Gangster government and the Gulf oil spill

Via-Washington Examiner

Examiner Editorial

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal claims in his new book -- titled "Leadership and Crisis" -- that President Obama threatened him after he asked the White House to expedite approval of Food Stamp benefits for Gulf Coast residents left homeless by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"Careful, this is going to get bad for everyone," he quoted Obama as saying. Standing nearby, according to Jindal, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was throwing around F-bombs while chewing out the governor's chief of staff: "If you have a problem, pick up the f---ing phone." When Jindal later expressed worries that a White House-imposed moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico would drive up joblessness in his state, Jindal claims Obama was more concerned about standing in the polls. "The human element seemed invisible to the White House," Jindal said in his book.

The Louisiana governor is anything but a disinterested observer in these matters, to be sure, but neither are Republicans like Jindal the only critics of Obama's seeming distance from the harsh economic realities of the spill and his obliviousness to how federal policies compounded the misery. Even hyper-Democratic partisan James Carville lamented the tardiness of Obama's response to the spill, calling it "one of the greatest lost political opportunities I've ever seen."

The political fallout from Jindal's book is likely to be magnified by an Interior Department inspector general report. Interior IG Mary Kendall investigated claims that the White House misrepresented the views of seven scientists who had been asked to assess the effect of a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. "After reviewing different drafts of the Executive Summary that were exchanged between DOI and the White House prior to its final issuance, the OIG determined that the White House edit of the original DOI draft Executive Summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by experts," Kendall said. White House energy czar Carol Browner was responsible for the revisions that prompted the outside scientists to protest publicly that they were being misrepresented by federal officials.

The only surprise in all of this is that anybody would be surprised. Or that neither Obama nor his White House spokesmen have stepped forward to deny any of the details in either Jindal's account of the Food Stamp incident or the Interior Department IG's report. After all, threatening retaliation against critics and using confrontational language in an attempt to intimidate them is par for the course for the Chicago-style gangster government that nurtured Obama and his now-former chief of staff

Gulf corals in oil spill zone appear healthy

Via-AP

ON THE FLOOR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO – Just 20 miles north of where BP's blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the sea, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many of these delicate deepwater habitats.

Plankton, tiny suspended particles that form the base of the ocean's food web, float en masse 1,400 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, forming a snowy-like underwater scene as they move with the currents outside the windows of a two-man sub creeping a few feet off the seafloor.

Crabs, starfish and other deep sea creatures swarm small patches of corals, and tiny sea anemones sprout from the sand like miniature forests across a lunar-like landscape illuminated only by the lights of the sub, otherwise living in a deep, dark environment far from the sun's reach.

Scientists are currently in the early stages of studying what effects, if any, BP PLC's April 20 oil well blowout off Louisiana and the ensuing crude gusher has had on the delicate deep sea coral habitats of the northern Gulf.

So far, it appears the area dodged a bullet, but more research is needed. Some of the deep sea corals near the spill site were only discovered just last year.

"Originally, when we saw the trajectory for the oil spill and where it was going, we were very concerned that these habitats would be impacted," said researcher Steve Ross of the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Ross and others are conducting research from a Greenpeace ship in the Gulf, using a two-man sub as they work to determine if the corals have suffered damage, or may take a hit from long-term impacts, such as stunted reproduction rates.

"We thought certainly that ... we would see signs of damage," Ross said. "And we're very pleased to say so far, that in these locations, we haven't seen a large scale damage to the coral habitats. We're still looking, but so far, it's good."

Ross was part of a team of researchers that studied deep sea corals in the Atlantic Ocean between North Carolina and Florida. The research eventually helped lead to added federal protections for a roughly 23,000 square-mile network believed to be among the largest continuous distribution of deep water corals in the world.

Ross and others have now turned their attention to the Gulf.

While fishermen have for centuries dragged up corals from the deep sea, it wasn't until the early 1900s that scientists discovered these extensive cold-water reefs. And it wasn't until the 1970s that researchers were able to use subs and cameras to reach the sea floor to document them. It had long been thought coral reefs only formed in shallow, warm waters.

Deepwater reefs and pinnacles are much more slow-growing and can take several million years to form. Science is only now beginning to understand these underwater "frontier zones." Researchers are looking to these regions for the development of additional pharmaceuticals since these cold-water critters have adapted to live in such unique environments void of sunlight, they possess unusual qualities that federal scientists say could aid in creating new drugs for cancer, heart disease and other ailments.

"We are very interested in any potential damage to deep sea corals," said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is currently conducting research into oil in Gulf sediments, among other studies.

The federal government maintains much of the oil is now gone from the Gulf, but some studies indicate it remains in significant amounts on the sea floor. Microscopic particles have also been found in the water column.

It is now a prime time for coral spawning in the Gulf, when the corals release tiny larvae that eventually form new corals.

"It could alter the reproduction of these animals," Murawski said. "Even though the adults may survive the event, did we lose the opportunity to have more juveniles produced?"

Sandra Brooke, coral conservation director at the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, who is also participating in the research, agreed. The corals' reproduction rates will be studied over the coming weeks, she said.

"We have to be careful with our conclusions about this kind of data," Brooke said, noting it will take more than just a few dives to determine the extent of the damage. "We'll take further analysis but from what we've seen so far, it seems like they've dodged a bullet."

Long-term impacts, for instance, from 1989's much smaller Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska took years, even decades to understand.

"We're just going to have to continue watching," said Margot Stiles, a marine scientist with the conservation group Oceana.

Excellent: Jindal rallies Louisianans to oppose the feds’ drilling moratorium

Article Via Hot Air-

Puerto Rico, Guam Kneecap Gulf Coast

Now here is something I bet few people knew about. Actually this is pretty outrageous, giving territories this power is ridiculous.

Via-Human Events

by Connie Hair

In a stunning turn of events late last week, a five-vote bloc of U.S. “non-voting” territorial delegates were the deciding votes blocking an amendment to kill the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) offered an amendment in the House Natural Resources Committee markup of the CLEAR Act that would have banned the moratorium that has already been thrown out twice by a U.S. federal court. The Obama administration has ignored the court orders issuing an additional ban.


The moratorium is currently wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast economy.

The CLEAR Act is another of the myriad energy bills Democrats seek to ram through Congress as a result of the oil spill aftermath that have little to do with the spill and everything to do with their faux green energy power grab.

