Thursday, June 3, 2010

Obama orders firms to change drill plans that mimic BP's

Tags: Real Oil Spill Problems, McClatchy Newspapers, Obama New Drilling Plan, Not Covered Truths



By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

Obama has had problems passing the Energy Bill primarily because Republicans and a few Democrats in oil states refuse to vote for the bill. Another approach is being taken to provide more money for alternative energy sources. Not mentioned is that most electricity is generated by coal and natural gas with the rest by hydroelectric, nuclear, and a very small amount (2%) with wind and solar. The really big problem is replacing coal, which generates twice as much carbon dioxide and toxic substances such as mercury in the effluents.

South Africa does liquify coal, but after many decades, no solution has been found to be able to scale-up this process to provide similar amounts of electricity generated by dirty coal.

So far there is no alternative to oil for auto and truck transport, vitally necessary for people getting to work from the suburbs where only roads are provided in most communities. Of course our food is transported an average of 1,500 miles which requires refrigerated trucks. Obama is one of the few Presidents that actually plans for the long future as Carter tried to do and got kicked out by the Powerful and Wealthy.

Jim Kawakami, June 03, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/ McClatchy, formerly Knight-Ridder, is a good source for more accurate news. Only major newspaper failed to report accurately about Bush/Cheney claims about WMDs in Iraq before they went to war. Try it for a week. You will be impressed. There reports includes the all important context.

Jim K.

The Obama administration ordered oil companies to resubmit dozens of exploration plans that were virtually identical to BP's and that also called major spills and environmental damage "unlikely." The action came after McClatchy informed the White House and Interior officials that it had reviewed 31 deepwater exploration and development plans approved for the Gulf under the Obama administration and found that all of them downplayed the threat of spills to marine life and fisheries. » read more http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html

Obama Orders Oil Firms to Change BP Boiler Plate Drill Plans

Posted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

It is worth reading this whole article to know more than you will get from other sources. Jim

… "Interior has very doggedly refused to address this core problem because they realize that's where the rubber meets the road and the real reform begins," said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has studied the issue.

"It's a very cynical ploy. They're staying away from the real environmental review process because that's where the stakes are highest for the oil industry." … http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration late Wednesday moved swiftly to plug a hole in its much touted six-month ban on new deepwater drilling when the Interior Department ordered oil companies to overhaul and resubmit dozens of exploration plans that had already been approved but were virtually identical to BP's and that called major spills and environmental damage "unlikely."

The action came after McClatchy informed the White House and Interior officials that it had reviewed 31 deepwater exploration and development plans approved for the Gulf under the Obama administration and found that all of them downplayed the threat of spills to marine life and fisheries.

The language scarcely varied from company to company, suggesting that the plans were pumped out like boilerplate. Of the 31 plans McClatchy reviewed, 14 were approved since the April 20 explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig,

The administration had failed to include the plans in its moratorium, and experts told McClatchy that the filings could clear the way for drilling new wells when the ban was lifted. Following inquiries by McClatchy to White House and Interior officials, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced late Wednesday that oil companies would need to resubmit the plans with additional safety information before they'd be allowed to drill new wells. …

"Pulling back exploration plans and development plans and requiring them to be updated with new information is consistent with this cautious approach and will ensure that new safety standards and risk considerations are incorporated into those planning documents," BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a brief press release.

In the White House's initial response to McClatchy's inquiries, spokesman Ben LaBolt said only that a presidential commission investigating the BP spill would also "assess exploration and production plans and could provide options for ways to improve their development and review."

Less than half an hour later, the Interior Department issued its press release, which came from the BLM, not the Minerals Management Service.

Even as millions of gallons of crude from BP's well befouled the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have continued to submit exploration plans. The MMS had received more than two dozen in the past month.

"Interior has very doggedly refused to address this core problem because they realize that's where the rubber meets the road and the real reform begins," said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has studied the issue.

"It's a very cynical ploy. They're staying away from the real environmental review process because that's where the stakes are highest for the oil industry."

While the moratorium had blocked new wells and freezes new drilling permits — the last step before drilling begins — it didn't stop companies from taking the earlier step of filing exploration and development plans. These plans include the most thorough environmental studies that companies must conduct during the entire approval process.

Experts say these plans are often filled with incomplete or overly hopeful statements about the likelihood of spills, blowouts and ecological damage.

On May 18, four weeks after the blowout preventer on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sent oil gushing into the Gulf, the MMS approved an exploration plan by Petrobras America for Block 697 of the Mississippi Canyon area, the same area where BP was drilling. The Petrobras site is 7,150 feet underwater — nearly one-and-a-half times deeper than where BP was operating. …

Complete coverage of the oil spill

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95246/obama-orders-oil-companies-to.html#ixzz0pp0ILI5g


Obama got off a pretty good critique of Reaganism.


Blue Texan Blog: http://firedoglake.com/



Yesterday in Pittsburgh, while discussing the oil spill, Obama got off a pretty good critique of Reaganism.

http://c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/06/02/HP/A/33688/Pres+Obama+Remarks+on+the+Economy.aspx 42 minutes

Obama gave the Economic talk at Carnegie Mellon University, a fairly conservative place. No applause for the following remark.

Jim K.


…a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government. It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.

This is why Reaganism owns the BP oil spill.

Republicans have governed for decades under the assumption that we need to keep government “off the backs” of big business (deregulation), while rewarding them by starving government (tax cuts). Then big business, untethered by regulations, massively screws the country (see Enron, WorldCom, AIG, Goldman Sachs, BP), and the now-diminished government, starved by those tax cuts, isn’t quite able to clean up the mess. Then Republicans say, “See! Government sucks!” It’s quite a racket.

JUNE 02, 2010 01:50 PM

NYT Sourcing: An “Internet Link” “Alleges…”

By Liz Cox Barrett (CJR)

  • By Liz Cox Barrett How's this for sourcing (flagged by a tipster) in the New York Times's A1 story today, "Turkish Funds Helped Group Test Blockade of Gaza:"

The Turkish group [Insani Yardim Vakfi] is a charity, members said, but the Israel Project, a private nonprofit advocacy group, sent an Internet link to journalists with references to what it described as the group’s “radical Islamic, anti-Western orientation.” The link alleges that the group supports Hamas, in part through a branch it opened in the Gaza Strip, the charity it sends them, and in meetings and speeches by Bulent Yildirim, its leader, and Hamas officials.

Say what? So many questions. Can an "Internet link" "allege?" Isn't it the author of whatever appears at the link's landing page who is alleging? Who is the author in this case? The Israel Project? Some other group or entity? A random guy on the Internets? Why isn't that made clear here? Is this the "link" that "alleges" (linked to, as it is, from The Israel Project's Web site)? Why make readers guess? Is this just a clumsily-written paragraph or...what?

In other flotilla news, the Economist's Newsbook blog has a round-up of "what Arab and Israeli papers say about the raid." http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/index.php#23829


No comments:

Post a Comment