"Spill. Baby. Spill"

[murraysovereign]

Gotta love the way that, without exception, all the usual libtard suspects here break out the 'yea-but-Bush'. They sound just like their messiah: B.H.O.

 

As was pointed out by the CBS Evening News on Friday: "By this time during the Katrina catastrophe, George W Bush had visited the Gulf Coast region at least 7 times. Obama has now visited twice."

 

I couldn't care less how many times either of them "visited" whatever location. It's irrelevant. GWB's seven visits to the Gulf Coast region in the aftermath of Katrina are a perfect example. Collectively, they accomplished absolutely nothing - the place is still a wreck all these years later. Heck of a job, there, George. Similarly, Obama's 2 visits to the Gulf Coast region in the aftermath of the blowout have also accomplished... absolutely nothing. Thanks for "visiting," Mr President. Neither of them accomplished a damned thing by visiting the area, however many times they did it. Since you seem intent on keeping score, it turns out that on a "results per visit" basis, GWB's visits were 3.5 times as useless as Obama's visits. So I guess your guy wins(?) that round.

 

I also don't care how many funerals either of them did or did not attend. It's irrelevant. You, however, seem to think that not attending funerals is an indication that Obama is

 

Not

 

Up

 

To

 

The

 

Task.

 

But you were strangely silent on Bush's failure to attend funerals, and how that indicated that he, also, must have been

 

Not

 

Up

 

To

 

The

 

Task.

 

My comments had nothing to do with whether either president was/is competent. I was merely pointing out your own double standard.

[Fairweather]

Address to the nation on Hurricane Katrina recovery from New Orleans, Louisiana.

 

September 15, 2005

 

Good evening. I'm speaking to you from the city of New Orleans, nearly empty, still partly under water, and waiting for life and hope to return. Eastward from Lake Pontchartrain, across the Mississippi coast to Alabama into Florida, millions of lives were changed in a day by a cruel and wasteful storm.

 

In the aftermath, we have seen fellow citizens left stunned and uprooted, searching for loved ones and grieving for the dead and looking for meaning in a tragedy that seems so blind and random. We've also witnessed the kind of desperation no citizen of this great and generous Nation should ever have to know, fellow Americans calling out for food and water, vulnerable people left at the mercy of criminals who had no mercy, and the bodies of the dead lying uncovered and untended in the street.

 

These days of sorrow and outrage have also been marked by acts of courage and kindness that make all Americans proud. Coast Guard and other personnel rescued tens of thousands of people from flooded neighborhoods. Religious congregations and families have welcomed strangers as brothers and sisters and neighbors. In the community of Chalmette, when two men tried to break into a home, the owner invited them to stay and took in 15 other people who had no place to go. At Tulane Hospital for Children, doctors and nurses did not eat for days so patients could have food and eventually carried the patients on their backs up eight flights of stairs to helicopters.

 

Many first-responders were victims themselves, wounded healers with a sense of duty greater than their own suffering. When I met Steve Scott of the Biloxi Fire Department, he and his colleagues were conducting a house-to-house search for survivors. Steve told me this: "I lost my house, and I lost my cars, but I still got my family, and I still got my spirit."

 

Across the gulf coast, among people who have lost much and suffered much and given to the limit of their power, we are seeing that same spirit, a core of strength that survives all hurt, a faith in God no storm can take away, and a powerful American determination to clear the ruins and build better than before.

 

Tonight so many victims of the hurricane and the flood are far from home and friends and familiar things. You need to know that our whole Nation cares about you, and in the journey ahead, you're not alone. To all who carry a burden of loss, I extend the deepest sympathy of our country. To every person who has served and sacrificed in this emergency, I offer the gratitude of our country.

