Is that the same one that a couple weeks later banned ALL drilling? And when a federal court lifted that order, he promised to fight to get it shut down again?
Well it clearly isn't safe and the oil companies have lied about their ability to clean it up satisfactorily.
And he didn't ban all drilling, he placed a 6 month stoppage to any new drilling. Obama is cleaning up the regulatory body of these oil companies and hopefully that will see some change in better oversight. Hopefully new inspections and improved oversight on the oil companies safety plans (ie. BP's plan to evacuate walrus's from the GoM) will stop risky drilling like the disaster this spill is.
A Whale Too Big... Remember all the IRATE Conservative Indignation that the WHALE, an oil skimming ship, had not been put into use sooner, (because it had never been used and was being tested).
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Do you have names of the ships that were rejected??? or a link (a real link) to the names of those ships???
OR did you just hear this somewhere and it sounded good to you?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Japanese and most of the other would-be Samaritans are still waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP. Last week, according to The Post, the administration did ask the European Union to help with any specialized equipment it might have. But meanwhile, oil has penetrated the marshes of southern Louisiana and is lapping onto the beaches of Alabama and Florida. The main spill is spreading, and hurricane season is upon us.
It’s great that President Barack Obama and his advisers finally seem to understand the atmospherics of responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Now if they’d only get the policy right.
Whether Obama has been demonstrative enough in his public handling of the catastrophe is a legitimate question, but it’s somewhat beside the point. Yes, there is an aspect of theatrical performance inherent in the presidency, and no, Obama doesn’t seem to relish that part of his job. But the man is who he is—he doesn’t shoot from the hip, doesn’t thump tables or pound podiums, and would strike a glissando of false notes if he suddenly tried to pretend otherwise. How well Obama learns to communicate empathy and passion while staying true to himself is relevant to his long-term effectiveness as president, and ultimately to his legacy. No amount of scenery-chewing, however, can begin to ameliorate what the White House calls the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
The issue isn’t what Obama is feeling, it’s what he’s doing. Why haven’t skimmers been brought in from around the world to scoop up more of the oil? Why isn’t the defense of the coastline being run like a military campaign, with failure not an option? Why is the answer to every question essentially the same—“We’ve repeatedly asked BP to get that done”—when we’re dealing with a crisis that has to be seen as an urgent matter of national security and the public welfare?
Enough of asking BP. The company is responsible for the spill and must be made to pay dearly. But BP management answers to the company’s shareholders, not to the American people. And even if BP’s gaffe-prone chief executive, Tony Hayward, and his lieutenants had only the purest and noblest of intentions, the problem they have created in the Gulf is far beyond their capacity to solve.
This is, essentially, a war that is partly being fought one mile beneath the surface of the Gulf, where crude oil continues to gush out of the highly pressurized “Macondo” deposit—which carries the name of the fictional town in Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical-realist masterpiece, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”—at a calamitous rate.
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The administration had no choice but to leave the initial response on the seafloor to BP. The government simply doesn’t have the equipment or the expertise to stanch the flow. This unfortunate situation may reflect bad policy choices in the past, but that’s the reality. One smart decision was to order BP to begin drilling a second relief well, in case the first one misses its target—but neither will be completed until August, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. A second battle is the effort to contain the tens of millions of gallons of oil that have already polluted the Gulf and its coastline. Here, too, the administration has gone by the book and pressured BP to honor its responsibilities. It should be clear by now that this has been a mistake.
The Washington Post reported Monday that the administration has received offers of assistance from 17 nations. Sweden has volunteered to send three ships that can each collect about 15,000 gallons of oil an hour. Norway has offered to send nearly a third of its oil-spill response equipment. Japan has offered to send some boom, which authorities on the scene complain is in short supply.
The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Japanese and most of the other would-be Samaritans are still waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP. Last week, according to the Post, the administration did ask the European Union to help with any specialized equipment it might have. But meanwhile, oil has penetrated the marshes of southern Louisiana and is lapping onto the beaches of Alabama and Florida. The main spill is spreading, and hurricane season is upon us.
Every available piece of equipment in the world that can vacuum, skim, scoop or sop up oil ought to be in the Gulf by now, deployed under a central—probably military—command structure. The beaches should be defended as if from a threatened enemy invasion. This is a time for overkill, for the Powell Doctrine, for “decisive force.”
There’s no silver bullet that can defeat this blob-like enemy, but each drop of oil that gets removed from the Gulf and its shores is a victory—and each drop that doesn’t is a defeat. It’s that simple. This is war.
So Shadow... did your neighbor tell you this story??? Rush Loudmouth??? The Enquirer???
Please don't tell me it was on Fox News!
Got an actual Link?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The National Incident Command and the Federal On Scene Coordinator have determined that there is a resource need for boom and skimmers that can be met by offers of assistance from foreign governments and international bodies.