Cassidy’s amendment was killed by the “non-voting” members of the U.S. territories who have been granted the right to vote by the majority in any committee on which they serve.

These delegates represent territories of the United States whose constituencies are not U.S. citizens: Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Natives of these territories pay no U.S. federal income taxes.

In 2007, Democrats granted these delegates the ability to vote on amendments on the floor of the House with the concession that the vote will be done over if their votes are the deciding factor.

During the fierce 2007 debate, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called granting these delegates floor voting rights, “An outrageous grab of power by the majority.”

Then Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said allowing these “non-voting” delegates a House Congressional floor vote amounted to, “Representation without taxation.”

Delegates are not allowed to vote on final passage of a bill and deciding votes on amendments cause a second round of voting without their participation. That only pertains to the House floor. In committee, their amendment votes are binding.

All of the House delegates caucus with the Democrats. The Senate does not have territorial delegates.

The drilling moratorium ban amendment was killed by these House U.S. territorial votes. The committee vote tally sheet is posted here on local Louisiana blog The Hayride.

Cassidy told HUMAN EVENTS in an interview post-vote that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has stacked the committee with votes against domestic energy development on the whole.

“There is an ideological bias in this Congress starting at the top against domestic energy production unless it is the ephemeral promise of windmills and solar panels,” Cassidy said. “If it were not for the representatives of the territories, she would have stacked it with someone else. There are only three Democrats on that committee who represent areas that produce energy: the Chairman [Nick Rahall (W.V.)], Jim Costa (Calif.) and Dan Boren (Okla.). Those are the three that voted for my amendment to end the moratorium.”

Cassidy said there's a great sense of relief that no new oil is currently leaking into the Gulf but there's a sense of impending doom in Louisiana over the drilling moratorium.

“There’s just a sense here that Obama hates Louisiana,” Cassidy said. “This moratorium is not hurting Tony Heyward or BP. They’re just going to move their rigs to Libya and start drilling there. The people it is hurting are families. Imagine the typical middle class family if you interrupt their income for six months what that would do to their finances. This is a people moratorium.”

For more on the Cassidy amendment and the vote, read it here on The Hayride.

Ban on deep-water drilling adds insult to injury

Via-WAPO

By Bobby Jindal

By now, everyone no doubt realizes that I am not a fan of the pace at which the federal government has worked to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sadly, federal officials were slow to act and overly bureaucratic. They have never really understood the urgency of the situation down here. I'm not raising a question of motive; it's simply a function of the federal government being a slow-moving albatross. The only way to attack a crisis like this is with the urgency of a military mind-set.

Even after the well is finally capped, the damage done to our environment, to the Gulf of Mexico, and to our marshes, wetlands and beaches will take years to repair. There is another type of damage from this spill: its human impact. Thousands of lives, businesses and families are reeling.

Against this backdrop, the federal government unwisely chose to add insult to injury by decreeing a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the gulf. This ill-advised and ill-considered moratorium, which a federal judge called "arbitrary" and "capricious," creates a second disaster for our economy, throwing thousands of hardworking folks out of their jobs and causing real damage to many families. Now this federal policy risks killing 20,000 more jobs and will result in a loss of $65 million to $135 million in wages each month.

To ensure that such a disaster does not happen again, should the federal government increase oversight, or require additional and better equipment or on-site federal inspectors, or even temporarily pause drilling at specific rigs for additional reviews? Of course. Could it? Of course. But by simply stopping all deepwater drilling, federal officials appear more interested in ideology and scoring political points -- as they have done with the misguided cap-and-trade legislation -- at the expense of Americans who derive their livelihood from the energy industry.

Let's be clear: This moratorium will do nothing to clean up the Gulf of Mexico, and it is already doing great harm to many hardworking citizens. The effects will extend well beyond Louisiana. Since the moratorium was announced, America has already lost two rigs to foreign countries. More drilling companies are negotiating right now to work elsewhere. Every time we decrease our level of production, we make America more dependent on foreign sources of energy.

On those few occasions when our country suffers a commercial airline tragedy, we do not respond by stopping all air travel for six months. Rather, we get to work figuring out the root cause and set about trying to make air travel safer. We don't grind everything to a halt and put tens of thousands of people out of work, jeopardizing our economy.

So, my state joined a lawsuit against the moratorium. We pointed out that a majority of the experts the federal government consulted before the ban, including representatives from the National Academy of Engineering, have stated publicly that they do not agree with the six-month blanket moratorium.
The court sided with the people of Louisiana in this matter. Consider the judge's statements: that the federal moratorium would result in the loss of jobs and livelihoods, that the government's action "does not seem to be fact-specific" and that the "government's hair-splitting explanation abuses reason and common sense."

One might assume that the federal government would back down, lift the moratorium and get on with the business of ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again in federal waters.

Nope.

Our federal government chose to fight on in court, and lost a second time.

Surely now, many of us thought, the federal government would stop its efforts to halt all drilling and instead get serious about more rigorous oversight and inspections.

Nope.

Instead, the federal government drafted a new moratorium. This seems to be a cynical ploy. It will take time to again take federal officials to court. If Washington loses, officials can issue a third moratorium and play this game out as long as they want. Such is the power of the federal government.

Louisianans, of all people, don't want to see another drop of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It is our land and our way of life that are being harmed. Yet the administration tells our people to simply file a claim with BP or file for unemployment. Our people want to work, not collect unemployment checks.

We don't want to see the federal government create a second disaster, an economic disaster, for the people of our state thanks to its "capricious" and "arbitrary" actions. The bottom line is this: Thousands of Louisianans shouldn't have to lose their jobs just because the federal government can't do its job.

The writer, a Republican, is governor of Louisiana.

‘We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation.’

Via-Washington Examiner

By: David Freddoso


It’s “The Obama Recovery Summer” – if you happen to live in Egypt, anyway:

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (NYSE:DO) today announced that a subsidiary of the Company has entered into a term contract ending June 30, 2011, plus option, with Burullus Gas Company S.A.E. that will immediately mobilize the Ocean Endeavor from the Gulf Of Mexico (GOM) to Egypt.

