2010
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052610/content/01125110.member.html
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We showed you earlier and we played the sound bite earlier where the Coast Guard has approved of BP’s idea for a Top Kill method to plug the oil leak. Basically you lower a pipe down to the well where the leak is and you fill that hole with mud and sludge and all kinds of stuff to plug it. The Coast Guard has approved BP’s idea and we said at the time, “Why does the Coast Guard have to approve it?” Okay. That’s that.
Here’s Obama today in Fremont, California, where union workers, nonunion workers were told to stay home for security reasons. He’s at a solar panel manufacturer. Here is a portion of what he said.
OBAMA: Earlier today I spoke to Energy Secretary Steven Chu who, as you know, is a Nobel Prize winning physicist. And he’s been on the scene in the Gulf deeply involved in our efforts to bring this crisis to an end. And we discussed today’s attempt to stop the leak. If it’s successful, and there’s no guarantees, it should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of oil now streaming into the Gulf from the sea floor.
RUSH: Did I not tell you that Obama would take credit for this if it works? He’s already taking credit for the idea. (imitating Obama) “Earlier today I spoke to the Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winning physicist. He’s been on the scene there deeply involved in our efforts. We discussed today’s attempt to stop the leak,” as though it’s his idea, as though it’s Chu’s idea. It is BP’s idea. They had to get the approval of the Coast Guard to do it. Obama continued.
OBAMA: My administration’s intensively engaged with scientists and engineers to explore all alternative options, and we’re gonna bring every resource necessary to put a stop to this thing. A lot of damage has been done already. Livelihoods destroyed, landscapes scarred, wildlife affected, lives have been lost. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with the people along the Gulf Coast. Let me reiterate, we will not rest until this well is shut and the clean-up is complete.
RUSH: Well, all of a sudden David “Rodman” Gergen says he’s gotta care, and he’s acting like he cares now. (imitating Obama) “A lot of damage has been done already, livelihoods have been destroyed, landscapes scarred, wildlife affected, lives have been lost. And, by the way, we’re gonna work on this, and our thoughts and prayers are very much with the people along the Gulf Coast.” He wasn’t through. He said this.
OBAMA: I look forward to returning there on Friday to review the efforts underway and lend my support to the region. Even as we are dealing with this immediate crisis we’ve gotta remember that the risks our current dependence on oil holds for our environmental and our coastal communities is not the only costs involved in our dependence on these fossil fuels. Around the world, from China to Germany, our competitors are waging a historic effort to lead in developing new energy technologies. There are factories like this being built in China, factories like this being built in Germany.
RUSH: Never let a crisis go to waste. So here, after trying to sound like he cares about all the loss of life and marine life, all the wildlife, the landscape scarred, thoughts and prayers, he’s got to say this is why we’ve got to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels around the world, China to Germany, our competitors are waging an historic effort to lead and develop new energy. Never let a crisis go to waste. This was the real point of the remark. Where is he saying this? At a solar panel manufacturing plant. So the real reason for going out there is to take advantage of this disaster, to move forward on an idea that has literally no chance of coming anywhere near replacing what oil provides.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
• Real Clear Politics: Solar Plant Workers Told To Stay Home Without Pay Due To Obama Visit
• Reuters: BP Starts Deep-Sea Bid to Plug Gushing Oil Well
• Boston Globe: Obama Should Take Charge of Cleanup in the Gulf
172
posted on
05/27/2010 6:49:58 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: dennisw; All
‘Top kill’ effort stops flow of oil into Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard admiral says
By Jim Tankersley
May 27, 2010 | 5:43 a.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-top-kill-works-20100528,0,4282960.story
Excerpt:
[For the record, 6:39 a.m.: An earlier version of this story termed the effort “successful.” Officials clarified that neither government nor BP officials had declared the effort a success yet. They caution that only after the cementing is complete and the well is sealed can the top kill be called successful.]
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Also posted on FR here:
‘Top kill’ effort succeeds in blocking oil leak, Coast Guard admiral says
latimes ^ | 5 27 10
Posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 8:53:57 AM by dennisw
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2522179/posts
173
posted on
05/27/2010 7:02:21 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: AFPhys; ScreamingFist; All
Useful comments excerpted from the “Top Kill Effort” thread:
Actual engineering takes time - BP has accomplished this very rapidly.
I know that it is all in vogue to believe that any problem can be solved in 42 minutes or less plus commercials. People need to step away from their TVs and computers more and do something with their hands and backs occasionally.
A simple suggestion - rebuild the engine and transmission of your car, then pick up a used commercial freezer unit and rebuild it. I won’t even suggest that you attempt to do them 5000 feet away from your location, and that they first be placed inside a pressure vessel with 2100 psi. or even under water.
Why didn’t this get done sooner? Anyone who doesn’t understand that should still be in a highchair.
