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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/25/2010 9:49:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

<<...I HIGHLY doubt it as so many of US are far too selfish to give at least a little bit, to show any concern about our environment and our Planet...>> Obama is the country's CEO and leader and he must take charge of the growing crisis in the Gulf...Hold BP execs and Interior Department execs accountable...Launch aggressive criminal investigations and insure that appropriate people are fired &/or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law...Make sure that the best cleanup options from around the world are used to help the Gulf, engage the best scientists to study the water column and the long term impact of the spill...Put a firm moratorium on ANY new drilling offshore...Talk to the country and Congress about the importance of immediately launching a Manhatten Project to get off oil - this is a national security issue that has been neglected for years...Wise leaders never let a crisis go to waste...Use this tragedy as a teachable moment and help our country start to do something meaningful to deal with Global Warming...How Obama handles this historic BP Gulf oil spill will define his presidency - it's so much more important than any war games over Afghanistan or Iraq.

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/25/2010 11:04:47 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Man Says $5 Million Machine Can Clean Oil Spill: Inventor Of Ozonator Separates Oil From Water wpbf.com STUART, Fla. -- Dennis McGuire said he doesn't think his $5 million machine can clean up the oil spill in the Gulf. He knows it can. "I know our technology can help," McGuire said. "That's what we do and that's what it's built for." McGuire is the inventor of the Ozonator, a machine that takes millions of tiny bubbles and uses them to separate oil from water -- completely chemical free. "If you've got really nasty water coming out of a gas well or an oil well, that's when we get excited," McGuire said. The machine is new, but McGuire's company has been using his patented invention for years. WPBF 25 News documented Ecosphere Technologies' help in cleaning up contaminated water in Wakefield, Miss., following Hurricane Katrina. McGuire said what makes his technology so useful is that the entire machine can be either taken out to the source of the gushing oil and vacuum it up at the source, or it can be used on land. Either way, it can take 250,000 gallons of oil-laden water a day, separate it from the oil, clean the remaining water onboard and then send it back into the Gulf. The remaining oil is captured and given back to the oil company. A major Gulf cleanup company is flying its executives to Stuart this week to negotiate on using the Ozonator. "It's ready to go and we are getting these two pieces of equipment ready to deploy to the Gulf," McGuire said.

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/26/2010 7:52:14 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Of Top Hats, Top Kills and Bottom Feeders _______________________________________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD OP-ED COLUMNIST THE NEW YORK TIMES May 25, 2010 It’s unnerving, disorienting. A particularly noxious blend of helplessness, fear and fury that washes over you when you realize the country has again been dragged into a costly and scary maelstrom revolving around acronyms you’ve never heard of. Our economy went in the ditch while traders got rich peddling C.D.O.’s and C.D.S.’s. Even many bankers — much less average Americans who lost their shirts — were gobsmacked by the acronyms, and scrambled to figure out how collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps worked. And now a gazillion gallons of oil have poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, thanks in part to unethical employees at a once-obscure agency known as M.M.S. — the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service. M.M.S. is charged with collecting royalties from Big Oil even as it regulates it — an absurd conflict right there. So M.M.S. has had the same sort of conflicts of interest as ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s had with Wall Street. Consorting with the industry intensified once two oilmen took over the White House. Dick Cheney, Duke of Halliburton — responsible for the cementing of the calamitous well, now under investigation — had his aides conspire with BP America and other oil companies to draw up an energy policy. As when derivatives experts had to help unravel the derivatives debacle, now the White House is dependent on BP to find a solution to the horror it created. The financial crisis and the oil spill are both man-made disasters brought on by hubris and avarice. With poignant scenes of oil-soaked birds and out-of-work fishermen on TV, the White House is still scrambling to get on top of this latest catastrophe. The laconic president is once more giving too much deference and trust to rapacious corporate scoundrels and failing to swiftly grasp and articulate the alarm of Americans. One West Wing official admits that, even with all the crises they were juggling, they should have acted more urgently to re-examine the dark legacy of Cheney in the Energy and Interior Departments. Monitoring the plume of doom — a symbol of national impotence — we’re learning another whole new vocabulary from Top Hat to Top Kill. We are trapped in a science-fiction nightmare we can’t wake up from, possibly because of a dead battery in the control pod connected to a dead man’s switch for the blowout preventer, whatever that means. We’re glued to a House energy subcommittee’s “spillcam” Web site and Google Earth pictures of the spreading slick, nauseated by the news that once more, government officials charged with protecting us were instead enabling greedy corporations. As The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, there is growing suspicion that the money concerns of the companies involved with the well created “an atmosphere of haste” that may have spurred the spill. In a report released on Tuesday, Mary Kendall, acting inspector general of the Department of the Interior, described an agency that followed Cheney’s lead in letting the oil industry write the rules. Just like those S.E.C. employees who were watching porn and ignoring warning signs while Wall Street punks created financial Frankensteins, some M.M.S. employees were watching porn, using coke and crystal meth and accepting gifts like trips to the Peach Bowl game from oil and gas companies, the report said. Regarding outrageous behavior prior to 2007, one confidential source told investigators that some M.M.S. inspectors let oil and gas company staffers fill out inspection forms using pencils “and MMS inspectors would write on top of the pencil in ink and turn in the completed form.” Larry Williamson, the M.M.S. Lake Charles, La., district manager, told investigators: “Obviously, we’re all oil industry. We’re all from the same part of the country. Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms. They grew up in the same towns. Some of these people, they’ve been friends with all their life,” hunting, fishing and skeet-shooting together. The tragedy is that M.M.S. eerily presaged the disaster in the draft of a May 2000 environmental analysis of deep-water drilling in the gulf. The agency noted that “the oil industry’s experience base in deepwater well control is limited” and that given the prodigious production rates, “a deepwater blowout of this magnitude in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper” for the Outer Continental Shelf program. But M.M.S. got rid of those caveats in the final report, just as they deemed a remote-controlled shut-off switch an unnecessary expense for drilling companies several years ago. As we watch a self-inflicted contamination that has no end in sight, consider this chilling arithmetic: One oil industry reporter reckoned that the 5,000 barrels a day (a conservative estimate) spewing 5,000 feet down in the gulf counts for only two minutes of oil consumption in the state of Texas.

