Unbelievably, the MMS is still issuing shallow water drilling permits.
Let’s set aside the junk shot and top hat distractions and look at the record. The last big underwater oil spills, Ixtoc I and Montara, were controlled by relief wells. Montara, the most recent, took ten weeks to control, and there were five misses before the final relief well hit.
There’s no reason to think that we’re going to have anything but a bunch of oily beaches, dead sea life, and fucked up attempts to stop the leak for the next few weeks. Recent revelations about BP’s hundreds of violations have completely undermined confidence in the MMS. I don’t know what the hell the Obama Administration is thinking here, but issuing more permits in this environment is political suicide.
dan
Once all the beaches are covered with oil and all of the wildlife is dead, there won’t be any reason to stop drilling. The more damage that is done now, the more that environmental concerns will no longer matter. Genius.
Allison W.
no, its not political suicide.
Tom Levenson
It may not be political suicide, but it is sure stupid. A moratorium on permits until at least this one is under control would seem to be the minimum.
Tone deaf would be the least one could say. The proper reactions are probably not suitable for a family blog.
cleek
i think the violations say more about BP than MMS. especially when compared to the other oilco’s violation records.
cat48
This was covered in the news article I read. It stated shallow water permits would still be issued. Not surprising.
Starfish
You are recognizing no difference between the complexities of shallow and deep water drilling. Whoever told you that size doesn’t matter lied.
rickstersherpa
I personally would vote for a $1.00 a gallon gas tax, on top of a carbon tax and oil import fee in a New York minute. And I would have much chance of getting elected dog catcher, let alone Congressman, and the Extremely Silly Bat Crazy Party candidate. On further consideration, given the success of that party (heretofore known as the Republicans), much less. It is not just rich oil companies, but thousands of employees and subcontractors in Texas and Louisiana who work in the off-shore drilling industry. And most of them, surprisingly given the incentives and Milton Friedman’s famous dictum on the only duty of a CEO is to maximize shareholder value, actually have far better safety and enviromental record then BP (see Yves Smith’s comment on Naked Capitalism – http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/bp-admits-to-being-not-prepared-low-odds-fallacy-edition.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29).
So no, it is not either political suicide or irresponsible. It is acknowledging reality (and one reality is that oil spills in the gulf of Nigeria or the Persisan Gulf or the North Sea damage the Earth’s environment just as much as oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico).
I know environmental groups hate this action by the Administration, but again, Obama has never been Al Gore. He represented the interests of a coal and oil producing state (Illinois).
I also know that given the probabilities, you drill enough wells, shallow or deep, you will eventually have a blow out, but until we take the first steps I mentioned, and subsidize the replacement of oil and coal. Until then, we are going to have to find oil, and importing oil causes terrible economic, ecological, and national security problems (5,000 dead Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus 200 billion a year spent to in addition to the war to support our imperial presence in the Gulf and Africa) that has to be balanced against this environmental risk.
Robert Sneddon
Quick question — assuming the US goverment stops issuing deep-water drilling permits in the Gulf and maybe moves to shut down existing operations thought to be at risk, how do they persuade the Mexican government to follow suit? After all, it is the Gulf of Mexico, not the Gulf of America. There’s a lot of drilling and exploration similar to the Deepwater Horizon operation going on in Mexican territorial waters and if there’s a major blowout in one of their wells then it will impact the entire Gulf too.
Is Mexican governmental oversight of oil multinational operations likely to be better than the US government’s oversight? Can they afford to give up the oil revenues lost by shutting down existing operations and denying new exploratory leases?
mistermix
@cleek:
Well, it tells me that MMS is toothless, because they can issue citations all the live-long day, but they apparently can’t do anything else, since BP continued operations despite having hundreds of times more citations than any other operator.
Why should I have any confidence in their ability to regulate, given that record?
mistermix
@Starfish: Ixtoc I was a “shallow water” well and it took 10 months to get under control.
Michael
I hear the mantra now – Environmentalists for Palin 2012…
Incertus (Brian)
I’m really surprised that more candidates aren’t demogoguing this issue. BP’s and Halliburton’s reputations are shit right now, and it doesn’t take much to add the other oil companies into that mix. Hang oil company contributions around your oppnent’s neck like a burning tire.
