We have previously discussed how the Obama Administration played down the environmental damage caused by the BP oil spill, including public statements by people like Carol Browner that the oil (which was later found) had miraculously disappeared. Now, documents have been disclosed suggesting that the Obama Administration blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public of how bad the oil spill was. Once again, there is relatively little attention to this story. The Bush Administration was accused of the same type of manipulation of scientific reports and was generally (and rightfully) savaged in the press.
The documents released Wednesday show that 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 documents indicate that the decision to withhold the information may have been made at a “high level.” One staff report stated that withholding the information played into the view that the spill could easily be controlled.
What is most disturbing is how this withheld information dovetails with the later efforts to downplay the significance of the spill and public indications from officials that President Obama would likely resume his controversial plan to open up pristine areas of the East Coast to drilling.
Source: Miami Herald
Tony C You must be a republican if you actually think republicans are not worse on women’s issues than democrats. Many are against abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. Read the party platforms. A republican president only appoints justices who are anti-abortion to the Supreme Court.
@Swarthmore: I am for complete equality of women and women’s pay (by law if necessary) and I am pro-choice.
Although I do not teach, my university gig is certainly linked to Pell Grants. I am actually for 100% free college funded by the federal government, I think everybody that wants to go should be able to go; it is an investment in society’s future to have people be as educated as they are willing to be.
Foreclosures… eh. A tragedy, certainly, and I am 100% behind a safety net that includes some kind of generic living arrangements for those that would be otherwise homeless; but I also had to learn some hard lessons about debt, and recognizing crap that sounded free would not be, and all of that. I can sympathize but I won’t hold them harmless, hard lessons have to be hard or they aren’t lessons.
What you fail to understand is that the Democrats are going to be just as bad for women, for students, for poor suckers losing their home. All you can look at is the surface effect of what happens tomorrow, while ignoring the systemic effects of what is going to happen in 2012 and 2014 and 2016. Your vote for Democrats is going to give you Pell Grants in return for a bipartisan destruction of Social Security and Medicare.
As for women — I do not believe any realistic number of Republicans elected to Congress will erode the Constitutional rights of women in the next decade any more than Democrats would. I don’t care what their stated positions are; I firmly believe that if any of their batshit policies pass it will be with the help of elected Democrats already in office today, and signed by a Democrat President that could have vetoed it.
Too much of this pop-politics is just a distraction from the erosion of civil rights and domination of corporate influence that is the most dangerous, existential issue confronting our country.
It is as if you and others are in the living room watching a game and debating whether the red team or blue team has a better shot at the playoffs this year; while the kitchen is ablaze and burglars are upstairs stealing the jewelry.
their first reaction is always to hide or cover anything that might make them look bad.
as much as i like shrimp it’s off my menu. the best way they have to test for petroleum contamination is to sniff it. i haven’t heard if they are training people to sniff for corexit contamination.
If the government is trying to hide it, one can bet it ain’t good news.
Buckeye, I would tend to agree with you BUT both the government and BP blocked all efforts by independent scientists to get information independently. The Coast Guard, local police and BP hired private security wouldn’t let anyone get near the beaches on on the water to do surveys or testing. They probably still are acting in an obstructionist manner but the story has fallen off the news radar.
Addiction Analyst- I think your problem in understanding President Obama’s actions may possibly stem from an assumption that Obama is a liberal who wants to achieve Progressive goals. If, instead, you assume that Obama represents corporate interests, you will find that his actions make perfect sense. As Rachel Maddow said, he began the the “fight” for the healthcare bill just barely to the left of center, having already given up on a “single-payer” system and quickly abandoned the “public option” without a fight and got nothing in return. For all the whining by the health insurance companies, they have given up very little in exchange for the MANDATORY purchase of health insurance which will give them a huge new customer base of some of the healthiest (young) people in America. I’m sure that Obama doesn’t view this as a defeat.
Typical “No drama Obama”. Don’t release government scientists’ worst case scenario. Wait and get the most accurate information – which turns out to be, by the same government scientists, a little more than half of the original worst case estimate. Even though Salazar and others were speaking about the purported worst case estimates to reporters anyway.