 

And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes; we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

 

The work of rescue is largely finished. The work of recovery is moving forward. In nearly all of Mississippi, electric power has been restored. Trade is starting to return to the Port of New Orleans, and agricultural shipments are moving down the Mississippi River. All major gasoline pipelines are now in operation, preventing the supply disruptions that many feared. The breaks in the levees have been closed. The pumps are running, and the water here in New Orleans is receding by the hour. Environmental officials are on the ground, taking water samples, identifying and dealing with hazardous debris, and working to get drinking water and waste water treatment systems operating again. And some very sad duties are being carried out by professionals who gather the dead, treat them with respect, and prepare them for their rest.

 

In the task of recovery and rebuilding, some of the hardest work is still ahead, and it will require the creative skill and generosity of a united country.

 

Our first commitment is to meet the immediate needs of those who had to flee their homes and leave 'all their possessions behind. For these Americans, every night brings uncertainty; every day requires new courage; and in the months to come will bring more than their fair share of struggles.

 

The Department of Homeland Security is registering evacuees who are now in shelters and churches or private homes, whether in the gulf region or far away. I have signed an order providing immediate assistance to people from the disaster area. As of today, more than 500,000 evacuee families have gotten emergency help to pay for food, clothing, and other essentials. Evacuees who have not yet registered should contact FEMA or the Red Cross. We need to know who you are, because many of you will be eligible for broader assistance in the future.

 

Many families were separated during the evacuation, and we are working to help you reunite. Please call this number: 1-877-568-3317--that's 1-877-568--3317--and we will work to bring your family back together and pay for your travel to reach them. In addition, we're taking steps to ensure that evacuees do not have to travel great distances or navigate bureaucracies to get the benefits that are there for them.

 

The Department of Health and Human Services has sent more than 1,500 health professionals along with over 50 tons of medical supplies, including vaccines and antibiotics and medicines for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes. The Social Security Administration is delivering checks. The Department of Labor is helping displaced persons apply for temporary jobs and unemployment benefits. And the Postal Service is registering new addresses so that people can get their mail.

 

To carry out the first stages of the relief effort and begin rebuilding at once, I have asked for and the Congress has provided more than $60 billion. This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented crisis, which demonstrates the compassion and resolve of our Nation.

 

Our second commitment is to help the citizens of the gulf coast to overcome this disaster, put their lives back together, and rebuild their communities. Along this coast, for mile after mile, the wind and water swept the land dean. In Mississippi, many thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed. In New Orleans and surrounding parishes, more than a quarter-million houses are no longer safe to live in. Hundreds of thousands of people from across this region will need to find longer term housing.

 

Our goal is to get people out of the shelters by the middle of October. So we're providing direct assistance to evacuees that allows them to rent apartments, and many are already moving into places of their own. A number of States have taken in evacuees and shown them great compassion, admitting children to school and providing health care. So I will work with the Congress to ensure that States are reimbursed for these extra expenses.

 

In the disaster area and in cities that have received huge numbers of displaced people, we're beginning to bring in mobile homes and trailers for temporary use. To relieve the burden on local health care facilities in the region, we're sending extra doctors and nurses to these areas. We're also providing money that can be used to cover overtime pay for police and fire departments, while the cities and towns rebuild.

 

Near New Orleans and Biloxi and other cities, housing is urgently needed for police and firefighters, other service providers, and the many workers who are going to rebuild these cities. Right now many are sleeping on ships we have brought to the Port of New Orleans, and more ships are on their way to the region. And we'll provide mobile homes and supply them with basic services as close to construction areas as possible, so the rebuilding process can go forward as quickly as possible.

 

And the Federal Government will undertake a close partnership with the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, the city of New Orleans and other gulf coast cities, so they can rebuild in a sensible, well-planned way. Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely, so we'll have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.

 

In the rebuilding process, there will be many important decisions and many details to resolve, yet we're moving forward according to some dear principles. The Federal Government will be fully engaged in the mission, but Governor Barbour, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin, and other State and local leaders will have the primary role in planning for their own future. Clearly, communities will need to move decisively to change zoning laws and building codes in order to avoid a repeat of what we've seen. And in the work of rebuilding, as many jobs as possible should go to the men and women who live in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

 

Our third commitment is this: When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets. When the houses are rebuilt, more families should own, not rent, those houses. When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created.

