With the BP spill destroying large areas of our coast and expected to move up the East Coast, lawmakers are pushing President Barack Obama to honor his earlier pledge to lift the moratorium on new drilling along our coasts. The oil lobby is pushing for expanded drilling even as the disaster mounts in the Gulf — many are calling the moratorium an “overreaction.”
Lawmakers and lobbyists are returning to the earlier theme that more drilling means more jobs and lower gas prices. For his part, Obama (who previously assured Americans that oil rigs really do not cause spills and opened up the East Coast to drilling) has only promised to freeze drilling for the moment. He has not agreed to rescind his earlier decision to eventually open up the East Coast to drilling rigs and to reaffirm the long-standing moratorium.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., insisted that “to completely shut down deepwater (drilling) and even threaten shallow water is a huge economic blow. And on top of the recession and on top of the hit that the oil is directly making on our economy, that is another big, big economic blow that is going to knock us down.”
Members who previously did the bidding of the oil lobby have been put in something of a pickle as they decry the massive damages from the spill while they fight for more drilling. These members who have some of the lowest environmental voting records have been shown on television expressing horror over the costs of the damage. Of course, it is not just the oil lobby’s main supporters in Congress. Notably, when Congress passed the $75 million cap on damages for oil companies (just a year after the Exxon disaster), not a single member of Congress voted against it.
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Phillip,
I don’t know if DSVs would be of any help in this case – it would depend on what sort of manipulative apparatus they had. It seems likely that unmanned submersibles designed for work on undersea wellheads would be better equipped to deal with this situation that ocean research vessels. In any case, I think that the state of the well probably precludes any sort of solution from the top – I doubt they’re going to be able to do more than collect some of the oil until a successful relief well is drilled and a bottom kill is initiated.
To Whom It May Concern:
Has anyone considered ths use of MANNED deep submersible vhicles(DSV’s for short) to help stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and especially South Louisiana? The Alvin, out of Woods Hole Oceanographic Insitute in Massachusetts. It was used by Bob Ballard to discover the Titanic. Most of these DSV’s are owned by the US Navy and were designed to withstand extremes in pressure(over 13,000 ft), temperatures and chemical environment. They have extentable booms, cameras for documentation and live feed, vacuuum lines as well as the latest in instrumentation. The cabin can hold 3 passengers (1 pilot & 2 crew members). The passengers can be hand picked to accomplish the mission it was assigned. These submersibles also have several props and water jet giving it the ability to be autonomous. The presence of 3 observers, ability to make onsite decisions and alter the mission accordingly makes the DSV the ability BP has not had, MEN onsite. There are several websites that will give you more information than I have here. I’m sure with your position, contact with the USN and Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute would be much easier than mine. Please take into consideraton this suggestion as time is of the upmost importance now.
Regards, Phillip Constantin
BP buys Google, Yahoo search words to keep people away from real news on Gulf oil spill disaster.
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” – W.C. Fields
News like this is really going to make those angry with BP calm down. Or not.
Police protection for family of BP boss Tony Hayward. Awww, noooo shit. People want to hurt the incompetent and callous corporatist jackass after his shoddy operations endangered their lives and livelihoods.
Who’d have thunk it?
rcampbell
“How is it possible in a world that includes koala bears, that David Vitter’s words would be used by anyone as any kind of guidance on any subject at any time?”
ROTFLOL
Koala bears have other uses, they are know for urinating on politicians. Several years ago one piddled on an Australian Federal Government minister, the minister for sport if I remember correctly.
Okay, no sweat Byron.
FFLEO:
I posted my gmail email, I am sorry but I will not be posting my web address in a public forum.
Speaking of cheap ho’s:
“74 Democrats signed a joint letter to the FCC supporting internet throttling by Verizon, ATT and Comcast. Throttling lets carriers slow or block internet traffic. This is a clear attack on net neutrality”
It has a chart of donations too.
http://agonist.org/netbetrayal
BIL: ” This is how much is costs to purchase an elected official. ”
—
What never ceases to amaze me about charts like the one yo linked to no matter what issue of vital national importance such a chart can be constructed for, is just what CHEAP ho’s our elected officials are. They are willing to sell us and the future out for a pittance. That alone should get them a reserved spot in Hell, if there were one.
