Hello all,
I watched AC 360 again tonight and I started thinking: Who benefits from this craptastic clean up effort? Look we all know corps run the country right? We all know that the Dems and the Reps are mostly owned by corps? We know the spill will only get worse and people will blame everyone from DC Dems and Reps to BP...so who or what is the guy behind the curtain on this...
Let's go down the list:
- BP = Their stocks are crashing, they are losing money from gas station revenue, they are going to be anathema for the next decade at least. So they are not really benefiting from screwing this up. 30 days ago I could say they are incompetent: now at day 71 there is something else going on behind the scenes.
- Republicans = Taking into account that they have become the party of Screw Over America, still they are committing political suicide. The Southern States have always been Republican strongholds, if anything the Reps should be hounding Obama to work faster, ignore laws, whatever to help clean up the Gulf. They should be front and center on this, I know they hate the environment but these are "their" people. By ignoring the Gulf they are destroying the people who vote for them. I understand on some level the political calculation on voting against unemployment (stupid though it seems, they hate helping poor people and they assume most poor people are liberals), but abandoning Louisiana and the Gulf is stupid. They did abandon NOLA so I guess it is not too out of character but this is a much bigger and more wide ranging disaster than Katrina.
- Democrats = Ok, these guys should be ALL over this. They should be pushing for more skimmers etc. According to AC 360 there are two laws that are causing issues. One is the Oil Spill Prevention Act and the other is the Jones Act from 1920. The Jones Act apparently deals with foreign ships picking up and offloading cargo within US waters. OK, really? This is the reason the skimmers from other countries, one which is the largest in the world, are being denied? The Oil Spill Act actually gives the President power to take over the spill efforts:
Section 4201 of OPA 90 provides,
(c) FEDERAL REMOVAL AUTHORITY
(1)(A) The President shall, in accordance with the National Contingency Plan and any appropriate Area Contingency Plan, ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge, and mitigation or prevention of a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance:
(i) into or on the navigable waters;
(ii) on the adjoining shorelines to the navigable waters;
(iii) into or on the waters of the exclusive economic zone; or
(iv) that may affect natural resources belonging to, appertaining to, or under the exclusive management authority of the United States.
(B) In carrying out this paragraph, the President may:
(i) remove or arrange for the removal of a discharge, and mitigate or prevent a substantial threat of a discharge, at any time;
(ii) direct or monitor all Federal, State, and private actions to remove a discharge; and
(iii) remove and, if necessary, destroy a vessel discharging, or threatening to discharge, by whatever means are available.
Section 4201 of OPA 90 further provides,
(2) DISCHARGE POSING SUBSTANTIAL THREAT TO PUBLIC HEALTH OR WELFARE (A) If a discharge, or a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance from a vessel, offshore facility, or onshore facility is of such a size or character as to be a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States (including but not limited to fish, shellfish, wildlife, other natural resources, and the public and private beaches and shorelines of the United States), the President shall direct all Federal, State, and private actions to remove the discharge or to mitigate or prevent the threat of the discharge.
(B) In carrying out this paragraph, the President may, without regard to any other provision of law governing contracting procedures or employment of personnel by the Federal Government:
(i) remove or arrange for the removal of the discharge, or mitigate or prevent the substantial threat of the discharge; and
(ii) remove and, if necessary, destroy a vessel discharging, or threatening to discharge, by whatever means are available.
When responding to a spill, many considered the lines of responsibility under the pre-OPA 90 regime to be unclear, with too much reliance on spillers to perform proper cleanup. OPA 90 strengthened and clarified the federal government’s role in oil spill response and cleanup. The revised response authorities addressed concerns “that precious time would be lost while waiting for the spiller to marshal its cleanup forces.”
Simply stated, Section 4201 of OPA 90 provides President Obama with three options:
perform cleanup immediately (“federalize” the spill);
monitor the response efforts of the spiller; or
direct the spiller’s cleanup activities.
Link
And for the previously mentioned Jones Act:
"In no case has the Federal On Scene Coordinator (FOSC) or Unified Area Command declined to request assistance or accept offers of assistance of foreign vessels that meet an operational need because the Jones Act was implicated,” said a June 17 NIC Fact Sheet (attached).
The NIC Fact Sheet noted that foreign vessels from many nations are already working in the Gulf. The Jones Act only applies within three miles of shore. Therefore, foreign skimmers, along with American skimmers, are already at work beyond three miles. The Deepwater Horizon spill is occurring 50 miles from shore, and the vast majority of oil is beyond 3 miles.
In addition, the Coast Guard’s FOSC last week issued a determination allowing the deployment of foreign skimmers within 3 miles because of the need for unprecedented numbers of skimmers. Many American skimming vessels are already skimming in the Gulf and many more are standing by available but unused so far.