 

Americans want the gulf coast not just to survive but to thrive, not just to cope but to overcome. We want evacuees to come home for the best of reasons, because they have a real chance at a better life in a place they love.

 

When one resident of this city who lost his home was asked by a reporter if he would relocate, he said, "Naw, I will rebuild, but I will build higher." That is our vision for the future, in this city and beyond: We'll not just rebuild; we'll build higher and better. To meet this goal, I will listen to good ideas from Congress, and State and local officials, and the private sector. I believe we should start with three initiatives that the Congress should pass.

 

Tonight I propose the creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone, encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. Within this zone, we should provide immediate incentives for job-creating investment, tax relief for small businesses, incentives to companies that create jobs, and loans and loan guarantees for small businesses, including minority-owned enterprises, to get them up and running again. It is entrepreneurship that creates jobs and opportunity. It is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of poverty, and we will take the side of entrepreneurs as they lead the economic revival of the gulf region.

 

I propose the creation of Worker Recovery Accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work. Under this plan, the Federal Government would provide accounts of up to $5,000, which these evacuees could draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job and for child care expenses during their job search.

 

And to help lower income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an urban homesteading act. Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the Federal Government and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge, through a lottery. In return, they would pledge to build on the lot, with either a mortgage or help from a charitable organization like Habitat for Humanity. Homeownership is one of the great strengths of any community, and it must be a central part of our vision for the revival of this region.

 

In the long run, the New Orleans area has a particular challenge, because much of the city lies below sea level. The people who call it home need to have reassurance that their lives will be safer in the years to come. Protecting a city that sits lower than the water around it is not easy, but it can and has been done. City and parish officials in New Orleans and State officials in Louisiana will have a large part in the engineering decisions to come. And the Army Corps of Engineers will work at their side to make the flood protection system stronger than it has ever been.

 

The work that has begun in the gulf coast region will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen. When that job is done, 'all Americans will have something to be very proud of, and "all Americans are needed in this common effort. It is the armies of compassion charities and houses of worship and idealistic men and women, that give our reconstruction effort its humanity. They offer to those who hurt a friendly face, an arm around the shoulder, and the reassurance that in hard times, they can count on someone who cares. By land, by sea, and by air, good people wanting to make a difference deployed to the gulf coast, and they've been working around the clock ever since.

 

The cash needed to support the armies of compassion is great, and Americans have given generously. For example, the private fundraising effort led by former Presidents Bush and Clinton has already received pledges of more than $100 million. Some of that money is going to the Governors to be used for immediate needs within their States. A portion will also be sent to local houses of worship to help reimburse them for the expense of helping others. This evening the need is still urgent, and I ask the American people to continue donating to the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, other good charities, and religious congregations in the region.

 

It's also essential for the many organizations of our country to reach out to your fellow citizens in the gulf area. So I've asked USA Freedom Corps to create an information clearinghouse, available at usafreedomcorps.gov, so that families anywhere in the country can find opportunities to help families in the region, or a school can support a school. And I challenge existing organizations, churches and Scout troops or labor union locals, to get in touch with their counterparts in Mississippi, Louisiana, or Alabama and learn what they can do to help. In this great national enterprise, important work can be done by everyone, and everyone should find their role and do their part.

 

The Government of this Nation will do its part as well. Our cities must have clear and up-to-date plans for responding to natural disasters and disease outbreaks or a terrorist attack, for evacuating large numbers of people in an emergency, and for providing the food and water and security they would need. In a time of terror threats and weapons of mass destruction, the danger to our citizens reaches much wider than a faultline or a flood plain. I consider detailed emergency planning to be a national security priority, and therefore, I've ordered the Department of Homeland Security to undertake an immediate review, in cooperation with local counterparts, of emergency plans in every major city in America.

