Posted on 02/26/2011 6:33:18 AM PST by thackney
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that U.S. regulators would not bow to political pressure to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico before they are certain the oil-and-gas industry is capable of containing an oil spill like the one that followed last BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Salazar and Michael Bromwich--the head of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling--were in Houston Friday to meet with oil industry executives to assess the spill-containment systems they have developed in the wake of nation's worst-ever marine oil spill.
Bromwich said he was "quite confident that we are getting very close to the point where we can begin issuing deepwater permits." But he and Salazar said the industry still has work to do before exploration of the Gulf's deepest waters can resume.
The U.S. government shut down deepwater drilling shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, killing 11 and unleashing a catastrophic oil spill.
The government's official ban was lifted in October, but regulators have yet to allow drilling to resume in water deeper than 500 feet despite mounting political pressure from congressional Republicans and Gulf Coast Democrats to reopen one of the nation's primary energy fields.
"We don't respond to political pressure," Salazar said. "We are frankly doing what's right for America's energy program."
Both Helix Energy Solutions Group, whose system helped stem the flow of BP's runaway well last summer, and the nonprofit Marine Well Containment Co., formed by a consortium of major oil companies, say their systems are ready to respond to spills on par with Deepwater Horizon. But the nation's top energy regulators said that they felt differently.
"These containment systems are work in progress," Salazar told reporters after the meetings. "Both systems currently have limitations on water depth ...
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
They don’t respond to the will of the people either. It’s not about our oil, it’s about supporting the Middle East and the breaking of our country.
Well, good!!! This is the best path forward for the administration to take if they all want to be unemployed in January 2013.
For around the 500th time. With no ill effects on him, apparently. Nobody dares stand up to Bambi.
Exactly. This lawless behavior can't be allowed to stand.
I don’t know why people don’t appreciate principled politicians like Salazar, who will stand firm against political pressure...by the American people!
It’s as refreshing as the Democrats fleeing from Wisconsin, standing firm against the will just recently expressed by their voters. Another principled bunch. When they were in power and were pushing through the huge tax increase in Wisconsin within 12 hours and with no public hearings, Republicans had to hold their nose and vote against it, knowing that they didn’t have the votes to defeat it. Having lost the election, they don’t think it’s fair that they no longer run the show, and instead want to show the voters who they truly are.
That should read “America-hating salazar won’t bow to logic...”
Selections from this link....
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only....
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance....
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation...
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent...
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts...and destroyed the lives of our people.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us...
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it...
Drill anyway.
FO.
Congress is also disregarding the Constitution. My blood boils because Boehner should move to impeach and remove Salizar. It's disgusting how our Republican leadership is moving in a "civil" manner on all matters. We should be going for the jugular and taking the fight to these Marxists at every turn.
Our Republic is truly at the precipice, and our leadership in Congress are still acting like a bunch of polite girly men. Disgusting.
I don't think we'll be witnessing them pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor any time soon.
Yeah-—WHAT America’s energy program?
Since 1974, the Dept. of Energy hasn’t produced any energy.
Then, we imported 40% of our oil—now, it is over 70%.
And the GOP acts like a bunch of eunuchs when they can just defund Interior and Energy and be done with them!
Thanks, GOP!!!! Now, be civil boys!
Because of the Oath re-do for the kenyan, nobama thinks having his fingers crossed during the oath exempts him.
Liars, all of them. I despise RATS!!!!
Pretty simple...
Don’t drill in water so deep the safety measures (government required) wouldn’t be effective even if they had worked (likely their effectiveness had been pencil-whipped). Drill in shallower water. Have the drilling company carry real insurance versus the nebulous and insufficient regulatory agency junk (an insurance inspector would likely hold the policy over the head of drilling company...$$$ a great motivator).
Crook critters in government regulatory agencies....
ruefully
Time for the states to act. Invite the fascist Salazar to Louisianna and then arrest the SOB and throw him in prison.
When the goal is to destroy America and you control the gummit you can do whatever you want. Any excuse is a good excuse if you don’t want to do it.
Pray for America
We probably aren’t going to resume real drilling in the Gulf until these stupid crooked bastards are gone.
Folks, this can go on FOREVER and saladbar and obastard intend for it to go on FOREVER or as long as they are in place. They are going to stand there and thumb their noses at us saying “not quite ready” until they go away.
They know they can refuse normal operations to resume so long as they keep saying they aren’t SURE it is SAFE to resume operations. The metrics of SAFE ENOUGH or that RISK has been MANAGED are purely subjective. There is no certain goal or condition of sufficiency that is clearly defined or that can be met.
BOEMRE are engaged in “rock management” at its best. You go get a rock that satisfies me and I’ll tell you when you get one. No specification just satisfy me when you bring it back. That game goes on as long as the manager wants it to.
Let me try an analogy on you. We know airplanes crash sometimes. We accept that because the ODDS are that you can get on an airplane and reach your destination with SOME level of confidence.
What if no airplane could ever take off until the FAA is thoroughly convinced that the aircraft is “safe” and the procedures are “acceptable”?
What if “safe” and “acceptable” meant that there is an iron clad guarantee that with no doubt whatsoever the airplane you get on will not crash and not only that, will have zero chance of having any problems at all?
What if the FAA bureaucrat made his assessment of the “safe” and “acceptable” conditions under threat that if any airplane he allowed to fly ever crashed he would be held criminally liable and go to jail? How many airplanes do you think would be flying?
Same thing is going on in the oil business right now.
Same here, I’d like to strangle the living spit out of someones.
This is all a lie, fraud, deceit and just plain crooked manipulation.
saladbar and obastard are playing with Exxon et al like a cat with a mouse.
The story usually ends with the mouse exhausted then dead and the cat walks away to find something else to torment.
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