Gulf Oil Crisis: Our Federal Government ...InAction!

Obama has proclaimed that his administration has been in complete control of this disaster from Day 1, and later quipped about his assorted 'meetings' being a way for him to know "who's ass to kick" ...prompting Jon Stewart to joke, Obama will now have to kick his own ass! Funny as it was, it is painfully true.

What we are seeing unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, is a disaster like this nation has never seen before, and hopefully never will see again. Billions, perhaps TRILLIONS, of dollars are being lost, businesses going under, jobs leaving forever, and then there is the environmental damage. It will literally take DECADES to recover, and still the oil continues to gush from the well, with no real idea of when it might be stopped.

As big as this catastrophe is, it is nothing compared to the catastrophe of the Federal Government in dealing effectively with the crisis. If anyone in this nation was the least bit optimistic about the Federal Government's ability to handle essential basics of our life, this should have settled the issue for them. In every facet of this disaster, the Feds have FAILED! Nothing is getting done, and nothing CAN get done, because of a plethora of bureaucratic red tape, EPA and OSHA regulations, and a feckless administration who thinks it far more important to play golf and hob-knob with the stars, than to manage this crisis at all. It's almost as if the Obama Administration is content to let the oil spew, and ignore it with a bunch of grandiose talk of how things will one day be better, (after they sue the oil company out of business and ban domestic oil drilling!)
 
In the Gulf, we don’t yet know what caused the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

But what we do know is that for decades, the oil industry has been able to essentially write its own rules and safety regulations.

Industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight, and oil and gas companies were allowed to basically fill out their own safety inspection forms.


Some of these same folks want to maintain the status quo where we just rely on oil and other fossil fuels for all of our energy needs, even though we know that our dependence on these energy sources is a problem because they’re finite.

They’re going to run out, and that jeopardizes our national security and our prosperity and our planet.

So I want to move forward.

I believe it is time for this country to embrace a clean energy future.

I don’t want clean energy jobs to go to China.

I don’t want them to go to Germany.

I want those industries to take root right here in the United States of America.


So already we’ve provided entrepreneurs and small business owners with tax credits and loan guarantees that’s led to 720,000 clean energy jobs, will lead to over 700,000 jobs in 2012.

These are good-paying, middle-class, American jobs.

I’ve seen them.

I’ve gone to wind turbine plants where they’re creating wind turbines, and gone to solar plants where they’re making the latest generation of solar panels, and we’ve created an entire new advanced battery industry here in the United States.

So where we were only getting 2 percent of that market, we’re now going to be getting 40 percent of that market.

That was all done through the Recovery Act.

We’ve got to build on that progress, not undo it.

That’s why we need to pass legislation that makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.

We’ve got to have a national mission to change the way we use energy and produce energy, and you know what, it will be good for our economy.

It is going to drive our economy in the 21st century.

It is not time for us to look backwards, it’s time for us to look forward right now when it comes to energy policy in this country.
 
Joe Barton (R-Texas) gave a heartfelt apology to BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward for the “tragedy” and ‘shakedown” he endured at the White House. He apologized for his apology, but he wasn’t convincing. It’s not surprising that Barton feels despair because he receives more contributions from the oil industry than any other representative and worked for ARCO which is now owned by BP.
 
I actually agree on the red tape part. Some of the things I have read about have been absolutely ridiculous, like the life preserver inspection.

Stuff like this has to be a wake-up call. The gov't is bogged down in meaningless paperwork on so many levels - not just emergency response. It's like the movie "Brazil." We're almost defined by the threat of litigation at this point.
 
I actually agree on the red tape part. Some of the things I have read about have been absolutely ridiculous, like the life preserver inspection.

Stuff like this has to be a wake-up call. The gov't is bogged down in meaningless paperwork on so many levels - not just emergency response. It's like the movie "Brazil." We're almost defined by the threat of litigation at this point.

when there are 16 government agencies involved in the 'management' of the crisis... we are fucked... because that means no one is in charge.