Diamond Offshore President and CEO, Larry Dickerson, noted, “With new contracting severely restricted in the GOM as a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed. This new contract for the Endeavor will help us preserve backlog, and will allow the previous operator of the rig to satisfy its contractual obligations which extended until June 30, 2011. We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation.”



http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/we-greatly-regret-the-loss-of-us-jobs-that-will-result-from-this-rig-relocation-98110194.html#ixzz0tCO4wDNl

Appeals Court Rejects U.S. Bid to Keep Drilling Moratorium

Via-FOX

NEW ORLEANS -- A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the federal government's effort to restore an offshore deepwater drilling moratorium, opening the door to resumed drilling in the Gulf while the legal fight continues.

The ruling is not the final word on the Obama administration's fight to suspend new drilling projects so it can study the risks revealed by the disastrous BP oil spill.

The same appeals court is expected to hear arguments on the merits of the moratorium case in late August or early September.

While it's possible that 33 exploratory wells suspended by the moratorium could resume drilling, companies might not bother with the expense while the ultimate future of the projects hangs in the balance.

Catherine Wannamaker, a lawyer for several environmental groups that support the moratorium, said she was disappointed by the ruling but expressed confidence that the Obama administration ultimately will win its appeal.

Wannamaker said it's unclear whether any offshore companies would resume drilling because Thursday's ruling doesn't resolve the case.

"Clearly, it's legally allowed," he said. "The question is, practically speaking, will anybody do it given the uncertainty? It's hard to know what will happen."

The CEO of one of the companies that sued to stop the moratorium, Covington-based Hornbeck Offshore Services, said he didn't know if any of the companies involved planned to resume drilling.

"We need to get back to work," Todd Hornbeck said of his company, which provides vessels that serve the offshore industry. "We can't work without any drilling units working."

The moratorium, which prompted a lawsuit from oil and gas service companies, was first rejected June 22 by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman.

The Interior Department appealed, asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to let the temporary ban stand until it ruled on the merits of the case.

Justice Department lawyer Michael Gray argued Feldman abused his discretion when he overturned the moratorium, which halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater projects and suspended drilling on the 33 exploratory wells.

Lawyers for the several oilfield service companies argued the administration failed to show that "irreparable harm" would take place if the drilling ban was lifted.

A three-judge panel rejected the government's arguments less than two hours after a hearing on Thursday afternoon.

Two of the 5th Circuit judges seemed to disagree about who should be shown more deference: the lower-court judge or Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who imposed the moratorium.

Judge Jerry E. Smith leaned toward the judge, while Judge James L. Dennis said Salazar "is entitled to a lot of deference." Dennis partially dissented in the ruling, saying that he would have let the moratorium remain in place.

"Why are we in a position to second-guess the secretary on whether or not there's a threat of irreparable harm?" Dennis asked at the hearing.

After Feldman overturned the moratorium in June, Salazar announced he would issued a new, refined moratorium that reflects offshore conditions. Gray, the Justice lawyer, said Salazar was still considering crafting a new moratorium.

Hornbeck said he can only "wait and see" whether the Interior Department tries to impose a new moratorium.

"It's not solving any problems. It's creating new problems," he said. "There are better solutions than that."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a vocal critic of the moratorium, observed the hearing from the courtroom gallery. Outside, he said a second moratorium would further chill plans for drilling in the Gulf and cost thousands of jobs.

"The federal government not being able to do its job is not a reason for thousands of Louisianians to lose their jobs," Jindal said.

Florida Sees New Threat to Its Beaches

A Norwegian tanker approaching Havana last month. Several global oil companies have signed leases to explore in Cuban waters, where the U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be substantial stores of oil.

Deepwater Drilling Project in Cuban Waters Set to Launch Next Year Could Kick Off a Spate of Exploration in the Region

Via-WSJ

Florida has long fought to prevent oil drilling anywhere near its white sandy beaches. But as the state continues to deal with oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill washing up on its shores, it faces a new threat: deepwater drilling in nearby Cuban waters.

Maria Ritter, a spokeswoman for Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA, said it plans to drill off Cuba, about 60 miles south of Key West, Fla., early next year. If successful, this would likely kick off a spate of exploration. Only one deepwater well has been drilled in Cuban waters, by Repsol in 2004. The effort found oil but not enough to justify commercial development.

Since then, the U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be a substantial amount of untapped oil off the Cuban coast, whetting the appetite of several global oil companies that have signed exploration leases.

U.S. companies won't participate because of a longstanding trade embargo against Cuba. Repsol plans to use a floating drilling rig being refurbished in a Chinese shipyard, similar to the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP PLC that caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico in April. Almost all parts and components in the rig to be used by Repsol are from non-U.S. companies.

The Obama administration has sought a six-month ban on deepwater drilling in U.S. waters to reassess risks and establish new safety procedures if necessary. But any new rules wouldn't reach Repsol's project in Cuban waters.

A spill there, even one significantly smaller than the continuing BP spill, could turn into an economic and environmental nightmare for Florida. Some oceanographers say the oil would likely be carried up Florida's Atlantic Coast, the heart of its tourism industry.

"We have one of the world's largest coral reefs and a protected marine sanctuary there," said Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) "We should not be drilling there."

Cuba's state oil firm, Union Cuba Petroleo, could not be reached for comment. Ms. Ritter, the Repsol spokeswoman, declined to comment on the project beyond confirming plans for the rig. Repsol has operations in many parts of the world, including the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico.

Drilling off Florida in U.S. waters has been banned by federal moratorium for decades. To protect the state's tourism-based economy, Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running for the U.S. Senate as an independent, is floating a proposal for an amendment to the Florida constitution to ban offshore drilling there permanently.

It's not clear what U.S. or Florida officials could do to stop oil exploration in Cuba. The U.S. controls coastal waters up to 200 miles from its shores, but under a 1977 treaty it agreed to divide the Straits of Florida equally with Cuba. That means Repsol can drill a deepwater well about the same distance from Key West, Fla., as the Deepwater Horizon was from the Louisiana coast.

The rig headed for Cuban waters has five rams in its blowout preventer, each designed to help shut off an out-of-control well. The Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer had only four.

In the event of a spill in Cuban waters, many ships, equipment and personnel from the U.S. Gulf Coast could be prevented from helping because of the embargo. But that may be changing. A Treasury Department spokeswoman said some U.S. firms involved in oil cleanup have been issued licenses to travel to Cuba in case oil from the continuing spill hits beaches there.