155 posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:07:57 AM by AFPhys
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2522179/posts?page=155#155
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See my post #155 immediately above this. .... BP was working on topkill right away. It takes much more time to get things together for topkill than it took for the other attempts first. They have been working on topkill efforts almost from the first day. The ROVs have been preparing the environment and making the connections for at least two weeks now, cutting, tearing, polishing, welding, etc. BP had to get many other pieces of equipment on site - like vessels with nearly 100,000 barrels of specifically designed “mud” to feed to the 16,000 psi, 5000 gallon per minute pumps (One heck of a power sprayer)... not to mention at all the hoses, connectors, powerlines, hydralics, etc needed to accomplish this Herculean feat.
168 posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:18:13 AM by AFPhys
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2522179/posts?page=168#168
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They worked on several fixes simultaneously. For the TopKill alone they had to run fluid analysis, design the manifolds and hardware, build it, move it into place, test it and then get permission to attempt it. If Topkill fails, they would try the Junk Shot, if that fails they will attempt to cut and cap the riser.....all while drilling two relief wells. All in all, absolutely stunning engineering in record breaking time.
177 posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:23:50 AM by ScreamingFist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2522179/posts?page=177#177
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Shoot - by the way,
BP was very upfront in their warnings that the tophats, etc, did not have a great chance of working. It isn’t that they couldn’t stand the temperatures, either - but the fact that oil and gas behaves very differently this far under the ocean. They made the attempts anyway though they realized they were likely to fail - in effect doing something that they thought was a waste of money - while they continued working on other avenues more likely to be effective. Note I said WHILE they were working.
As we speak now, in fact, they are also drilling “relief wells” ... not able to be completed for months yet - because that is widely recognized as the most likely procedure to be effective. They are doing that even though it is by far and away the most costly thing to do.
BP was not putting all their eggs in this topkill effort, only giving it a 2/3 chance of working (I thought that optimistic).
I suspect that they have at least a dozen other projects and avenues of attack underway right now. Hopefully a week or so from now all of those can be shut down and phased out and the resource being put into those can be re-allocated.
183 posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:30:29 AM by AFPhys
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2522179/posts?page=183#183
174
posted on
05/27/2010 7:37:13 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
WSJ MAY 27, 2010
BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster
By BEN CASSELMAN And RUSSELL GOLD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories
It was a difficult drill from the start.
API Well No. 60-817-44169 threw up many challenges to its principal owner, BP PLC, swallowing expensive drilling fluid and burping out dangerous gas. Those woes put the Gulf of Mexico project over budget and behind schedule by April 20, the day the well erupted, destroying the Deepwater Horizon rig and killing 11 men.
Government investigators have yet to announce conclusions about what went wrong that day. The final step in the causation chain, industry engineers have said in interviews, was most likely the failure of a crucial seal at the top of the well or a cement plug at the bottom.
But neither scenario explains the whole story. A Wall Street Journal investigation provides the most complete account so far of the fateful decisions that preceded the blast. BP made choices over the course of the project that rendered this well more vulnerable to the blowout, which unleashed a spew of crude oil that engineers are struggling to stanch.
BP, for instance, cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and remove it before it becomes a problem, according to documents belonging to BP and to the drilling rig’s owner and operator, Transocean Ltd.
BP also skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipeanother buffer against gasdespite what BP now says were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from cement contractor Halliburton Co.
Once gas was rising, the design and procedures BP had chosen for the well likely gave this perilous gas an easier path up and out, say well-control experts. There was little keeping the gas from rushing up to the surface after workers, pushing to finish the job, removed a critical safeguard, the heavy drilling fluid known as “mud.” BP has admitted a possible “fundamental mistake” in concluding that it was safe to proceed with mud removal, according to a memo from two Congressmen released Tuesday night.
Finally, a BP manager overseeing final well tests apparently had scant experience in deep-water drilling. He told investigators he was on the rig to “learn about deep water,” according to notes of an interview with him seen by the Journal.
Some of these decisions were approved by the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which has come under fire for what President Obama has called its “cozy relationship” with the oil industry. But in at least one case, the decision made apparently diverged from a plan MMS approved. MMS declined to comment.
Some of BP’s choices allowed it to minimize costly delays. “We were behind schedule already,” said Tyrone Benton, a technician who operated underwater robots and worked for a subcontractor. He said that on the day before the accident, a Monday, managers “hoped we’d be finished by that Friday.... But it seemed like they were pushing to finish it before Friday.”
He added: “They were doing too many jobs at one time.” Mr. Benton is suing BP and Transocean claiming physical injury and mental anguish.
BP acknowledges the well was running over budget but says it didn’t cut corners. “Safe and reliable operations remain a priority regardless of how much a well is behind schedule or over budget,” spokesman Andrew Gowers wrote in an email.
Some workers agree safety was paramount for both BP and Transocean. “Safety was their No. 1 concern. Protecting the environment was their No. 1 concern,” said Darin Rupinski, a Transocean employee whose job was to help keep the rig in place.
