'Obama's Katrina': an Illustrated Timeline

AP ENTERPRISE: A look at who got gov’t Gulf work
Associated Press ^ | September 13, 2010 | SHARON THEIMER
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100913/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_contracts

Posted on Monday, September 13, 2010 6:41:59 AM by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2588100/posts

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer Sharon Theimer, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 13, 4:01 am ET

WASHINGTON – The federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush’s much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

The government also spent $10,000 for just over three minutes of video showing a routine offshore rig inspection for news organizations but couldn’t say whether any ran the footage. And it awarded a $216,625 no-bid contract for a survey of seabirds to an environmental group that has criticized what it calls the “extreme anti-conservation record” of Sarah Palin, a possible 2012 rival to President Barack Obama.

The contracts were among hundreds reviewed by The Associated Press as the government begins to provide an early glimpse at federal spending since the Gulf disaster in April. While most of the contracts don’t raise alarms, some could provide ammunition for critics of government waste.

The administration has released details of about $134 million in contracts, a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars it has spent so far. BP has reimbursed the U.S. $390 million, company spokesman Tom Mueller said. The government sent BP a new invoice for $128.5 million last week.

The White House is still deciding whether it will bill BP for spill-related trips by Obama and his wife, Michelle, to the Gulf, including the president’s flights aboard Air Force One, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars each.

The contracts the government has disclosed so far include at least $5.8 million for helicopter services, $3.2 million for hotel rooms, $1.4 million for boat charters, $33,000 for oil-measuring devices aboard ships, $441,621 for cellular and satellite phone services, $25,087 for toilets, $23,217 for laundry services and $109,735 for refrigerators and freezers.

Yet the government’s new contracting data includes errors and vague entries that make it difficult to identify wasteful spending. It spent $52,000 on a boat charter described merely as “marine charter for things,” with no further explanation. A separate $90,000 contract for a single 70-pound anchor is listed incorrectly; the contractor told the AP it actually supplied hundreds of anchors.

A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, declined to comment on the contracts.

Among all the contracts, perhaps none is more striking than the Coast Guard’s decision to pay $9,000 per month for two months to John Brooks Rice of New Orleans, an on-call worker for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under a no-bid contract to monitor media coverage from late May through July.

Rice told the AP that he compiled print and video news stories and offered his subjective appraisal of the tone of the coverage. “From reading and watching the media I would create reports,” he said. “I reported either positive coverage, negative coverage, misinformation coverage.”

The Coast Guard provided the AP with a copy of two of Rice’s printouts of news stories but didn’t respond to a request for copies of his reports rating the tone of news stories. Rice said he had already deleted them. The AP requested copies of all Rice’s reports under the Freedom of Information Act but hasn’t received them.

The Coast Guard expects BP to reimburse the $18,000, Coast Guard spokesman Capt. Ron LaBrec said.

The Coast Guard said it didn’t ask for competitive bids because it urgently needed the work done. In the newly released federal data, the government didn’t disclose Rice’s name, instead misidentifying him as “miscellaneous foreign contractors.”

Such contracts have caused problems for the government in the past. The Obama administration abandoned a $1.5 million contract in August 2009 with a public relations firm, Washington-based Rendon Group, that assessed work by journalists for the Defense Department before embedding them with troops in Afghanistan. And the Clinton administration in 2005 ordered Energy Department officials to cancel a $46,500 contract with a consulting company, Carma International, that ranked reporters who covered the agency, a practice that the White House concluded was “unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Rice said he wasn’t on duty for FEMA or drawing a government salary when he worked for the Coast Guard. He monitored news coverage for FEMA during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and a former FEMA co-worker recommended him for the Coast Guard contract, he said.

The head of a public relations firm in Baton Rouge, La., John T. Rice of Common Sense Communications, questioned the wisdom of the government spending $18,000 to track coverage of the spill, particularly in the Internet age when stories can be monitored easily online.

“In our neck of the woods, if you can land a $2,000 to $4,000 retainer with somebody, that would be considered really good,” said Rice, who isn’t related to the Rice hired by the Coast Guard. Rice said an $18,000 contract could also include focus groups and a marketing plan, not just tracking and evaluating coverage.

Under another federal contract, the Interior Department hired videographer Bob Boccaccio of Boccaccio Productions in Baton Rouge to shoot video of inspectors aboard an offshore drilling rig to distribute to news organizations. Boccaccio confirmed he was hired but declined to provide details.

The Interior Department said it hired Boccaccio amid concerns about safety, scheduling and permitting after network camera crews asked to accompany inspectors offshore to film them. The contract authorized payment of up to $15,000; Boccaccio, who traveled to the rig with the government inspector, billed the government $10,000. The AP typically pays a one-person crew about $1,000 per day. The government said it hasn’t decided yet whether to ask BP to pay for it.

The government’s contracts include at least $6 million for studies to gauge the spill’s effects on wildlife.

Contractors include a group whose political arm endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign and ran ads in several swing states against then-Republican vice presidential candidate Palin. The group, Defenders of Wildlife, received a $216,625 noncompetitive contract from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a seabird survey in the BP spill area.

Both Defenders of Wildlife and its political arm, the Defenders Action Fund, have criticized Palin, a former Alaska governor, for supporting use of low-flying airplanes to hunt wolves and other wildlife in winter.

Defenders of Wildlife also has been urging Discovery Communications to drop plans for “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” a reality TV series, and wants sponsors and viewers to boycott it. The Interior Department said the Fish and Wildlife Service hired the group to survey the effects of oil on ocean birds because its chief scientist, Chris Haney, is respected and experienced in bird research. It said BP approved the scientist’s selection.

An executive for Defenders of Wildlife said politics played no role in the $216,625 contract.

“I just truly believe there are no dots to connect,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, the group’s executive vice president and a former director of the Fish and Wildlife Service under former President Bill Clinton.

The BP America spokesman, Mueller, could not say whether BP has already reimbursed the government for the media monitoring, videotaping and seabird survey, because bills the government submits do not include enough details for the company to tell which contracts are included.

BP paid the government’s first five bills but sought more information about some items before eventually paying for them, Mueller said. Those have included a $12.6 million bill from the Navy for “skimming and tow vessels,” a $30,000 Air Force expense for a “severe weather safe haven” and $339,915 for aircraft flight hours, he said.

More than half the government contracts went to small businesses.

Jim Ketchum, owner of the Andree’s Wine, Cheese & Things restaurant in Fairhope, Ala., said the roughly $32,000 the Army paid his restaurant to serve breakfast and dinner to military police deployed to help with the spill response helped him make up for business lost due to the poor economy and the spill.

“It was a godsend there was no question about it,” said Ketchum, who got up around 3:30 a.m. each day to have breakfast ready to serve to 45 to 50 soldiers with the Alabama Army National Guard’s 1165th Military Police Co.

Not all of the contracts the government authorized were carried out.

A $58,800 contract the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration struck with a women-owned public relations firm, Public Communications Inc., for media strategy and public education on threats to marine mammals and sea turtles wasn’t finished and may never be, NOAA and the company said.