 

I also want to know all the facts about the Government response to Hurricane Katrina. The storm involved a massive flood, a major supply and security operation, and an evacuation order affecting more than a million people. It was not a normal hurricane, and the normal disaster relief system was not equal to it. Many of the men and women of the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States military, the National Guard, Homeland Security, and State and local governments performed skillfully under the worst conditions. Yet the system, at every level of government, was not well-coordinated and was over-whelmed in the first few days. It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater Federal authority and a broader role for the Armed Forces, the institution of our Government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.

 

Four years after the frightening experience of September the 11th, Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency. When the Federal Government fails to meet such an obligation, I, as President, am responsible for the problem and for the solution. So I've ordered ever), Cabinet Secretary to participate in a comprehensive review of the Government response to the hurricane. This Government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. We're going to review every action and make necessary changes so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature or act of evil men that could threaten our people.

 

The United States Congress 'also has an important oversight function to perform. Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.

 

In the life of this Nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force and that all life is fragile. We're the heirs of men and women who lived through those first terrible winters at Jamestown and Plymouth, who rebuilt Chicago after a great fire and San Francisco after a great earthquake, who reclaimed the prairie from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Every time, the people of this land have come back from fire, flood, and storm to build anew and to build better than what we had before. Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature, and we will not start now.

 

These trials have also reminded us that we are often stronger than we know--with the help of grace and one another. They remind us of a hope beyond all pain and death, a God who welcomes the lost to a house not made with hands. And they remind us that we're tied together in this life, in this Nation, and that the despair of any touches us all.

 

I know that when you sit on the steps of a porch where a home once stood or sleep on a cot in a crowded shelter, it is hard to imagine a bright future. But that future will come. The streets of Biloxi and Gulfport will again be filled with lovely homes and the sound of children playing. The churches of Alabama will have their broken steeples mended and their congregations whole. And here in New Orleans, the streetcars will once again rumble down St. Charles, and the passionate soul of a great city will return.

 

In this place, there's a custom for the funerals of jazz musicians. The funeral procession parades slowly through the streets, followed by a band playing a mournful dirge as it moves to the cemetery. Once the casket has been laid in place, the band breaks into a joyful "second line," symbolizing the triumph of the spirit over death. Tonight the gulf coast is still coming through the dirge, yet we will live to see the second line.

 

Thank you, and may God bless America.

[Fairweather]

"He walks into the Oval Office in the morning, Bush said, and asks Card: "What's in the newspapers worth worrying about? I glance at the headlines just to kind of (get) a flavor of what's moving," Bush said. "I rarely read the stories," he said."

 

A friend of a friend once said something profound: "When we had our kid, I stopped reading the paper."

 

In other words.. though that quote can be spun for comic relief, the fact is that he didn't have time to read the paper, just as Holder and Neapolitano do not have time to read Arizona's controversial new law.

 

Refreshing to see a sense of balance from a fellow Husky.

[Fairweather]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10194335.stm

 

 

...'bout sums it up.

[tvashtarkatena]

VY Canis Majoris, the largest star in the Milky way, if superimposed on our solar system, would engulf Jupiter.

[Fairweather]

VY Canis Majoris ejects huge amounts of gas during its outbursts.

[glassgowkiss]

Gotta love the way that, without exception, all the usual libtard suspects here break out the 'yea-but-Bush'. They sound just like their messiah: B.H.O.

 

As was pointed out by the CBS Evening News on Friday: "By this time during the Katrina catastrophe, George W Bush had visited the Gulf Coast region at least 7 times. Obama has now visited twice."

You seem to forget that Katrina was a natural disaster, this one is man made. Quite a difference, since

primo- some fucked company decided to cut corners

secundo- the same company is responsible for a clean up. Why the fuck should the government be involved is beyond me. Did Obama create this mess?

your statement just shows what a hypocritical bastard you are. first you scream:deregulate, less government, but anything goes wrong you want the same government to fix it. can't have it both ways.