BP was drilling to tap an oil reservoir it had identified called Macondo, the same name as the cursed town in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” As on many past projects, BP hired a drilling rig from Transocean, the largest deep-water driller. Workers from Transocean and other contractors did most of the work, under the supervision of BP employees on the rig and in Houston.
BP started working on the well in October, using a different rig. After three weeks natural gas got into the well, called a “kick.” That’s not uncommon. But two weeks later a hurricane damaged the rig and it had to be towed to port for repairs.
BP started again in January, this time with Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon, a warhorse rig that had worked for BP for years. BP filed a new drilling permit with federal regulators.
According to a company document seen by the Journal, BP approved spending $96.2 million and about 78 days on the well. The target time was much lessabout 51 days. By April 20, the well was in its 80th day, owing to delays such as one that had begun on March 8.
That day, workers discovered that gas was seeping into the well, according to drilling reports from the rig reviewed by the Journal. Workers lowered a measuring device to determine what was happening, but when they tried to pull it back up, it wouldn’t budge. Engineers eventually told them to plug the last 2,000 feet of the then-13,000-foot hole with cement and continue the well by drilling off in a different direction.
The episode took days to resolve, according to drilling reports, not counting time lost to backtracking and re-drilling. Each additional day cost BP $1 million in rig lease and contractor fees.
Other problems arose. The rock was so brittle in places that drilling mud cracked it open and escaped. One person familiar with the matter estimates BP lost at least $15 million worth of the fluid.
Still, by mid-April, the well seemed a qualified success. BP was convinced it had found a lot of oil. Until engineers in Houston could make plans to start pumping it out, the workers on the nearly complete well, in a standard practice, would plug it and temporarily abandon it.
One of the final tasks was to cement in place the steel pipe that ran into the oil reservoir. The cement would fill the space between the outside of the pipe and the rock, preventing any gas from flowing up the sides.
Halliburton, the cementing contractor, advised BP to install numerous devices to make sure the pipe was centered in the well before pumping cement, according to Halliburton documents, provided to congressional investigators and seen by the Journal. Otherwise, the cement might develop small channels that gas could squeeze through.
In an April 18 report to BP, Halliburton warned that if BP didn’t use more centering devices, the well would likely have “a SEVERE gas flow problem.” Still, BP decided to install fewer of the devices than Halliburton recommendedsix instead of 21.
BP said it’s still investigating how cementing was done. Halliburton said that it followed BP’s instructions, and that while some “were not consistent with industry best practices,” they were “within acceptable industry standards.”
The cement job was especially important on this well because of a BP design choice that some petroleum engineers call unusual. BP ran a single long pipe, made up of sections screwed together, all the way from the sea floor to the oil reservoir.
‘They were doing too many jobs at one time,’ says Tyrone Benton, who worked on the rig.
Companies often use two pipes, one inside another, sealed together, with the smaller one sticking into the oil reservoir. With this system, if gas tries to get up the outside of the pipe, it has to break through not just cement but also the seal connecting the pipes. So the more typical design provides an extra level of protection, but also requires another long, expensive piece of pipe.
“I couldn’t understand why they would run a long string,” meaning a single pipe, said David Pursell, a petroleum engineer and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an energy-focused investment bank. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, in a letter to the MMS, said it “generally does not” use a single pipe.
BP’s Mr. Gowers said the well design wasn’t unusual. BP engineers “evaluate various factors” to determine what design to use for each well, he said.
Despite the well design and the importance of the cement, daily drilling reports show that BP didn’t run a critical, but time-consuming, procedure that might have allowed the company to detect and remove gas building up in the well.
Before doing a cement job on a well, common industry practice is to circulate the drilling mud through the well, bringing the mud at the bottom all the way up to the drilling rig.
This procedure, known as “bottoms up,” lets workers check the mud to see if it is absorbing gas leaking in. If so, they can clean the gas out of the mud before putting it back down into the well to maintain the pressure. The American Petroleum Institute says it is “common cementing best practice” to circulate the mud at least once.
Circulating all the mud in a well of 18,360 feet, as this one was, takes six to 12 hours, say people who’ve run the procedure. But mud circulation on this well was done for just 30 minutes on April 19, drilling logs say, not nearly long enough to bring mud to the surface.
Darin Rupinski, also aboard when Deepwater Horizon exploded, has a different view: ‘Safety was their No. 1 concern.’
This decision could have left gas at the bottom of the well. When workers poured in cement to seal the sides, that gas would have been pushed up the outside of the well. Expanding as it rose, it would have reached the top of the well, where it either would have pushed against a massive seal on the ocean floor or might have gone even higher and reached the bottom of the pipe connecting the well to the drilling rig.
BP’s Mr. Gowers said the amount of time spent circulating mud is “one of many parameters considered when designing a successful cement job.” He said BP’s investigation is ongoing.
Three offshore engineers the Journal asked to review the drilling reports all pointed to the failure to circulate the mud completely as a serious mistake. Robert MacKenzie, a former oil-industry cementing engineer now at FBR Capital Markets, said, “If you have any worries about gas, if you have any worries about getting a good cement job, you should definitely do it.”
