With Republicans opposing President Obama's attempts at least temporarily to halt deepwater drilling, the political play seems obvious: The more people understand the magnitude of the BP disaster, the more they will back the President, which is why Glenn Greenwald's well-researched post, from July 5, was so baffling and infuriating:
Last week, I interviewed Mother Jones' Mac McClelland, who has been covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf since the first day it happened. She detailed how local police and federal officials work with BP to harass, impede, interrogate and even detain journalists who are covering the impact of the spill and the clean-up efforts.
Greenwald referred to this Newsweek article, from May:
As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials -- working with BP -- who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.
And he updated with an article about the efforts the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security are making to prevent journalists from committing acts of journalism at spill sites. According to Dan Froomkin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now doing its part:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is hoarding vast amounts of raw data that independent marine researchers say could help both the public and scientists better understand the extent of the damage being caused by the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In most cases, NOAA insists on putting the data through a ponderous, many-weeks-long vetting process before making it public.
In other cases, NOAA actually intended to keep the data secret indefinitely. But officials told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that they have now decided to release it -- though when remains unclear.
BP, incidentally, gets to see all this data right away.
Scientists are being denied access, but BP isn't. The people who might help alleviate the damage are being denied access, but the people who caused the damage aren't. And this has been a problem at least since May. It seems we have a serious transparency problem, which makes no sense from a scientific and environmental standpoint, and also makes no sense from a political standpoint. What purpose is served by not allowing scientists to learn about what's happening? What purpose is served by not allowing the public to know what's happening?
A late June Pew Poll found that the public has soured on new offshore oil drilling:
The survey finds further evidence that the disaster has undermined public support for increased offshore drilling for oil and gas in U.S. waters. Just 44% favor increased offshore drilling, down 10 points since early May and 19 points since February. A majority (52%) now opposes more offshore drilling.
Nearly seven-in-ten Democrats (69%) and 51% of independents oppose increased offshore drilling; in February, majorities in both groups favored more offshore drilling. By contrast, most Republicans (63%) continue to favor expanded drilling in U.S. waters, but support has slipped from earlier this year (74% in February).
And Josh Nelson noted the political implications of a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:
One of the topics they included in this question was offshore drilling. Specifically, they asked how voters felt about candidates who ‘Favor continuing oil drilling off the U.S. coast.’ Notice that they did not ask about candidates who favor increased drilling, they asked about candidates who favor continuing drilling. The results are astounding: 48% of voters are either very uncomfortable or have reservations about Congressional candidates who ‘favor continuing’ offshore drilling. Just 41% are comfortable or enthusiastic about candidates taking that position
The public opposes new offshore drilling, the voters are uncomfortable with candidates who merely support continuing offshore drilling, and the Coast Guard, DHS, and the NOAA are preventing both scientists and the public from having access to information that could further solidify these opinions, not to mention possibly help solve the multitude of problems.
Why?
Does the Obama Administration really not want people to know the full facts about what is happening in the Gulf?
Why?