“We never did anything” and haven’t received any money from NOAA, said Jill Allread, a partner at the Chicago firm. “We work with a lot of marine mammal issues. They said, `If we start having issues with die-offs with dolphins and things we may need additional support on helping people understand why that’s happening.’”

NOAA spokeswoman Connie Barclay said the contract was arranged by NOAA’s Gulf regional office, which has one public affairs officer and was overwhelmed with calls in the spill’s early days.

Barclay said she, not a PR firm, organized a recent Gulf event in which retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the government’s response to the spill, released the first oiled turtles to be rehabilitated.

“People are really hungry for good news,” Barclay said.

___

Online:

Government Gulf oil spill contracts: https://www.fpds.gov/

BP’s Deepwater Oil Spill - Industry Task Forces Report - and Open Thread
The Oil Drum ^ | September 12, 2010 - 10:50am | Gail the Actuary
Posted on Sunday, September 12, 2010 12:48:08 PM by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2587772/posts

To access the “hot links” in this article, click the American Thinker link below. bttt

November 15, 2010 4:00 A.M.
Sea Life Flourishes in the Gulf
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/253233/sea-life-flourishes-gulf-lou-dolinar

The Great Oil Spill Panic of 2010 will go down in history as mass hysteria on par with the Dutch tulip bubble.

The catastrophists were wrong (again) about the Deep Water Horizon oil spill.

There have been no major fish die-offs. On the contrary, a comprehensive new study says that in some of the most heavily fished areas of the Gulf of Mexico, various forms of sea life, from shrimp to sharks, have seen their populations triple since before the spill. Some species, including shrimp and croaker, did even better.

And meanwhile, the media has greatly exaggerated damage found in studies about coral, which is in some ways more vulnerable to oil and dispersant. Most of it is doing fine.

The growth of the fish population is not occurring because oil is good for fish. Rather, it is occurring because fishing is bad for fish. When fishing was banned for months during the spill, the Gulf of Mexico experienced an unprecedented marine renaissance that overwhelmed any negative environmental consequences the oil may have had, researchers say.

Even the researchers themselves, however, were surprised by the results. “We expected there to be virtually no fish out there based on all the reports we were getting about the toxicity of the dispersant and the toxicity of the hydrocarbons, and reports that hypoxia [low oxygen] had been created as a result of the oil and dispersant,” says John Valentine, who directed the study. “In every way you can imagine, it should have been a hostile environment for fish and crabs; our collection showed that was not the case.”

Also surprising was how quickly the populations grew. “In the cosmic scheme of things, a matter of four or five months led to this huge difference in everything, sharks, fish of all forms, even the juvenile fish found in sea-grass beds. That’s a pretty interesting and unanticipated outcome, I would say,” says Valentine. The surge is so robust, he says, that it may be impossible to determine whether the oil spill has had any effect on sea life at all.

Valentine says the study doesn’t let BP off the hook Gulf fishermen have suffered real and costly damage from the closure and from what he calls the “sociological phenomenon” that’s scared consumers away from Gulf seafood. But nor does it excuse President Obama’s disastrous panic and overreaction in temporarily banning oil drilling in the Gulf, especially since official reports are now saying that the oil will be disposed of naturally, as experts predicted. Oil is being measured in parts per billion meaning the water is safe enough to drink and very little has been found on the ocean bottom. Much of it has been eaten by bacteria native to the Gulf’s oil seeps, and another new study shows that other microscopic creatures including flagellates and ciliates ate the bacteria, and in turn provided food for plankton.

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab, a teaching and research consortium of 22 colleges and universities in Alabama, ran the fish-population study. Asked why the group has been virtually invisible in the national media, Valentine says that, unlike some scientists, they refrained from speculating about the impact of the spill until they had real evidence.

Although the early report has not been peer reviewed, it is credible this kind of research isn’t anything new for the Sea Lab folks. They’ve been conducting surveys off the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama for years, which gives them a baseline with which to compare the post-spill numbers. Their methodology is powerful because it is simple and straightforward: They drag a net through eleven different survey sites up to 60 miles off the coast, then weigh, classify, and count the critters they snare.

According to Valentine, the last word will come in the spring before heavy commercial fishing begins again with a follow-up study. Already, however, anecdotal reports support the finding: Darrell Carpenter, president of the Louisiana Charter Boat Association, was recently quoted as saying, “The fish are off the charts. There are no fewer fish. There are more fish, because they’ve been un-harassed all summer. There are more and bigger fish.” NOAA has said there have been no fish kills tied to oil, has certified seafood in the Gulf as safe, and has reopened most of the water there for fishing.

Fish and shrimp aren’t the only creatures that have survived the spill. Two other recent reports have looked at what happened to deep sea-coral formations, which, unlike fish, can’t get out of the way of toxins or water low in oxygen. Media outlets including the New York Times recently ran stories about a dying patch of coral that was found, coated with an unidentified material, seven miles from the Deepwater site.

Its passing would be tragic; some of these coral colonies may be hundreds of years old, and there’s no telling how long it would take for them to regenerate. What most outlets didn’t report, however, was that 16 other surveyed sites, including one ten miles away from the well head, are doing just fine, along with the fish, crustaceans, and other creatures that live there, according to Charles Fisher, the marine biologist from Penn State who headed the expedition. Researchers from the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington who hitched a ride with the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise in October also failed to find any coral damage.

Interestingly enough, the researchers tracked down coral sites by looking for old hydrocarbon seeps, a common feature of the Gulf that exude millions of gallons of oil and methane annually. Over millennia, Fisher says, “the seep conditions promote rock growth and corals like rock.” That’s yet another indication, like the vast clouds of oil-eating bacteria that live in those seeps and that disposed of the spill, of how deeply hydrocarbons are entwined in the Gulf’s ecosystem.

The site of the damage was small compared with some of the areas studied, about 15 by 40 meters with a few outlying colonies, mostly sea fans. “Many colonies are only partially dead at this point. If in fact they stop dying and little bits are left alive, we may see regeneration when we get back,” Dr. Fisher says. He plans another cruise to reexamine the area and look for more coral sites close to the well head. At that point, based on the location of other coral die-offs, we should have a fair idea of the area most impacted by the spill.

These new studies are more bad news for headline-hunting journalists and the establishment environmentalists who have been cheering for the death of the Gulf of Mexico in service of their green agenda.

Real science (as opposed to media events that somehow never produce verifiable results) has made it increasingly clear that the doomsday scenarios they promoted will not come to pass.

As word spreads that fish populations have increased, the alarmists and conspiracy theorists won’t just be wrong, they will be laughingstocks. The Great Oil Spill Panic of 2010 will go down in history as mass hysteria on par with the Dutch tulip bubble.

– Lou Dolinar is a retired columnist and reporter for Newsday. He is currently working on a book about what really happened in the Deepwater Horizon spill.

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I urge everyone who thinks Obama and his administration did a “bang up” job on the oil spill to read the following: http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/
They have been documenting, chapter and verse, the fallout. And it ain’t pretty, folks.