BP also didn’t run tests to check on the last of the cement after it was pumped into the well, despite the importance of cement to this well design and despite Halliburton’s warning that the cement might not seal properly. Workers from Schlumberger Ltd. were aboard and available to do such tests, but on the morning of April 20, about 12 hours before the blowout, BP told Schlumberger workers their work was done, according to Schlumberger. They caught a helicopter back to shore at 11 a.m.
BP told the Journal Tuesday that the tests weren’t run because they were needed only if there were signs of trouble in the cement job, and the work seemed to go smoothly. But the same day, BP officials told congressional investigators there were signs before the disaster that the cement might have been contaminated and that some cementing equipment didn’t work properly, according to a memo from two Congressmen.
The mood aboard the rig on April 20 was upbeat. The work was nearly done, and workers were eager to put the troublesome well behind them.
Some saw indications that managers wanted to wrap up quickly. Kevin Senegal, a subcontractor employee who cleaned tanks, said he was told to be ready to clean two tanks on a coming shift instead of the usual one. “To me it looked like they were trying to rush everything,” he said.
Drilling “mud,” perhaps mixed with oil, appeared to spew from BP’s crippled well Wednesday, the company said, after workers began trying to plug it. CEO Tony Hayward said success wouldn’t be clear until Thursday.
A disagreement broke out on the rig on April 20 over the procedures to be followed. At 11 a.m., workers for the half-dozen contractors working on the rig gathered for a meeting. Douglas Brown, Transocean’s chief mechanic on the rig, testified Wednesday at a hearing in Louisiana that a top BP official had a “skirmish” with top Transocean officials.
The Transocean workers, including offshore installation manager Jimmy Wayne Harrell, disagreed with a decision by BP’s top manager about how to remove drilling mud and replace it with lighter seawater. Mr. Brown said he heard Mr. Harrell say, “I guess that is what we have those pinchers for,” referring to a part of the blowout preventer that would shut off the well in case of an emergency.
BP won the argument, said Mr. Brown, who is a plaintiff in a suit against BP and Transocean. Mr. Harrell declined Journal requests for comment.
A little after 5 p.m., to check the well’s integrity and whether gas was seeping in, rig workers did what is called a “negative pressure test.” It was supervised by a BP well-site leader, Robert Kaluza. His experience was largely in land drilling, and he told investigators he was on the rig to “learn about deep water,” according to Coast Guard notes of an interview with him. BP declined to comment on his experience.
A lawyer for Mr. Kaluza said he “did no wrong on the Deepwater Horizon.”
The test initially strayed from the procedure spelled out in BP’s permit, approved by the MMS, according to the Coast Guard interview with Mr. Kaluza. When the first test results indicated something might be leaking, workers repeated the test, this time following the permitted procedure. The second time, pressure rose sharply, with witnesses saying that the well “continued to flow and spurted,” according to notes gathered by BP’s investigators that were reviewed by the Journal. BP denies violating its MMS permit.
Well-control experts say it’s clear gas was leaking into the well, most likely through the seal at the top but possibly through the bottom or even through a collapsed pipe.
Earlier this month, BP lawyers told Congress the test results were “inconclusive” or “not satisfactory.” On Tuesday, according to the Congressmen’s memo, BP said it saw signs of “a very large abnormality.”
Just two things then stood between the rig and an explosive mixture of gas and oil. One was the heavy drilling mud. The other was the blowout preventer near the sea floor. But the BOP had various problems, among them some leaking hydraulics.
By 8 p.m., BP was satisfied with the test and had enough confidence to proceed. It was this that may have been “a fundamental mistake,” a BP official told congressional staffers Tuesday, according to the memo from two members of Congress.
Following BP’s instruction, Transocean workers turned to replacing the mud with seawater, according to Coast Guard interviews with Mr. Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, the top BP official on the rig. Removing the mud keeps it from polluting the sea but also means there’s less weight to hold down any gas.
BP’s plans for the well, approved by the MMS on April 16, called for workers to remove the mud before performing two procedures designed to make sure gas couldn’t get into the well.
The first called for installing a giant spring to lock the seal at the top of the well in place after removal of the mud. There’s no evidence in rig-activity logs the spring was ever installed. If gas was coming up the sides of the well, pushing against the seal, this spring would have helped prevent leakage.
Second, BP opted to remove the mud before placing a final cement plug inside the well.
Animated footage of the “top kill” procedure which BP will perform later this week at the Deepwater Horizon site in an effort to stop the leak.
In documents presented to Congress, BP has hypothesized that gas could have gotten into the inside of the pipe through a failure of the cement at the bottom of the well. BP was planning to set a second, backup cement plug in the well before declaring its work done.
But workers began removing mud before setting this plug, leaving little to prevent any gas inside the pipe from rising to the rig. That plan was approved by the MMS on April 16, according to the permit reviewed by the Journal.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, of which the MMS is a part, said it was “looking at everything, from what happened on the rig that night and the equipment that was being used to the safety, testing and backup procedures.”