Nick
Why is it political suicide when most Americans still support offshore drilling?
brendancalling
@dan:
I’ve been saying that since day one.
Disaster capitalism: when the wildlife is gone, no need to protect the wildlife. When the people who lived on the coast are gone, no need to protect the coast. You can just open it all up to drilling, industry, whatever.
For those wondering why it’s political suicide to keep handing out permits: people support drilling in the abstract. When there’s oil rolling up on there shores, closing beaches in the height of summer, people don’t like the drilling as much anymore, and they look for someone to blame for their closed beaches and desgtroyed livelihoods. They can’t vote out BP. But they can vote out senators, reprsentatives, and presidents.
People know when they’re getting fucked.
Dave
Tone deaf would be the least one could say. The proper reactions are probably not suitable for a family blog.
Well, what did you expect from Obama?
That’d he’d come down personally and cap the well himself?
Given the amount of money the Oil Companies have donated to Obama, what has happened over the last few weeks was entirely predictable.
*awaits the usual reactions from the Obots*
Nick
@Dave: Nice try troll.
mr. whipple
Indefensible, and I’m a bot.
The way I see it, no more permits should be issued until every existing rig is thoroughly reviewed/inspected, at the minimum.
Hiram Taine
@Incertus (Brian):
Just about all the big politicians have that particular burning tire, some of them are just motorcycle tires and some are earthmover tires but they all have ’em.
jimBOB
How do we know that MMS is operating at the behest of the White House in issuing these permits? Remember the term “burrowing in?” MMS is mostly staffed by people from previous administrations, especially the GWB administration. Could these permits just be the bureaucracy grinding away at its usual thing?
Dave
Troll?
Pointing out how utterly unprepared that BP was, and how utterly unprepared the administration is (partly because of the bribes^H^H^H^H^Hdonations paid to the Obama campaign) for an entirely predictable disaster like this is now “trolling”?
Why are you surprised by anything that has happened in the last few weeks? I mean, really, this was waiting to happen, and this adminstration (and the last) stood by and let it happen.
Michael D.
@Starfish: This.
And, if all permits are ceased, you are throwing thousands of people out of work. So you’ll be preventing a potential and extremely unlikely AND you are causing economic damage in an already shitty environment. Whether you agree with oil exploration or not, the politics of throwing thousand of people out of work to prevent a very rare occurrence of an oil spill sucks.
Hundreds of people die every day from car accidents. Plus, they dump tens of millions of pounds of pollution a day into our environment. So, until the government and the car companies get accidents and the pollution caused by motor vehicles under control, we need to stop production of them immediately. Screw the tens of thousands of auto workers and their families, the tens of thousands of people who work in gas stations, and the multitudes who work in auto dealerships and mechanics. A moratorium on selling cars for six months while we do a study!
The cumulative effect of pollution by automobiles is far worse than all the oil spills we’ve ever had, I imagine.
EDIT: By the way, I am not advocating for unlimited drilling. Hell, I have a car that sits in my driveway because I choose to take transit 30 miles each way every day. I use it for groceries and to go to places transit doesn’t. I’d be perfectly happy if we didn’t drill for oil or sell cars at all.
I’m just being more realistic, I think.
Linda Featheringill
It is frightening to watch this disaster happening and realize that NOBODY ON EARTH knows how to stop the damn thing.
Sometimes I suspect that people are wearing their anger like a shield. It is easier to fuss and even fight than to face the fact that we [the humans] have gone too far and there is no one to swoop us up and take us to a safer place. There is no one to fix our mistakes.
Hiram Taine
@brendancalling:
GW Bush won more votes in 2004 than in 2000 and was reelected.
zmulls
“next few *weeks?*” I’m expecting things to be truly screwed for *years*. Closed shoreline, beaches unusable, dead ecosystem, entire fishing industry decimated — I’m not expecting a recovery there for 20-50 years. It looks to me like an immutable part of the country just got destroyed for our lifetimes.
