The Obama administration announced yesterday that the 6-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf was over, starting yesterday. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar’s announcement also noted that there were changes in the way Bureau Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the Minerals Management Service) work, in terms of oversight and inspection.
Is this good news? Bad news? On the one hand, this will bring back jobs to a region that needs them during a recession (or “jobless recovery”). On the other is reinforcing our dependence on oil and risking further degradation to the land. United Houma Nation, a Native American tribe living in Coastal Louisiana, faces the paradox of this situation. Their principal chief, Brenda Dardar-Robichaux, talks about the threat that coastal erosion from hurricanes and alterations that oil companies have made to the coastline have on their way of life but she also notes that many members of the Houma Nation work in the oil industry. You can read more of what she wrote here.
One thing is clear: we need oversight, regulations, and inspections from a government body with enough enforcement power to make sure that this kind of spill, the loss of human life, and the damage to economy and ecosystem never happens again.
The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been, according to a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well. The Unified Command — the government team in charge of the spill response — also was discussing the possibility of making the numbers public, the report says, citing interviews with government officials.
The big "C word" (that would be censorship) is getting tossed around.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive. Administrations of both parties are bound to bend the story to their interests. And, when you get to the voting both you have to judge the performance of a politician in the totality, and in comparison to his opponent. But really now, really (as they are won't to say on SNL)! Does this square with the President's public message? Is this what one does when you want to keep the pressure on the company, to bring to bear public outrage?
And then folks wonder why liberals are less than energized about the coming elections. Unless of course this entire story is one big plot to repress the base vote, hmmmm....
As of this afternoon the WH hadn't commented on the story.
UPDATE: 6:38pm, NBC news is running with this story. Government was "overly casual" about the numbers & took BP's word on the estimates. WH says "worse case data" was "publicly available."
An oil rig surge has transpired at a platform within the Gulf of Mexico. Nobody died when one person was injured. There is no cause of blast yet. The blast happened in an oil platform on the shoreline of Louisiana close to Vermillion Bay. The rig is fairly far away from the Bp oil platform that exploded in April as it is owned by Mariner Energy. The Vermillion rig was luckily in really shallow water. This is much not the same as the Deepwater platform that erupted within the Gulf Coast. Post resource - Vermillion oil rig explosion hits Gulf of Mexico drilling site by Personal Money Store.
One hurt in oil rig explosion
Only a single person was reported to be hurt in the surge of the oil rig. First, the drilling platform exploded. As that was happening, 13 individuals went overboard. After 9 a.m., the brand new York Times reports the Coast Guard got reports. These reports indicated that a gas platform was on fire. Helicopters and Coast Guard vessels arrived about an hour later. All 13 workers that went into the water following the blast were rescued and accounted for. Since the Deepwater gas rig explosion killed 11, it is surprising that only a single person was injured.
Shallow waters
The Vermillion Oil Rig 380 was not drilling nearly as deep as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was. The Vermillion oil rig sits atop only 340 feet of water, about 100 miles (80 nautical miles) off the Louisiana coast. 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas and 1,400 barrels of oil were coming out of the rig, says CNN. The Coast Guard is trying first to get the fire out. As soon as individuals caught wind of the explosion, business shares went down. In fact, Mariner Energy dropped 5 percent.
Offshore drilling difficulties
Debate over offshore drilling has been hot for a when. It has been years. It looks really dangerous and has too numerous risks to the environment each and every time an oil rig explodes. Though British Petroleum has stepped up to the plate to take responsibility for the oil spill, resource extraction businesses rarely clean up their own messes, and working class often get stuck with another Superfund site.
Discover more information on this subject
CNN
edition.cnn.com/2010/US/09/02/louisiana.gas.rig.explosion/?hpt=T2#fbid=QdDzKvaTDgY and wom=false
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03rig.html?partner=rss and emc=rss
Check out this video of Tracy Kuhns, a member of the Gulf Coast Fellowship's 1st cohort, and organizer/leader of Louisiana Bayoukeepers. Filmed this June, she talks of the struggles that shrimpers and other residents of Louisiana's coastal communities - out of work, losing their businesses, environmental and personal health impacts - are dealing with after the BP spill.
With props to the Gulf Coast Fund (our partners and collaborators in creating the Fellowship) who filmed this as part of the Bridge the Gulf Project a storytelling initiative promoting cultural survival, environmental justice, and sustainable development in Gulf Coast communities.
Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government. With 600 lobbists who have very close relationships to DC, proposals to enact new restrictions or curb oil use have stalled amid concerted Republican opposition and strong objections from Democrats in oil-producing states.
"Religion, at its worst, can be used to eliminate human agency and responsibility. Texas Governor Rick Perry invoked a morally deficient appeal to religious language last month when he called the Gulf oil spill “an act of G-d.” While we can debate G-d’s presence in the world, we need not debate the issue of human responsibility and culpability.
"A primary charge of the Jewish social justice tradition is the demand that we learn both how to limit our damage and how to hold ourselves and others who cause damage accountable."
Gail Collins tends to make my lips curl up around the edges (be it smile or smirk), even when she's pointing out sad, sad things -- like missed opportunities in the midst of tragedy or disaster.
Definitely worth a read, especially with this lead -- or if the speech left you hungering for something less bland with clearer action lines and more forceful vision (oh, and fixes -- for the oil spewing, lax regulations, livelihoods, coastline, etc.):
On Monday night in Ohio, a 62-foot-tall statue of Jesus got hit by lightning and burned to the ground. (The adult bookstore across the street was unscathed.) Less than 12 hours later, Gen. David Petraeus — who is not God, although certain members of Congress have been known to worship at his altar — semifainted at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Then Bravo announced that the White House gate-crashers were getting a TV show. Al and Tipper remained in Splitsville. And the oil kept on spilling.
So you sort of knew from the portents that President Obama’s big Oval Office speech was not going to be a terrific game-changer. The way things had been going, the president was lucky that a man-eating pterodactyl didn’t come crashing through the window during his opening remarks.
