Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ziiro]

This whole thing is a very very tragic farce.

It's like the whole sad, stupid human condition rolled up into one disgusting tarball that is choking a dolphin.

[Thad]

The Rolling Stone (which, as we all know, never publishes anything of any journalistic value because it is a music magazine) has a lengthy, well-sourced, and well-researched article about how we got here.  Basically: the MMS is full of crooks who let BP do whatever the hell they want; Obama and Salazar knew it and didn't fire them.

A few highlights:

Even worse, the "moratorium" on drilling announced by the president does little to prevent future disasters. The ban halts exploratory drilling at only 33 deepwater operations, shutting down less than one percent of the total wells in the Gulf. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the Cabinet-level official appointed by Obama to rein in the oil industry, boasts that "the moratorium is not a moratorium that will affect production" – which continues at 5,106 wells in the Gulf, including 591 in deep water.

[...]

During the Bush years, the Minerals Management Service, the agency in the Interior Department charged with safeguarding the environment from the ravages of drilling, descended into rank criminality. According to reports by Interior's inspector general, MMS staffers were both literally and figuratively in bed with the oil industry. When agency staffers weren't joining industry employees for coke parties or trips to corporate ski chalets, they were having sex with oil-company officials. But it was American taxpayers and the environment that were getting screwed. MMS managers were awarded cash bonuses for pushing through risky offshore leases, auditors were ordered not to investigate shady deals, and safety staffers routinely accepted gifts from the industry, allegedly even allowing oil companies to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil before tracing over them in pen.

[...]

Salazar did little to tamp down on the lawlessness at MMS, beyond referring a few employees for criminal prosecution and ending a Bush-era program that allowed oil companies to make their "royalty" payments – the amount they owe taxpayers for extracting a scarce public resource – not in cash but in crude. And instead of putting the brakes on new offshore drilling, Salazar immediately throttled it up to record levels. Even though he had scrapped the Bush plan, Salazar put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone – an all-time high.

[...]

Salazar also failed to remove Chris Oynes, a top MMS official who had been a central figure in a multibillion-dollar scandal that Interior's inspector general called "a jaw-dropping example of bureaucratic bungling." In the 1990s, industry lobbyists secured a sweetheart subsidy from Congress: Drillers would pay no royalties on oil extracted in deep water until prices rose above $28 a barrel. But this tripwire was conveniently omitted in Gulf leases overseen by Oynes – a mistake that will let the oil giants pocket as much as $53 billion. Instead of being fired for this fuckup, however, Oynes was promoted by Bush to become associate director for offshore drilling – a position he kept under Salazar until the Gulf disaster hit.

[...]

[In May 2000], an MMS research document developed with deepwater drillers – including the company then known as BP Amoco – warned that such a spill could spell the end for offshore operations. The industry could "ill afford a deepwater blowout," the document cautions, adding that "no single company has the solution" to such a catastrophe. "The real test will come if a deepwater blowout occurs."

Enter the Bush administration. Rather than heeding such warnings, MMS simply assumed that a big spill couldn't happen. "There was a complete failure to even contemplate the possibility of a disaster like the one in the Gulf," says Holly Doremus, an environmental-law expert at the University of California. "In their thinking, a big spill would be something like 5,000 barrels, and the oil wouldn't even reach the shoreline." In fact, Bush's five-year plan for offshore drilling described a "large oil spill" as no more than 1,500 barrels. In April 2007, an environmental assessment covering the area where BP would drill concluded that blowouts were "low probability and low risk," even though a test funded by MMS had found that blowout preventers failed 28 percent of the time. And an environmental assessment for BP's lease block concluded that offshore spills "are not expected to damage significantly any wetlands along the Gulf Coast."

[...]

Nowhere was the absurdity of the policy more evident than in the application that BP submitted for its Deepwater Horizon well only two months after Obama took office. BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says [executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Jeff] Ruch, who represents government scientists.

[...]

In March 2006, BP was responsible for an Alaska pipeline rupture that spilled more than 250,000 gallons of crude into Prudhoe Bay – at the time, a spill second in size only to the Valdez disaster. Investigators found that BP had repeatedly ignored internal warnings about corrosion brought about by "draconian" cost cutting. The company got off cheap in the spill: While the EPA recommended slapping the firm with as much as $672 million in fines, the Bush administration allowed it to settle for just $20 million.