Cuba's efforts to promote offshore oil exploration appear close to paying off. Cuba imports about 110,000 barrels of oil daily and produces an additional 52,000 barrels, mostly from onshore and shallow-water fields, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Ms. Ritter said Madrid-based Repsol plans to drill a new well near the 2004 well as soon as the rig—called the Scarabeo 9—is ready. Construction of Scarabeo 9 is expected to be complete at the end of 2010 or early 2011, said a spokesman for Enis SpA, an Italian company that controls the rig. Repsol's partners on the well include Norway's Statoil ASA and the overseas arm of India's state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Eight other foreign oil companies hold offshore leases in Cuban waters.

Largest skimmer in the world must be deemed ‘effective’ by the federal government before it’s allowed to help with oil clean-up

Via-Daily Caller


The largest skimming ship in the world — known as an “A Whale” — is expected to arrive in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, but will be prevented from contracting with BP to help clean up the oil spill until the federal government decides that the vessel is “effective.”

The Coast Guard will not clear the Taiwan-owned ship – which is reportedly the length of 3 football fields and 10 stories high – to join the clean-up until it undergoes a test.

“The Coast Guard research and development center has a team of personnel that are ready to observe the tests to test the efficacy of the vessels systems, as well as its ability to safely operate in that area down there,” Coast Guard spokesman Ron LaBrec told The Daily Caller.

LaBrec said that the Coast Guard does not have concerns about the environmental impact of the ship’s operations. Some reports have said that the Environmental Protection Agency is worried that some of the 500,000 barrels of oily water sucked up each day by the vessel may contain some traces of oil when placed back in the Gulf.

An EPA spokesman did not return a request for comment by press time.

The Coast Guard spokesman said that there are no legal concerns holding up the “A Whale” skimmer. The Jones Act, which prohibits foreign ships from operating in or near U.S. ports in many circumstances, does not apply to skimmers.

LaBrec said that the holdup for the super skimmer was required only because the government is required to give it the green light, even though BP would be the one paying for the skimmer and on the hook if it was not effective.

“There are standards for oil spill response vessels, testing standards,” LaBrec said. “The federal on-scene coordinator is involved in approving the different technologies that are used in the response to make sure there are no issues with that.”


A BP spokesman said the oil company had not asked the skimmer to come help with the cleanup.

“They’ve just turned up hoping to help out. We haven’t contracted with them,” the BP spokesman said.

Stealth ban on Gulf drilling

Via-CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The offshore drilling ban imposed after the BP disaster is only supposed to hit operations in deep water -- 500 feet or more.

But drillers in shallow water say they haven't been issued permits since the April 20 explosion. The delay has already forced hundreds of layoffs, and many more could be on the way.

"I'm almost out of business over here," said Paul Butler, president of Spartan Offshore, a small drilling company in Metairie, La.

Butler said that only one of his four drill rigs are operating; all four were drilling before the spill. Spartan has six contracts that would put his entire fleet back to work, but he can't get going until the permits come through, he added.

The week before last, Butler said he had to lay off 72 employees. Come Tuesday he'll have to let another 140 go.

"That's 140 families, is how I look at it," Butler said.

Same is true at Hercules Offshore, the largest shallow water driller in the Gulf.

"The Department of Interior isn't issuing permits," said Jim Noe, a Hercules executive. "By mid July all of our rigs will be on the beach, and the workers without a job."

That could be a lot of jobs.

Jobs on the line: Deep water drilling, which is currently banned while an investigation into the Deepwater Horizon accident is underway, is estimated to employ at least 35,000 people on both the rigs and in jobs that support them.

Nearly that many jobs could also be at stake over shallow water drilling. While shallow water rigs are smaller and employ only about half as many people, there are almost twice as many of them in the Gulf, according to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association.

"Do not close down Louisiana's economy with this ill-conceived freeze," Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle said in a recent statement on the deep water ban. "Louisiana's offshore industry is critical to the economic survival of this nation."

Angelle is leading an effort to prod the administration into issuing shallow water permits as well, and is on a twice-weekly briefing call with federal officials on the matter.

"Every time he asks them how many permits they've issued, and each time the answer is zero," said Hercules' Noe.

Safety first: An Interior Department spokeswoman said there is no freeze on shallow water drilling. However, she said, new safety procedures were put in place following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

"Companies have to comply before we can issue them permits," the spokeswoman said. "No one has fully complied."

Spartan's Butler said there was a long delay between when Interior stopped issuing permits and when the new safety guidelines came out. Indeed, the first Interior Department notification to oil companies about the new requirements was dated June 8, nearly two months after the disaster.

Butler said he has been scrambling to get his paperwork in order and hopes that permits will be issued soon.

Drilling ban: The jobs at stake
Shallow water drillers feel their operations are safer than the deep water operations like BP's.

The drillers say that an oil leak is easier to stop in shallow water, because the safety equipment is mounted right under the rig -- not a mile under the ocean surface. The geology is also better known and the water pressure is less. In addition, oil is easier to corral in shallow areas.

'System is broken': But others say that's not true, and believe the new safety requirements are reasonable. The massive Gulf oil leak, so far unstoppable, is one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. And it appears that a series of faulty industry procedures and shoddy government oversight are to blame.

"The system regulating offshore drilling operations is broken," Regan Nelson, senior oceans advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a recent blog post. "A broken system could lead to additional failures, regardless of the depth of water."

Nelson noted that two bad oil spills -- one in Mexico in the late 1970s and one recently off the coast of Australia -- both occurred in shallow water.

"Until we have a better handle on what it takes to drill safely, the president's moratorium should cover all new drilling activities," she said.

David Limbaugh: What would Saul Alinsky do?

Via-Washington Examiner

By: David Limbaugh

Remember the popular motto "What would Jesus do?" which was invoked by many Christians as a moral guidepost for daily living? President Barack Obama more likely adheres to "What would Saul Alinsky do?" as most recently evidenced by his apparent defiance of a federal court order on his moratorium on offshore drilling.

Politico reports that the drilling companies who secured the court order blocking the moratorium say the administration indeed is going to defy the court order. I'm quite sure that Alinsky would applaud this move: If at first you don't succeed through proper legal channels, proceed anyway, because nothing is more important than the radical ends you seek, including the means that must be trampled in the process.