Sux to be us.
Ash Can
I don’t like seeing this either, but if there’s a silver lining here, it appears to be the fact that, according to the linked article, a bunch of new regulations have been slapped (or old ones re-slapped) onto the permits and procedures. Obviously, the only way to completely avoid drilling problems is to not drill in the first place. Barring this, the next best thing is to regulate offshore drilling and get serious about it, and getting serious about regulation is one of the main reasons I voted for Obama in the first place. I may not agree with his stance on shallow(er)-water drilling, but at least he’s not letting the oil companies run amok like his, ahem, predecessor did, and like every other Republican would (except maybe for Bobby Jindal, who seems to have found religion on this issue, whaddya know).
Dave
Just about all the big politicians have that particular burning tire, some of them are just motorcycle tires and some are earthmover tires but they all have ‘em.
I recall something about a certain presidential candidate who quite happily whored himself out for private donations after telling everyone he’d use public funding.
Time to ban all companies from funding political campaigns or donating a penny (or cent, for that matter) to politicians.
cleek
@Dave:
prove it
Incertus (Brian)
@Dave: Yeah, good luck getting that law past the courts given Citizens United. Do you have a good suggestion now?
Dave
Amen, zmulls.
Michael
@Dave:
Still posting from “the UK”, eh, Beltway Boy?
Fucking douchebag. I really wish that the Revolution would come so we could string up whiny, lying conservatives by the thousands.
Ash Can
Anyone still peddling this ancient crap does not deserve to be taken seriously, or even to be listened to in the first place.
Dave
cleek, here.
Brian, yeah, your judges are probably as big a bunch of cunts are ours are. Especially the hypocrites at Citizens United.
If companies want to donate to political campaigns, then they can take on the legal personality of individuals, with all the rights and risks that that entails.
Hahahahaahahaha.
As if that’ll ever happen. Or Obama will allow it to happen.
Michael
@Dave:
Ooooh – finally a pretend bit of attempted UK pattern.
Sorry asshole – your fly is still unzipped.
Dave
Still posting from “the UK”, eh, Beltway Boy?
As I said before, any Admin here can check the IP logs and tell you that indeed, I am posting from the UK, and have always been.
Not all of us on this side of the pond are ignorant of American politics y’know.
Fucking douchebag. I really wish that the Revolution would come so we could string up whiny, lying conservatives by the thousands.
You’d fit in well with Hamas or the Mullahs. They’re good at that sort of thing.
Brandon
Doing anything to insulate them from criticism from Palin and Rush seems bonkers to me, however the only way that this is “political suicide” is if Obama gets primaried from left a la 1980 (Ted Kennedy v. Jimmy Carter). Firebaggers would absolutely love that, however I am not too concerned about that outcome because I don’t think Greenwald and Hamsher’s PAC has the resources to “identify and recruit” a candidate for such a run, considering as how they seem inclined to spend all their PAC money on salaries for themselves. And which Democrat with the “progressive street cred” and national chops to mount such a challenge would commit the political suicide necessary to do so? Dean? Clark? Kucinich? Hillary?
As for energy policy and this whole oil mess, we should just forget right now about Peak Oil, I am more concerned now about Peak Food.
Michael D.
@Dave: In your link, it says:
I hear Obama has taken thousands of donations from people who work at Krogers across the nation!! There you go. He is in the pocket of Big Grocery!!
What a dumb way to “prove” Obama is in the pocket of the oil companies. I’ve always found the “XYZ has taken thousands in donations from employees and spouses of ABC industry” to be exceedingly stupid, and it’s one of the things I find, well, exceedingly stupid, about Factcheck.org.
Michael
@Brandon:
Kucinich. He’s pasty white, rested and ready.
Jenn
My understanding is MMS is requiring an overhaul and re-submission of (already approved) exploration/drilling plans that (like BP’s had) called major spills and environmental damage “unlikely”, to make sure that new risk assessments & safety standards are incorporated.
I’ve never been a fan of offshore drilling, nor am I an Obot. That said, I never expected shallow drilling to be banned, so I don’t see why this is political suicide. Obviously, others here disagree!