A unnamed staff member, indeed.
Those of us who wished and hoped for Obama to be our savior in Washington may need to watch him and be leery of what is going on. As Plato said,” anyone wanting to be elected to public office, probably should`nt be there “.
That’s only the half of it. The government has acted as the oil industry’s handmaiden since the spill started and that extends to the health threat to the people in the coastal areas, the cleanup workers, the fishermen and the safety of the food supply from gulf waters. I’m not one for eating crustaceans often but I’ll never eat anything I know
Came from the Gulf because I don’t/can’t trust the assurances that it’s safe.
“Government withholding key data on Gulf seafood testing, scientists say”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/government-withholding-key-data-gulf-seafood-testing-scientists/
Just another example of how Obama’s wit doesn’t carry over to political smarts.
He negotiates with insurance executives trying to please both sides and that backfires, he covers up the damage here, and many more examples of someone that doesn’t think at the consequences of his actions… that what you expect from someone on drugs, but not a capable, bright man that can come up with some of the greatest speeches of all time… it just makes no sense to me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/obama-pocket-veto-foreclosures_n_753987.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/schools-cops-and-health-care-how-the-pledge-to-america-would-actually-cut-spending.php?ref=fpa Education spending is the number one item on their list. This includes Pell Grants.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/boehner-targetted-as-bad-_n_754046.html Emily’s list has targeted republicans as bad for women, Tony C.
Obama’s a Lock in 2012
by Peter Beinart Info:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-06/why-obama-will-win-a-second-term/?om_rid=NsfYtq&om_mid=_BMrbayB8VGxJxi
They don’t really care IF you find out, they only care WHEN you find out. Preferably, right after the elections, so they get two years for the outrage to fade and the relativists to say, “Yeah, but imagine what horrors the REPUBLICANS might unleash on us…”
Same horror, different face. Stop voting for criminals that only tell you what you want to hear and then sell your future to the highest bidder.
Oil? What oil? I don’t see no stinkin’ oil!
How could this administration think that people wouldn’t eventually find out about its duplicity on this matter?
*****
Scientists Find Oil On The Gulf’s Seafloor, In Least Surprising News Of 2010
by Jason Linkins (Huffington Post)
First Posted: 09-13-10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/scientists-find-oil-on-th_n_714951.html
Does anyone even remember that time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and touched off a massive undersea oil volcano? Last I heard, the good news was that the oil had mainly disappeared, through a combination of hungry microbes, and also miracles! But reporters in the Gulf told other stories. And while America was preparing to burn Qurans for 9/11 Day, NPR went out and found the missing oil. Three guesses where they found it!
Scientists on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico are finding a substantial layer of oily sediment stretching for dozens of miles in all directions. Their discovery suggests that a lot of oil from the Deepwater Horizon didn’t simply evaporate or dissipate into the water — it has settled to the seafloor.
The Research Vessel Oceanus sailed on Aug. 21 on a mission to figure out what happened to the more than 4 million barrels of oil that gushed into the water. Onboard, Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, says she suddenly has a pretty good idea about where a lot of it ended up. It’s showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast.
“I’ve collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico, including around this area. And I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said in an interview via satellite phone from the boat.
Scientists describe the oil they’ve found as “fluffy” and “porous” and “more than 2 inches thick” and “all over the place” and containing “recently dead shrimp, worms and other invertebrates.” Says Samantha Joye, of the University of Georgia’s Marine Sciences Department, “It’s starting to sound like a tremendous amount of oil. And we haven’t even sampled close to the wellhead yet.”
so dissapointing…..
Ah, change we can believe in.
Ya don’t say….How surprising…..I am aghast…..The Government, our government suppressing a ….minimizing a report…..come on….you might think the thing will get lost or something or even deleted….Maybe it does not truly and accurately reflect the true state of affairs and is in a draft stage…..
BP oil spill investigation critical of White House reaction to crisis
Barack Obama’s administration has been criticised for its handling of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill in a report commissioned by the White House.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8047543/BP-oil-spill-investigation-critical-of-White-House-reaction-to-crisis.html