Proximate Cause:
An act from which an injury results as a natural, direct, uninterrupted consequence and without which the injury would not have occurred.
Proximate cause is the primary cause of an injury. It is not necessarily the closest cause in time or space nor the first event that sets in motion a sequence of events leading to an injury. Proximate cause produces particular, foreseeable consequences without the intervention of any independent or unforeseeable cause. It is also known as legal cause.
Best Practice:
A best practice is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.
Did you hear the good news from the Obama Administration concerning changes at Minerals Management Service?:
[MMS will] be getting a powerful new deputy, Michael R. Bromwich, a veteran investigator and former prosecutor, to supervise the remaking of the minerals service.
Excellent news, right? Well it certainly would have been excellent news if this announcement had been made in 2009 and not 2010, especially not after April 20,2010. Instead,in 2009, President Obama instituted a study to determine the feasibility of expanding oil drilling in remote and environmentally sensitive regions. The outcome of this "study" was a far gone conclusion to all those who were paying attention at the time, for when Obama appointed Ken Salazaar to be Sec of Interior, it was obvious that there was going to be more of same at Interior as opposed to hopeful change. But when Obama proclaimed that Salazar was part of his previously named "Green Team", well:
...plaudits for Obama’s environmental commitment preceded his appointment of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior. Interior handles all of what used to be called "the environment" prior to rising climate change. Obama’s selection of Salazar has left some progressives fit to be tied, though environmental groups happy about his other picks are not likely to publicly complain. Salazar has a generally good environmental record, but he is not known as a close ally of environmental groups. Environmentalists expected more, someone like progressive Arizona Congressmember Raul Grijalva, whose inside track to the job apparently fell prey to opposition from Obama’s Southwest business supporters.
Barack Obama was strongly praised for picking a stellar "Green Team" when a key member of that team – the Secretary of Interior – remained to be selected. Considering how problematic the two leading contenders for the position were, and that he picked Senator Salazar, questions are raised as to whether the President is as passionate about protecting the natural environment as he is about stopping global warming.
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Salazar was never even mentioned as a leading candidate for the Interior job until December 15, the same day he was offered and accepted the post.
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Now for the bad news: In 2005, Salazar voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, and against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major oil companies.
In 2006, Salazar voted to end protections that limit off-shore drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast.
In 2007, Salazar was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the US Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects.
All of those who were paying attention a year ago knew that the only thing green about this team's study of oil drilling in remote and environmentally sensitive regions was gonna be a green light to the "energy industry" to continue with their rapacious ways. Perhaps Obama should have spent that year appointing a powerful new deputy to supervise remaking of MMS and then ensuring that MMS was remade. If they had, we'd all would be better off today.
Flash forward a year. On March 30, 2010, just twenty-one days before the DeepWater Horizon (DWH) disaster, President Obama announced the out-come of the one-year study. Standing in front of the Green Hornet the President announced that... Wait. For. It... he was going to allow "limited" drilling in remote and environmentally sensitive regions. Boy was I surprise. Not! It's not just that I was fully aware that the world's addiction to fossil fuels required continued exploration for, and extraction of, ever more inaccessible hydrocarbon. Its just that, to me, Slazar and ever more inaccessible energy resources are not a good match. Especially if you come down on the side of the so-called environmentalists.
However, by the time of Salazar's appointment I had already grown numb to Obama's choices to fill important governmental positions. Too DLClintonesque for me. Too many guilty parties. Far too many enablers of naked capitalism. Insiders. Like Salazar. Still, I have to admit, Obama is right about being better than Palin. Palin would have opened even more environmentally sensitive regions to the energy resource industry than Bush had, while concurrently slashing whatever little gov't oversight existed. No doubt Obama is way better than Palin. Wow. Better than worse than Bush. I sincerely hope this is as bad as it gets.