New deepwater drilling permits: Zilch

Relief wells were drilled this summer to stop the BP spill, which led to a shut down in Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling. By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.comNovember 12, 2010: 9:14 AM ET
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/12/news/economy/offshore_drilling_moratorium/index.htm

Picture: Deepwater Oilrig
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/11/12/news/economy/offshore_drilling_moratorium/deepwater_oilrig.gi.top.jpg

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Obama lifted his moratorium on deepwater oil drilling nearly a month ago, but the government still hasn’t issued any new permits in the Gulf of Mexico.

And most analysts say permits will be slow in coming through 2011.

The Interior Department halted deep water permits shortly after BP’s Macondo well blew out last April. The accident resulted in the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The moratorium was lifted in mid-October after government officials were confident new, stricter rules and regulations were in place.

But no new permits for wells covered under the ban have been issued, according to a spokeswoman for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement.

“[BOEMRE director Michael] Bromwich has indicated that he hopes to see some approved by the end of the year but cannot speculate,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Even if a few permits come through, analysts say it will be a far cry from the amount issued pre-spill.

“We’re not holding our breath for a return to business as usual,” Whitney Stanco, and energy analyst at the Washington Research Group, wrote in a recent research note. “Despite pressure from Gulf state lawmakers and the oil and gas industry, we believe permitting in 2011 will likely be slower than it has been in recent years.”

The moratorium did not affect current oil production in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, which comes from wells that have already been drilled. Currently, about a quarter of the nation’s five-million-barrel-a-day crude output comes from the deepwater Gulf, according to the Government’s Energy Information Administration.

But future output could fall if new wells aren’t drilled. EIA predicts U.S. output will drop by about 170,000 barrels a day in 2011 thanks to the ban.

With Republicans taking over the House, it’s possible that the generally more pro-drilling lawmakers will push the administration to issue more permits.

“You could see hearings in the first quarter of the year,” said Kevin Shaw, an energy lawyer at the law firm Mayer Brown. “But it will just be a stick to beat the administration with. I’m not expecting a much different outcome.”
0:00 /:59BP’s rebound

Indeed, analysts say most lawmakers will be reluctant to push the Interior Department to issue permits faster than it thinks it can safely do so.

“What happened this summer was pretty dramatic,” said Joseph Stanislaw, an independent energy adviser at Deloitte & Touche. “I think everyone agrees that people really need to work out the rules.”

That’s tough news to the people who do the actual drilling.

“What’s going on over here is a whole lot of nothing,” said Jim Noe, and executive at Hercules offshore, who said they are still having a hard time getting permits even for shallow water wells.

Noe said they haven’t had to lay off too many people yet, and have kept workers busy doing maintenance work and other jobs. But the longer the permit drought continues, the harder it gets.

“We’re not optimistic we’ll be back in business in a meaningful way anytime soon,” he said. [bttt]

To access the hot links, click on article link below. bttt

Oil prices close in on $90
Nov 11 07:52 AM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.95235e4012f771d1c25e68aa7eb984cd.e1&show_article=1

World oil prices neared 90 dollars for the first time in more than two years on Thursday, stoked by expectations of increased demand amid tight supplies, traders said.

Brent crude reached 89.70 dollars a barrel in London trade — its highest level in two years and close to reaching the 90-dollar mark for the first time since October 2008.

Brent North Sea crude for delivery in December later stood at 89.47 dollars, up 51 cents compared with Wednesday’s close.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December, was up 68 cents to 88.49 dollars a barrel.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Thursday revised upward its world oil demand growth estimates for this year and next amid cautious optimism about the global economic outlook.

OPEC said it was pencilling in world oil demand growth of 1.32 million barrels per day (bpd) or 1.6 percent to 85.78 million bpd for the whole of 2010, compared with 1.3 percent previously.

And in 2011, oil demand was forecast to increase by a further 1.17 million bpd or 1.4 percent to 86.95 million bpd, instead of the previous estimate of 1.2 percent, the cartel said in its latest monthly bulletin.

“Despite initial economic assessments that underestimated the second half of the year’s economic activities, oil demand is picking up in the third and fourth quarters,” OPEC wrote.

The report came one day after official data showed crude stockpiles in the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer, eased 3.3 million barrels in the week ending November 5, compared with forecasts of a rise.

Obama’s Oil Spill
March 31, 2008
Obama says he doesn’t take money from oil companies. We say that’s a little too slick.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_oil_spill.html

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Obama’s Deceptive Anti-Oil Ad: ‘I Don’t Take $ From Oil Companies’
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/04/13/obamas-deceptive-anti-oil-ad-i-dont-take-oil-companies
By Warner Todd Huston | April 13, 2008 | 12:02
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Obama biggest recipient of BP cash
By: Erika LovleyMay
5, 2010 05:05 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html

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California’s Prop 23 and the [ PHONY ] “big oil money” campaign – outspent 3 to 1
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/05/californias-prop-23-and-the-big-oil-money-campaign-outspent-3-to-1/#more-27501

10.6 million from “big oil”

31.2 million from “big green”

Yep, that’s some dirty secret alright. But you won’t see this reported on one side news outlets or green blogs.

This is no mere academic exercise. Thousands of people lost their jobs. bttt

“..At this moment, the EPA is hopelessly politicized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it is probably better to shut it down and start over. What we need is... a new organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.” ~ Michael Crichton, September 15, 2003 Environmentalism as Religion http://www.crichton-official.com/videos.html

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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111002553.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Report: White House altered drilling safety report
By DINA CAPPIELLO The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2010; 11:11 AM

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IG report shows Obama WH rewrote Gulf spill report to support moratorium
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/11/10/ig-report-shows-obama-wh-rewrote-gulf-spill-report-to-support-moratorium/

November 10, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
When the Obama White House announced its moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP-Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in April, the administration insisted that they followed the recommendations of its panel of experts. This story blew up when the panel of experts insisted that they had not recommended any kind of blanket moratorium, and that one simply wasn’t necessary to address the deficiencies at MMS that contributed to the catastrophic fire and spill.

A new report from the Inspector General probing the White House response accuses the administration of rewriting key sections of the report in order to falsely give the impression that the panel had made that recommendation:

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.
In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.
“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

The White House claimed some vindication, saying that the IG had stopped short of accusing the administration of a deliberate deception, and called it “a misunderstanding.” That seems like a bit of a stretch, especially since the supposed mistake didn’t exactly occur in a vacuum. Opponents of oil drilling, usually among Obama’s allies on the Left, had demanded an end to drilling in the region at least until the investigation into the disaster was completed. The White House version of the report gave Obama political cover to order the six-month moratorium at least until those involved in its peer review cried foul after the White House publicly used them to defend the action.

But even if it was just a “misunderstanding,” an artifact of some guileless editorial tweaking that inadvertently put a paragraph ahead of or behind an important qualifier, it was at the very least incompetence.

Why was the staff of energy “adviser” Carol Browner allowed to edit a report issued by the Department of Interior’s blue-ribbon panel in the first place?

Why did no one review those changes at Interior to determine whether the edits were justified, especially since the IG report indicates that the edits took place because the staffer or Browner didn’t think it summarized the findings properly? Why not just ask the report’s authors to rewrite it themselves?