Of course, shrewd Alinskyites like Obama will always have a plausible excuse for their deceitful tactics. In this case, they are alleging newly discovered facts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he intends to reimpose the drilling moratorium based on information that wasn't "fully developed" in May, when the six-month moratorium was imposed. Quite convenient.

The administration is also sending mixed signals, probably to introduce sufficient confusion to cover its disobedience. The government's brief filed with the court insisted, "Of course, until a further order of this Court or the Court of Appeals granting relief from this Court's Preliminary Injunction Order, Defendants will comply with the Court's Order." But attorneys for the drilling companies warn that "Secretary Salazar's comments have the obvious effect of chilling the resumption of (outer continental shelf) activities, which is precisely the wrong this Court sought to redress through its Preliminary Injunction Order."

The companies' point, notes Politico, is that Salazar's public announcement that the administration will reinstitute the moratorium will have the same practical effect as actually doing it because companies are not about to prepare rigs for drilling when they might be shut down in a few days. The administration predictably pooh-poohs the companies' concerns and says these new "facts" present an entirely different scenario. How convenient. Whenever you can't advance the football, just move the goal posts your way.

Can't you just hear an irate Alinsky-schooled Obama behind closed doors learning of the court order audaciously purporting to limit his plenary executive authority? "Just find the damn loophole -- or say you did -- and I don't want to see you again in this office until it's done."

Defying court orders is just one of many ways Obama abuses his authority. When Congress failed with its initial efforts to impose cap-and-tax legislation designed to suppress traditional energy production and consumption in the United States for the ostensible purpose of reducing global temperature an imperceptible amount over the next century, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency just issued ultra vires regulations to accomplish similar results. It didn't matter that every literate and intellectually honest person had to concede that the EPA had no statutory (or any other) authority to issue such sweeping regulations. What mattered were the administration's radical environmental goals.

When Obama wanted to secure for his favored unions a stake in his new General Motors far exceeding their actual ownership interest and rob secured creditors of their preferred-creditor status and the value of their investment, he used the power of his office to strong-arm a restructuring of the company to accomplish his aims. When Democratic Party donor and super-lawyer Tom Lauria opposed this plan on behalf of his client, the White House, according to Lauria, threatened to destroy his client's reputation. One unnamed source described the White House as the most shocking "end justifies the means" group he had ever encountered. Another attributed Obama's negotiating tactics to a "madman theory of the presidency," saying Obama wants to be feared as someone who is willing to do anything to get his way. In return for standing up for their legal rights as secured creditors and not bending to Obama's horrendously unfair demand, er, offer, Obama maligned the recalcitrant creditors as "a small group of speculators."

When inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on the corruption of an Obama friend and supporter, Obama fired Walpin and sought to discredit him as a senile misfit -- a charge wholly unsupported by the facts.

And I won't begin to recite the many ways (e.g., reconciliation) Obama sought to circumvent the legislative process en route to Obamacare.

Alinsky is surely beaming from the other side.

Avertible catastrophe

Via-Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon,

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn't capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company's expense. "If there's a country that's experienced with building dikes and managing water, it's the Netherlands," says Geert Visser, the Dutch consul general in Houston.

In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water--the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. "Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands," he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.

Then again, perhaps he should not be all that perplexed at the American tolerance for turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to Anchorage airport to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment. The Exxon Valdez became the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history--until the BP Gulf spill.

Video-Incompetence

Via-Freedom Lighthouse

Obama, Jindal and True Leadership

Via-RCP


By Jay Ambrose

Here it was, the crystallizing moment that told us who is who and what is what in the Gulf oil spill disaster and that also signaled that there really is reliable leadership to be found in this country.

Not that there was high drama when Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal got 16 barges busy dredging up BP oil that was otherwise going to wreak havoc. He has been ever alert, ever in motion, ever figuring out new ways to save his state from ruin, and this decisive action was nothing new for him.

Then, however, we had a counter-attack. The Coast Guard put the operation on hold for fear the barges might not have life jackets or fire extinguishers aboard. To find out the hard way, officers attempted without success to contact the company that built the barges. Meanwhile Jindal was trying to contact someone in the Coast Guard or White House. It took 24 precious hours to wring retreat out of these abettors of gooey grief.

So where was the White House on this, anyway? Happy to see bureaucracy obnoxiously extending itself no matter what the issue? Out to lunch? Or, more likely, out with the boss playing golf? Maybe that's unfair. It's surely excusable for a president to have six hours of refreshment, as on a recent golf outing, even if one online jokester tells us that while Barack Obama swings his clubs, Jindal fills sandbags.

He is a wonder, this Jindal. He has been engaged in every facet of what's going on, as in demanding sand barriers to protect the coast and providing answers to those that questioned the idea's wisdom, in striking contrast to Obama, whose way of addressing the catastrophe has largely been political.

As president of the whole nation, Obama has a great many other big issues to contend with, but that does not explain why his minion-in-chief mendaciously declares that all Republicans want to let BP off the hook, why Obama blames George W. Bush for current regulatory failures, why he says Republicans hate all regulation or why he gives a nationally televised speech that is a cliche pudding. It certainly does not explain the scandalous fact that he has neglected to accept high-tech rescue help from 17 countries that have been offering it.

Then again, Obama's experience in administering anything is nil. He says he managed his campaign, but presidential candidates do not manage their campaigns except perhaps to say "yes" or "no" occasionally. Otherwise, he was a community organizer, a part-time lawyer, a university lecturer, a state senator and a U.S. senator who chiefly ran for president while holding that office.

Following an academic career that was nothing short of brilliant, Jindal, at the age of 25, was Louisiana's secretary of health, saving millions of dollars for Medicaid while extending health protections for the public, a review of an online biography reminds us. At 28, he was president of the state's university system. He sat on a national panel figuring out an answer to one of the country's biggest problems, the funding of Medicare. He was an assistant secretary in the federal Health and Human Services Department. He was a member of Congress. He is now the exceptional 39-year-old governor of a big state

A debit was his nationally televised response to an Obama speech in February of 2009. In delivery style, the Jindal oration was a horror. The content was nevertheless an incisive conservative questioning of Obama's stimulus ambitions along with his own suggested recession remedies. He is an anti-debt guy, a practical guy, a problem solver, a constitutionalist and the son of immigrants that is very much a believer in the American dream.