[Fairweather]

We're talking response, not cause. Comprende?

[glassgowkiss]

We're talking response, not cause. Comprende?

how fucking convenient...

[murraysovereign]

We're talking response, not cause. Comprende?

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry, in fact has no business being involved in private industry in any way, but government is responsible for cleaning up the mess caused by those industries.

 

Do you actually believe that?

[Nitrox]

Gotta love the way that, without exception, all the usual libtard suspects here break out the 'yea-but-Bush'. They sound just like their messiah: B.H.O.

 

As was pointed out by the CBS Evening News on Friday: "By this time during the Katrina catastrophe, George W Bush had visited the Gulf Coast region at least 7 times. Obama has now visited twice."

 

Strange that you quasi-defend BP in this disaster, but waste no time heaping blame on the *democratic* administration, while simultaneously avoiding a perfect opportunity to distance yourself from frmr Pres. Bush and so improve your own credibility. Party politics. So transparent. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever heard you criticize frmr. Pres. Bush. Weird, isn't it?

 

So, let's see some trash-talking about BP, FW. Put your money where your mouth is. I'd also accept a critique of a prominent republican politician. Or, are there NONE worthy of critiquing? Only democrats, right?

 

The only difference between Katrina and the BP disaster (as far as the president goes) is that the oil spill took place at sea eliminating the city mayors hiding in hotel rooms and governors acting in absentia. Obama is about as responsible for the oil spill as Bush was for the hurricane. However, if Bush was to blame for the reaction to Katrina then Obama is to blame for the reaction to the oil spill.

 

 

[Fairweather]

We're talking response, not cause. Comprende?

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry,

 

Show me where I've ever said this. In fact, show me where Republicans have said this. I know that creating these straw men makes your world easier to digest.

[glassgowkiss]

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry,

 

Show me where I've ever said this. In fact, show me where Republicans have said this. I know that creating these straw men makes your world easier to digest.

 

Maybe Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley) rings the bell?

 

 

[Choada_Boy]

These facts are so inconvenient!!

 

Day 42: Time to Nationalize the Oil Industry in the United States

 

It's clear at this point that nationalization would be in our best strategic and environmental interests.

[Nitrox]

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry,

 

Show me where I've ever said this. In fact, show me where Republicans have said this. I know that creating these straw men makes your world easier to digest.

 

Maybe Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley) rings the bell?

 

 

Passed under the Clinton administration.

 

 

[glassgowkiss]

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry,

 

Show me where I've ever said this. In fact, show me where Republicans have said this. I know that creating these straw men makes your world easier to digest.

 

Maybe Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley) rings the bell?

 

 

Passed under the Clinton administration.

Do you see Gramm- Leach-Clinton? No? First of all I did not say Democrats are not free from guilt of deregulations of the 90's and 2000's. Second, even the administration was democratic, the congers was republican and had enough votes to override presidential veto.

My point is that it is a share hypocrisy on part of FW and people on the right, when first they cry for a smaller government, yet they cry when shit hits the fan and they want the same government to fix things.

I think comparing Katrina to the spill is an utter nonsense. Katrina was a natural desaster, which caused massive flooding. There were 1,836 people dead, many of them just due to slow response. There is 11 people dead in a industrial accident, caused by (what it looks like) corner cutting policies of BP. Yet BP is given a free pass and the current administration is being blamed for slow response? give me a fucking brake.

[prole]

These facts are so inconvenient!!

 

Day 42: Time to Nationalize the Oil Industry in the United States

 

It's clear at this point that nationalization would be in our best strategic and environmental interests.

 

Repost:

 

Why Norway's offshore drilling is safer

Statoil operates the most environmentally friendly offshore oil rigs in the world -- because it's state-owned

By Joe Conason

Monday, May 3, 2010

 

A gas platform in the North Sea run by the Norwegian oil company Statoil.

