A rather different view point.
This may not be very Politically Correct but I am getting a bit fed up for the following reasons with Obama’s constant bad-mouthing of BP :
- If the regulatory procedures were not strong enough then that is the USA’s fault, not BP’s.
- The USA is glad enough to extract oil from ecologically-dangerous places because it is hooked on oil. That isn’t BP’s fault either.
- It is bleedin’ obvious that SOONER OR LATER (see previous comments on statistics) there was going to be an accident of this type, yet NO PROPER CONTINGENCY PLAN was in place. That is partly BP’s fault (over-confidence) but also the USA’s fault for not insisting on one.
- BP is clearly doing all it can to put things right; constantly rubbishing it seems fairly pointless.
- Nobody knows how much BP was to blame; there were other companies involved, including US ones.
In general, the USA has long been too soft on oil companies because it needs the oil.
Now of course we are going to have a pendulum swing the other way, but rather than knee-jerk reactions why not consult and put in place an effective “doomsday scenario” plan? For example, a 20,000 ton concrete dome that could be lowered right over a fractured well to seal it off?
Of course, Obama’s ranting is political. He does NOT want this to be his “Katrina”. However, nobody in their right mind would blame him personally for this accident and now that it has happened it is pretty pathetic to rant about how evil BP is.
What’s done is done. Statistically, there was BOUND to be an accident of this kind one day. By allowing deep-sea drilling the USA MUST HAVE ACCEPTED the risk. If proper and regulatory contingency plans had been in place then the environmental damage might have been minimised.
In general one must say of the Human Race that we aren’t brilliant at anticipating risks and preparing for the worst. Witness carbon emissions and climate change. As a man-in-the-street, the ONLY change in long-held habits that I have seen to combat global warming is that you can no longer in Europe buy old-fashioned light bulbs. Otherwise life seems to go on pretty much as ever, with all governments desperately wishing for growth because of their idiotic over-spending.
STOP PRESS: Above all a President needs to stay calm and rational. There was no reason to stop all off-shore drilling pending the result of an enquiry. This has put thousands of Americans out of work. No, I am NOT minimising the damage; it is tragic and disastrous, but 80% of Louisiana’s economy depends on the oil business.
And we badly need perspective. This is – as I already said – a terrible disaster, but the record of off-shore drilling is in fact extremely good in ecological terms. One bad experience should not lead to the knee-jerk shut-down of the entire industry. Fascinating article in the UK Guardian newspaper. That article concludes thus:
In an open letter to Obama published in Louisiana’s Thibodaux Daily Comet newspaper, local resident Stephen Morris vented fury at the drilling freeze: “If it was a knee-jerk response to everyone’s anger about the continued leak and possible annihilation of southern Louisiana’s way of life, you didn’t think it through or your advisers are smoking way too much crack.”
And this article in the UK Independent brilliantly sums up the way Obama is getting this all wrong for superficial, popularist reasons. Here’s how that article starts:
The evidence is overwhelming. Any fair-minded person who examines the Gulf of Mexico oil spillage is compelled to two conclusions. First, that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by BP. Second, that the President of the United States has behaved disgracefully.
The vessels of the Los Angeles class, the pride of the US nuclear submarine fleet, will not operate below 950ft. If they were to dive to 1450ft, their hulls would implode. The Americans do have three subs which could function at 2,000ft. They cost $3bn each. It follows that drilling for oil below a 5,000ft seabed is a difficult business which involves risks. But it is essential.
By Chris Snuggs
Learning from Dogs 
Sorry Chris but you are a bit off. The “regulatory procedures were not strong enough” because oil companies like bee pee hire lobbyists to make sure the regulation of them is weak.
I don’t speak for the “USA” but I’m against any further off shore drilling! I also don’t own a car and never have. So I have the high ground. My use of oil is way below the national average.
bee pee had a written “CONTINGENCY PLAN” in place as required by law, it was pages and pages of lies however. It’s clear it ain’t working!
bee pee has a very long history of disasters such as this which kill people and make a mess of things. They deserve everything they are getting, AND MORE!
I wouldn’t pay much mind to the British tabloids you cite in your post, they are simply wrong. There is PLENTY OF EVIDENCE of wrong doing and there should be criminal charges pending.
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
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“There is plenty of evidence of wrong-doing”.