This is no mere academic exercise. Thousands of people lost their jobs because of this supposed instance of sloppy editing, and the delay it created in safe exploration and drilling may impact the region for years, as well as America’s energy independence.

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More reporting ...

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/128543-e2-morning-roundup-white-house-altered-interiors-drilling-report-gop-divided-on-climate-strategy-shell-presses-for-arctic-drilling-action-and-more

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/white-house-editing-caused-drilling-ban-dispute/

And, this brief from the AP. http://www.ajc.com/business/report-white-house-altered-734867.html

The Interior Department’s inspector general says the changes resulted “in the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed.” But it hadn’t been.

Still, the report said the administration did not violate federal rules because it had offered a formal apology and already publicly clarified the nature of the expert review.

NEWS ALERT: Most Federal Spill-Response Contracts Have Gone to Companies Based in Ken Feinberg’s Home State of Massachusetts
http://oilspillaction.com/news-alert-most-federal-spill-response-contracts-have-gone-to-companies-based-in-ken-feinbergs-home-state-of-massachusetts
By Stuart H. Smith - an attorney based in New Orleans

November 17, 2010 11:11 am

Bloomberg is out with a blockbuster story today: Massachusetts-based companies received twice as much money in federal contracts stemming from the BP oil spill as all five Gulf states combined. The source is data compiled by Bloomberg Rankings from the Federal Procurement Data System.

Of the five states where businesses received the most money, only Louisiana borders the Gulf. The Pelican State’s contracts totaled at least $10.9 million. That amount combined with federal response money paid to companies in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida, the Gulf states received a grand total of $25.3 million. As it turns out, a single Massachusetts-based firm by the name of Industrial Economics Inc., reported receiving nearly twice as much as all five Gulf states combined – a whopping $47.52 million. And the runner-up firm was based in Colorado, which ranked third for contracts, where Stratus Consulting raked in $22.73 million, Bloomberg reports.

Ah, you know this sort of things leads to our friends at NOAA. Bloomberg quotes a government spokesman as saying the situation happened because of contracts that “… [the] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has with damage-assessment consultants based outside of the region.” The spokesperson adds: “The contracts are set up in advance to provide support capabilities in response to emergency pollution events. Their expertise is not simply transferable to another firm in the Gulf region nor are the contract mechanisms in place.”

Folks, I can tell you that this is not going to play well in the Gulf – and the story is already going viral.

Beyond the idea that somehow the folks from the Boston area know better how to deal with the Gulf – that “expertise is not simply transferable” nonsense – this will dramatically increase tensions surrounding the BP claims process. While Kenneth Feinberg works from Washington, D.C., he is a Boston native and is famous for having worked with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Fair or not, this revelation will add fuel to the fire that out-of-area companies are making millions – and yet the cleanup continues to stumble along.

It’s also another controversy for NOAA, but compared to backing BP on its low-ball spill estimates, announcing “Mission Accomplished” with oil still washing ashore and spinning health concerns to benefit political goals, it’s actually small potatoes.

The Bloomberg initial report is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-17/massachusetts-companies-get-lion-s-share-of-oil-spill-contracts.html

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Folks, I can tell you that this is not going to play well in the Gulf – and the story is already going viral.
Beyond the idea that somehow the folks from the Boston area know better how to deal with the Gulf – that “expertise is not simply transferable” nonsense – this will dramatically increase tensions surrounding the BP claims process

Kenneth R. Feinberg - Why He Matters
http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Kenneth_R._Feinberg

In June 2010, President Obama placed him in charge of the $20 billion escrow account for damage claims from the massive BP oil spill. BP will pay $5 billion into the fund for four years, starting in 2010.

3 posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2010 11:46:25 PM by Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2629047/posts?page=3#3

Noooo kidding? BTTT (This was known clear back in July of 2010 - see my posts below this article for proof):

01/09/2011:

Methane from BP oil spill has vanished – presumed digested by microbes

http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/methane-from-bp-oil-spill-has-vanished-presumed-digested-by-microbes/
By ktwop

A new paper online in Science:

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1199697 A Persistent Oxygen Anomaly Reveals the Fate of Spilled Methane in the Deep Gulf of Mexico, by John D. Kessler, David L. Valentine, Molly C. Redmond, Mengran Du, Eric W. Chan, Stephanie D. Mendes, Erik W. Quiroz, Christie J. Villanueva, Stephani S. Shusta, Lindsay M. Werra, Shari A. Yvon-Lewis and Thomas C. Weber

It adds to the growing body of evidence that the oceans with the help of microbes are much more resilient than they have been assumed to be.

http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/microbes-ate-the-bp-oil-plume/

http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/microbes-consume-methane-10-to-100-times-faster-than-thought/

As Science News puts it:

Methane, the predominant hydrocarbon produced by the BP blowout last year, has all but vanished from Gulf of Mexico waters, a new study reports presumably eaten up by marine bacteria. That hadn’t been expected to happen for years.

Two-thirds of the hydrocarbons released by the BP accident were forms of natural gas: largely methane, ethane and propane. While Gulf microbes quickly began devouring the larger gas molecules, they initially left tiny methane which accounted for an estimated 87.5 percent of the gas initially emitted largely untouched.

Some of the authors of the new paper had reported in the Oct. 8Science finding almost no microbial breakdown of BP methane in June, about a month and a half into the 83-day gusher.

Rates of biodegradation in subsea plumes, where this gas had been accumulating, “indicated methane would persist for many, many years, if not almost a decade,” observes John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer at Texas A&M University in College Station and an author of that earlier report.

To begin quantifying just how slowly that breakdown was proceeding, he and his colleagues returned to the Gulf for three research cruises between August 18 and October 4. Their sampling at more than 200 sites turned up no BP methane. In fact, concentrations of the gas in seawater throughout the spill zone were lower than typical background concentrations for the Gulf, these researchers report online January 6 in Science.

“We were caught off guard,” Kessler says. “But that highlights the beauty of the scientific process. You put together hypotheses based on the information at hand and test them. And whether we’re right or wrong, at the end of the day we’ll have learned something new about the system.”

The new paper’s conclusions “are quite consistent with what we’ve seen,” says microbial ecologist Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. On August 24, his team was the first to report online in Science that BP oil plumes had disappeared.

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OF COURSE THIS WAS KNOWN A LONG TIME AGO:

08/12/2010
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
Lou Dolinar August 12, 2010 4:00 P.M.
OUR REAL GULF DISASTER

299 posted on Friday, August 13, 2010 4:30:07 PM by Matchett-PI (BP was founder of Cap & Trade Lobby and is linked to John Podesta, The Apollo Alliance and Obama)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=299#299

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November 15, 2010 4:00 A.M.
Sea Life Flourishes in the Gulf

The Great Oil Spill Panic of 2010 will go down in history as mass hysteria on par with the Dutch tulip bubble.

The catastrophists were wrong (again) about the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. [snip]

303 posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 9:13:43 AM by Matchett-PI (This is a RESTRAINING ORDER not merely an ‘election’ ~ PJ O’Rourke.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=303#303

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Washington Post
Report: White House altered drilling safety report
By DINA CAPPIELLO The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2010; 11:11 AM

IG report shows Obama WH rewrote Gulf spill report to support moratorium.

