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Drill Baby Drill
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | In a hastily called news conference, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not 1,000 as had been estimated. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables.
An explosion and fire on a drilling rig on April 20 left 11 workers missing and presumed dead. The rig sank two days later about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for exploration and production for BP, said a new leak had been discovered as well. Officials had previously found two leaks in the riser, the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connected the rig to the wellhead and is now detached and snaking along the sea floor. One leak was at the end of the riser and the other at a kink closer to its source, the wellhead.
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Wind patterns may push the spill into the coast of Louisiana as soon as Friday night, officials said, prompting consideration of more urgent measures to protect coastal wildlife. Among them were using cannons to scare off birds and employing local shrimpers’ boats as makeshift oil skimmers in the shallows.
Part of the oil slick was only 16 miles offshore and closing in on the Mississippi River Delta, the marshlands at the southeastern tip of Louisiana where the river empties into the ocean. Already 100,000 feet of protective booms have been laid down to protect the shoreline, with 500,000 feet more standing by, said Charlie Henry, an oil spill expert for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at an earlier news conference on Wednesday. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/u...ref=global-home |
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| hardcore trancer |
| :( :( :( The sad part is nothing will probably change in terms of regulations after this disaster. Business as usual untill the next spill.:o |
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| tathi |
| "Oil May Be Leaking at Rate of 25,000 Barrels a Day in Gulf " thats ing horrible...at least lets hope this adds to the argument for renewable energy. |
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| Moongoose |
An optimist i see. How much you want to bet that someone will try to spin this that:
a) since this rig is out you'll need to drill baby drill somewhere else double time to account for these losses
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b) that the disaster is somehow the result of already too much stupid government regulations and that if you left the safety standards to the free market, this would have never happened. |
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| pmoisse |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moongoose
An optimist i see. How much you want to bet that someone will try to spin this that:
a) since this rig is out you'll need to drill baby drill somewhere else double time to account for these losses
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b) that the disaster is somehow the result of already too much stupid government regulations and that if you left the safety standards to the free market, this would have never happened.
c) this was a one time thing and everyone is overreacting. We'l get it fixed and be back to regular business in no-time
d) BP Exec: This wasn't our fault! We were only renting the rig! We won't be held liable for any penalties!
Rig Operator: we won't be left holding the bag on this! BP wouldn't let us spend the money on proper safety gear!
Thus, the inevitable legal standoff over who gets to repay the government for everything that the will spend on the cleanup
e) all of the above |
Fixed. At some point, all of these may be in play at some point. |
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| Zharen |
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/li...ory?id=10542582
| quote: | Limbaugh has downplayed the need for a massive cleanup, saying that oil in the ocean was a natural phenomenon and as a result the ocean would take care of cleaning itself.
"You do survive these things. I'm not advocating don't care about it hitting the shore or coast and whatever you can do to keep it out of there is fine and dandy, but the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there," Limbaugh said. "It's natural. It's as natural as the ocean water is."
But according to scientists, while some oil is normal seepage can be handled by natural systems, it's doubtful that the ocean could simply assimilate so much oil. Instead, the oil if left unchecked would break down into a sticky "mousse" coating seabirds, killing fish and spoiling delicate marshes and beaches. |
So there you have it folks. The ocean will take care of itself. |
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| hardcore trancer |
He should just kill himself seriously. |
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| ziptnf |
It amazes me that people still listen to him. |
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| Comrade Stalin |
| So much oil in the ocean is as natural as letting the financial system collapse. Socialism! |
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| Shakka |
Perhaps a little ex-post-facto law making will help matters.
| quote: |
Question:
Currently environmental liabilities from a spill are capped at $75m (not including court awarded punitive damages) but some congressmen are trying ti rush through a bill to raise that cap to $10bn after the BP spill...they also want it to be retroactive to apply to a spill that has already happened
This seems unfair since the risk profile of the project is being materially altered post event.........but given popular momentum etc they might have a shot at it.
So the question is how is this going, how feasible and legally viable is the backdating retroactive part. And what is their view on the whole thing?
Answer:
In general, there appears to be support from the Administration for the concept, and members in both the House and Senate.
There is support from the administration, who yesterday indicated BP must be held liable for damage, and that it strongly supported raising the liability. In addition to Sens. Lautenberg, Menendez and Nelson, there appears to be initial support on the House side, including Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a very influential member. There is very strong popular momentum on this issue (everyone you talk to mentions the spill), and that cannot be discounted.
Applying a bill to a spill after the fact may be unfair, but Congress does have the proverbial ‘pencil’ in their hands and there is precedent from CERCLA (Superfund) to retroactively hold companies liable for environmental cleanup. In addition, Congress enacts things “retroactively” frequently.
Remember, the view of BP at the highest levels is that of a bad actor: Texas City, Alaska Spill. Regardless, there are likely to be multiple legal challenges that could hold this in court for some time.