About 9:45, the seawater and remaining mud began to head back up the pipe. Witnesses say they saw mud shooting out of the derrick like water from a firehose. A worker on the rig floor made a frantic call to BP’s Mr. Vidrine, who had gone to his office, according to his interview with the Coast Guard.
Transocean workers raced to tame the well. Nothing worked. This was no ordinary gas kick. It was far more ferocious.
Workers rushed to hit the emergency button to activate the blowout preventer’s clamps and detach the rig from the well, according to witness accounts. They were too late. Gas flowing out found an ignition source, and an explosion rocked the rig.
Well No. 60-817-44169 was beyond control and on its way to becoming infamous.
Vanessa O’Connell, Jeffrey Ball, Douglas A. Blackmon, Ana Campoy, Miguel Bustillo and Jennifer Levitz contributed to this article.
[][][][]
Also see here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2522257/posts
175
posted on
05/27/2010 8:31:33 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
176
posted on
05/27/2010 8:36:43 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
177
posted on
05/27/2010 9:32:04 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
Rush just now mentioned this WSJ article. I had overlooked posting it on the 11th. so am posting it now.
Wall Street Journal: Two Oil Firms Link Rig Blast to “Plug” & Interior to Split MMS
Wall Street Journal
May 11, 2010
By RUSSELL GOLD, STEPHEN POWER And VANESSA O’CONNELL
http://www.reefrelieffounders.com/drilling/2010/05/11/wall-street-journal-two-oil-firms-link-rig-blast-to-plug-interior-to-split-mms/
Executives from BP PLC, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. began pointing fingers on Monday over who bears ultimate responsibility for the April 20 oil-rig explosion that took 11 lives and is spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The question will loom large at a Senate hearing Tuesday that will hear from executives of the three companies.
BP, Transocean and Halliburton are set to blame each other in Congressional hearings for last month’s big oil-rig explosion and spill. Neil King, Bob O’Brien and Neal Lipschutz discuss. Also, Kara Scannell weighs in on Congressional hearings intended to find out what caused Thursday’s sudden market plunge.
BP, the well owner, blames the failure of a big set of valves on the sea floor, known as the blowout preventer, to halt the blowout once it started.
A different account comes from Halliburton, a contractor in the drilling. This account is corroborated to some extent by Transocean, as well as by two workers on the drilling rig, The Wall Street Journal has determined.
This account describes a failure to place a cement plug within the well. The plug is designed to prevent gas from escaping up the pipe to the surface.
Before such a plug is placed, the job of keeping underground gas from coming up the pipe is done by heavy drilling fluid inside the well, commonly known as “mud.” The plug is normally put in before the mud is removed, but according to the account of Halliburton, Transocean and the two workers, in this case, that wasn’t donedrilling mud was removed before a final cement plug was placed in the well.
It is not clear why such a decision would have been made. Rig owner Transocean says that BP, as owner of the well that was just being completed, made key decisions on how to proceed. BP declined to comment on this account of the drilling procedures.
Tim Probert, Halliburton’s president of global business lines, plans to testify Tuesday that his company had finished an earlier step, cementing the casing, filling in the area between the pipe and the walls of the well; pressure tests showed the casing had been properly constructed, he will testify.
At this point it is common practice to pour wet cement down into the pipe. The wet cement, which is heavier than the drilling mud, sinks down through the drilling mud and then hardens into a plug thousands of feet down in the well.
The mud then is removed and displaced by seawater; the hardened cement plug holds back any underground gas.
In this case, a decision was made, shortly before the explosion, to perform the remaining tasks in reverse order, according to the expected Senate testimony of Mr. Probert, the Halliburton executive.
“We understand that the drilling contractor then proceeded to displace the riser with seawater prior to the planned placement of the final cement plugŠ,” Mr. Probert says in the prepared testimony, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The “riser” is part of the pipe running from the sea floor up to the drilling rig at the surface.
Lloyd Heinze, chairman of the petroleum engineering department at Texas Tech University, agrees that this is an unusual approach. “Normally, you would not evacuate the riser until you were done with the last plug at the sea floor,” he said in an interview.
A worker who was on the drilling rig said in an interview that Halliburton was getting ready to set a final cement plug at 8,000 feet below the rig when workers received other instructions. “Usually we set the cement plug at that point and let it set for six hours, then displace the well,” said the worker, meaning take out the mud.
According to this worker, BP asked permission from the federal Minerals Management Service to displace the mud before the final plugging operation had begun. The mud in the well weighed 14.3 pounds per gallon; it was displaced by seawater that weighed nearly 50% less. Like BP, the MMS declined to comment on this account.
As the heavy mud was taken out and replaced with much lighter seawater, “that’s when the well came at us, basically,” said the worker, who was involved in the cementing process.
The worker’s account is corroborated by an email account sent by another person on the rig. He said that engineers wanted to flood the well with sea water before setting the final plug. As they were taking out the mud, the blowout began with a flood of drilling fluid being pushed out of the well, followed by a series of explosions.