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/26/2010 8:09:07 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Morning Feature: Interview with FSU Oil Ecosystems Oceanographer dailykos.com

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/26/2010 1:54:54 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Freeze On Offshore Drilling Was Non-Binding Verbal Order ______________________________________________________________ By Ari Shapiro May 25, 2010 President Obama's moratorium on new offshore oil drilling has turned out to be more complicated than it first seemed. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has issued at least 17 drilling permits in the past month. Administration officials say those permits do not violate the ban. But the moratorium was not put into writing, which can make the details of the drilling freeze difficult to assess. The administration's statements about the ban on new drilling have been straightforward. "We've announced that no permits for drilling new wells will go forward until the 30-day safety and environmental review that I requested is complete," President Obama said May 14 in the White House Rose Garden. Testifying before Congress on May 18, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made it sound equally clear. "The president has been very clear with me: Hit the pause button," Salazar said. "We have hit the pause button." The day of that hearing, the AP reported that MMS had approved at least nine deepwater exploration wells in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20, with minimal environmental reviews. 'Best Information' When asked about that article, Salazar criticized what he called "facts and figures and misunderstandings" that have been "flying from all directions." "There is no deepwater well in the OCS that has been spudded -- that means started -- after April 20," Salazar testified. The OCS is the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. Salazar added, "We have a responsibility to come up with the best information and the best facts with respect to all these issues." But Salazar did not have the best information or the best facts. In an e-mail, Interior Department spokesman Matt Lee-Ashley wrote that "the Secretary misspoke at the hearing." In fact, a deepwater well was started in the Gulf after April 20. It "was on a permit that was approved prior to the explosion," according to Lee-Ashley. The MMS website indicates that at least 17 drilling permits have been issued since April 20. Some of those are for wells in far deeper water than the rig that exploded in the Gulf. On Monday, White House energy coordinator Carol Browner said the wells are not new; they are modifications to existing permits. "It is quite routine, where you're currently drilling and you need to make a modification; you've encountered something you didn't anticipate, and so you go back in," Browner told reporters at the White House. "It's called a permit, but I think the better way to think about it is that it's a modification to an existing permit." Environmental lawyers who specialize in this field say they find the administration's statements confusing. "We're not sure what is going on," says Derb Carter of the Southern Environmental Law Center. His organization has sued to revoke the permits that were issued after the explosion in the Gulf. "We're trying to clarify now with Department of Justice attorneys exactly what actions, if any, the administration has taken that would legally revoke these permits that were issued." The Justice Department declined to comment. Looking For Ban Documents One source of confusion is the apparent lack of an original document laying out all the details of the moratorium. Mike Senatore is with Defenders of Wildlife, another environmental group that is suing the administration. "We have, in fact, been trying to locate and to actually get from the Interior Department something that actually documents that there is in fact a suspension," says Senatore. In fact, two Interior officials tell NPR the drilling suspension was not put into writing. "It was a straightforward verbal order to the director of MMS, which was then transmitted within MMS," said one official in an email. Government expert Paul Light of New York University calls the decision not to put this order into writing "so ridiculous that it defies understanding." "It could not be more important to enforce this moratorium and make absolutely clear to the oil industry what is and is not permissible," says Light. "And yet you have the execution of a critical order that appears to have been basically done through the most casual way possible under federal law." Interior Department spokesperson Kendra Barkoff defended Salazar in a statement. "As the department's chief executive, the secretary has the authority to direct the department's employees in performance of their duties and responsibilities," Barkoff said. "In this instance, the secretary issued the order. MMS director Liz Birnbaum saw to it that the order was carried out, and no permits to drill new wells have been issued since." The moratorium was scheduled to last 30 days. The deadline is Thursday. After the president receives the Interior Department's environmental safety report, he will take questions from reporters at the White House. wbur.org Obama's Leaky Offshore Drilling Halt Raises Eyebrows npr.org