 

If anyone still believes we must drill, baby, drill offshore -- aside from Bill Kristol, that is, who wants to sink wells even closer to precious coastal wetlands -- then perhaps it is time to consider again the potential benefits of nationalization. After all, there is one country that has established an unrivaled record for environmental safety while exploiting its offshore petroleum reserves. That would be Norway, which created the company now known as Statoil Hydro as a fully state-owned entity and still controls nearly two-thirds of the company's "privatized" shares.

 

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Statoil rigs in the North Sea are required by law to maintain special "acoustic switches" that shut down operations completely (and remotely) in case of a blowout or explosion. The US Mines and Minerals Service, under the industry-friendly Bush administration, decided that rigs operating in American waters need not install those switches because they are "very costly." At $500,000 per switch, they now look like an enormous bargain, of course.

 

What makes Norway so different from the United States -- and much more likely to install the most protective energy technology -- is that the Norwegian state can impose public values on oil producers without fighting off lobbyists and crooked politicians, because it owns and controls the resources. Rather than Halliburton-style corporate management controlling the government and blocking environmental improvement, Norway's system works the other way around. It isn't perfect, as any Nordic environmentalist will ardently explain, but the results are considerably better than ours.

 

Just ask Freedomworks, the right-wing corporate front group chaired by former Texas Republican Rep. Dick Armey, which has underwritten the Tea Party movement. In a post advocating more offshore drilling, Freedomworks hailed the Norwegian record effusively:

 

Norway's oil and gas offshore operations have safely and effectively co-existed with fishing operations in the fertile North Sea since 1971. In fact, Norway is now the world's sixth largest oil producer and the tenth largest fish producer.

 

Freedomworks hates socialism, so its promo copy doesn't mention the state ownership. But ideological concerns aside, the Norwegian oil business has earned a strong international reputation for industrial efficiency and environmentally benign exploration and production technology. Unlike the U.S. oil giants, which feign green concern while opposing real climate reform, Statoil has worked actively to reduce its CO2 emissions since 1991, with considerable success. Again, this is a result of harmony between national policy, aiming to make Norway carbon neutral by 2030, and the state oil sector. Rather than debate the need for stronger environmental regulation with powerful private interests for the past quarter-century, the Norwegians were able to harness the profits of their oil resources to improve the environment (and provide a generous social security and universal healthcare system for their people).

 

But we know that private ownership always works better than government. Don't we?

[Nitrox]

 

So the government has no business regulating private industry,

 

Show me where I've ever said this. In fact, show me where Republicans have said this. I know that creating these straw men makes your world easier to digest.

 

Maybe Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley) rings the bell?

 

 

Passed under the Clinton administration.

Do you see Gramm- Leach-Clinton? No? First of all I did not say Democrats are not free from guilt of deregulations of the 90's and 2000's. Second, even the administration was democratic, the congers was republican and had enough votes to override presidential veto.

My point is that it is a share hypocrisy on part of FW and people on the right, when first they cry for a smaller government, yet they cry when shit hits the fan and they want the same government to fix things.

I think comparing Katrina to the spill is an utter nonsense. Katrina was a natural desaster, which caused massive flooding. There were 1,836 people dead, many of them just due to slow response. There is 11 people dead in a industrial accident, caused by (what it looks like) corner cutting policies of BP. Yet BP is given a free pass and the current administration is being blamed for slow response? give me a fucking brake.

 

Clinton was free to veto but did not. Legislation passed under the Clinton administration was/is owned by the Clinton administration. Even though the house and senate were Republican majorities it was still Clinton administration legislation. Just like how the house and senate were Democrat majorities the last two years of Bush and Bush got the credit/blame.