Halliburton’s Mr. Probert’s prepared statement says: “Prior to the point in the well construction plan that the Halliburton personnel would have set the final cement plug, the catastrophic incident occurred. As a result, the final cement plug was never set.”
Halliburton says it was following Transocean’s orders and is “contractually bound to comply with the well owner’s instructions on all matters relating to the performance of all work ] related activities.”
Transocean Chief Executive Steven Newman is expected to tell the Senate the explosion occurred “after the well construction process was essentially finished.” His prepared testimony then blames the blowout on a failure of the well’s lining, saying the blowout had to be caused by “a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing or both.”
When asked Monday night, Transocean agreed that the cement plug had not been placed in the well but that it had started the process of removing the mud, which it said was at BP’s behest.
Such plugs are placed only temporarily. The idea is that the well owner can later reopen the well and begin producing oil from it.
The chairman of BP unit BP America Inc., Lamar McKay, is expected to testify that “we are looking at why the blowout preventer did not work because that was to be the fail-safe in case of an accident.ŠTransocean’s blowout preventer failed to operate.” According to his prepared statement, reviewed by the Journal, he will say, “All of us urgently want to understand how this vital piece of equipment and its built-in redundancy systems failed and what measures are required to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Mr. Newman of Transocean says in his prepared testimony that it “simply makes no sense” to blame the blowout preventer. At the point that the blowout occurred, “the well barriersthe cementing and the casingwere responsible for controlling any pressure from the reservoir,” his testimony says.
Two Senate panels, on Energy and Natural Resources and on Environment and Public Works, are to hear the testimony. In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard and the MMS are holding hearings Tuesday and Wednesday in Kenner, La.
BP’s efforts to control the leaking oil haven’t worked so far. As a result, reverberations from the disaster could affect BP’s global ambitions to expand its already large footprint in deep-water drilling. No other company has invested as heavily as BP has in the high-risk, high-reward business of deep-water oil exploration.
BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said Monday that the global oil industry “has drilled over 5,000 wells in greater than 1,000 feet of water and has not hitherto had an issue of this sort to contend with.”
Neil King Jr. and Rebecca Smith contributed to this article.
Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com , Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com and Vanessa O’Connell at vanessa.o’connell@wsj.com
Interior Plans to Split Minerals Management Service
By SIOBHAN HUGHES And STEPHEN POWER
WASHINGTON. The Interior Department plans to announce Tuesday its intent to split the Minerals Management Service into two divisions, one focusing on gathering royalties from oil and gas companies and another focused on safety inspections.
An Interior Department official confirmed the plan. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will make an announcement at 1 p.m. EDT.
The Associated Press reported on the planned split earlier Tuesday.
The reorganization comes amid a vast Gulf Coast oil spill that has called into question the efficacy of the government’s regulation. The tiny agency currently plays dual roles, focusing on collecting money as well as on ensuring the safety of oil rigs. Some former employees have said that amounts to a conflict-of-interest, as employees must focus on keeping oil revenue flowing while also focusing on safety.
A Wall Street Journal examination of the MMS’s track record last week found several instances of the agency identifying potential safety problems and then either not requiring follow-up or relying on the industry to craft a solution. In some cases, the industry didn’t do its part.
The Journal also found that the safety record of U.S. offshore drilling compares unfavorably, in terms of deaths and serious accidents, to other major oil-producing countries. Over the past five years, an offshore oil worker in the U.S. was more than four times as likely to be killed than a worker in European waters, and 23% more likely to sustain an injury, according to International Association of Drilling Contractors data, which is adjusted for man-hours worked.
The U.K.home to one of the largest offshore-drilling industries in the worldhas already adopted a regulatory structure similar to the one that the Obama administration is moving toward. In 1998, after a fire aboard a North Sea platform killed 167 people, the U.K. separated its offshore safety-oversight agency from the revenue-gathering side.
After that change, the U.K.’s safety record improved. The improvements also came at a time of increased mechanization of rigs, which improved the safety of offshore drilling world-wide.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com
178
posted on
05/27/2010 10:58:44 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: MinuteGal; mcmuffin; Bob Ireland; JulieRNR21; IMissPresidentReagan; Roos_Girl; nutmeg; ...
So is this elitist Ditz NOONAN, who probably voted for the one Rush accurately calls, “the man-child”, now attempting to redeem herself with this commentary in the WSJ today?
(Her fawning columns before and immediately after the ‘08 election will forever stand as a testimony to her (and her friends’) lack of common sense let alone sophisticated discernment in their ‘judgement’ of B.O.’s competency to be President of the USA).
Noonan has dissed Sarah Palin from the start, yet between Palin and B.O., Palin (who understands the ‘big picture’) would have been the “competent one” to deal with this oil spill in the Gulf.
Who reads this woman’s columns anymore?
I am only posting it here in this thread to gloat. :)
OPINION: DECLARATIONS
MAY 29, 2010
Wall Street Journal
He Was Supposed to Be Competent
The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy.
