The environment thread

[southsider2k5]

BP checks the list of available dispersants. Finds one that a subsidiary company of its own produces.

 

Checks the stats on that dispersant. Sees it is not the most effective dispersant. Sees it is much more toxic than other available dispersants.

 

Begins purchasing and deploying massive quantities of that dispersant anyway.

 

EPA turns its head for a month.

 

EPA finally gets its head out of its arse earlier this week, after a lot of prodding from media/sciencey types who were saying "BP is using a more toxic dispersant than it needs to and it could be using better, more modern ones!"

 

EPA orders BP to find another dispersant.

 

Meanwhile, CNN finds a warehouse in Texas holding a few hundred thousand gallons of a less toxic, more effective dispersant, just sitting there.

 

BP tells the EPA to s***w off, they'll use whatever dispersant they damn well please, it's their gulf anyway.

 

They must need more regulations....

[Balta1701]

They must need more regulations....

Or, to parody your side...they need a bigger check made out to them.

 

You must be happy you have a stellar politician like Rand Paul making your side look so impressive these days.

[bmags]

Putting on his boots to step on the neck of BP. And selling out campaign dinners.

 

He will not rest, though, until this crisis is over.

 

poor BP, who is looking out for them?

[Balta1701]

poor BP, who is looking out for them?

The Obama Administration, for sure.

[bmags]

Nooo, balta, they are protecting BP from responsibility because they really want to step on their neck.

[mr_genius]

Nooo, balta, they are protecting BP from responsibility because they really want to step on their neck.

 

typical Obama

[EvilMonkey]

Or, to parody your side...they need a bigger check made out to them.

 

You must be happy you have a stellar politician like Rand Paul making your side look so impressive these days.

Nice how you take one fringe guy and he suddenly represents the whole party. Do we even need to go down the Dem side of things? Like the guy who has been lying about his military record for decades? Or Sestak who claims the White House made him a job offer to not oppose Specter, WHICH IS A CRIME! Clean your own house first, it is far dirtier right now.

Edited May 22, 2010 by Alpha Dog

[EvilMonkey]

It's been a month now and there has been no improvement in the gulf. Where the f*** is Obama and the government?

Obama is either out playing golf or on a 'date-night' with his wife.

[Balta1701]

Nice how you take one fringe guy and he suddenly represents the whole party. Do we even need to go down the Dem side of things? Like the guy who has been lying about his military record for decades? Clean your own house first, it is far dirtier right now.

Lindsey Graham or George W.?

[Balta1701]

Obama's wonderful executive order creating a commission to investigate the disaster?

Sec. 4. Administration. (a) The Commission shall hold public hearings and shall request information including relevant documents from Federal, State, and local officials, nongovernmental organizations, private entities, scientific institutions, industry and workforce representatives, communities, and others affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, as necessary to carry out its mission.

Yeah, that's right, no subpoena power.

 

Congrats, 2k5 and Kap. It won't be BP's fault.

[bmags]

WHY DOES OBAMA HATE BP SO MUCH THEY ARE JUST TRYING TO MAKE MONEY BY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF OTHER BUSINESSES AND POISONING OUR WATER WHY ARE THEY SO VICTIMIZED IS IT BECAUSE THEY ARE WHITE WHYYYYYYYYY

[Balta1701]

Ohh, tough talk! 33 days into the spill, probably 10 Exxon-Valdez units and 11 dead workers later, if BP doesn't do something unspecified by us before an unspecified deadline, there might actually be consequences like having the Feds take over control of cleaning up a multi-state disaster that is going to end the economy of the Gulf states for 50 years which BP's only interest in stopping it appears to involve making as much money selling chemical dispersants to themselves as possible.

"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," Salazar said, but he did not specify at what point this would occur or what might be the trigger for it.

 

"This is an existential crisis for one of the world's largest companies," he said, in a reference to the billions of dollars of cleanup and damages costs that BP faces.

Maybe it's time for another sternly worded letter.

[Balta1701]

Seriously, why has this thing not been declared a national state of emergency yet?

[kapkomet]

Seriously, why has this thing not been declared a national state of emergency yet?

 

 

You seriously don't know why?

 

Because it would be an admission to the almighty Barackus the Great = Epic Fail.

Edited May 23, 2010 by kapkomet

[Balta1701]

You seriously don't know why?

Isn't it pretty much a vitally important step for releasing federal disaster assistance funds?

[Balta1701]

You seriously don't know why?

 

Because it would be an admission to the almighty Barackus the Great = Epic Fail.

But he's an evil socialist. That would give him the ability to suspend all those rights and take control of BP like he wants to anyway.

[kapkomet]

But he's an evil socialist. That would give him the ability to suspend all those rights and take control of BP like he wants to anyway.

 

 

So why doesn't he?

[kapkomet]

I can't believe you all aren't all over this...

 

1) it's BRITISH Petroleum. He can't take it over. If this were Exxon, he would have already nationalized it.

 

2.) and besides, he's got to keep them campaign contributions coming in. Kind of like your pals GS.