“...The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.
“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public. ... Why was the staff of energy “adviser” Carol Browner allowed to edit a report issued by the Department of Interior’s blue-ribbon panel in the first place? ...”

307 posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 9:48:25 AM by Matchett-PI (This is a RESTRAINING ORDER not merely an ‘election’ ~ PJ O’Rourke.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=307#307

MORE:

Reuters – Aug 24, 2010

A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP’s broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67N5CC20100824
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON | Tue Aug 24, 2010 10:25pm BST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP’s broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday.

The micro-organisms were apparently stimulated by the massive oil spill that began in April, and they degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the plume is now undetectable, said Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

These so-called proteobacteria — Hazen calls them “bugs” — have adapted to the cold deep water where the big BP plume was observed and are able to biodegrade hydrocarbons much more quickly than expected, without significantly depleting oxygen as most known oil-depleting bacteria do.

Oxygen is essential to the survival of commercially important fish and shellfish; a seasonal low-oxygen “dead zone” forms most summers in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by farm chemical run-off that flows down the Mississippi River.

Hydrocarbons in the crude oil from the BP spill actually stimulated the new microbes’ ability to degrade them in cold water, Hazen and his colleagues wrote in research published on Tuesday in the journal Science.

In part, Hazen said, this is because these new “bugs” have adjusted over millions of years to seek out any petroleum they can find at the depths where they live, which coincides with the depth of the previously observed plume, roughly 3000 feet. At that depth, water temperature is approximately 41 degrees F (5 degrees C).

FEASTING ON HYDROCARBONS

Long before humans drilled for oil, natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico have put out the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill each year, Hazen said.

Another factor was the consistency of the oil that came from the Macondo wellhead: light sweet Louisiana crude, an easily digestible substance for bacteria, and it was dispersed into tiny droplets, which also makes it more biodegradable.

These latest findings may initially seem to be at odds with a study published last Thursday in Science by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which confirmed the existence of the oil plume and said micro-organisms did not seem to be biodegrading it very quickly.

However, Hazen and Rich Camilli of Woods Hole both said on Tuesday that the studies complement each other.

The Woods Hole team used an autonomous robot submarine and a mass spectrometer to detect the plume, but were forced to leave the area in late June, when Hurricane Alex threatened. At that time, they figured the plume was likely to remain for some time.

But that was before the well was capped in mid-July. Hazen said that within two weeks of the capping, the plume could not be detected, but there was a phenomenon called marine snow that indicated microbes had been feasting on hydrocarbons.

As of Tuesday, there was no sign of the plume, Hazen said.

That doesn’t mean there is no oil left from the 4.9 million barrels of crude that spilled into the Gulf after the April 20 blowout at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. The U.S. government estimated on August 4 that 50 percent of the BP oil is gone from the Gulf and the rest is rapidly degrading.

Another (related) “noooo kidding?”:

One more thing that is “better than we thought” – NOAA: “the atmosphere’s self-cleaning capacity is rather stable”
January 7, 2011 by Anthony Watts

Yesterday we learned that the great Pacific Garbage Patch really isn’t as big as hyped by media, today we learn that the “atmosphere’s ability to rid itself of many pollutants is generally well buffered or stable”. Huh. Imagine that, the planet isn’t broken as easily as some imagine.

From a NOAA press release: [snip] Here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/07/one-more-thing-that-is-better-than-we-thought-noaa-the-atmosphere%E2%80%99s-self-cleaning-capacity-is-rather-stable/

Oil Rigs – and Jobs – Already Moving Out of Gulf

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/28/oil-rigs-and-jobs-already-moving-out-of-gulf/

January 28, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

We have previously covered the disappointing response from the Obama administration in approving new drilling permits following last summer’s oil spill in the gulf, warning that such an unofficial “permitoreum” would have consequences. Among the many negative potential results would be energy companies taking their ocean-going rigs and moving them to places where they could get back to work, rather than sitting idle and costing them huge amounts of money. And when the rigs leave, the jobs leave, along with all of the associated economic stimulus to other related American businesses. Well, that didn’t take long.

Jan 27 (Reuters) – Some of the 30-plus deepwater rigs that were in the Gulf of Mexico have moved to other markets, first because of a U.S. halt called last May after BP Plc’s (BP.L: Quote) well blowout, and then because of the lack of permits once the moratorium was lifted.

A few of the heavy hitters include:
Diamond Offshore Drilling – The Ocean Endeavor to Egypt and the Ocean Confidence to the Congo.
Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor – The Marianas rig to Nigeria and Discoverer Americas to Egypt.
Pride International Inc – Deep Ocean Ascension heading to the Mediterranean Sea
Noble Corp – The Clyde Boudreaux moving to Brazil and they expected more to follow

It is worth noting that some of these rigs are listed as being “currently scheduled to return to the gulf,” but that’s not going to happen unless they have permits in hand before they pull up stakes and move again. And that remains in the capable hands of the government.

This week CNBC’s Lori Ann LaRocco interviewed one industry official who described the oil industry in the gulf as being on life support.

We have not been able to get any drilling permits. None have been issued for Deep Water. There have been a few in the shallow water. Individual companies and associations like the API (American Petroleum Institute) continually engage with the regulator, The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and try to get clarity on what they will require to approve these permits. This has been going on for some time but it has intensified since the lifting of the moratorium in October.
Since the initial moratorium in May, we have had three deep water drill ships that were all long term contracts- go idle.

As he describes, for each rig there is a crew of roughly 200 people out of work, but with the associated support industries, suppliers and contractors, it translates into “thousands of jobs for each one of these drill ships.” They are slowly filing out of the gulf in seek of other waters where they can actually perform their function. And they are taking all those jobs with them.

bttt

The pathetic god of Environmentalism
By Larrey Anderson
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/the_pathetic_god_of_environmen_1.html

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Video: Van Jones: Environmentalism is Really All About Social Justice
Eyeblast TV ( Media Research Center) ^ | 1/25/2011
http://blog.eyeblast.tv/2011/01/van-jones-environmentalism-is-really-all-about-social-justice/

Van Jones is the gift that just keeps on giving. The Van Joneses, Ezra Kleins, and other all too honest liberals just can’t help but completely affirm everything that conservatives have been saying about the left for years. In this case Van Jones might as well have gotten “Glenn Beck is right about social justice” tattooed across his forehead before giving this speech:

VIDEO (in his own words): http://blog.eyeblast.tv/2011/01/van-jones-environmentalism-is-really-all-about-social-justice/

Oh. I see so the entire green movement is really just about forwarding a radical leftist agenda in order to restructure society. Gee, everyone on the right hasn’t been saying that for years on end.

Sometimes you have to wonder if guys like Van Jones aren’t just some brilliantly diabolical scheme by our side to expose the true intentions of the left for all to see. I mean Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or myself could go off on a daily basis about how the green and social justice movements might not seem connected on the surface but that they most certainly are at a deeper level and we would reach some people. However, when someone in those movements goes around saying the same thing how can anybody question it?