By PEGGY NOONAN
I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president’s political judgment and instincts.
There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don’t see how you politically survive this.
The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They’re in one reality, he’s in another.
President Obama promised on Thursday to hold BP accountable in the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill and said his administration would do everything necessary to protect and restore the coast.
The American people have spent at least two years worrying that high government spending would, in the end, undo the republic. They saw the dollars gushing night and day, and worried that while everything looked the same on the surface, our position was eroding. They have worried about a border that is in some places functionally and of course illegally open, that it too is gushing night and day with problems that states, cities and towns there cannot solve.
And now we have a videotape metaphor for all the public’s fears: that clip we see every day, on every news show, of the well gushing black oil into the Gulf of Mexico and toward our shore. You actually don’t get deadlier as a metaphor for the moment than that, the monster that lives deep beneath the sea.
In his news conference Thursday, President Obama made his position no better. He attempted to act out passionate engagement through the use of heightened language “catastrophe,” etc. but repeatedly took refuge in in factual minutiae. His staff probably thought this demonstrated his command of even the most obscure facts. Instead it made him seem like someone who won’t see the big picture. The unspoken mantra in his head must have been, “I will not be defensive, I will not give them a resentful soundbite.” But his strategic problem was that he’d already lost the battle. If the well was plugged tomorrow, the damage will already have been done.
The original sin in my view is that as soon as the oil rig accident happened the president tried to maintain distance between the gusher and his presidency. He wanted people to associate the disaster with BP and not him. When your most creative thoughts in the middle of a disaster revolve around protecting your position, you are summoning trouble. When you try to dodge ownership of a problem, when you try to hide from responsibility, life will give you ownership and responsibility the hard way. In any case, the strategy was always a little mad. Americans would never think an international petroleum company based in London would worry as much about American shores and wildlife as, say, Americans would. They were never going to blame only BP, or trust it.
I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America; confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality.. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: “Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust.” Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: “We pay so much for the government and it can’t cap an undersea oil well!”
This is what happened with Katrina, and Katrina did at least two big things politically. The first was draw together everything people didn’t like about the Bush administration, everything it didn’t like about two wars and high spending and illegal immigration, and brought those strands into a heavy knot that just sat there, soggily, and came to symbolize Bushism. The second was illustrate that even though the federal government in our time has continually taken on new missions and responsibilities, the more it took on, the less it seemed capable of performing even its most essential jobs.
Conservatives got this point —they know it without being told— but liberals and progressives did not.. They thought Katrina was the result only of George W. Bush’s incompetence and conservatives’ failure to “believe in government.”
But Mr. Obama was supposed to be competent.
Remarkable too is the way both BP and the government, 40 days in, continue to act shocked, shocked that an accident like this could have happened. If you’re drilling for oil in the deep sea, of course something terrible can happen, so you have a plan on what to do when it does.
How could there not have been a plan? How could it all be so ad hoc, so inadequate, so embarrassing? We’re plugging it now with tires, mud and golf balls?
What continues to fascinate me is Mr. Obama’s standing with Democrats. They don’t love him. Half the party voted for Hillary Clinton, and her people have never fully reconciled themselves to him. But he is what they have. They are invested in him.
In time —after the 2010 elections go badly— they are going to start to peel off. The political operative James Carville, the most vocal and influential of the president’s Gulf critics, signaled to Democrats this week that they can start to peel off. He did it through the passion of his denunciations.
The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, and that is no cause for joy. It’s not good to have a president in this position —weakened, polarizing and lacking broadd public support— less than halfway through his term. That it is his faultt is no comfort. It is not good for the stability of the world, or its safety, that the leader of “the indispensble nation” be so weakened. I never until the past 10 years understood the almost moral imperative that an American president maintain a high standing in the eyes of his countrymen.
Mr. Obama himself, when running for president, made much of Bush administration distraction and detachment during Katrina. Now the Republican Party will, understandably, go to town on Mr. Obama’s having gone only once to the gulf, and the fund-raiser in San Francisco that seemed to take precedence, and the EPA chief who went to a New York fund-raiser in the middle of the disaster.
But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We’re in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they’ll probably get the big California earthquake. And they’ll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.
179
posted on
05/28/2010 8:29:46 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
To: All
SARAH PALIN: PASSING THE BUCK DOESN’T “PLUG THE D#*! HOLE”
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587#!/note.php?note_id=393619003434
Following is the complete transcript of Gov. Palin’s Facebook Note on Obama’s inaction pertaining to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill:
Nearly 40 days in, our President finally addressed the American people’s growing concerns about the Gulf Coast oil spill. Listening to today’s press conference, you’d think the administration has been working with single-minded focus on the Gulf gusher since the start of the disaster. In reality, their focus has been anything but singular to help solve this monumental problem.
If the President really was fully focused on this issue from day one, why did it take nine whole days before the administration asked the Department of Defense for help in deploying equipment needed for the extreme depth spill site?