The life vest thing was one of the most absurd that I have heard of.
 
when there are 16 government agencies involved in the 'management' of the crisis... we are fucked... because that means no one is in charge.

The life vest thing was one of the most absurd that I have heard of.

obama claims he is in charge and has been from day one
 
This disaster is something that has no upside, I am proud of him for taking charge of a no win situation. The reason I am against offshore drilling is the fact that not much can be done about it when this type of disaster occures.
 
This disaster is something that has no upside, I am proud of him for taking charge of a no win situation. The reason I am against offshore drilling is the fact that not much can be done about it when this type of disaster occures.

so you approve of the way he is handling this??
 
so you approve of the way he is handling this??

I have seen no evidence that he has done anything wrong. I belive that this has been handled as well as possable. I dont think much can be done.
 
This disaster is something that has no upside, I am proud of him for taking charge of a no win situation. The reason I am against offshore drilling is the fact that not much can be done about it when this type of disaster occures.

Utter bullshit. There are plenty of ways this could have been prevented. The number of citations that BP received is staggering. And yet they were allowed to pay a fine and continue to operate as they always have. Put some teeth into the regulations for both safety and accident prevention and a crisis like this can be averted before it happens.

And I am not talking about nitty nonsense regs that will cripple small businesses. I am talking about prosecution of the top brass of companies that repeatedly sidestep or ignore regulations.

BP knew there was a problem with the unit in question. They knew there were 260 ways it could fail. Halliburton knew of the same problems.
 
Yurt is a fool.

Soon BP will reap the whirlwind...

By Paul M. Barrett and Justin Blum

"Legal experts agree it's almost a foregone conclusion that the federal investigation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will produce criminal charges. After all, mere negligence leading to serious oil pollution constitutes a misdemeanor under the Clean Water Act. Whether BP (BP) or any individual will face felony charges—or even prison time—is a more complicated question. One hint of what a broader indictment might look like comes from an unlikely source: private civil-racketeering lawsuits that have been brought on behalf of property and business owners in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana.

One of the suits, filed on June 12 in federal district court in Pensacola, Fla., by the plaintiffs' firm, Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Echsner Rafferty & Proctor, not only accuses BP and Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward of discrete instances of pollution; it also alleges the company engaged in an illegal "enterprise" to mislead regulators over a period of years.

Included in this alleged pattern of wrongdoing was BP's failure to improve its safety practices in response to past incidents, resulting in criminal fines, the suit says. An explosion in 2005 at BP's Texas City (Tex.) refinery, which killed 15 workers, and an oil leak in 2006 from a BP pipeline in Alaska are among the episodes cited in the suit.

Taken together with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Florida suit alleges, these events show that BP engaged in a scheme that violated the civil provisions of the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act. The RICO law was enacted in 1970 to help prosecutors put Mafiosi behind bars. It has been used more broadly against corporations and high-profile individuals, including junk-bond impresario Michael Milken in 1989. It allows prosecution of people who operate or oversee an illegal enterprise, even if they did not commit the main criminal acts in question. The maximum prison term is 20 years for each count.

In the hands of a bold prosecutor, the facts and theory that underpin the Levin Papantonio firm's civil suit could add up to something more: a criminal indictment. "I would be amazed if the U.S. government didn't use this as a road map to some sort of criminal case," says attorney J. Michael Papantonio, an outspoken liberal who appears frequently on cable-TV talk shows. "This is not a case of a mistake. This is an intentional effort to subvert the law."

In his suit, Papantonio asserts that filings BP made from 2000 to 2009 with the Interior Dept.'s Minerals Management Service misrepresented the company's preparations for a potential deepwater disaster and dishonestly minimized risks. One BP document, an "Initial Exploration Plan" submitted to MMS in February 2009, claimed that the company had "the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst-case discharge or a substantial threat of a discharge," the suit states.

Contrary to such written assertions that BP was capable of remedying a major oil spill, the company and its executives have conceded since the Apr. 20 rig explosion that they weren't prepared, the suit claims. CEO Hayward told the Financial Times in a June 3 article: "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit." He added that it was "an entirely fair criticism" to say the company had not been ready for a deepwater oil leak.