And right now, he is an example of what a true leader can be like.

Ken Salazar Gets a Kick in the You-Know-What

Via-Townhall


MICHELLE MALKIN

For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter. Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won't do.

In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans-based Feldman overturned the administration's radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling -- and he singled out Salazar's central role in jury-rigging a federal panel's scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar's head would roll. In Obama's world, he gets immunity.

The suit challenging Obama's desperately political ban was filed by Covington, La., rig company Hornbeck Offshore Services, which spoke on behalf of all the "small people" in the industry whose economic survival is at stake. As the plaintiffs' lawyer argued in court, the overbroad ban promised to be more devastating to Gulf workers than the spill itself. "This is an unprecedented industry-wide shutdown. Never before has the government done this," attorney Carl Rosenblum said.

Scientists who served on the committee expressed outrage upon discovering earlier this month that Salazar had -- unilaterally and without warning -- inserted a blanket drilling ban recommendation into their report. As Feldman recounted in his ruling:

In the Executive Summary to the Report, (Salazar) recommends "a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs." He also recommends "an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico."

Much to the government's discomfort and this Court's uneasiness, the Summary also states that "the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a "misrepresentation." It was factually incorrect.

Allow me to be more injudicious: Salazar lied. Salazar committed fraud. Salazar sullied the reputations of the experts involved and abused his authority.

And for what purpose? To exploit the Gulf crisis, appease the eco-extremists and stymie the economic recovery to which the Obama White House pays oily lip service.

The scientists whose views were misrepresented reportedly received an apology from the evidence-doctoring Salazar, but where are the consequences? Where is the accountability? Terrific news: Salazar, the report-rigger, is in charge of overseeing it. That's right. The Teflon Interior Secretary spent Monday afternoon swearing in another bureaucrat, litigator Michael Bromwich, who will head the newly named "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement" (formerly the beleaguered Minerals Management Service).

According to Salazar, Bromwich "will be a key part of our team as we continue to change the way the Department of the Interior does business." Present company exempted, of course.

Feldman soberly illuminated the way the Department of Interior does business in concluding that Salazar's "invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country." Salazar, with his boss's blessing, imposed the blanket moratorium on Hornbeck and 33 permitted rigs without a shred of threat/safety analysis. Of course, Hope and Change have always been exercised with Arbitrary and Capricious power.

The White House immediately announced plans to appeal the ruling. But for once, Chicago-on-the-Potomac has run smack into the rule of law and lost. For all the other small people over whom the Obama administration has run roughshod, let’s hope it sets a lasting precedent

We Must Limit Government--And Big Business

Via-RCP

By Rich Lowry

The Brits are upset that Pres. Barack Obama has been referring to disgraced oil giant BP as "British Petroleum," a name it shed long ago.

But what else should Obama call an enormous Britain-based petroleum company? To ask such an innocent question betrays ignorance of the ways of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The marketing gurus at the firm - led by über Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg - helped conceive and execute one of the most perverse rebrandings of all time for BP.


British? So yesterday. Petroleum? Not very green. A logo of a shield emblazoned with "BP"? Disturbingly martial. In 2000, newly christened BP ditched all these negative associations by adopting the slogan "Beyond Petroleum" and emblazoning itself with a sunflower-like logo that could be mistaken for the symbol of the Green party of Canada.

It worked so brilliantly, a Joe McGinniss of marketing should write a blow-by-blow account - The Selling of BP. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner bragged that its work for BP "included extensive testing of advertising and evaluating the global response toward pioneering positions on the environment, climate change, and energy efficiency." The case study outlining this extraordinary marketing success has since been removed from the firm's website. (Greenberg et al. are image-conscious people, after all.)

BP knew how to play the game. It repeated all the environmentally correct platitudes that tickle the fancy of "NGO leaders, journalists, political elites," in the words of the case study. It supported the fashionable reform of the day, cap-and-trade, knowing that the system would favor the big and connected, like itself. And it showered campaign contributions on the candidate of Hope and Change (its employees gave Obama about twice as much in donations as they did John McCain in 2008).

BP couldn't have been notionally greener if Al Gore were its CEO. The group chief executive of BP, Lord John Browne, warned of the dangers of hydrocarbons, a little like the city fathers of Newcastle in the 19th century inveighing against coal. In a speech at Stanford in 2007, Browne advocated an "international climate agency" that would entail "a move beyond the limitations of national sovereignty."

This green one-worldism was awfully rich coming from an executive of an oil company that couldn't even drill responsibly. Despite all the hokum, BP spent vastly more resources on fossil fuels than green energy. In so doing, it compiled an atrocious safety record that made the poor decision-making that led to the blowout in the Gulf unsurprising to industry insiders.

And now tens of thousands of barrels of petroleum a day are fouling the Gulf, courtesy of the corporation that spent so much convincing people it was "beyond" it.

Rep. Joe Barton's quickly retracted apology to BP for the administration's strong-arm tactics was horribly misconceived. Fundamentally, we don't want a free market and a system of laws to protect corporations, but to protect us from both government and corporations, especially when the two are in league with each other. Corporations like BP tend to be craven, unprincipled, and willing to use government for their own ends - all qualities evident in BP's spectacular green-marketing campaign.

The bigger and more complex government is, the more incentive corporations have to politicize themselves and get in bed with Washington. If they have resources to do it (not everyone can afford Stan Greenberg), they'll protect themselves from the worst while disadvantaging their competitors. This accounts for the corporatist paradox of the Obama administration. The president is so arbitrarily anti-business that The Economist dubs him "Vladimir Obama," yet the same industries he demonizes support key elements of his "reform" agenda.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argues that Barton's apology to BP is the sum total of Republican thought on the economy, and that the fall election is a choice between Obama-style hyperactive government or the depredations of the execrable BP. To which the only rational answer can be, "None of the above."

Beyond Pathetic

Via-The Weekly Standard

BP’s Gulf disaster was no surprise to those who understood the corporate culture.

BY Andrew B. Wilson

Shortly after lunch on November 27, 2003, Oberon Houston was in his office beneath the helideck of BP’s Forties Alpha oil platform in the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland. One of a select group (1 percent of BP’s staff) of young engineers and managers targeted by the company for rapid advancement, Houston, 34, was working out maintenance plans for the coming week when he heard what he thought was a deafening explosion.

