Not Obama's Katrina, Bush's second Katrina

[Bfgrn]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

 

[Oddball]

 

[westwall]

Yes and Obama was the largest single recipient of money from BP for the last 20 years.
All of these comments mean nothing and help no one. It is not the presidents fault when stuff like this happens. The pres is not God. How the Pres handles the situation after the fact is what matters and so far both administrations have been lacking.

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

 

[Bfgrn]

How cute. A 'Jethro' is a person that ignores facts and history and goobers along based on what he feels. You are truly a lightweight when it comes to any intelligent debate or cognitive thinking...DUD...a true "Jethro'

DUD's true avatar

 

[Oddball]

Yeah....G'head and cite the goober who blamed Katrina on gullible warming, Jethro.

 

[Bfgrn]

Yeah....G'head and cite the goober who blamed Katrina on gullible warming, Jethro.

Here's your problem Jethro, climate change is real. That fact is supported by REAL science and is supported by an overwhelming consensus of competent scientists on the planet. You are being goobered by a right wing echo chamber created by big oil, mining cartels and monied interests in fighting any regulations or restrictions on those industries...

They are basically same organizations and think tanks that fought tobacco legislation using obfuscation and junk science to create doubt cancer and cigarette smoke is related.

You are as gullible as they come...it about money. Have mommy and daddy research Koch Industries, then explain it to you.

 

[Big Black Dog]

I'm sure that Bush is just as responsible for creating the hurricane as Owe Bama is for creating the oil spill. Both are pretty difficult feats for even a President.

 

[Liability]

Oil wells in the ocean are not perfect creations. Oil spills happen. (Indeed, more oil is spilled each year by entirely natural seepage than by all oil drilling accidents combined).

The disaster that hit that oil well wasn't the "fault" of the Bush Administration any more than it was the "fault" of the Obama administration.

Any argument from that pompous clown-voiced moron, Robert Kennedy, Jr., is presumptively false.

President Bush got roundly (in my view unfairly) criticized for the slow Federal Government reaction to the Katrina disaster.

The basis of the criticism of President Obama is not based on who is "responsible" for the oil leaking. It is VALIDLY based on how long it took his Administration to RESPOND to the obvious and growing problems associated with the leak.

The OP is 99.95% bullshit. The remaining .05% is absurd. Nobody expects anything more from Bfgrn, though.

 

[Oddball]

Yeah....G'head and cite the goober who blamed Katrina on gullible warming, Jethro.

Here's your problem Jethro, climate change is real. That fact is supported by REAL science and is supported by an overwhelming consensus of competent scientists on the planet. You are being goobered by a right wing echo chamber created by big oil, mining cartels and monied interests in fighting any regulations or restrictions on those industries...

They are basically same organizations and think tanks that fought tobacco legislation using obfuscation and junk science to create doubt cancer and cigarette smoke is related.

You are as gullible as they come...it about money. Have mommy and daddy research Koch Industries, then explain it to you.

Wowzers!!.....Strawman, argumentum ad hominem, non sequitur, argumentum ad hominem, appeal to authority, argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad hominem all rolled into one post.

You must be studying for your logical fallacy finals, Jethro!

 

[CMike]

The federal government did a lot to help in the Katrina disaster, Obama refuses to do anything in the oil spill disaster other than supervise. Therefore, it's nothing like Katrina.

Also the person who got the most campaign contribution from BP, is none other than the infamous Barak Hussein Obama.

 

[rdean]

Yes and Obama was the largest single recipient of money from BP for the last 20 years.
All of these comments mean nothing and help no one. It is not the presidents fault when stuff like this happens. The pres is not God. How the Pres handles the situation after the fact is what matters and so far both administrations have been lacking.

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Once again, you guys look like dumb asses. Obama only received 71,000 dollars AND, they were from the "employees" and NOT the company itself.

 

[boedicca]

Uh. Not Really. The Obama Administration gave BP a pass:

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf...

washingtonpost.com


April 6, 2009 was on Obama's Watch. Too bad he was spent so much time on the Porkulus Bill and approving all of those earmarks in the Omnibus Bill to focus on his "lobbyist" reforms.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I laughed so hard at the OP I hurt myself, whom do I sue?

Bush's fault? LOLOLOL! Bush's fault!!! LOLOLOL OMFG!!!!

 

[Old Rocks]

If the efforts fail to stem the flow of oil, and if it increases, then this will effectively end the drilling offshore. Doesn't matter who blames whom, it will be a matter of risk versus gain.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

If the efforts fail to stem the flow of oil, and if it increases, then this will effectively end the drilling offshore. Doesn't matter who blames whom, it will be a matter of risk versus gain.

How about you give up posting your stupid fucking nonsense on the Internet as a sign of your willingness to go without the energy offshore drilling provides us, will ya do that?

 

[Old Rocks]

And so will you.

 

[rdean]

Uh. Not Really. The Obama Administration gave BP a pass:

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf...

washingtonpost.com


April 6, 2009 was on Obama's Watch. Too bad he was spent so much time on the Porkulus Bill and approving all of those earmarks in the Omnibus Bill to focus on his "lobbyist" reforms.

Did you read the entire article?

This is from the "Act" you are referencing:

While the plan included a 13-page environmental impact analysis, it minimized the prospect of any serious damage associated with a spill, saying there would be only "sub-lethal" effects on fish and marine mammals, and "birds could become oiled. However it is unlikely that an accidental oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

Current guidelines from the previous administration were being followed. Obama hasn't had time to fix the previous administration's constantly growing list of "fuck ups".

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Uh. Not Really. The Obama Administration gave BP a pass:

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf...

washingtonpost.com


April 6, 2009 was on Obama's Watch. Too bad he was spent so much time on the Porkulus Bill and approving all of those earmarks in the Omnibus Bill to focus on his "lobbyist" reforms.

Did you read the entire article?

This is from the "Act" you are referencing:

While the plan included a 13-page environmental impact analysis, it minimized the prospect of any serious damage associated with a spill, saying there would be only "sub-lethal" effects on fish and marine mammals, and "birds could become oiled. However it is unlikely that an accidental oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

Current guidelines from the previous administration were being followed. Obama hasn't had time to fix the previous administration's constantly growing list of "fuck ups".

Boooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh We hates him my preciousssss

You fuckers are bat shit crazy and funny as all fucking hell

 

[rdean]

So I go look up, "National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)" to see what year it was written? 1969. Who was president in 1969? I should have guessed.

 

[rdean]

Uh. Not Really. The Obama Administration gave BP a pass:

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf...

washingtonpost.com


April 6, 2009 was on Obama's Watch. Too bad he was spent so much time on the Porkulus Bill and approving all of those earmarks in the Omnibus Bill to focus on his "lobbyist" reforms.

Did you read the entire article?

This is from the "Act" you are referencing:

While the plan included a 13-page environmental impact analysis, it minimized the prospect of any serious damage associated with a spill, saying there would be only "sub-lethal" effects on fish and marine mammals, and "birds could become oiled. However it is unlikely that an accidental oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

Current guidelines from the previous administration were being followed. Obama hasn't had time to fix the previous administration's constantly growing list of "fuck ups".

Boooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh We hates him my preciousssss

You fuckers are bat shit crazy and funny as all fucking hell

Believe me, I sympathize with you. Wanting to believe your favorite president was a good one. But he wasn't. It's a sad reality. I hope you are able to "take it". Please, don't go batshit and try to find out how to make a bomb.