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

To: coug who wrote (80572)	5/28/2010 10:40:11 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Defending Our Natural Resources From Presidents and Profits _______________________________________________________________ By Eugene Robinson Columnist The Washington Post Posted on May 27, 2010 In June of 1969, the stretch of the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga this way: “Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.” The spectacle of a river in flames helped galvanize the environmental movement, and the following year, with Richard Nixon as president, the Environmental Protection Agency was established. In 1972, Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act. Today, the Cuyahoga is clean enough to support more than 40 species of fish. We still don’t know the full extent of the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico—the impact on avian and aquatic life, on fisheries, on tourism, on the delicate ecology of coastal marshes and barrier islands. We do know, though, that it is the worst oil spill in our nation’s history, far surpassing the Exxon Valdez incident. And maybe the shocking images from the gulf of dead fish, oiled pelicans and shores lapped by viscous “brown mousse” will refocus attention on the need to preserve the environment, not just exploit it. “Drill, baby, drill” isn’t just the bizarrely inappropriate chant that we remember from the Republican National Convention two years ago. It’s a pretty good indication of where the national ethos has drifted. Environmental regulation is seen as a bureaucratic imposition—not as an insurance policy against potential catastrophe, and certainly not as a moral imperative. Yes, many Americans feel good about going through the motions of environmentalism. We’ve made a religion of recycling, which is an important change. We turn off the lights when we leave the room—and we’re even beginning to use fluorescent bulbs. Some of us, though not enough, understand the long-term threat posed by climate change; a subset of those who see the danger are even willing to make lifestyle changes to try to avert a worst-case outcome. But where the rubber hits the road—in public policy—we’ve reverted to our pre-enlightenment ways. When there’s a perceived conflict between environmental stewardship and economic growth, the bottom line wins. Barack Obama is, in many admirable ways, our most progressive president in decades. But as an environmentalist, let’s face it, he’s no Richard Nixon. Before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded—allowing, by some estimates, up to a million gallons of crude oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico each day for more than a month—Obama had announced plans to permit new offshore drilling. “I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything,” Obama said at the time. “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” Obama has wisely backed away from that decision. The technology involved in deep-sea oil drilling turned out to be far more advanced than the technology needed to halt a spill if something goes wrong—essentially, like engineering a car to double its top speed without thinking to upgrade the brakes. This oversight apparently wasn’t noticed by anyone who had the power to correct it. Calls for Obama to somehow “take over” the emergency response ring hollow. Take it over with what? Hands-on intervention has never been government’s role in this kind of situation. BP and the other oil companies had the undersea robots and the deep-water experience. Other private companies owned and operated the skimmers that remove the oil from the surface. There is no huge government reserve of the booms that are needed to protect Louisiana’s beaches and marshlands; those are made by private firms and are being deployed by unemployed fishermen. Obama has rethought his enthusiasm for offshore drilling. Now he, and the rest of us, should rethink the larger issue—the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection. In the long run, our natural resources are all we’ve got. Defending them must be a higher priority than our recent presidents, including Obama, have made it. Energy policy is one of Obama’s priorities. He talks about “clean coal,” which I believe to be an oxymoron, and favors technologies—such as carbon capture and sequestration—that are new and untested. The environmental risks must be a central and paramount concern, not a mere afterthought. Let’s preclude the next Deepwater Horizon right now. © 2010, Washington Post Writers Group

To: coug who wrote (80572)	5/28/2010 10:42:52 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The Gulf's silent environmental crisis cnn.com

To: coug who wrote (80572)	5/28/2010 12:01:49 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Spill Could Make BP Vulnerable ______________________________________________________________ By ROB COX and CHRISTOPHER SWANN THE NEW YORK TIMES May 27, 2010 BP is likely to eventually stop the flow of oil from its explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. After that happens, the autopsy of the spill will begin in earnest. But if the information dribbling into the public domain proves correct, the British energy giant will be a weakened creature — so weak it will be vulnerable to a takeover. Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil are almost certainly running the numbers. Government leaders ought to be plotting their strategy, too. The fiasco in the gulf, which killed 11 workers, has shined a new light on BP’s poor safety track record. The current disaster is the company’s third American offense in recent years, coming shortly after the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and the 2006 Prudhoe Bay spill that leaked more than 200,000 gallons into Alaskan waters. The list of problems reflects poorly on management and furthers the impression of a corner-cutting culture that the chief executive, Tony Hayward, had, until recently, been widely credited with improving. The response by BP’s board has been somewhat tepid, with little public support offered to management or guidance provided to shareholders. Add these factors up, fold in the potential cost of cleanup, and it is little wonder that investors have wiped as much as $46 billion off the company’s market value since mid-April. At $141 billion on Thursday, BP’s capitalization is half of Exxon’s and less than the $165 billion value of Shell, which has traditionally traded at a discount to BP. Even before BP’s latest troubles, the arguments for a deal were compelling, largely because of the cost savings that could accrue. Mr. Hayward’s predecessor, John Browne, wrote in his memoirs that BP had aimed for $9 billion in annual synergies from a possible merger with Shell a few years ago. Those would in theory be worth some $60 billion to investors. And though a combination with Shell or BP would be huge, the antitrust implications might not be. The company would control no more than about 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. At a time when nearly 90 percent of the planet’s crude oil is controlled by even larger national energy groups — including Saudi Aramco and Russia’s Gazprom — that kind of scale seems defensible. It might even be viewed as a positive factor in securing Western energy independence from potentially unfriendly oil-rich governments. Some operations in the United States and Britain would probably need to be sold, including refineries and service stations. That was envisioned in the discussions the companies held a few years ago, according to Mr. Browne’s book. But these would account for only a small fraction of the deal’s value. Such wrinkles are tiny compared with BP’s other attractions for a Shell or an Exxon. Though BP has operations worldwide, it has a big footprint in the politically stable areas that the major oil firms increasingly crave. It is the largest producer in the Gulf of Mexico and Britain’s North Sea. And its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska is still the largest in North America. So what’s stopping Exxon or Shell from pouncing? For starters, there is still no clear indication of what happened on Deepwater Horizon, who was at fault and what it will cost to clean up things. Any responsible acquirer would probably wait for greater clarity on these contingent liabilities before making a move. That could be months away. And though antitrust concerns could be assuaged, the politics could prove trickier. For one, Britain’s new government might object to seeing a former national champion sold to a Texas corporation — even though BP was permitted by American authorities to buy Amoco and Atlantic Richfield in years past. Washington, too, might fear the creation of a company so big it would be difficult for the government to put its “boot on their neck,” to use the language of the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, in relation to BP’s cleanup efforts. A merged BP-Exxon would effectively reconstitute a substantial part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. But times have changed. In 1911, when the government broke up Standard, oil was a domestic business. Today, private Western members of the oil fraternity operate on a global stage facing well-off competitors. A weakened BP could struggle in that environment anyway. If rivals start circling, the company — and interested governments — may need to contemplate even bigger oil giants.