To: coug who wrote (80478)	5/26/2010 6:44:08 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Five questions for Obama on the oil spill _____________________________________________________________________ By Karen Tumulty Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 26, 2010; 4:26 PM As his administration comes under increasing criticism for its handling of the spreading environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama will hold a White House news conference Thursday, his first since February, in an attempt to retake command of the message. He'll do so as the crisis reaches yet another moment of high risk, both in the Gulf and in Washington. At the scene of the oil spill, the oil firm BP -- attempting the latest of inventive but thus far ineffective maneuvers to stop the gusher that has been spewing from the gulf floor for five weeks -- has begun to pour 50,000 barrels of dense mud into the well. The exercise, known as a "top kill," has effectively stopped other spills in the past but has never been tried at the mile-down depth of this one. Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is scheduled to deliver the results of a review demanded by Obama that gives an accounting of the federal government's policies with regard to energy exploration on the outer continental shelf, including whether there are adequate safeguards with respect to regulations and inspections. Obama is expected to announce a series of new policies in response. The news conference will also come on the day before the president travels to the gulf to inspect the scene and also to send a message of engagement. With reporters having their first opportunity to put a full range of questions to Obama about the spill and his administration's handling of it, here are five that should be asked: 1. In explaining and defending your decision in March to open up additional offshore areas to drilling, you argued that improvements in technology have made drilling significantly less risky. Just 18 days before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, you said: "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced." What kind of assurances were you given that this was the case and by whom? What do you think of those assumptions now? 2. BP is now in the position of making many of the key decisions on how to deal with it -- a situation that is drawing growing criticism. White House officials note the administration is following a process established under the 1990 Oil Spill Act, which was passed in response to the Exxon Valdez incident; they also concede that the government, effectively, has no choice but to let BP take the lead because it lacks the equipment and expertise to do the job. In at least one instance in which the federal government has attempted to overrule BP, which was over its use of dispersant chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency says are too toxic, the company has not complied. What do you say to those who say too much control has been ceded to BP? And what kind of changes, if any, should be made in the process for dealing with future oil spills? 3. Salazar has pledged reform of the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for offshore drilling, which is now recognized as having been too compliant with the wishes of the oil industry. But his proposals -- for instance, splitting the agency into separate leasing, revenue collection and oversight -- have dealt largely with the organization of the MMS. If the problem is, as you have said, a cozy culture in the agency, is it enough simply to redraw the organization chart? How can you quickly change a culture that has taken decades to develop? 4. On May 6, Salazar announced a moratorium on the issuance of final permits for "new offshore drilling activity." Critics such as the Center for Biological Diversity note, however, that this policy has never been put into writing, and that its definition "has become steadily narrower as the Interior Department changes it to exclude whatever drilling permits MMS issues on any given day." And the New York Times has reported that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, waivers have continued to be granted for drilling projects. What, exactly, does this moratorium cover? 5. Should anyone in the government be fired as the result of this disaster? -Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.