Queen of Sheba said:
“doesn’t [Bobby Jindal] know that there are a helluva lot more jobs in the fishing and tourism industries at stake in his state than jobs in the drilling for oil”
Not anymore. BP put them on the table as part of their bet and lost them – they’re gone and I don’t think they’ll be back for decades, if ever.
rcampbell:
You are so right
Today’s article in the Denver Post. This is a good history of another disaster created by then-Secretary of the Interior James Watt (Yes, that Watt) and President Reagan.
Quote:
“Tracking down Minerals Management Service’s dysfunctional history of drilling oversight”
“MMS employees routinely accepted gifts — and sometimes sex and drugs — from oil companies they regulated, according to two reports from Interior’s inspector general.”
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15236764
… what rcampbell said …
David Vitter, as well as other legislators and state executives pushing the idea of more offshore drilling (and onshore drilling, for that matter) is either woefully ignorant, dependent on oil companyies’ largesse, or just a lying scumbag. We could drill for oil on every square inch of land or sea within the jurisdiction of this country and it wouldn’t begin to fill our rapacious need for oil and wouldn’t bring the price of fuel down by so much as a nickle. Vitter and his cohorts in Congress calling for a lifting of the moratorium on offshore drilling should be told to sit down and STFU or get off their duffs and go down to the coast and start cleaning up the oil-soaked marshes and wildlife.
The governor of Vitter’s state, Bobby Jindal, actually came out last week whining about oil industry jobs and the loss of royalty revenue to Louisiana. I guess he doesn’t know that there are a helluva lot more jobs in the fishing and tourism industries at stake in his state than jobs in the drilling for oil, and that his state received only about $35 million in royalty revenue from offshore oil drilling last year. Maybe he’s just ignorant of the fact that Louisiana receives zero royalties on any oil pumped out of the Gulf past 6 miles from shore.
I will never understand how the Republicans in the Gulf states stay in office. The majority of their voters, who continue to re-elect these cretins, must be fools of the first order.
rcampbell you are so right. Somebody should tell Obama about this. He still believes in “bipartisanship” with these thugs.
Aarg.
“how much it” – first coffee.
This is how much is costs to purchase an elected official.
Well . . . it’s how much the oil industry paid for their defective merchandise anyway.
“David Vitter, R-La., insisted…….”
How is it possible in a world that includes koala bears, that David Vitter’s words would be used by anyone as any kind of guidance on any subject at any time? Conservative have no credibility on any issue before the American public. There is no mystery as to where their world view leads. We’re living the nightmare of the full expression of 30 years of conservative politics and policies.
The inevitible results of conservative policies (e.g, low taxes particularly for the wealthiest, low hourly wages/easy credit, laissez-faire economic and regulatory posture) have been seen in the worldwide financial meltdown still plaguing the US, crippling Greece and threatening Ireland, Italy and others. The face of conservatism can be seen in the faces of the families of dead miners in Kentucky. They’ve steadfastly protected the health insurance industry to the detriment of all Americans’ health. Conservatives still defend illegal torture. Conservatives didn’t want seat belts, OSHA or the EPA which have saved Americans’ air, water and lives. That musical group, Rand Paul and the Teabaggers, isn’t even sure that Civil Rights thing was such a good idea. And now conservatism haunts the everyday existence of millions along the Gulf Coast.
If conservatives say “Drill”, then we should ban drilling. If conservatives want tough immigration laws, that means the only correct action is to open the borders. Whatever they suggest is always wrong, so let’s do the opposite. Nothing they’ve offered for thirty years has been right, why follow them off another cliff?
As I understand it, BP NA will take the fall and then file Bankruptcy to save the rest of its heads. Needless to say, criminal prosecutions could still happen.