Actually, Obama's allegiance to off-shore drilling was anything but new as he supported limited oil drilling in remote and environmentally sensitive places during the Presidential campaign against Sarah Palin. As part of his triangulation scheme to co-opt and neutralize the right, Obama took (too?) many centrist positions on issues that have traditionally divided the nation. And though Obama is obviously left-of-center, he is certainly more-center-than-left. Which became obvious from the reaction to his "Green Hornent" announcement
that he'll lift bans on new drilling for oil and natural gas off much of the U.S. coastline drew criticism from environmentalists and halfhearted welcomes from Republicans
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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Obama's announcement "a step in the right direction" while
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Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford said in a statement "Is this President Obama's clean energy plan or Palin's 'drill, baby, drill' campaign?"
Win for Rahm Emanuel. Loss for da base.
For those who were not paying attention, for those who did not know Salazar's history, Obama's support for off shore drilling could be seen as flip-flop, or even a betrayal. Which is why, on April 2, he found it necessary to defend his March 30th announcement. Once again, Obama was more center-than-left. He did so by implied that oil drilling rigs are safe:
I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
Instead of denigrating our need for oil, instead of talking about the risk and expense of deep-sea drilling, instead of hyping the wind-powered electrical energy system off the New England coast, the President hyped off-shore drilling. Betcha if he knew what was coming in just another 20 days, he would have given a somewhat different, somewhat more realistic defense for off-shore drilling. Also. Imagine what would have been the result of Obama doing the right thing by addressing the risk, the expense, the unfortunate necessary for supplying a changing world's demand for fossil fuels while we transition to less environmentally damaging energy sources – like that wind-powered electrical energy system off the New England coast - he would not now even have to say "I told you so". Instead, it is the left that gets to say it to Obama.
I'm also sure Obama regrets not ensuring that Salzar cleanup MMS – an organization which everyone knew on Day 1 was corrupt and perhaps racketeer-influenced. Too bad he waited a year too long to do so. Too bad it took a catastrophe to jar him from his comfort-center. Too bad Obama has yet to realize that his fake-left-move-right strategy ain't fakin nobody out, no mo. If he had only tried fake-right-move-left a year ago, perhaps one of those permits issued by his MMS to continue drilling on DWH might have been denied. But he didn't, and neither did Salazar, and the rest is misery history. Regrets all around, I'm sure.
But if the negligence and hypocrisy of the Obama administration are the primary causes of the DWH disaster, then there should have been more of them. After all, there are over two dozen of deep-water wells, and thousands of shallow-water wells, in the GOM. And the last time I looked, only one has gone wild. Perhaps reasons other than lax over-sight and rubber-stamped permits are more directly related to what went wrong. If there was something specific about the drilling of this well that caused the blow-out, then before one starts kicking ass pointing fingers, one should check one's target(s). We don't want to go around attacking the wrong country party, do we?
As is now becoming well-known, Best Practices on how to drill, case, cement and plug a deep-water well were violated on DWH during the drilling of the Macondo Well. These violations of Best Practices were done on the orders of BP (which, I 'm sure, regrets not being Beyond Petroleum). These decisions, which crossed the border of criminal negligence, were the proximate cause of DeepWater Horizon's destruction, and the resultant hydrocarbon volcano that continues to pollute the GOM at an unprecedented rate. As other corporations played a hand in this nightmare, I'm sure the claim of "just following orders" will soon be heard over and over and over again. Wait, looks like it's already begun
BP Partner Throws Them Under the Bus by MeMeMeMeMe
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority partner of BP PLC in the oil well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, on Friday unleashed a broadside against the British oil giant, accusing the company of "gross negligence or willful misconduct."
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Anadarko Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Hackett released a statement slamming BP for operating "unsafely" and missing "several critical warning signs" during the drilling.