BP has also cut corners at the expense of its own workers. In 2005, 15 workers were killed and 170 injured after a tower filled with gasoline exploded at a BP refinery in Texas. Investigators found that the company had flouted its own safety procedures and illegally shut off a warning system before the blast. An internal cost-benefit analysis conducted by BP – explicitly based on the children's tale The Three Little Pigs – revealed that the oil giant had considered making buildings at the refinery blast-resistant to protect its workers (the pigs) from an explosion (the wolf). BP knew lives were on the line: "If the wolf blows down the house, the piggy is gobbled." But the company determined it would be cheaper to simply pay off the families of dead pigs.

[...]

From the start, the administration has seemed intent on allowing BP to operate in near-total secrecy. Much of what the public knows about the crisis it owes to Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. Under pressure from Markey, BP was forced to release footage of the gusher, admit that its early estimates put the leak as high as 14,000 barrels a day and post a live feed of its undersea operations on the Internet – video that administration officials had possessed from the earliest days of the disaster. "We cannot trust BP," Markey said. "It's clear they have been hiding the actual consequences of this spill."

But rather than applying such skepticism to BP's math, the Obama administration has instead attacked scientists who released independent estimates of the spill. When one scientist funded by NOAA released a figure much higher than the government's estimate, he found himself being pressured to retract it by officials at the agency. "Are you sure you want to keep saying this?" they badgered him. Lubchenco, the head of NOAA, even denounced as "misleading" and "premature" reports that scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had discovered a massive subsea oil plume. Speaking to PBS, she offered a bizarre denial of the obvious. "It's clear that there is something at depth," she said, "but we don't even know that it's oil yet."

[...]

The administration, however, has made clear that it has no intention of reversing its plan to expand offshore drilling. Four weeks into the BP disaster, when Salazar was questioned in a Senate hearing about the future of the president's plan, he was happy to stand up for the industry's desire to drill at any cost. "Isn't it true," asked Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, "that as terrible as the tragedy is, that unless we want $14, $16, $18, $20-a-gallon gasoline, that it's not realistic to think that we would actually stop drilling for oil in the Gulf?" Unbowed by the catastrophe that was still unfolding on his watch, Salazar heartily agreed, testifying that the president had directed him to "move forward" on offshore drilling.

Read the whole damn thing, but not if you've just eaten.

[Brentai]

I for one want $20/gallon gasoline.

[blah]

You'll most likely get your 20 dollar gas. BP will use gas hikes "related" to the Oil spill as a way to get all the lost money back and then some.

[patito]

Because BP controls all the oil clearly.

[Brentai]

BP actually owns most of the "dirt-cheap" brands around here, so most likely they'll just bring themselves up to everyone else's level.

Not like it matters, I already looked up what stations they own and made a mental note to avoid them if possible.

[Thad]

I for one want $20/gallon gasoline.

I made this comment today; my girlfriend noted that she would be out of a job.  I think I still stand by it, but it would sure make life hard for a lot of people who didn't do anything wrong.

Think I read today that Bill Gates said we need to double the budget for alternative fuel research; I hope he's willing to throw down some money toward that effort, because at this point I trust him more than the US government.  Much as I'm not a fan of what he did when he was in charge of Microsoft, I've come to really respect the guy.

[Mongrel]

Everybody always talks about high-priced gasolne as the some kind of victory for environmentalists, but the problem is that we still have nothing that even comes close to the gasoline engine for practical daily efficiency.

Well before we reach $20 a gallon oil, you'll simply see massive quantities of farmland converted to growing starchy plants to be rendered into ethanol, which will be used to cut gasoline more and more, until possibly most 'average joe' cars will be running on ethanol. This doesn't even have to happen due to government policy or anything, it'll simply be an economic imperative that's too huge for farmers who can get in on it to ignore*.

I'm not really sure what the world will look like at that point. It's possible - even probable - that there would be fewer cars on the roads, but I'd be hesitant to call it an ecological victory.