The question is whether it can move as an amendment to fin reg reform or whether it needs to move in another vehicle. There appears to be a significant push for oil spill amendments in fin reg (note Lautenberg and Menendez won’t stop talking about it), but whether its ultimately included or not remains to be seen. We believe the administration is opposed to including energy amendments in fin reg reform, but the key is whether Shelby, Dodd, McConnell and Reid would support inclusion in the fin reg bill. We should have clarity on that in the next couple of days.
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| Shakka |
You're doin' a helluva job, Strickey...just sayin' let's call a spade a spade.
| quote: |
While Oil Slick Spread, Interior Department Chief of Staff Rafted with Wife on "Work-Focused" Trip in Grand Canyon
May 05, 2010 5:47 PM
Though his agency was charged with coordinating the federal response to the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland was in the Grand Canyon with his wife last week participating in activities that included white-water rafting, ABC News has learned.
Other leaders of the Interior Department were focused on the Gulf, joined by other agencies and literally thousands of other employees. But Strickland’s participation in a trip that administration officials insisted was “work-focused” raised eyebrows among other Obama administration officials and even within even his own department, sources told ABC News.
Strickland, who also serves as Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, was in the Grand Canyon with his wife Beth for a total of three days, including one day of rafting. Beth Strickland paid her own way, Obama administration officials said.
The Stricklands departed for the Grand Canyon three days after the leaks in the Deepwater Horizon pipeline were discovered. Ultimately, after the government realized that the spill was worse than had been previously thought, officials decided that Strickland was needed in the Gulf so Strickland was taken out of the Grand Canyon by a National Park Service helicopter.
One government official, asking for anonymity because of the political sensitivities involved, told ABC News that some Interior Department employees thought it was “irresponsible” for Strickland to have gone on the trip, given the crisis in the Gulf, which was fully apparent at the time he departed for the Grand Canyon.
When asked about Strickland’s trip, Interior Department press secretary Kendra Barkoff told ABC News that “the federal government has been all over this issue from day one in a unified coordinated response.”
Barkoff said that Secretary Salazar deputized Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes “to be the point person on this issue and from the morning after the explosion from the time he got to New Orleans he has been working on this non-stop with the help of other people in the Interior Department as well as other agencies involved.”
An administration source says that Strickland’s trip to the Grand Canyon was work-focused. He was with the director of the National Park Service, Jonathan Jarvis, and Grand Canyon National Park Superintendant Steve Martin, the source said, and they discussed matters such as river flows, beach erosion, humpback chub, tamarisk control, overflights, safety, motor boats, and wilderness management.
Strickland is Salazar’s chief of staff as well as the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, having been confirmed to the latter position on April 30, 2009.
When asked during his Senate confirmation hearings as to which job would take priority, Strickland was very clear to the members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resource Committee: “My first priority will be the responsibilities of this assistant secretary position, and we are staffing the personal operation of the Secretary with that in mind,” he said.
Strickland’s deputy chief of staff, Renee Stone, “is going to take most of the responsibilities of the chief of staff day-to-day,” he testified.
The White House has aggressively pushed back on any notions that the federal government did not immediately respond to the crisis, providing today a detailed timeline indicating the day by day response in terms of the total numbers of response vessels, feet of boom deployed, oily water recovered, and overall personnel responding, among other measures.
That timeline, however, might raise even more questions as to why the Assistant Secretary in charge of fish and wildlife -- not to mention the Interior Department chief of staff -- didn’t reconsider the timeliness of his trip to the Grand Canyon with his wife, however work-focused.
The explosion at Deepwater Horizon was on April 20, and Hayes and Barkoff arrived in the Gulf the next day.
On Saturday April 24, the first oil leaks were discovered.
On Tuesday, April 27, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that his department along with the Department of Homeland Security would launch an investigation into the Deepwater Horizon Incident. Salazar pledged “every resource we can to support the massive response effort underway at the Deepwater Horizon.”
Strickland and his wife arrived in the Grand Canyon that night.
The day before his travel, the US Fish and Wildlife Service began working with the Coast Guard to identify high-priority national wildlife refuges to be shielded with boom. More than one thousand overall personnel had been deployed to the region.
By Thursday, April 29, the fact that Strickland was not one of those personnel became sufficient issue that he tried to leave the Grand Canyon. The night before, the federal government updated its assessment that 1,000 barrels of oil a day were leaking into the Gulf, judging the spillage to be five times that. A National Park Service helicopter was flown in to remove him from the Grand Canyon so he could travel to the Gulf of Mexico to help with the federal response to the oil slick.
As Strickland made his way to New Orleans that Thursday, April 29, President Obama first addressed the oil slick in public, saying his "administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the Department of Defense, to address the incident."
A former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, Strickland ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 1996 and 2002.
On January 22, 2009, Salazar said that at the department he and Strickland – as a former US Attorney and a former Attorney General, respectively – “will hold people accountable. We will expect to be held accountable.” |
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/while-oil-slick-spread-interior-department-chief-of-staff-rafted-with-wife-in-grand-canyon-.html |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| When Obama commends the guy on the job he's doing, then we can call a spade a spade. And he's an Assistant Secretary of National Parks in the Department of the Interior... not exactly the head of FEMA. |
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