As I said, this is pre-judging the issue. There are enough enquiries going on; let’s wait and see what they come up with.
As for the lobbyists, I am sorry that I didn’t realize they ran the country. I was under the impression that the President and Congress ran the country. Silly me.
Perhaps what we need is proper leaders who put the country first and tell lobbyists where they can go and whereup they can stick their lobbying.
As for the “contingency plan”, it was clearly pathetic, since BP have tried about 5 strategies before finding one that seems to work. My point was that it was obvious that there would one day be a major failure of the blowout preventer. (Sorry – this is not just hindsight, but a question of statistics – if you do something long enough then one day it will go wrong – remember the ferry that set sail with open car doors? Nobody would EVER have believed that was possible.) Therefore the industry and government should have come up with something likely to work better in the event of a major catastrophe of this nature. At the most expensive end of this would have been to insist that always TWO adjacent wells were drilled so that if ONE blew up the other could be immediately used to take up the oil. This is what BP are now doing but it is going to take till AUGUST to get it going. YES, it would be very expensive but the oil companies make BILLIONS in profits.
There may well be other solutions such as the vast concrete cap I mentioned that could be floating in the Gulf on giant barges WAITING for such a disaster to happen.
I do not deny that BP are likely to be found in some way at fault (their track history isn’t brilliant to say the least), but let’s wait for the enquiries to publish. They are not the only multi-national oil company to have had disasters, of course – it is a dangerous and extremely high-tech business, especially drilling at 5,000ft below the sea.
The problem I have is with the hysterical stance Obama has taken when it is to me clear that regulatory systems weren’t adequate. To try to absolve the US government for some blame in this by blaming “lobbyists” is bizarre; God help us if we are ruled by lobbyists. I didn’t vote my government in so that it should proceed on the basis of what lobbyists tell them.
No, Obama’s ranting is all ludicrously one-sided and his shutting down of the entire offshore drilling business pending the enquiry results is perverse. 80% of Louisian’s economy depends on it and this decision means that not only are the beaches being polluted and fishermen suffering but also the whole of the REST of the Louisiana economy is in turmoil.
Still, what does one expect from a President elected after only two years in Congress? This was the ultimate triumph of hope over experience – and possibly commonsense. I can’t say my confidence in Obama’s dealing with a major international crisis has been enhanced by his performance so far.
PS You may not have a car but you also depend on oil for delivery of goods you buy. This is not going to change overnight; unless we continue to use oil while awaiting an alternative then our civilisation as we know it will collapse. This is why the slowness of progress to find alternatives is pathetic, but shutting down all offshire drilling overnight is going to lead to considerable hardhip.
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Chris:
Sorry to say, but your article was mostly wrong, including the diving depth in the quote of nuclear submarines (anyhow irrelevant). It’s much greater. The independent got feet and meters mixed up.
THIS IS THE WORST OIL SPILL, EVER. (I know about all the others, and spills on land in war don’t count.)
It did not happen off Angola, Brazil, the North Sea, Indonesia, Timor. Because BP was not afraid, being in bed with regulators.
BP made giant mistakes, actually crimes, because they were deliberate.
Obama ought to have put the US army in charge, on day one.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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As I have said, there are multiple enquiries going on and if as you say BP made “deliberate mistakes” then this will be discovered. If you have inside knowledge that could prejudge the findings of these enquiries then perhaps you should pass the information to the White House.
While waiting for the enquiries to be made public my post was more about Obama’s hysterical response, which I see he is now toning back a bit. As for calling in the army, I am unaware that they have great expertise in off-shore drilling at 5,000ft. Granted, they could have made a fist of shooting the BP CEO.
What SHOULD have happened as soon as the blowout occurred was:
– declare it at once as a national emergency
– gather the industry’s best brains to decide on the best strategy
BP have clearly done what they could, but it hasn’t worked. Whether ANY strategy would have worked better will eventually become clear. Leaving the job ENTIRELY to BP was an error (and Obama’s error), because many heads are better than one when it comes to brainstorming and effecting a solution to something so difficult. I believe that by constantly rubbishing BP he is merely trying to disguise the part in all of this of A) US oil use and policy in general B) US companies directly involved in the drilling and C) his own initial feeble response.
I also made the point that the USA is addicted to oil, which is the basic reason for this disaster. As I have maintained it was bound to happen sooner or later.