Dave
As for energy policy and this whole oil mess, we should just forget right now about Peak Oil, I am more concerned now about
The only solution long-term for energy needs is to move entirely to Nuclear, akin to what France has done, and then to Fusion, as soon as it, err, works. I mean, in the form of EDF Energy they pretty much hold our energy market to ranson already.
Carter was a naive knob when it came to foreign affairs but he had the right idea when it came to energy independence.
But that’s going to take another Manhattan Project’s worth of effort really.
And what are the odds of that, eh?
Punchy
But one of those “10-months to fix” GOM goofs was in shallow. So tell me — what is the diff between shallow and deep, if even the shallow ones take 10+ months to cap?
Confused.
Nick
@Dave: I’d rather have an oil spill than a nuclear meltdown and even France is having problems finding a place for the waste.
stuckinred
@Linda Featheringill: Not any different from the volcano. . .I guess it is because we KNOW we can’t stop that!
Nick
@Punchy: Shallow wells are not in international waters, which would make it easier for our government to respond to a spill.
Not that it would help, but we wouldn’t have this big “who is in charge?” question.
Dave
Michael, you know how political lobbying works. That’s the tip of the (oil-stained) iceberg.
We have the same problems over here in the UK, especially with the whole “Fake Charities” scam thing (where obstensibly independent “charities” always seem to propose ideas that the government happens to approve of, and oh, look, where do you think they get 90% of their funding from?)
Mind you, it would help if the Charities Commision (the relevant watchdog) had any actual teeth, which it most certainly does not.
Though a random group of volunteers from a Care-in-the-Community project would do a better (and more honest) job that any politican can, American or British or Irish.
cleek
@Dave:
that doesn’t prove your assertion.
try again.
Dave
I’d rather have an oil spill than a nuclear meltdown and even France is having problems finding a place for the waste.
The thing about nuclear waste is that, yes, its incredibly radioactive, but, its only radioactive for a (geologically) short period of time, and there are sure and tested means to contain the waste. Its not new technology to do this. It just requires will.
And, yes, older style plants have risks of nuclear meltdown (to put it dramatically) but the newer designs don’t (and also run on reprocessed fuel).
But then, lured by the false security of easy hydrocarbons, we’ve never taken nuclear power seriously. If you’ve ever read any David Brin (his blog is good reading on this subject) you’ll know what is required.
And the added side-effect of switching away from an oil-based economy is that we could tell the Saudis to go screw themselves, misogynistic medieval fucks.
Dave
Cleek,
I’m not sure what else you want, honestly. He’s taken big money from Oil Companies, and its shown in his complete lack of action since he got elected.
I was excited when Chu got to be Energy Secretary (wow, an actual physicist!), but he’s done sod all.
Instead Obama wasted years on that pathetic health care bill, and to what end? So insurance companies can screw people over even more?
cleek
@Dave:
i want you to prove that the administration was “unprepared” because of the oilco campaign donations. you asserted it, now prove it.
ericblair
Oh look, things just got a bit more problematic for the media spinners: one of the flotilla dead was a US citizen.
Hiram Taine
@Dave: Nukes may make sense technically although I’m not convinced of that but the waste storage problem is a non-starter politically, *nobody* wants nuclear waste in their back yard.
Political problems can be every bit as intractable as technical ones, even more so sometimes I think.
New designs for wind power put the wind catching portion at a much higher altitude than currently deployed units on towers, Rotokite, Kitegen, Sky Windpower, Magenn and Laddermill all fly the wind catching portion of the generator to considerable altitude where winds are not only much more powerful but also much more reliable.
Dave
Its been utterly unprepared, Cleek. Its obvious even from here, 3000 miles away. The whole thing has been an utter disaster for everyone. And of course a politican is going to deny his donations had anything to do with it….why else would he accept fat checks from industry?
I mean seriously, what do you think a company will expect when it donates to your compaign? Ferrero Rocher?