Only it wasn’t an explosion. A gas line had ruptured—allowing thousands of pounds of pressurized gas to escape at supersonic velocity. That caused a thunderous sonic boom. Debris from the burst pipe and its cladding rained down, adding to the impression that “an artillery shell had just hit the platform.” The escaping gas quickly formed a huge and potentially lethal cloud around the rig. Now the threat of an actual explosion was very real. The smallest spark would detonate more than a ton of methane gas.

No one died or was even hurt that day on Forties Alpha, thanks in part to high winds that helped to disperse the gas after about 20 minutes of extreme danger to the platform and its crew of 180 people. But Houston, the number two in command aboard Forties Alpha, knew full well what could have happened. “Unlike a similar incident on the ill-fated Piper Alpha platform,” he observes, referring to an earlier accident in the North Sea, “the gas did not ignite, so what could have been a major disaster for myself and everyone else on board was averted by sheer luck.”

The Piper Alpha disaster took place on July 6, 1988. One hundred and sixty-seven people perished in a giant fireball on the rig operated by Occidental Petroleum. Only 62 crew members survived. In immediate loss of human life, Piper Alpha stands to this day as the worst disaster ever in offshore drilling and production—far exceeding the 11 killed in the massive explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon platform on April 20.

Though Forties Alpha could have produced a similar conflagration, it was nothing more than a near miss which was soon forgotten. BP admitted breaking health and safety laws by failing to guard against corrosion on the ruptured pipe that allowed the gas to escape. It was fined $290,000. The bigger loss came in early 2004. Houston resigned, and BP lost one of its best young engineers.

read entire article here

Obama's oil disaster

Via-Washington Examiner

By: Linda Chavez

The night he locked up the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama predicted that generations hence, people would look back on the historic day as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." At the time, his words reeked of hubris. Today, they look positively delusional.

President Obama can't stop the oil leak in the Gulf, but he can and should be held accountable for the inept government response to cleaning it up and mitigating its worst effects on the shoreline. And you can bet that if George W. Bush were in the Oval Office, the media would be blaming the president for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. But they're largely giving Obama a pass, implying that small-government conservatives have no room to complain when government fails to live up to its responsibilities.

Believing in limited government isn't the same thing as believing in no government. Even hard-core libertarians believe that the federal government is responsible for providing for the common defense of the nation. All the small-government conservatives I know believe that government has responsibility to protect the citizenry from attack -- it's the primary reason we pay taxes and live in a civil society.

Granted, millions of gallons of oil washing up onshore in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida is not the same thing as a military or terrorist attack -- but it is an environmental assault that requires federal government action. But the Obama administration's response was slow and ineffective. The president's first reflex was to try to distance himself from the crisis, hoping Americans would blame BP and leave his administration out of the picture. When that didn't work, he opted for photo-ops on the damaged shoreline and angry rhetoric. Now, nearly two months into the crisis, he's decided to use the oil spill to advance his own policy agenda, namely cap-and-trade legislation that would make energy more expensive and punish consumers.

The Obama administration can't stop the oil flow -- only the oil industry has the expertise to do so. But the administration can and should be doing more to protect the shoreline. The president has yet to suspend the Jones Act, which limits the ability of foreign-flag ships to join the effort to contain the spill. Why? Because U.S. maritime trade unions might complain. And he has not done enough to enlist the help and support of other oil companies who have experience dealing with spills. Why hasn't the president asked for help from the Saudis, for example, or enlisted supertankers and foreign skimmers?

Instead, the president delivered an Oval Office address this week -- the first of his presidency -- to try to turn the oil spill disaster into an argument for ending "America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels." And his primary means of doing so is to discourage further exploration for oil and gas on U.S. land and to further tax oil consumption.

The president claims that cap-and-trade legislation -- which would cost Americans up to $200 billion a year in new taxes, according to the Treasury Department's own estimates -- will help create incentives for new, green technologies. But whatever hypothetical jobs might be created in the future, the effect of the legislation would be to kill current jobs today. And with unemployment at nearly 10 percent and sluggish economic growth, the last thing we need is a job-killing tax amounting to $1,700 per year on the average household.

Americans don't want the president to transform the U.S. economy. They don't want him to cure us of addictions to oil -- or anything else for that matter. They don't want him taking over companies like GM or driving other companies out of business -- not even BP. They don't expect him to stop the ocean's rise or heal the planet either. But they do expect him to engage in effective emergency preparation and crisis response. And so far, he's failed to lead the government's efforts at both.

Never Let an Oil Spill Go to Waste

Via-RCP

By David Harsanyi

The formula for power is relatively simple:

Energy divided by time equals power.

The formula for "clean energy" power, on the other hand, tends to be a bit more complicated, as there is no known numerical value for moral exhibitionism and flights of the imagination. Not yet.

I suspect all this excessive anger directed at the Obama administration over the BP oil spill is likely symptomatic of an unhealthy faith many of us have in government's supernatural abilities. But watching one of the leading proponents of The Faith taking it on the chin for not doing enough ... well, karmic justice certainly has its moments.

Not to worry, though. I also have faith that Barack Obama will turn calamity into political opportunity. And this very week, he pulled out the playbook.

"I say we can't afford not to change how we produce and use energy, because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security and our environment are far greater," the president explained in a speech ostensibly about cleaning up an accidental oil spill.

Could he provide the American people with an example of government-subsidized industries that have spurred a wondrous economic boom? Because at this point, even with the billions in subsidies and handouts -- not to mention mandates -- only 5 percent of our energy needs are met with renewable sources.

Of that 5 percent, the only sectors producing any detectable power are hydroelectric (not a new technology) and ethanol (a terrible technology). Solar, which endlessly is cited by dreamy politicians, provides 1 percent of all renewable energy -- or, scientifically speaking, zilch.

That's a whole lot of dough for remarkably little power. The problem seems to be that "new-energy economy" advocates confuse moral convictions with economic productivity. How affordably and how efficiently can you deliver power to the American people? That's what matters. Renewables are unable to compete in this arena unless government artificially spikes the price of carbon-based fuel. That's the plan.