As for the article in the Independent being mostly wrong, perhaps you could let me know whether THIS article is mostly wrong?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286197/Oil-spill-How-Blue-Dog-Boys-kept-Obama-s-boot-neck-BP-s-US-partner.html
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Chris;
We will see. I will let events talk. The culpability of BP IS CLEAR TO ME. I have strong family ties to Big Oil, and even deep water drilling (!) Putting the military in charge would have clarified the immense gravity of the situation.
PA
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Patrice, Indeed let events talk. But as I say in an article being published tomorrow, the truth is as far from the surface as the failed Blow Out Preventer.
If the politicians, media and uninformed ranters will ever admit it down the line, when the truth is revealed it will show that events ran very differently to the overwhelming speculation that is so rife at the moment.
The military have a very poor record in managing catastrophes of this magnitude.
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from The Wall Street Journal
Congressional investigators say documents uncovered as part of their inquiry
into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have raised “serious questions about the
decisions made by BP in the days and hours before the explosion on the Deepwater
Horizon” drilling rig.
In a letter sent Monday to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, the Democratic
leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee say that in the days and
hours leading up the April 20 explosion, BP appears “to have made multiple
decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well
failure.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575306800201158346.html?mod=djemalertNEWS
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And why should this be presented as ‘truthful’ any more than miles and miles of copy that has been published before this?
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UPDATE – this is a complex issue. Here for example is information that must go into the equation: (from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/13/ecological-tragedy-political-disaster)
“While BP does make a convenient target, other companies can consider themselves fortunate not to be caught up in the crisis. Of the 126 people working on the Deepwater Horizon rig, only eight were BP employees. The oil giant may have a 65% share of the well, but its partner, Anadarko, has a 25% share. The rig was owned and operated by offshore drilling company Transocean, which leased it to BP. Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, played a crucial role in carrying out cement work that was supposed to cap the doomed well. The failed blowout preventer was made by an American firm, Cameron. There is a bewildering array of potential bad guys to blame, not just one single villain. But that argument is unhelpful to those looking for a simple narrative to explain such an overwhelming catastrophe.”
AND a Congress committee (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/14/barack-obama-oil-spill-speech) is making five serious allegations against BP. But was the rig operated by BP at all? WHO was responsible for these apparently five bad decisions? WHOEVER must take a severe hit; these companies make SO MUCH profit that any negligeance is – As Pqtrice says – criminal. All I ask is not for a rush-to-judgement …..
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Chris, my Post of today “BP – where lies the truth?” is my attempt at showing how complicated this is going to turn out to be.
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I am interested in the specific accusations of the Congress Committee, alleging that those running the rig ignored warnings from their own Chief Engineer and also failed to carry out a simple test to save a piffling 128,000$ and because they were in a hurry to move the rig elsewhere. If these accusations are proven then BP is finished and deservedly so. If (note the word …) they are guilty of such lunacy then it is a symbol of the depths to which greed has pushed us all. But as you imply, Paul, WHO EXACTLY DID WHAT, WHEN AND WHY?
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Well, a Republican Senator expressing support for BP? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1287396/BP-oil-spill-Obama-accused-20bn-shakedown.html
It confirms my thoughts about the White House reaction.
We need balance, calm, clarity and decisiveness, not knee-jerk political grandstanding.
However, I have reassessed my thoughts about the army; it seems that civilian authorities are unable to properly organise a piss-up in a brewery, especially when it is a large one. You have to have a clever dictator in charge to kick ass and get things done on the ground – and FAST. Presumably the army could have done this.
The role of Transocean? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287226/GULF-OIL-SPILL-Whys-BP-taking-blame.html
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Hi Chris, I guess you are referring to “The only slither of support came from Republican Joe Barton from Texas who apologised for the Obama administration imposing the compensation fund on BP.” as reported in the Daily Mail.
Then we find out, according to CNN and the LA Times that, “According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Barton is the largest recipient of oil and gas industry contributions in the House, getting $1,447,880 from individuals in the industry and its political action committees since 1989.”
Barton subsequently withdrew his apology to BP!
That stinks more than the oil!
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8,000 people died in the Bhopal disaster and Union Carbide have paid 487 million GBB. THis whole affair has revealed more clearly a rather nasty side to the USA.
Most of BP’s workers are Americans.
Obama is not up to the job of “World Statesman”.
These are my conclusions.
Chris
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