We’re just waiting now for the nuke, Soviet-style.
jwb
@Dave: No one doubts that the BP and government were completely unprepared for this. But you’ve offered no proof of causality between campaign contributions (which are minimal in the context of the amount Obama raised) and the unpreparedness.
Dave
Oh look, things just got a bit more problematic for the media spinners: one of the flotilla dead was a US citizen.
Sucks to be a Jihadist or their Useful Idiot then.
jwb
@ericblair: Not Real Merkin (R), so won’t count—I bet that’s how this plays.
mr. whipple
Problem? Mark my words, this will blow over and nothing will come of it, as always.
Max Power
So, should we shut down the other 50+ shallow water wells that have been operating in the Gulf for the last decade or so?
Tone in DC
The last big underwater oil spills, Ixtoc I and Montara, were controlled by relief wells. Montara, the most recent, took ten weeks to control, and there were five misses before the final relief well hit.
Teh st00pid! It burns!
It could take 10 months total to top hat or cap/hit a relief well the next time this happens… and the fossil fuel fans still want to press ahead.
And I truly hope everyone is kidding about using a nuke to “fix” the spill. Adding a large amount of radiation to the toxic mix of dispersants and crude sounds very unproductive.
jimBOB
The thing about nuclear waste is that, yes, its incredibly radioactive, but, its only radioactive for a (geologically) short period of time,
i.e., thousands of years
and there are sure and tested means to contain the waste.
Really? We’ve tested containment practices for thousands of years? Didn’t realize those ancient Sumerians had nuclear.
And, yes, older style plants have risks of nuclear meltdown (to put it dramatically) but the newer designs don’t
I remember when the older plants were the newer plants, and we were told over and over how safe they were, until some of them melted down. Maybe the newer plants have safety vulnerabilities we don’t know about yet (just like the old plants).
Even assuming away waste disposal and operational safety issues, nuclear is really expensive (per kwh) and brittle (i.e. it’s not practical to turn the plants off and on much, so you can’t deal with highly variable demand with nuclear.) On top of that, nuclear fuel is another finite resource, so when we run through it all we’ll be right back to needing a sustainable replacement after a certain length of time.
Max Power
@Tone in DC:
Not to mention the potential for Godzilla-like monsters.
Nick
@Dave:
About .2% of his total contributions and we’re supposed to believe he let BP destroy the Gulf of Mexico for .2%?
Yeah, sure, whatever.
Xenos
@Dave:
What is the usual reply? Part of the reason some of us voted for Obama is because he does not randomly jerk around the bureaucracy to respond to short term political events.
Whether the MMS is staffed with cretins is one matter. Another is if a company has a properly submitted application to drill in an unrelated area, should any president be bigfooting around and cutting off such permits? There are rules and processes for these things that need to be followed.
I don’t practice federal administrative law, but if my local Governor pulled such a thing I am pretty sure I could get it overturned in Superior Court within a month or two, and might even have a case for fees and damages against the state.
Xenos
@Dave:
Jihadist? You really think Palestinian nationalism is motivated by religious fanaticism? The PFLP are Jihadists? George Habash was a Jihadist?
If you represent Israeli opinion then Israel has no chance. Once you believe your own propaganda then you can’t understand you opposition, and you are going to screw up often enough and consistently enough that someday the IDF just won’t be capable of doing its job. Some pretty well informed people think that point was passed a long time ago.
If so, Israel is doomed. And people like you have been instrumental in the process of destroying the Zionist project.
Gregory
@Dave:
Fine. We’ll bury the waste in your backyard. Got the will for that?
@Dave:
Jay B.
Short term political event? Holy fuck. The gulf and the states that rely on it are FUCKED. There is nothing, nothing at all short term about the damage we’ve self-inflicted because of our oil-company bought energy policy. This is just the latest disaster.
Obama is doing nothing but going after the short term with this idiotic leasing shit. Climate change, endless war and massive environmental damage. At least he’s letting the provenly corrupt and useless agency keep on keepin’ on, so as not to rock the boat.
cleek
@Dave:
you have completely failed to prove your assertion.
tkogrumpy
@rickstersherpa: Exactly.