After all, outside of studies that use prospective models, "clean energy" economies haven't been working out very well. A famous 2009 report from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid found that for every green-energy-subsidizing job created by the government, at least 2.2 jobs were lost in the process. Every green job Spain has concocted since 2000 has cost taxpayers $774,000. Spain is about to be junk-bonded, and its green-energy economy is not helping.

What about the president's contention that "we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water"? This is what you might call a meta-truth. For instance, "The sun is dying!" or "The budget will be balanced." The oil, coal and natural gas we know exists but haven't drilled for yet alone would be enough to provide hundreds of years of energy for the nation.

Perhaps it's a testament to a president who has done more to stimulate belief in free enterprise than any other in 40 years, but 68 percent of Americans, according to a recent Pew poll, believe the nation should expand exploration for coal, gas and oil, even after the BP accident.

A larger number of Americans also embrace the idea of clean energy. They embrace balance.

It's one thing to watch reality battered by environmentalists during good times; it's quite a different story today. There is no clean-energy economy without a severe trade-off that will cost jobs and prosperity.

Now, the president may believe that it's worthwhile to sacrifice your prosperity on a moral imperative. But let's not obscure what we're talking about here.

The epitome of mediocrity

Via-The Washington Times

Oleaginous Obama is even making fans queasy

Maek Steyn

I believe it was Jean Giraudoux who first said, "Only the mediocre are always at their best." Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year's boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered President Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they would have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Mr. Matthews' no-longer-tingling leg.

For the first time, I felt a wee bit sorry for the poor fellow. What had he done to so enrage his full supporting chorus? In The Washington Post, the reaction of longtime Obammysoxer Eugene Robinson was headlined "Obama disappoints from the beginning of his speech."

So what? He always "disappoints." What would have been startling would have been if he hadn't "disappointed." His eve-of-election rally for Martha Coakley "disappointed" the Massachusetts electorate so much it gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a Republican. His speech for Chicago's Olympic bid "disappointed" the Oslo committee so much it gave the games to Pyongyang, or Ougadougou, or any city offering to build a stadium with electrical outlets incompatible with Mr. Obama's teleprompter. Be honest, guys, his inaugural address "disappointed," too, didn't it? Oh, in those days, you still did your best to make the case for it. "He carries us from meditative bead to meditative bead, and invites us to contemplate," wrote Stanley Fish in the New York Times. "There is a technical term for this kind of writing - parataxis, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as 'the placing of propositions or clauses one after the other without indicating ... the relation of co-ordination or subordination between them.'"

Gotcha. To a fool, His Majesty's new clothes appear invisible. But, to a wise man, the placing of buttons and pockets without indicating the relation of co-ordination is a fascinating exercise in parataxical couture.

And so Mr. Obama bounded out to knock 'em dead with another chorus of "I'll be down to get you in a parataxis, honey," only to find himself pelted with dead fish rather than Stanley Fish. The Times' Maureen Dowd deplored his "bloodless quality" and "emotional detachment." This is the same Maureen Dowd who in 2009 hailed the new presidency with a column titled "Spock at the Bridge" - and she meant it as a compliment. Back then, this administration was supposed to be the new technocracy - cool, calm and credentialed chaps who would sit down, use their mighty intellects to provide a rigorous, post-partisan, forensic analysis of the problem and then break for their Vanity Fair photo shoot.

What was it all the smart set said about Mr. Bush? Lazy and incurious? Had President Obama or his speechwriters chanced upon last week's fish wrap, they might have noticed that I described the president as "the very model of a modern major generalist," and they might have considered whether it might not be time to try something new. For example, he could have demonstrated, as he and his energy secretary (whoops, Nobel Prize-winning energy secretary) have so signally failed to do, an understanding of what is actually happening 5,000 feet underwater and why it's hard to stop. Instead, lazy and incurious, this is what the technocratic mastermind offered: "Just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge - a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice.

"As a result of these efforts, we've directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology."

Excellent. The president directed his Nobel Prize-winning head of meetings to assemble a meeting to tackle the challenge of mobilizing the assembling of the tackling of the challenge of mobilization, at the end of which they directed BP to order up some new tackle and connect it to the thingummy next to the whachamacallit. Thank you, Mr. President. That and $4.95 will get you a venti at Starbucks.

The boring technocrat stuff out of the way, he then did his usual shtick. In the race speech, invited to address specific points about his pastor's two-decade pattern of ugly anti-American rhetoric and his opportunist peddling of paranoid conspiracies to his gullible congregants about AIDS being invented by the U.S. government to wipe them out, Mr. Obama preferred to talk about race in general - you know, blacks, whites, that sort of thing. The media loved it. This time around, invited to address specific points about an unstoppable spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama retreated to more generalities - the environment, land, air, that sort of thing. "President Obama said he is going to use the Gulf disaster to push a new energy bill through Congress," observed Jay Leno. "How about using the Gulf disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?"

When he did get specific, he sounded faintly surreal. "As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows. . . ." Energy-efficient windows? That's a great line - if Mr. Obama's auditioning to play himself on "Saturday Night Live" parodies.

And hang on - isn't this the same guy who was promising to start kicking "ass" just a few days ago? You may find yourself recalling the moment in the film "In and Out" when Kevin Kline is trying to master the "How to Be Manly" audiotape and accidentally says, "What an interesting window treatment."

But, as Rahm Emmanuel shrewdly noted, never let a crisis go to waste, not when you can get a new window treatment out of it.

My colleague Rich Lowry suggested the other day that most people not on the Gulf Coast aren't really that bothered about the spill, and that Mr. Obama has allowed himself to be blown off course entirely unnecessarily. There may be some truth to this: For most of America, this is a Potemkin crisis. But what better kind to trip up a Potemkin leader? So the president has now declared war on the great BP spill - Gulf War III - and in this epic conflict, the speechgiver-in-chief will surely be his own unmanned drone:

"I fired off a speech

But the British kept a-spillin'

Twice as many barrels as there was a month ago

I fired off a speech

But the British kept a-spillin'

Up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico. ..."

Chris Matthews and the other leg-tinglers invented a Barack Obama that doesn't exist. Unfortunately, they're stuck with the one who does, and it will be interesting to see whether he's capable of plugging the leak in his own support. If not, who knows what the tide might wash up?

Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself on a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer? Need one of those relaunch books to explain why you're getting back in the game in your country's hour of need?

"It Takes a Spillage."