Federal law always permits waivers of the Jones Act to allow foreign vessels when no American vessel is available. The NIC has instituted streamlined procedures to ensure that such waiver requests are considered quickly during the Gulf crisis. However, “To date, no waivers of the Jones Act … has been required because none of the foreign vessels currently operating as part of the … response has required such a waiver,” the NIC said on June 17.
Link
So the Jones Act, if it were indeed hampering things, has a built in exemption clause and I am not expert in the 2009 Oil Spill Act, however if it does allow the government to take over the clean up spill, why hasn't it? I don't mean kick out all of BP's engineers etc but move in, provide oversight, coordinate the use of skimmers etc from all around the world to help clean up. The Dems should be ALL over cleaning up the Gulf, yet they too sit and do nothing. All that will do is anger the voters against them as well.
All Obama would have to do to clear up any issues of prior laws possibly causing issues is write a one time executive order that would allow foreign skimmer vessels to come and help.
Why is the government hampering the " Whale" that can supposedly pick up 500,000 barrels a day?
Link
NORFOLK - After making a brief stop in Norfolk for refueling, U.S. Coast Guard inspections and an all-out publicity blitz intended to drum up public support, a giant tanker billed as the world's largest oil skimming vessel set sail Friday for the Gulf of Mexico where it hopes to assist in the oil-cleanup effort.
The Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-flagged ship dubbed the "A Whale" stands 10 stories high, stretches 1,115 feet in length and has a nearly 200-foot beam. It displaces more water than an aircraft carrier.
Built in South Korea as a supertanker for transporting oil and iron ore, the six-month-old vessel was refitted in the wake of the BP oil spill with 12, 16-foot-long intake vents on the sides of its bow designed to skim oil off surface waters
But a number of hurdles stand in his way. TMT officials said the company does not yet have government approval to assist in the cleanup or a contract with BP to perform the work.
That's part of the reason the ship was tied to pier at the Virginia Port Authority's Norfolk International Terminals Friday morning. TMT and its public-relations agency invited scores of media, elected officials and maritime industry executives to an hour-long presentation about how the ship could provide an immediate boost to clean-up efforts in the Gulf.
The A Whale — pronounced along the lines of "A Team" because there is a "B Whale" coming — is designed to work 20 to 50 miles offshore where smaller skimmers have trouble navigating. The ship would take in oily water and transfer it into specialized storage tanks on the flanks of the vessel. From there, the oil-fouled seawater would be pumped into internal tanks where the oil would separate naturally from the water.
After the separation process, the oil would be transferred to other tankers or shore-based facilities while the remaining water would be pumped back into the gulf.
Because the process wouldn't remove all traces of oil from the seawater, TMT will likely have to gain a special permit from the EPA, said Scott H. Segal of the Washington lobbying firm, Bracewell &Giuliani, which TMT has retained to help negotiate with federal regulators.
"The simple answer is, we don't know what the discharge will look like until we can take A Whale out there and test it," Segal said. TMT will work with regulators to determine an appropriate level of oil that can be contained in the ship's discharge.
TMT also is firm is working with the Coast Guard to gain approval to operate in the gulf, which may require a waiver from a 90-year-old maritime act that restricts foreign-flagged vessels from operating in U.S. waters, said Bob Grantham, a TMT project officer.
Ok so here we have a ship that could remove a ton of oil, even if it leaves traces behind and we are having red tape issues getting it. Yet BP is still using a dispersant so toxic it was banned in Britain AFTER the EPA told them to stop?
Does this make sense to anyone?
So taking all this in I begin to wonder, who is really in charge? Who is benefiting from this disaster? BP as a company isn't, the politicians aren't, the people aren't ...So WHY is this still being handled so badly? Why does no one in charge seem to care?
WHO IS PULLING THE STRINGS???
I think we need to start looking very closely at all the players here, something is VERY VERY WRONG with this whole scenario and this process. This is more than government mismanagement.
Call me a CT if you want but if you can separate your emotions and look at what is happening along with all the various things that have been uncovered about Goldmach Sachs and the Banking industry, how much we know DC is corrupted maybe CT is not so far off.
I am NOT saying Deepwater was done on purpose, but this cleanup is being handled so badly it can't be just incompetence. This whole thing REEKS of willful ignoring, just like after Katrina but there still seems to be no REASON why?
Sorry for the late not rambling but something is so WRONG here. There are TOO many things being ignored, too much blowing off of this disaster by the government, too many lies for there not to be something so ROTTEN to the core that NO ONE wants to admit.
This seems deliberate now...not just a lack of leadership, but a deliberate negligence on the part of all the major players. I just wish I knew why.