 

[Balta1701]

1) it's BRITISH Petroleum. He can't take it over. If this were Exxon, he would have already nationalized it.

He could certainly nationalize the U.S. portion of BP and its assets. Happens all the bloody time in fossil fuel industries. Hell, BP probably has a standard procedure reaction to it. They're probably more prepared for that than they are for oil spills.

[bmags]

hahaha

[kapkomet]

He could certainly nationalize the U.S. portion of BP and its assets. Happens all the bloody time in fossil fuel industries. Hell, BP probably has a standard procedure reaction to it. They're probably more prepared for that than they are for oil spills.

 

 

Really? How cool. Why doesn't he or hasn't he?

 

He's just like every broken promise BP has given. He hasn't gotten involved because there's no solution. But watch, as soon as they figure out what works, he'll step in and act like he's saved the world and take all the credit. It's too easy.

[Balta1701]

Really? How cool. Why doesn't he or hasn't he?

 

He's just like every broken promise BP has given. He hasn't gotten involved because there's no solution. But watch, as soon as they figure out what works, he'll step in and act like he's saved the world and take all the credit. It's too easy.

Frankly, this is a troubling week...if they start trying to pump stuff into that well to seal it off...it's entirely possible that they'll make things worse rapidly rather than better. You change the pressure situation after a well rupture and it's entirely possible that other stuff starts fracturing and collapsing.

 

There actually is a solution, but it's a solution I'm not sure anyone wants to hear; nuke the whole F***ing thing. I'm totally serious. Of course, if you were going to do that, you did it a month ago; at this point, the Gulf is already lost, so it's almost not even worth the bomb.

 

Anyway, there was other stuff they could have forced BP to do, like using more effective dispersants, like bringing in outside help a lot more rapidly, like having actual organization amongst all of the fisherman and making sure they get paid and that they have actual respirators rather than letting them breathe in the crap they're breathing, like forcing BP to try these makeshift sealing plans earlier rather than later, like setting up an actual emergency fund and setting up plans to start relocating people out of the area, there's a whole list of things that could have been done. BP's oil spill response tech here is probably worse than the response tech was after Exxon.

[Balta1701]

Of course...another way to have helped this problem would have been to, 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 8 years ago...have launched a crash program to get this country off of dirty fuels.

 

You know, I always thought that it would take fossil fuels decades to destroy Florida.

[NorthSideSox72]

This has not been handled well by the administration. I see a lot of theories flying around as to why. One is about campaign contributions - this seems thin, given that the main reason he got so many from BP is because they count each employee's individual contribution as somehow being done for the company (which makes no sense). Another is that he WANTS this to go badly, so that he can push the clean energy agenda harder. Interesting theory, but that would mean he'd be gambling away political capital at a time where he needs every cent of that - so I kind of doubt it.

 

I'd suggest instead there are two, simpler reasons. One, unlike Katrina, no human is dying as a result (after the explosion) - this not only means people are less quick to respond, but it also means that agencies like FEMA simply aren't prepared or trained for this type of event. Two, I think that this is ObamaCo being administratively immature. They are faced with a situation they don't know how to handle, and that the agencies aren't used to handling, so they are stumbling. Much the same as what we saw from BushCo on Katrina, this lack of administrative abilities is hurting the response. Katria was worse in that people were dying, and BushCo was a little more crass in its treatment... but otherwise, the situations are eerily similar in terms of what is making them fail.

 

[Balta1701]

This has not been handled well by the administration. I see a lot of theories flying around as to why. One is about campaign contributions - this seems thin, given that the main reason he got so many from BP is because they count each employee's individual contribution as somehow being done for the company (which makes no sense). Another is that he WANTS this to go badly, so that he can push the clean energy agenda harder. Interesting theory, but that would mean he'd be gambling away political capital at a time where he needs every cent of that - so I kind of doubt it.

 

I'd suggest instead there are two, simpler reasons. One, unlike Katrina, no human is dying as a result (after the explosion) - this not only means people are less quick to respond, but it also means that agencies like FEMA simply aren't prepared or trained for this type of event. Two, I think that this is ObamaCo being administratively immature. They are faced with a situation they don't know how to handle, and that the agencies aren't used to handling, so they are stumbling. Much the same as what we saw from BushCo on Katrina, this lack of administrative abilities is hurting the response. Katria was worse in that people were dying, and BushCo was a little more crass in its treatment... but otherwise, the situations are eerily similar in terms of what is making them fail.

I don't know if I'd exactly say Campaign Contributions would be my expected reasoning. I'd say it's more a matter of philosophy. Regardless of what Kap says, this is a very "Centrist" administration...at least in the current spectrum definition, where being as corporatist as possible is defined as the center. They're not jumping on BP because they don't want to jump on BP, because their instinct is to be trusting and friendly towards big business. They worked to protect wall street for their whole first year, they used the same lies as Bush in trying to sell more offshore drilling, and they trusted that BP wasn't openly lying to them when they said "it's a small leak" for the first week or two until satellite measurements became available