Anyway if you want to hear Van Jones’s full convoluted explanation of how plastic kills people or something and therefor we need to radically transform how we do business, the prison system, and everything else you can check it out here. If not the real take away here is that even Van Jones believes that the green movement is inexorably connected to the social justice movement and the two are needed to bring radical change to our world. Yea.

UPDATE: Oh and by the way, as The Right Scoop pointed out a few days ago, Van Jones also basically admits that social justice is communism.
Posted by Stephen Gutowski

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OBAMA’S EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 12898 (TO BY-PASS OUR DULY ELECTED CONGRESS AND CONTINUE TO CRAM HIS AGENDA DOWN OUR THROATS)

FEDERAL ACTIONS TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN MINORITY POPULATIONS AND LOW-INCOME POPULATIONS
http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/execordr.html

FEDERAL OFFICIALS TO TESTIFY ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES BEFORE CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION
http://www.usccr.gov/press/prsndx.htm

Obama’s Green Economy Bag Men: Chief of Staff Bill Daley and GE CEO Jeff Immelt
Townhall.com ^ | January 23, 2011 | Tom Borelli
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2661947/posts

The recent White House personnel shifts signal the kickoff of President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. Of the many changes, the selection of Bill Daley as White House chief of staff and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness are the most important because they will play a key fundraising role in the upcoming presidential campaign.

Choosing Daley and Immelt are not signs of political moderation by President Obama, as some have suggested, but is the stone cold political realization that the president needs big-business cash to fuel his 2012 campaign.

It’s been reported that Obama’s 2012 re-election bid will shatter the record $750 million in contributions collected during the 2008 campaign by reaching the billion dollar mark.

To raise that staggering amount of cash, Obama is going to need substantial support from corporate deep pockets. Big-business donors, such as CEOs, hedge fund managers and law firm partners typically are not ideologues seeking to advance a political philosophy but are pragmatists wanting to know how Obama’s policies can increase their influence, business strategies and wealth.

Translating Obama’s policy into business returns and campaign dollars will be job one for Daley. As a political and Wall Street insider, Daley has the contacts to make the sale but Obama’s rhetoric and policies has not endeared the president to the animal instincts of many big-business leaders.

There is, however, one policy that can galvanize the president’s fundraising base: Obama’s war on fossil fuels and his unyielding promotion of renewable energy and a green economy.

Billions of dollars invested in renewable energy are now in jeopardy because Congress did not pass Obama’s cap-and-trade plan, which would make energy derived from the burning of fossil fuels more expensive – or, as the president said, “skyrocket.” Because renewable energy can’t compete with the price and reliability of fossil fuels, the financial viability of these investments is dependent on government action to raise the cost of carbon-based energy.

At a recent policy forum at the Brookings Institution, GE CEO Jeff Immelt emphasized the importance of a government policy that would raise energy prices to spur renewable energy. According to Reuters, “On energy, Immelt said a clear U.S. policy making fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gasses more expensive is needed ‘to move the needle’ on accelerating advanced technology investments. ‘There has to be a price on carbon,’ he said.”

Daley and Immelt are the perfect team to appeal to other corporations that gambled on climate change fears and merge these interests with progressive activists, and the social and media elites to unleash the political donating frenzy for Obama’s re-election.

Before joining team Obama, Daley was the head of JPMorgan Chase’s corporate social responsibility department, which developed a climate change policy that is hostile to carbon-based energy - coal, oil and natural gas. JPMorgan’s policy is “to advocate that the US government adopt a market-based national policy on greenhouse gas emissions, which includes all sources of emissions and is fair. Options include either a cap-and-trade or tax policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest possible cost.”

JPMorgan, like many other financial institutions, is banking on making money by trading carbon credits and by investing in renewable energy projects. GE and JPMorgan are not the only companies that have a business interest in seeking higher energy prices. Exelon, the Chicago-based utility, has taken a lead role in attacking coal-based electricity generation.

Exelon is a member of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a cap-and-trade lobbying organization, and the company was a recipient of a $200 million grant from Obama’s economic stimulus plan.

Daley also has ties to Exelon – he advised the company on its failed effort to buy Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. in 2004.

The failure of California Proposition 23 last November shows the fundraising potential behind the war on fossil fuels. A collection of left-wing philanthropists, activist groups and business interests contributed over $30 million to defeat the measure, which would have delayed implementation of a state law mandating a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions until unemployment rates drop to a specific level.

Green technology venture capitalists John Doerr and Vinod Khosla gave $2,100,000 and $1,037,267, respectively, and PG&E, a California utility and USCAP member, kicked in another $500,000.

Doerr’s involvement deserves special attention. Along with Immelt, Doerr is a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He also is Al Gore’s business partner.

The campaign to defeat Prop 23 reveals the money behind the war on fossil fuels. With billions of dollars invested in a green economy, we can expect huge sums of special interest money to back Obama.

As the 2012 presidential election draws closer, we can expect to see Daley and Immelt playing a major role in selling Obama’s green economy to those dependent on legislative fixes to their business plans.

Let’s hope the fossil fuel industry recognizes Obama’s new team is not going to be a moderating voice in the White House. Rather, Daley and Immelt will be green economy bag men collecting cash to put them out of business.

Obama’s sleight of hand on regulation
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/01/obamas-sleight-hand-regulation

By: Examiner Editorial 01/21/11 8:05 PM

Earlier this week, President Obama announced a new push to eliminate wasteful, unnecessary and outdated federal regulations. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he gave as his chief example a low-hanging piece of fruit: Saccharin, which millions consume daily in their coffee, has long been categorized as a dangerous chemical by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This costly EPA rule has now been amended.

As wonderful as that sounds, we suspect it is motivated less by a desire to ease regulation than by the need of a stridently anti-business administration to mollify corporate interests and business donors in a difficult election cycle. In Obama’s first two years in office, he showed no signs of concern about the number of costly regulations being issued by federal regulators. He set new records for both the number of major regulations issued (43) and their added annual net burden on the economy (conservatively estimated by the regulators themselves at $26.5 billion). None of these will be revisited or revised by Obama’s initiative. James Gattuso and Diane Katz of the Heritage Foundation, who analyzed the new regulations in detail, predict that the real costs of Obama’s regulations so far are probably much higher than the government estimates.

President George W. Bush’s entire eight-year presidency added a net $70 billion to the existing $1.1 trillion burden placed on businesses by the 150,000-plus-page Code of Federal Regulations. At Obama’s current pace, he would add $212 billion in eight years. And unfortunately, Obama will not keep his current pace; he will accelerate it despite his much-touted executive order. Last year’s health care and financial reform bills will unleash a torrent of new regulations, making 2011 another record-breaking year. Obama has already issued new and burdensome regulations governing everything from runoff water at construction sites to lead paint to toy testing.

Let’s not forget that in 2009 Obama’s Food and Drug Administration very nearly killed off the Gulf oyster industry by banning the serving of raw oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico from April to October. The FDA’s justification for ruining the enjoyment of millions of oyster lovers?