*_{(in the same way that the Canadian Tar Sands are actually a massive source of supply for oil, but it's only economically worthwhile to extract it when oil's well over $50 a barrel).}

  I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't underestimate how long and how desperately we'll cling to cars. Not just because we're all greedy fat fucks, but out of simple uncompromising necessity.

[Büge]

I for one want $20/gallon gasoline.

I made this comment today; my girlfriend noted that she would be out of a job.  I think I still stand by it, but it would sure make life hard for a lot of people who didn't do anything wrong.

Think I read today that Bill Gates said we need to double the budget for alternative fuel research; I hope he's willing to throw down some money toward that effort, because at this point I trust him more than the US government.  Much as I'm not a fan of what he did when he was in charge of Microsoft, I've come to really respect the guy.

And now it's Steve Jobs whom we see as a sleazebag.

The time they are changing

[Brentai]

So the ban on offshore drilling was blocked by a judge in Louisiana.

I just have to assume they just LOVE getting crude all up in their shit.

[Ziiro]

"This is a totally fucked situation, but I hope this was bad enough that people fucking learned something."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-moratorium-20100623,0,7804590.story ( The truth behind the reasoning is both hilarious and depressing )
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65L5LE20100622?type=domesticNews

[Mongrel]

Judge who struck down Obama's drilling ban has many investments in various oil & energy companies



Granted, it doesn't look like it's much money in total, but other judges presiding on less-serious spill-related cases were smart enough to divest their oil & energy investments before doing so.

[Zaratustra]

The worst case scenario is bullshit. Turns out there's a huge amount of methane bubbling up from the oil spill. And if it breaks out all at once?

SUPERSONIC TSUNAMI.

http://daviddegraw.org/2010/06/will-the-bp-oil-spill-set-off-a-supersonic-tsunami/

[teg]

Fortunately, Kevin Costner can save us all.

[Catloaf]

The more I look at this, the more this whole thing looks like a case of spousal abuse.

Picture Louisiana as a housewife married to the oil companies.  The oil companies then one day come home drunk/high/whatever and starts beating Louisiana mercilessly, despite her just barely getting over a serious injury.  Now Louisiana is in too much pain to even attempt to make her own money, despite being a decent fisherman herself and thus has absolutely no way of supporting her self if she leaves big oil.  Then big oil, seeing he can get away with it, just beats on Louisiana more and more.  Meanwhile the neighbors see what's going on and try to reason with Louisiana, because they don't want people like big oil trying to do that shit to them, and many are in situations that could lead to the same place.  But Louisiana keeps insisting that big oil isn't doing anything wrong and that she still loves him dearly.  So the neighbors attempt to yell at big oil, they even bring the police.  But big oil just doesn't give a fuck, he talks the police into doing his work for him while he "sorts things out."  Louisiana bursts in and, still very deep in her denial, attacks the neighbors, all the while she's being punched in the back of the head by big oil and ignoring it.  Then some the neighbors start blaming the police while ignoring big oil too.

And nothing get's done.  Eventually Louisiana dies, along with all of her pet birds, and the neighbors' pets too.

Yes, it's ridiculous at times, but so it what's going on.

[Mongrel]

Oh Catloaf.

[Büge]

BP Spills Coffee

[Royal☭]

First Amendment Has been Suspended

This is the grossest thing BP has done to date.

[François]

Found via Roger Ebert's twitter account: an actual BP board game from the 70s

Further research: http://www.geekosystem.com/bp-board-game/

One “hazard card” reads “Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1million.”

If only.

[Rico]

This is the grossest thing BP has done to date.

If it were still 300 feet, I would agree wholeheartedly, but I'm pretty sure my cheapest-series Canon Powershot can take a good enough picture at 65 feet to show what's going on, and I don't even have any fancy lenses to swap in and out.  Having sailed often when I was in college (and having piloted small motorboats), and having swam in the Gulf of Mexico (though not boated there), I feel moderately confident in saying that a) Many parts of the Gulf including some of the affected areas have GIANT FUCKING WAVES, and b) with an inexperienced person, 65 feet is probably a little too short of a distance.  I mean, even going fairly slowly, in calm conditions that'd be about 5 seconds.

Though I'm sure that the policy is being abused to intimidate people, which isn't cool.