Why was the expert group assembled by Energy Commissioner Steven Chu only set up three weeks after the start of this disaster?
Why was Governor Jindal forced more than a month after the start of the disaster to go on national television to beg for materials needed to tackle the oil spill and for federal approval to build offshore sand barriers that are imperative to protect his state’s coastline?
Why was no mention of the spill made by our President for days on end while Americans waited to hear if he grasped the import of his leadership on this energy issue?
Why have several countries and competent organizations who offered help or expertise in dealing with the spill not even received a response back from the Unified Area Command to this day?
The President claimed that “this notion that somehow the federal government is somehow sitting on the sidelines and for the last three or four or five weeks we’ve just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions is simply not true.” But, in fact, that is how U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen described the Obama administration’s approach to this crisis: “We keep a close watch.”
Listening to the President, you get the impression he is continually surprised by the inability of various centralized government agencies to get more involved and help solve problems. His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems.
The fundamental problem at the core of this crisis is a lack of responsibility. (I risk the President taking my comments personally, but they’re not intended to be personal; my comments reflect what many others feel, and we just want to help him tackle this enormous spill problem.) There’s a culture of buck-passing at the heart of this administration that has caused the tragedy of a sunken oil rig to turn into a potential disaster.
The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill.
Now that the American people are calling him out on his lack of engagement with this disaster, the buck-passing is in full swing – and, unbelievably, his administration is still looking to blame his predecessor. Amazingly, even those of us who support energy independence for America are the brunt of some buck-passing.
He suggested today that a “culture of corruption” at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) was solely the previous administration’s responsibility and that the failure of the inspection system was a failure of that administration. That is false. The MMS has been his responsibility since January 20, 2009.
The MMS director who resigned today, Elizabeth Birnbaum, was appointed by his administration. And the most recent inspection of the oil rig took place a mere 10 days before the explosion – also very much on his watch, not President Bush’s.
The President is also now attempting to somehow distance himself from his administration’s recent decision to open a few areas of the continental shelf to oil and gas exploration. That’s unfortunate because America desperately needs our domestic oil and natural gas. We rely on it for our prosperity, security, and freedom. The President’s decision to open a few areas to offshore exploration was the right decision then; and unlike his quickly evolving position on energy development now, I continue to believe it’s the right decision today – because energy independence is in the long-term economic and security interests of the United States.
As I explained in an article in National Review last year, conventional sources like natural gas “can act as a clean ‘bridge fuel’ to a future when more renewable sources are available.” I do not, as the President mistakenly believes, think we can “drill, baby, drill” our way out of all of our troubles. As I have consistently stated, we need an “all of the above” approach to energy independence that combines conventional drilling with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. My record in Alaska clearly shows my commitment to this “all of the above” approach. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources. As governor, I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025, which is the most ambitious renewable energy target in the nation. I take great pride in helping to make Alaska, in the words of the New York Times, “a Frontier for Green Power,” even as we continue to embrace the need to “drill, baby, drill” at the same time.
Alaska can be that frontier for renewable energy only because our conventional oil and gas reserves provide us with “a bridge” to a greener energy future. In fact, Alaska has enough reserves of both oil and gas to help the United States cross that bridge – if only we are allowed to drill!
Please, Mr. President, hear me on this, if nothing else: if it’s your administration’s decision to suspend the leases of new oil field developments off the coast of Alaska in response to the Gulf’s deepwater spill, and you still remain committed to locking up ANWR and other oil-rich lands, please know you are making a mistake. Unless we continue to drill here and drill now, we risk digging ourselves deeper into the hole created by our continued dependence on foreign energy – which often comes from regimes that care nothing for our prosperity or security, and even less for global environmental safety.
We need affordable, reliable, secure, environmentally-sound, and domestically-produced energy, but this administration continues to lock up federal land filled with huge energy reserves. If there is to be a moratorium on offshore development, then it’s time we stop ignoring our safest options for domestic development – places like ANWR and NPR-A in my home state of Alaska.
And it’s time for the administration to stop passing the buck and get control of the disaster in the Gulf. There’s a reason why Harry Truman had that famous sign on his desk. The “buck stops” with the occupant of the Oval Office. When the American people elected President Obama they gave him responsibility to handle this disaster. He promised to “heal the earth, and watch the waters recede…” or something far-fetched like that. It was unbelievable then, it’s impossible now, but what I believe he meant was that he promised to be held accountable. With all due respect, Mr. President, you have a huge job in front of you. We hope you’re learning. Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to “plug the d#*! hole.”
- Sarah Palin
Access the hot links within the commentary at this link also:
http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/Columnists/A_Time_For_Choosing/SARAH_PALIN_PASSING_THE_BUCK_DOESNT_PLUG_THE_D_HOLE/30527
180
posted on
05/28/2010 9:05:49 AM PDT
by
Matchett-PI
("If Obama Won, Then Why Won't Democrats Run on His Agenda?" ~ Rush Limbaugh - May 19, 2010)
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