Fifteen people with serious medical conditions die each year, nearly always because they ignore warning labels and doctors’ orders and eat raw oysters anyway. That regulation was only prevented because a bipartisan group in Congress threatened to slash the FDA’s funding if the proposed rule was implemented.

So we feel there are ample grounds to doubt Obama’s conversion.

There are many actions he could quickly take that would demonstrate a seriousness about regulatory relief, such as declaring a freeze on all new regulatory activity mandated by Obamacare, pending the outcome of the current debate in Congress on repealing and replacing the program.

Doing that would be far more convincing than public relations stunts like his op-ed earlier this week in The Wall Street Journal.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzgPdmjhGYw

Amazon.com
Mere Environmentalism: A Biblical Perspective on Humans and the Natural World (Common Sense Concepts) by Steven F. Hayward (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0844743747?ie=UTF8&tag=aeor-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0844743747

MORE:

Mere Environmentalism
http://blog.american.com/?p=23602
By Jay Richards
December 6, 2010, 12:36 pm

EPA Changing the Rules as They Go
Heritage ^ | 1/20/11 | Nicholas Loris

Posted on Thursday, January 20, 2011 2:38:22 PM by markomalley
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2660483/posts

Congress isn’t the only entity that knows how to pick winners and losers for energy sources and technologies. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is doing its best to follow suit by imposing new rules on the natural gas industry and providing exemptions to the biomass industry.

For natural gas, the EPA evasively posted a new rule on hydraulic fracturing, requiring a company to obtain permits if the company uses diesel when fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, a long-proven process by which pressurized water and other substances are injected into wells to extract natural gas, has been the subject of much debate between environmentalists and industry because of those “other substances.”

An exemption in the 2005 Safe Drinking Water Act protects natural gas companies from disclosing proprietary information regarding the chemicals they use to when fracking. Environmentalists are pushing for full disclosure because of the concern that hydraulic fracturing is a threat to America’s drinking water. But in this instance, with the EPA’s new rule on diesel disclosure, perhaps more unsettling than the new rule is the way in which the EPA issued the rule. Mike Soraghan of Greenwire reports:

Federal agencies usually change policies with a multistep process that begins with the Federal Register and does not end for a year or more. But the fracturing permit change happened without so much as a press release. It was quietly posted amid an increasingly noisy debate about fracturing, a process in which chemical-laced water is injected underground at high pressure to crack rock formations and release oil or gas.

EPA has launched a multiyear study of the safety of fracturing. Hundreds of people showed up last summer at EPA hearings about the practice in New York and Pennsylvania. It has been the subject of a piece on “60 Minutes,” an HBO documentary called “Gasland” and even an episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

The casual nature of the posting, and the lack of any date, left oil and gas industry attorneys puzzling over what the change applied to and whether it applied only for the future, or retroactively. Of particular concern was that companies had been ordered to give documentation to Congress about their fracturing practices, and EPA was ordering disclosure, as well.

If they had disclosed that they had used diesellegallybut did not get a specific permit, could they be penalized? Was there any way to get such a permit? What should states, who administer the program, do about regulating fracturing?

The story gets more complicated from there, mostly because of a series of loopholes with regards to the EPA regulating the use of diesel for fracking. Having the EPA close the loophole and create a clear definition with regards to diesel use isn’t necessarily bad, but it sets a dangerous precedent for the EPA quickly changing the rules of the game for industry with no consideration for debate and public comment.

Reining in the EPA’s regulatory overreach and unilateral decision making should be a priority for the 112th Congress. Congress should thoroughly evaluate and question the EPA’s newly implemented rules and have EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson justify her agency’s decision not just when it comes to hydraulic fracturing but other rules as well, most notably the regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Speaking of which, Congress should ask Jackson why the EPA exempted biofuel refineries from obtaining permit requirements for CO2 emissions. This year the EPA will start regulating emissions from new power plants and major expansions of large greenhouse-gas-emitting plants (more than 25,000 tons of CO2 per year) and will finalize regulations for existing refineries and fossil fuel electric utilities by November 2012. But not biofuel plants. The reason given is that the science clearly shows that biofuel production is net neutral when it comes to CO2 emissions.

Right. Just like the science clearly shows increased CO2 emissions will result in sea level rises, stressed water resources, increased size and quantity of wildfires, insect outbreaks, threats to ecosystems and national security, and other catastrophic events.

New studies, however, are showing that biofuel production is not carbon-neutral. A report from Rice University notes that when you account for land use conversion, the use of fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides (which emit much more potent methane and nitrous oxide), as well as the fossil fuels used for production and distribution, biofuel production becomes quite carbon-intensive. For an industry that built its business model around subsidies, tariffs, and federal protection, it’s no surprise that the EPA threw the biofuel industry another bone. Now it’s time for Congress to put the EPA on the stand and ask why. bttt

The full appreciation of Federal Regulatory Expansion requires an often-overlooked understanding of the Federal Bureaucracy.

Simply that as each generation of Federal employees puts in their 20 years...the next big promotion opportunity for them all requires a massive regulatory expansion.

The best illustration of this phenomena I've ever observed was the big “Immigration Reform” bill which despite tremendous bipartisan push and support in June 2006(Remember Bush...”see you at the signing”) ..never made it. It was the 20th Anniversary of the Simpson-Mazolli Act November 6th, 1986...the Teddy Kennedy American sellout.

An immigration reform bill is a very good opportunity for the Federal Bureaucrats..as it is the fastest way to instantly exponentially grow the country's official population statistics...which then “require” more Federal agency work and responsibility...and “opportunity”

Warmists: ‘We can’t win the game, so let’s change the rules’
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100072360/warmists-we-cant-win-the-game-so-lets-change-the-rules/
By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: January 18th, 2011

192 Comments Comment on this article

Willis Eschenbach’s recent guest post at Watts Up With That? on the current state of ‘Climate science’ should be made compulsory reading in every classroom, every university science department, every eco-charity, every environmental NGO and in every branch of government. They won’t like it up ‘em, that’s for sure.

What Eschenbach says is so pure and simple and obvious you’d need to be as dumb as Chris Huhne not to get it:

The theory linking man-made CO2 with dangerous global warming is dead. It has been falsified. It has run smack bang into a “null hypothesis.” It has met its Waterloo. It has bought the farm. It has gone for a Burton. It has cashed in its chips, fallen off its perch, gone south, gone west, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the Choir Invisible. Man-made Global Warming has ceased to exist.

Eschenbach wrote his post in response to a bizarre speech prepared by Dr Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which he intended to deliver to the American Meteorological Society. Trenberth is the arch-warmist perhaps best known for writing the Climategate email which went:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

When Trenberth’s speech was pre-published on the internet it caused something of a stir, both for the way large chunks of it had been taken almost verbatim from another scientist and for its use six times of the word “denier”. (Thanks to some kindly advice proferred by Steve McIntyre, Trenberth has now significantly altered his speech. “Deniers” has been altered to “sceptics.” Probably quite sensibly since many in the AMS, being meteorologists rather than “climate scientists” tend very much to fall into the sceptic camp).