The United States will accept 22 offers of assistance from 12 countries and international bodies, including two high speed skimmers and fire containment boom from Japan. We are currently working out the particular modalities of delivering the offered assistance. Further details will be forthcoming once these arrangements are complete.
The Unified Area Command (UAC) under the direction of the Coast Guard, is coordinating the oil spill response in the Gulf. It includes representatives of the responsible parties, affected states and other Departments and agencies of the U.S. Government. The National Incident Command (NIC), headed by the U.S. Coast Guard, is working with the Department of State to support the UAC as it sources equipment, supplies and expertise.
The 27 countries which have offered the U.S. Government assistance are: the Governments of Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
The international bodies offering assistance are: the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre, the International Maritime Organization, and the Environment Unit of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations Environment Program.
The Department has released a chart of offers of assistance that the U.S. has received from other governments and international bodies. The chart is updated as necessary to include any additional offers of assistance and decisions on accepting the offers. The chart is posted on the State Department Web site at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/143488.pdf
Questions on the details of offers of assistance, and any additional discussions between other countries and BP, should be directed to the Unified Area Command. The UAC Joint Information Center phone numbers are 713-323-1670 or 713-323-1671. (Note: These are new phone numbers.)
After reading that article it would appear that the USA has accepted what help is necessary in cleaning up the BP spill. Some help, as with the oil skimmer ship "WHALE", is not helpful to the problem, and declined some help that was not needed or didn't apply to the situation.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I assume that the Coast Guard who coordinates the entire project knows what they are doing in allocation of resources. More isn't always better, or even desirable. As with Fire Fighting Equipment... once you've exceeded the optimum amount of equipment, more only gets in the way and slows progress. Do yo doubt the efficiency or effectiveness of our US Coast Guard??? I'm glad the CG is there directing our effort instead of some politician.
Because everyone knows that Bushy blew the entire Katrina rescue, Conservatives will push the BP issue for all it's worth. Somewhere in this debacle... Obama HAS to be guilty of something!!!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I assume that the Coast Guard who coordinates the entire project knows what they are doing in allocation of resources. More isn't always better, or even desirable. As with Fire Fighting Equipment... once you've exceeded the optimum amount of equipment, more only gets in the way and slows progress. Do yo doubt the efficiency or effectiveness of our US Coast Guard??? I'm glad the CG is there directing our effort instead of some politician.
Because everyone knows that Bushy blew the entire Katrina rescue, Conservatives will push the BP issue for all it's worth. Somewhere in this debacle... Obama HAS to be guilty of something!!!
See, you've got your facts wrong.
The Coast Guard isn't "directing" our efforts. Admiral Thad Allen is RETIRED. He serve as a civilian as the National Incident Commander. The Coast Guard isn't directing the spill efforts. The Department of Homeland Security is playing the lead role in the federal response efforts. Secretary Napolitano leads the National Response Team, an organization of 16 federal departments and agencies responsible for coordinating emergency preparedness and response to oil and hazardous substance pollution events.
Several Departments, such as DOI, DHS, EPA, NOAA, DOD, DOL, are all working on this "event". Each one of those departments is headed by a secretary chosen, appointed and approved by Barack Obama. This is a GOVT/POLITICAL project. There is no other "central" command, other than the White House at this time, with the exception of BP, who proportedly answers to BHO.
Quoted Text
Somewhere in this debacle... Obama HAS to be guilty of something!!!
Yes - there is. In granting the permits in the first place, when their (BP's) plan didn't include the word "hurricane" anywhere in their disaster plan. Yes, there is when inspections that should have taken place, didn't. Yes, there is, when he appointed Ken Salazar promised a crackdown on the lawlessness in the DOI/MMS.
BP submitted their plans for Deepwater Horizon two months AFTER BHO took office - "BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries.Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill."
Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise.
Did anyone even READ the plan (again, submitted AFTER BHO took office)??
Even though Salazar knew that the environmental risks of offshore drilling had been covered up under Bush, he failed to order new assessments.
On April 6th of last year, less than a month after BP submitted its application, MMS gave the oil giant the go-ahead to drill in the Gulf without a comprehensive environmental review.
Do I consider BHO and his administration responsible for this incident? Hell yes I do! Were the people working in MMS and DOI under Bush any LESS to blame? NO. However, Salazar "hit the ground running" and promised a "new sheriff in town":
Quoted Text
Salazar took over Interior in January 2009, vowing to restore the department's "respect for scientific integrity." He immediately traveled to MMS headquarters outside Denver and delivered a beat-down to staffers for their "blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing" that had "set one of the worst examples of corruption and abuse in government." Promising to "set the standard for reform," Salazar declared, "The American people will know the Minerals Management Service as a defender of the taxpayer. You are the ones who will make special interests play by the rules." Dressed in his trademark Stetson and bolo tie, Salazar boldly proclaimed, "There's a new sheriff in town."
So ya, I blame BHO - I suppose you're still blaming Bush, even though Obama/Salazar promised "hope/change" and "set new standards for reform"?
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