The Florida suit argues that BP knew all along that its tool kit was deficient and assured the government otherwise. A separate civil racketeering suit filed in Louisiana on June 21 makes similar allegations. The one in Alabama is narrower and targets BP's conduct in responding to damage claims since the spill.

The RICO approach could allow BP's antagonists—in either a civil or criminal context—to argue that cost-cutting steps in 2010 contributed to the blowout that killed 11 workers and led to the environmental crisis. Two days after Papantonio filed his suit, Representatives Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) of the House Energy & Commerce Committee outlined in a 14-page letter to BP five decisions the company made that allegedly sacrificed safety for cost savings.

One example involved a "cement bond log," in which acoustics are used to determine whether the cement around the well had formed a tight bond or whether the cement job was imperfect, in which case gas could leak out. BP had hired the energy services contractor Schlumberger to conduct the cement bond test but sent the Schlumberger (SLB) crew back to shore the morning of the Apr. 20 explosion. The Waxman-Stupak letter suggests that BP canceled the test to save itself $128,000 and an additional 9 to 12 hours for a job that was already way over budget and behind schedule. Gordon Aaker Jr., an engineering consultant hired to advise the House committee, called the failure to test the cement bond "horribly negligent."

BP spokesman Scott Dean declined to comment, saying the company isn't talking about pending litigation.

Andrew Ames, a Justice Dept. spokesman, also declined to comment beyond referring to Attorney General Eric Holder's June 1 statement, in which he said prosecutors would look into potential civil and criminal infractions under a range of environmental and other federal statutes.

U.S. courts have narrowed the potential applicability of RICO in recent years. Winning a criminal racketeering verdict requires meeting a stiffer standard of proof than the one that applies in a civil case. Still, the filing of a criminal racketeering indictment against BP or its employees could have catastrophic effects for the company. Such charges likely would result in further reductions to BP's credit rating and increased chances of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Financial instability could endanger the $20 billion escrow fund BP has agreed to create to pay claims related to the spill.

For that reason alone, the Obama Administration would think long and hard before going the RICO route. On June 16, President Barack Obama said "BP is a strong and viable company, and it is in all our interests that it remains so."

On the other hand, if oil continues to spew all summer, and the slick spreads around the Florida Keys and up the East Coast, demands for punitive government action could grow.

The bottom line: A civil racketeering suit in Florida could provide a road map for prosecutors looking to bring felony charges against BP."

Barrett is an assistant managing editor at Bloomberg Businessweek. Blum is a reporter for Bloomberg News.



For the self-appointed Copyright patrol: I am not the author of the text in quotes above. Cry to the board moderators about something else.
 
Utter bullshit. There are plenty of ways this could have been prevented. The number of citations that BP received is staggering. And yet they were allowed to pay a fine and continue to operate as they always have. Put some teeth into the regulations for both safety and accident prevention and a crisis like this can be averted before it happens.

And I am not talking about nitty nonsense regs that will cripple small businesses. I am talking about prosecution of the top brass of companies that repeatedly sidestep or ignore regulations.

BP knew there was a problem with the unit in question. They knew there were 260 ways it could fail. Halliburton knew of the same problems.

Ahh, so you are calling for more regulation... I see.
 
Wasn't the same crew now blaming President Obama (?) for the Gulf Oil Party chanting "Drill, Baby, Drill"? until late April?

I wonder how many have scraped the "Drill Here, Drill Now" stickers off their SUVs?
 
Ahh, so you are calling for more regulation... I see.

Did I call for more regulation? No, I call for enforcement of regulations that already exist. I called for some teeth in the enforcement so large corporations can't just pay a fine. When you are making more and more money, they fines are just part of the operating costs.
 
Wasn't the same crew now blaming President Obama (?) for the Gulf Oil Party chanting "Drill, Baby, Drill"? until late April?

I wonder how many have scraped the "Drill Here, Drill Now" stickers off their SUVs?

Ya, Ill bet bumper sticker remover sales have jumped.
 
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