Lab Chosen To Test Oil Spill Water & Animal Samples Has Ties To BP
AllGov ^ | 5/22/2010 | Noel Brinkerhoff
Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2010 9:25:17 PM by Laissez-faire capitalist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2519699/posts
To find out how much damage the Deepwater Horizon accident has caused the environment, experts are collecting water samples from the Gulf of Mexico for testing. But the federal government is requiring these samples to be tested at ONE laboratory (TDI Brooks International’s B&B Laboratories) which does work for the petroleum industry, including BP, owner of the offshore oil platform that blew up and sank.
In addition to this potential conflict of interest, federal officials have mandated that BP gets to hire the companies that collect data as part of efforts to rescue wildlife covered with oil.
“Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled,” said Taylor Kirschenfeld, a Florida environmental official...
The New York Times also reported that a BP official, Sylvia V. Baca, currently serves as the deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management in the Department of the Interior, giving her oversight of offshore drilling.
Conflict of Interest Worries Raised In Spill Tests (By Ian Urbina, New York Times) [Link at URL].
...
(Excerpt) Read more at allgov.com ...
Sarah Palin, Cokie Roberts, Donna Brazile fault Obama administration’s response to oil spill
The Orlando Sentinel ^ | May 23, 2010
Posted on Monday, May 24, 2010 12:29:26 AM by 2ndDivisionVet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/2519769/posts
Sunday morning guests from Sarah Palin to Donna Brazile found fault with the way the Obama administration has responded to British Petroleum’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
On “Fox News Sunday,” former Alaska Gov. Palin said she was still a “big supporter of offshore drilling” despite the spill. She wondered about President’s Obama’s “connection” to the oil companies.
“I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there is any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration,” Palin told Chris Wallace.
On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs shot back: “Sarah Palin was involved in that [2008] election, but I don’t think apparently was paying a whole lot of attention. I’m almost sure that the oil companies don’t consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall-profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge more for gasoline. My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what’s going on in and around oil drilling in this country.”
On ABC’s “This Week,” Cokie Roberts and Democrat strategist Brazile said Obama wasn’t doing enough about the spill.
“The oil is gushing and we’re being lied to by how much oil is gushing … and the administration has now named a commission,” Roberts said. “Now this is what you do when you really don’t have anything else to do: You name a commission,” she said. “That’s not going to stop the oil.”
Brazile said: “One of the problems I have with the [Obama] administration is that they’re not tough enough.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.orlandosentinel.com ...