 

The initial slow reaction time during Katrina was the fault of the local and state governments of Louisiana. Bush got the blame though. Accordingly Obama gets the blame for slow reaction times. Natural or man made, I see no real difference. If anything, since the oil spill took place at sea then the federal government probably has an even larger responsibility than during Katrina since there is no local contingency plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[prole]

More blame here:

 

Reforms Slow to Arrive at Drilling Agency

By JOHN M. BRODER and MICHAEL LUO

NYT 5/30/10

WASHINGTON — As President Obama and his top aides were convening a series of meetings that led to the announcement in March of a major expansion of offshore oil drilling, the troubled history of the agency that regulates such drilling operations was well known.

 

Mr. Obama, shortly after taking office, had assigned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to clean up the agency, the Minerals Management Service. The office’s history of corruption and coziness with the industry it was supposed to regulate had been the subject of years of scathing reports by government auditors, lurid headlines and a score of Congressional hearings.

 

But the promised reforms of the agency were slow to arrive, and the subject of the minerals service never came up at the meetings leading to the new drilling policy, according to a senior administration official involved in the discussions.

 

“I don’t recall a conversation on how the offshore drilling and M.M.S. issues overlapped,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations involving the president.

 

Defending the new policy on April 2, less than three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama emphasized the safety record of offshore operations.

 

“It turns out, by the way,” he said, “that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.”

 

In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Minerals Management Service has come under intense scrutiny, and Mr. Salazar moved this month to essentially disband the agency, splitting it into three parts.

 

On Thursday, he asked for the resignation of the head of the service, S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, and named an interim successor on Friday.

 

But the question remains why Mr. Obama — and members of Congress charged with oversight of the agency — did not come to grips with its obvious problems before the accident occurred.

 

The answer may have as much to do with the workings of business as usual in Washington and the long-entrenched influence of the oil industry in Washington politics as it does with anything more sinister.

 

Political expediency may have played a role. In pushing offshore drilling, Mr. Obama was hoping to placate the oil industry and its supporters in Congress, who were demanding increased access to the outer continental shelf in exchange for their possible support for broader climate change and energy legislation that Mr. Obama wants.

 

That focus apparently eclipsed any concerns about the minerals agency, especially since at the time no oil rig had exploded and sent hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into the gulf.

 

The breadth of the expansion stunned oil industry representatives, who were expecting a much more restrictive policy accompanied by tough new safety and environmental rules. They were prepared to attack the new policy; instead, the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobby, praised it.

 

“We saw the president’s announcement as a positive development,” said Jack Gerard, president of the institute, “a recognition that oil and natural gas play a critical role in our energy future.”

 

But there had been warnings for years from government auditors about the Minerals Management Service, including revelations just before Mr. Obama took office that agency personnel had accepted gifts, drugs and sexual favors from oil company representatives.

 

Shortly after he was appointed in 2009, Mr. Salazar visited the agency’s Denver office and declared at a news conference that he was the “new sheriff in town” who would bring significant changes. He issued new ethics guidelines and eliminated a controversial royalty program.

 

But it is now clear that he did little else, focusing his energies elsewhere, for example on offshore wind projects.

 

On Thursday, Mr. Obama acknowledged that he should have paid more attention to the problems at the service and moved more quickly to correct them.

 

“At M.M.S., Ken Salazar was in the process of making these reforms,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “But the point that I’m making is that, obviously, they weren’t happening fast enough.”

 

For lawmakers on the Congressional committees that oversee the agency, there was also little to gain politically in taking it on. Many of those committee members come from states where the energy industry is important. And members also draw an outsize share of oil industry contributions.

 

Members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, for instance, have taken in an average of about $52,000 from individuals and groups associated with the oil and gas industry this election cycle, compared with $24,000 for others in the Senate, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

 

Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, an ardent foe of offshore drilling who in 2008 introduced unsuccessful legislation to impose new ethics and disclosure guidelines on employees of the minerals service, said that the industry played a powerful role in shaping the agenda on energy legislation, and that overhauling the minerals service obviously was not on that agenda.