Tone in DC
Max Power:
Did you mean something like this?
Some Guy: I’m pretty sure the first thing folks trot out as a solution to any intractable engineering problem is “Why don’t we nuke it?”
J Neo Marvin: I’m no scientist, but I can’t believe that dropping a nuke on an oil spill can possibly improve the situation. If anybody knows something I don’t, I am all ears.
Substance McGravitas:
There may be iguanas in the Gulf area, therefore Guandzilla will be created, thus destroying nearby cities in a more aesthetically pleasing manner.
tkogrumpy
@Hiram Taine: Now that’s a winner!
wrb
I read one calculation just the suspension of deep water drilling will result$5bn blow to gulf state economies.
Piling on the economic damage with a shallow water ban might not actually be popular down there.
People are maxed out on hurt as it is.
And nationally it could help stall this recovery.
wrb
@Max Power:
The number is a bit higher
Mnemosyne
I love that Dave thinks you can run a car on nuclear energy.
wrb
@Mnemosyne:
Well you could, if it was an electric car with batteries.
What I love is how nuclear fans neglect the cost negative externalities of waste storage and the cost of accidents (nuclear power is entirely dependent on the sort of liability cap that protects BP from paying the full cost of its mess. Nuclear plants are uninsurable in the free market.) and so are able to falsely believe that nuclear is cheaper and “more practical” (not supported by DFHs) than wind, wave etc.
Xenos
@Jay B.:
I am no fan of offshore drilling. I rather it was banned outright, permanently. But I would argue that Obama went as far as the situation requires in halting all deep water drilling because it is clear that oil companies are unable to handle a blown out deep water well. Responding to this reality is a long term problem but is a short-term political issue.
If there is some sort of finding that we can’t stop a blown out shallow water well, then sure, ban that by executive order too. But in the long term this has to be handled through legislation or appropriate rule-making at the appropriate agencies. Otherwise the decision is legally vulnerable.
Mnemosyne
@wrb:
Yes, all we have to do is simply replace all 250 million passenger cars in the US with electric cars and all our problems are solved! Clearly I underestimated Dave’s genius. ;-)
Jay B.
@Xenos:
It’s pretty clear they can’t handle any kind of major spill. Tanker. Off-shore. On shore. Shallow. Deep. The proof that they can is completely on the oil companies, and, given the basic reality of the current situation — lax regulation, cut corners, buck-passing among the operators, terrible decision making, inoperable equipment, zero contingency planning, ignored warnings — I think it takes a galactically stupid leap of faith to think that the oil industry has the capability or cares about having the capability to “handle” it. In other words, if they didn’t have everything in order, to the point where there is now a fucking criminal investigation about their obvious negligence, what would it matter if it’s in “shallow” water (i.e. even closer to the shore/marsh lands/humanity) or deep?
But sure, politically, who gives a fuck? No one of consequence. Obama, after all, is no Al Gore. He’s from Illinois, where there’s evidently an oil industry, so he should be expected to go with the industry that’s currently crippling our country. I’m sure Bush would have gotten the same latitude with y’all about this decision because he’s from an even bigger oil state AND he’s not Al Gore either.
Here’s my guess: The next one will spill close to shore and we’ll all pretend to be shocked that they don’t know what to do about it. And if there’s a Democrat in office, half of “us” will be sadly resigned to the reality that there’s just plum nothin’ to be done because it’s soooooooo hard to get anything through those darn Blue Dogs, the courts, the agencies, and the reality that, well, the next President is no Al Gore neither, so what the fuck.
It’s not a short-term political issue. It just isn’t. And until we stop doing the easy short-term thing (like issuing new leases — hell, let them go to court, if it’s a legal issue you are so concerned about), we’ll never, ever have a long-term strategy. Because it won’t be politically viable.
RalfW
I think you’re sadly wrong about it being political suicide to allow shallow water drilling.
Take it from someone in a 12-step program, our nation is in full disease mode in it’s addiction to oil. Consequences be dammed, we want our cheap gas and our ‘Merican way of life.
Just this a.m. NPR had a story of various fishermen in Louisiana all advocating for more drilling.