"The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions"
It was DWH's tumbling down into ever murkier depths that created the crude volcano that, no, daddy hasn't plugged. Yet. But the inferno that doomed DWH was caused by human negligence. By following this Timeline_of_the_Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill, the negligence becomes obvious. MMS' role, by continuing to issue permits (seemingly without much due-diligence) also becomes clear. Nevertheless, there was nothing that MMS permitted that was outside of Best Practice, even though some were barely inside. For example, on April 6, MMS issued a permit that contained the citation
"Exercise caution while drilling due to indications of shallow gas and possible water flow."
Luckily, in this case, MMS added a citation, before rubber-stamping the permit. Talk about CYA.
The citation was a warning to the DHW drillers that they should expect to strike gas (NG) before striking oil. Yet, nine days later, on April 15th, MMS issued an amended permit that allowed BP, against the recommendations of Haliburton, to use a single liner for the last 1900 feet of the well and OK'ed the use of only six centralizers instead of 21. In subsequent congressional investigations it was disclosed that in its fillings to the MMS:
In the documents, [BP] officials apologized to federal regulators for not having mentioned the type of casing they were using earlier, adding that they had "inadvertently" failed to include it. In the permit request, they did not disclose BP’s own internal concerns about the design of the casing.
Less than 10 minutes after the request was submitted, federal regulators approved the permit.
So BP, by omission, lied to MMS. Then, to hide an even bigger lie (that there was no internal disagreement regarding the casing), BP admitted to the previous omission. Seems like BP and MMS have an abuser-enabler relationship. Which would be fine with me if it was MMS that was doin the abusin. Lets hope that a change gonna come. BTW, this was the last permit issued by MMS in regards to DWH before DWH blew up.
What was outside the norm for deep-water drilling was how BP handled the casing and cementing of the well. To ensure that gas does not escape up well bore outside of the casing, it is imperative that the cementing of the casing of wells is done well within Best Practices. Well, as Haliburton reported on April 18, "well is considered to have a SEVERE gas flow problem". On April 20, BP cancels recommended cement bond log test. Why did BP cancel the recommended cement bond log test? It would have taken 9 – 12 hours, and cost $128,000, that's why. Cancelling cost BP only $10,000. So, in order to save a mere $118,000, BP canceled the test that ensures that a well is, well, bonded {SIGH! Maddow-stylee}. Here's the capper. BP was able to use some of that 9 – 12 hours for something far more important than some cement bond test.
several BP managers were on the Deepwater Horizon for a ceremony to congratulate the crew for seven years without an injury.
At approximately 9:50pm CDT on April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon erupted into a horrific firestorm, as shallow gas, encased for millennia under unfathomable pressure, escaped up the bore, outside of the casing where cement was suppose to be. The pressure differential between the deep-Earth reservoir and the DWH platform is so great that the gas rapidly expands into every nook and cranny on the rig.
It was only a matter of time before some of this highly volatile gas would contact an ignition souce. It seems that no deep-water drilling platform is designed to handle so much gas, under so much pressure, escaping so fast. Perhaps in the near future they all will be. Those 2 Relief Wells had better be prepared for anything and everything. A day and a half after going up in flames, DeepWater Horizon began its descent to the sea floor, bending and tearing the riser pipe that had connected the platform to the BlowOut Preventer some 5,000 feet below. That's when things really started getting bad. Haven't gotten any better since. Things won't get better until this well is killed. By then, the estimate of escaping crude will be in the 100,000 barrels per day range, if not more. If there is one truth in this never-ending nightmare, it's that more crude is escaping into the GOM then any of us really want to know.
So yea, I was wrong to blame President Obama for this tragedy – even though his Administration was complicit by not remaking MMS, and by paying too much attention to those SouthWest business supporters instead of the people who voted for him. But I'm glad that I was wrong that Obama was primarily responsible. If I had been right, it would have been the end of the Obama Presidency, which would have all but guaranteed another Republican regime. However, if Mr Obama continues with his fake-left-move-right strategy, and more-center-than-left policies, another Republican regime is all but guaranteed, anyway.