What Eschenbach focuses on, though, is Trenberth’s absurd demand that the “null hypothesis” on AGW theory be reversed. That is, instead of having to prove AGW exists, what people should now be required to prove that it doesn’t exist. (!)

Here’s an excerpt from Eschenbach’s hilarious demolition of this nonsense:

Gotta love the style, though, simply proclaiming by imperial fiat that his side is the winner in one of the longest-running modern scientific debates. And his only proffered “evidence” for this claim? It is the unequivocal fact that Phil Jones and Michael Mann and Caspar Amman and Gene Wahl and the other good old boys of the IPCC all agree with him. That is to say, Dr. T’s justification for reversing the null hypothesis is that the IPCC report that Dr. T helped write agrees with Dr. T. That’s recursive enough to make Ouroboros weep in envy.

Do read Eschenbach’s post in full.

Eschenbach goes on to offer a long list of things climate ’scientists’ should do if they’re ever to be taken seriously again:

Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work.

Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells.

Enough with the scary scenarios, already.

Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it.

Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends.

STOP HIDING THINGS!!!

Will any of this happen? It’s about as likely, I’d say, as my winning gold in the 100 metres at the 2012 London Olympics. The reason for this is that “Climate Change” has long since abandoned any connection it had now with actual science. It is an ideology. A religion. A psychopathology.

That’s why the people on this planet now inhabit two parallel universes.

On the one hand are the true believers, such as NASA’s Dr James Hansen, who believes his compatriots are “barbarians”, that US democracy is “dysfunctional” and that the best way to sort out the world’s carbon problems would be to invite some kind of global, Chinese-led eco dictatorship. These true believers also include this eco-loon at Treehugger who appears to admire China’s no-nonsense way of meeting its five-year energy-efficiency targets: by “cutting power to industry and imposing rolling blackouts.”

According to the Treehugger this is brutal, statist, anti-human example is something we could learn from:

It’s worth noting the difference in political culture: What do you think would have happened if the US had such an energy-reduction target to hit, but a sagging economy got in the way?

I can tell you with some certainty: We would have missed that mark.

Then, on the other side of the planet, living in a parallel universe, are the rest of us. We look at James Hansen’s quotes and think: “Hang on a second. This is the guy in charge of one of the world’s four main climate data sets. He’s paid for by the US taxpayer, supposedly to represent US interests. And he’s a scientist who’s supposed to be politically neutral. Is it just me – or has one half of the world gone totally mad?”

Or as Dr Kevin Trenberth might say if only he weren’t so committed to the wrong cause, “This AGW sham. It’s a travesty!”

UPDATE

I’ve been urged – and rightly so – to draw your attention to the equally brilliant refutation of AGW at WUWT (commissioned by the GWPF) by the mighty Dr Richard Lindzen. (H/T D Simmons)

When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further. The case of ENRON (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative in this respect. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, ENRON had been one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to over a trillion dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions. Hedge funds are actively examining the possibilities; so was the late Lehman Brothers. Goldman Sachs has lobbied extensively for the ‘cap and trade’ bill, and is well positioned to make billions. It is probably no accident that Gore, himself, is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense. Archer Daniels Midland (America’s largest agribusiness) has successfully lobbied for ethanol requirements for gasoline, and the resulting demand for ethanol may already be contributing to large increases in corn prices and associated hardship in the developing world (not to mention poorer car performance).

And finally, there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue.

For them, their psychic welfare is at stake.

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The reason college kids go gaga over Obama (undeveloped critical thinking skills)
American Thinker ^ | 01/18/2011 | Rick Moran

Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 10:16:48 AM by SeekAndFind
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2658923/posts

Younger voters are usually liberal anyway - until they get a real job and see how much the government takes out of their paycheck. By the time they get married and have kids, the natural equilibrium in politics is re-established and a majority become Republicans.

But how could they have been fooled by such a charlatan? A new study shows that college students fail to develop critical thinking skills.

McClatchy:

An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.
Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn’t determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin.
Arum, whose book “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” (University of Chicago Press) comes out this month, followed 2,322 traditional-age students from the fall of 2005 to the spring of 2009 and examined testing data and student surveys at a broad range of 24 U.S. colleges and universities, from the highly selective to the less selective.
Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called “higher order” thinking skills.

Perhaps it’s because students are more likely to get professors who believe in brainwashing rather than teaching.

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“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans— anything except reason. “

Thomas Sowell
Monday, September 3, 2007
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2007/09/03/random_thoughts?page=full&comments=true

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

I can’t get as fiercely involved as some other people do in controversies about the origins of human life on earth. I wasn’t there.

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans— anything except reason.

Barack Obama is the newest face on the political scene, expressing some of the oldest notions. Virtually everything he says is vintage 1960s rhetoric, as if he has learned nothing from the many disasters that 1960s notions have led to in the decades since then.

People who lament the small percentages of women in some high-end jobs seem unaware that top jobs often involve 70 or 80 hours of work per week. A mother may work that many hours at home taking care of a family, without adding the same number of hours at the office.

A recent study showed the median income of major corporate CEOs to be about $8 million a year. That’s less than a third of what Alex Rodriguez earns and less than one-thirtieth of what Oprah Winfrey makes. But no one is denouncing them for “greed.”

It is amazing how many people who want us to get out of Iraq want us to go into Darfur.

A joke says that a poll was taken in California, asking if people thought illegal immigration was a serious problem. The results showed that 29 percent said, “Yes, there is a serious problem.” But 71 percent said, “No es una problema seriosa.”

People who refuse to face the reality of hard choices are forever coming up with some clever “third way”— often leading to worse disasters than either of the hard choices.

Sometimes it looks as if the Democrats are out to win at all costs, while the Republicans are out to compromise at all costs.

Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.

A reader says that Connecticut’s “Three Strikes” law is so weak that it is more like “30 strikes and we’ll think about it while you strike again.”

Wise people created civilization over the centuries and clever people are dismantling it today. You can see it happening just by channel surfing on TV or hear it in rap music or read it in the pompous nonsense of academics and judges.

Tennis star James Blake never seems to be relaxed during a match. Maybe he would be ranked even higher if he could relax. Most sports require some combination of concentration and relaxation— and too much of either is a big handicap.

Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.

With all the old movie favorites being shown again and again on television, it is remarkable that the old movie classic “Alfie” is seldom shown. Could it be fear that the scene where cold-blooded Alfie breaks down and cries at the sight of an aborted baby is something that would unleash the furies of the feminazis?

It is amazing how many people see no problem with having pay levels determined according to what third parties would like to see, instead of according to supply and demand.

One of the great non sequiturs of the left is that, if the free market doesn’t work perfectly, then it doesn’t work at all— and the government should step in.

Despite people who speak glibly of “earlier and simpler times,” all that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.

We all believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. Some on the left believe that they are innocent even after being proven guilty.

Chutzpah department: When disbarred former D.A. Michael Nifong mailed his Bar card back to his state Bar Association, he included a note decrying “the fundamental unfairness” with which the Bar had treated him. This from a man who was ready to ruin three lives and polarize a community, in order to win an election.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2007/09/03/random_thoughts?page=full&comments=true

My, that’s quite a bit to read. Looks like I’ll be busy today.