People freaked out about Three Mile Island because they rightly perceived at the time that there were safer alternatives and that this nuclear dealy was more dangerous than the benefits.
But our populace (which is wrongly assumed to be dumb when in fact its just incredibly entitled and lazy) knows that anything more than a pause while technology “catches up” will jack up gas prices beyond their easy-drive, pay-on-credit lifestyles will afford.
So shallow-drilling is an easy sop to the fat, obnoxious, self-absorbed nation we are. No real risk there.
Zuzu's Petals
@mistermix:
Except that those citations were issued by OSHA, not MMS.
And they were for violations at two refineries, not offshore drilling facilities.
wrb
So a brutal transition is more politically viable than one that is as painless as possible?
The climate change bill is a pretty good start at a long term strategy. It wasn’t politically viable without the new drilling and nukes. The choice seems to be between purity and achieving something.
GVG
To me its fairly obvious why Obama didn’t do more to prevent this disaster before it happened.
He came to office while we were already deep in several other disasters of types that are traditionally seen as very much the responsibility of our Federal government. they were all big, complicated and long term. they all needed lots of congress people to sign on to any solution-congresspeople with very different views and constituents with different views.
Oil drilling disasters were not on the radar. Sure there were warning signs the experts in the industry spotted and probably tried to pass on to their “representatives” but I expect the signal got lost in the noise of all the other emergencies both the ones already happening and all the others that people think are about to. Makes me fear what other warnings we aren’t noticing. Its partly our fault. We the people tend not to reward politicians who look at the long view instead of the sound byte now. and yes, an exceptional executive spots these warnings before they happen, so he’s not THAT good. Still, I have to say, my expectations of a presidents first responsibilities center more on wars, terrorism, economics, natural disasters (which is not an oil spill) and things like health care, laws supporting equal rights…..oil drilling is way down my list for what makes a good president.
In a more peaceful, less hectic time, I’d expect him to have done more to replace incompetant agency people. In my lifetime, its usually been less insane than now.
Deregulation has been inching in since Reagan, often by the sneaky method of underfunding regulatory agencies. Thats hard to push back on in times of deficit too. Clinton didn’t resist this all that well either, tho he did appoint some competant chiefs which definately helped.
thomas Levenson
Just checked, and according to Huffpost (I know, I know) the drilling moratorium has been extended to shallow water wells. Obama — slow, but not stupid.
Dr. Morpheus
@Mnemosyne:
Ummm, so if you’re a WSW (Wind, Solar, Water) energy supporter what are you suggesting we do with those cars?
Don’t we have to still replace “all 250 million passenger cars in the US with electric cars”?
Jay B.
@wrb:
The amount of oil we’d derive from new drilling isn’t sufficient to global demands. It’s total energy political window dressing, like maybe 3% more oil, while allowing for potentially catastrophic environmental problems — or maybe you haven’t been reading the papers.
So, OK, the politicians go for it. Enabling the can to be kicked down the road while they gut regulation, install cronies and aim for the highest profit margins. That’s what would happened because that’s what did happen. It happened when, in the 1970s Carter installed higher CAFE standards than we have now.
Meanwhile the entire argument changes in front of your eyes — THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WITH DRILLING — and suddenly it’s “Purity” to point out that we shouldn’t be doing it? It’s nearly useless, it’s NOT a “short term” solution (the oil itself wouldn’t be pumped for years) and it will almost assuredly backfire. While enabling us to do nothing.
This would be something — pour hundreds of billions into a War on Dirty Energy. Call it a War to Save the Planet. Or whatever you need to butch it up. Make an affirmative case that it’s necessary government action. A Marshall Plan for energy companies to convert to a “wartime” footing.
It’s a stimulus. It’s the right thing. You can make it a public-private partnership. It’ll develop technologies that will help make human life more sustainable on this planet. It’ll be an entirely new economy.
We went from the horse and buggy to the moon in 60 years. And all we keep saying now is that technologies which already exist are still decades away from being viable mass energy sources?
There is literally no vision, no guts and no leadership in this country.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
I hear that…