 

“They’ve got every interest in the world to have a cozy relationship with the regulators,” he said of the oil companies.

 

Still, Mr. Nelson added, the failure of his bill was more a function of poor timing. He proposed it toward the end of the legislative session, and in the rush to complete other business after the presidential election, it had no chance.

 

And, he said, the fact a Democratic administration was coming in reassured him that changes were coming.

 

The unusual structure of the agency has also helped thwart efforts to overhaul it, despite its problems. Established in 1982 by Interior Secretary James G. Watt, it was created by secretarial order, not legislation, a set-up that some lawmakers said made Congress pay less attention to it.

 

And because it is financed by the $13 billion a year it collects in oil royalties, it largely escapes the kind of scrutiny that other regulatory bodies get in the appropriations process.

 

Serious concerns about the agency were raised as early as 2006, when Representative Darrell E. Issa, Republican of California, led the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a series of hearings on problems in deepwater oil leases during the Clinton administration that freed companies from paying billions of dollars in royalties.

 

Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general, testified at those hearings about a culture of “managerial irresponsibility and a lack of accountability” at the agency.

 

But Mr. Issa recalled in an interview last week that he had trouble getting his fellow committee members, both Democrats and Republicans, to attend the hearings, because the agency operated in relative obscurity and its problems were not of intense interest on Capitol Hill.

 

“It was kind of lonely,” he said.

 

Two years later, the department’s inspector general released new reports of misconduct, this time accompanied by more attention from the news media and outrage in Congress. Both the House and Senate held hearings. Several lawmakers, including Mr. Issa, Mr. Nelson and Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, introduced bills to fix the minerals service.

 

But none of the measures went anywhere. Mr. Rahall drew parallels with the regulation of the coal mining industry, where changes often occur only after tragic accidents. “It’s unfortunate that it takes such before we enact safety legislation,” he said.

[glassgowkiss]

" Natural or man made, I see no real difference. If anything, since the oil spill took place at sea then the federal government probably has an even larger responsibility than during Katrina since there is no local contingency plan."

I see a huge difference- for now 11 casualties of an industrial accident vs 1,836- mostly due to slow evacuation. The blame was squarely on FEMA on this one- a direct Bush appointment. Like I said, nobody is dying now, so we are comparing apples and oranges.

[glassgowkiss]

Also I haven't heard a beep about the impact on Mexico.

[prole]

What's funny is that the list of areas where deregulation, lack of oversight, and agencies in bed with the industries they're supposed to be watching have the potential to create catastrophic disasters has grown under both parties under the "free-market" consensus: Agriculture, FDA, Energy, Transportation, Finance, etc. Given that the cause of the current Gulf Spill was corporate cost-cutting to maximize profit and hand-in-glove enabling by the State, such disasters could happen and will continue to happen in virtually any sector under the market fundamentalist paradigm. Wanna try nuclear? This lurching from crisis to crisis under the false notion that maintaining corporate profits at the expense of health, safety, and sustainability is good for all of us and that the real role of democratic governance is simply to mop up after privatized catastrophes is reckless and shortsighted. And as we'll be seeing well into August and for decades to come, morally bankrupt and unaffordable.

Edited May 31, 2010 by prole

[jmace]

Given that the cause of the current Gulf Spill was corporate cost-cutting to maximize profit and hand-in-glove enabling by the State, such disasters could happen and will continue to happen

 

Yes we want cheap fuel and food, so this is a risk we are willing to take. They will clean it up and we will continue on as is

 

On the bright side of things they will probably close it up twice as fast as the last well blow out, about 4 months instead of 9.

[prole]

Given that the cause of the current Gulf Spill was corporate cost-cutting to maximize profit and hand-in-glove enabling by the State, such disasters could happen and will continue to happen

 

Yes we want cheap fuel and food, so this is a risk we are willing to take.

 

Who the fuck is "we"?

[G-spotter]

Just wait till the first hurricane of the season blows oil inland for a couple hundred miles...