What is the case for or against Obama, re: preventing the oil disaster?

[subsuelo]

Although I have been critical of the Obama administration in regards to the oil disaster in the Gulf, l find myself open to the possibility that perhaps this whole thing was for the most part unavoidable by the time Obama was elected.

So what I would like to hear from others is: What specifics can we point to (prior to the blowout) where action could/should have been taken.

What specific steps were not taken by the Obama administration that could have helped prevent the DWH oil catastrophe?

What specific steps were taken by his administration prior to the blowout but weren't enough?

I'm open to hearing all sides on this. But I would like to see if we can focus on actual specifics. Can we compile a list of specific briefings or meetings or known items for consideration regarding drilling in the gulf, or certain regulations and deregulations. Can we throw it all out on the table and somehow sort it out a bit? If anyone has links or references where this sort of list or investigation has already been done, please provide.

I just want to know the truth.

[lamp_shade]

1. Makes no difference. Damned if he does; damned if he doesn't. n/t

[RKP5637]

3. I agree with you 100% n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

18. True. The only fault I can lay with Obama

for this is not getting rid of all the Chaney henchmen in the Department of the Interior. And that STILL might not have changed the outcome.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. The only way to 'prevent' this disaster was to stop all deep water drilling.

At least until the technology to prevent catastrophes exists. There is no political will to do that. The regulations required are 'off the table' and have been since Carter's defeat and the Great Retreat from liberalism.

[RKP5637]

4. It's an ass-backward country and IMO we've gone over the tipping point. We are putting

up reinforcements to hold it together, but so much is broken and frankly IMO much of the population appears to want to remain ignorant and clueless. History repeats...

[subsuelo]

5. But as I understand it..

... the U.S. government could have demanded better emergency/disaster plans, but didn't. In fact isn't it true that at one time, all deepwater drilling did require a disaster plan, but then that got scrapped somewhere along the way? So what I would like to know is, what kind of briefings or meetings involved Obama's administration on this very topic, and what specific steps could have been taken but weren't? Why wasn't the disaster-plan requirement reinstated? Was there some legally binding contract perhaps, that prevented Obama's administration from doing anything? (I'm just throwing stuff out there, cause I don't know)

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Yes sure. And go ahead and fault the Obama administration

for not overthrowing 30+ years of deregulation in less than two years, and in fact for not even trying any real reform. But as I said, and in addition to the validity of your objections, there is no technology in existence that can handle failures at these depths. To impose regulations that would require real and competent disaster plans for deep water drilling would be to end all deep water drilling until some future time when that technology exists. That is of course exactly what should have been done long ago. However 30+ years of rightwing freemarket neoliberal retreat from all regulation and the insatiable and ever increasing demand for oil have made all that a non-starter for any administration since Carter.

[subsuelo]

7. Actually I'm just asking questions based on my understanding

Again, do we know what specific meetings or briefings went on that had anything to do with this topic - what do we know was discussed, what decisions were made, what specific action or inaction was decided on - that kind of thing.

I think you make some good points... perhaps when the specifics are all sorted out your case will be the strongest. I'm not sure I agree entirely with your take on the imposition of regulations. Let's say such regulations were put back in place, and it halts deepwater drilling. I don't have much doubt that some technology would have been created - quickly - so that the oil companies could get right back into their drilling. But without those regulations, they've never had a need to develop the required technology.

Anyway it is those specifics and facts I'm most interested in at the moment. I know I can research the stuff on my own but we have such a wealth of knowledge available on this message board that could be tapped into.

[Zoeisright]

13. [phone]

That's exactly it. Repukes broke the government, and it is going to take far, far longer than 1-1/2 years to fix.

[emulatorloo]

8. Salazar should have cleaned house of all the Bush/Cheney era "regulators"

Why didn't he do this?

Knowing some people who work in Washington, the conventional wisdom is that people will bring their talents to supporting whichever admin is in power. The assumption is that they are apolitical.

Obviously the Bush/Cheney hires don't think that way.

[mrJJ]

9. I can only point fingers.. so here ya go

He couldnt have done anything... He stepped in as POTUS and inherited a federal bureaucracy. The People he appoints to "Head/Lead" those agencies are just political appointees. The real power lies in the Civil Service Pro Managers that are the defacto heads. So we get down to what could he have done to mitigate the Gulf spill.... Nothing

What he should do is have EVERY Single well in the OCS...re inspected by an Independent Inspection Agency...
How to keep the MMS out of such an inspection is the problem....


Brief History:

Before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees.

As early as 2006, the Government Accountability Office reported that 144 employees in 23 agencies had converted from noncareer to career positions. In some cases, jobs seemed tailored to the strengths of the applicants, if not created for them outright. In others, standard competitive hiring procedures appeared absent. And in three instances, political staffers received career positions even though they lacked the requisite "qualifications and/or experience..."

Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal OPM, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants. Six political appointees to the Senior Executive Service, the government's most prestigious and highly paid employees, have received approval to take career jobs at the same level. Fourteen other political, or "Schedule C," appointees have also been approved to take career jobs. One candidate was turned down by OPM and two were withdrawn by the submitting agency.

The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703537.html

_________________________

Randall Luthi
Deputy Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2007)
Director, DOI Mineral Management Service (2007-2009)
• Career goes back 30 years with Dick Cheney.
• Oversaw MMS while it was mired in drug and sex scandals.
• Now runs NOIA, an offshore drilling industry group.

Randall Luthi served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service until being moved to the DOI’s Mineral Management Service (MMS) , where he worked from 2007 to the end of the Bush administration. While Luthi headed MMS, the department was involved in a deep ethics scandal that “ allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.” Luthi is a close ally of Dick Cheney – his career goes back 30 years to when he interned for the former Vice President in 1982. Luthi is currently president of the National Ocean Industries Association, an oil industry group whose goal is to “secure reliable access and a favorable regulatory and economic environment.” Following the BP oil spill, the former MMS director’s organization stood in opposition of raising liability caps on the offshore industry.

http://thinkprogress.org/interior-scandals-under-bush

______________________________

The following article shows: Chris Oynes & Randall Luthi relationship in the MMS

$2.9 billion in high bids put up for petroleum leases
By ALAN SAYRE Associated Press
Oct. 3, 2007, 5:38PM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5184207.html
__________________________

Mr. Chris Oynes :
The lease was initially acquired by BP at MMS Lease Sale #206 in March 2008

The person resposible for the lease was The former head of MMS... Chris Oynes who was responsible for negotiating offshore oil lease. I find it interesting that he resigned May 31, just before the President ordered an investigation into the BP matter.

Mr. Chris Oynes was named in 2007 as the Associate Director of the Offshore Energy and Minerals Management Program. His responsibilities include administering the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas program as well as developing and implementing the new alternative energy program in the Federal OCS. Mr. Oynes had served as the Regional Director of the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) Gulf of Mexico OCS Region in New Orleans for 12 years and previously as the Deputy Regional Director. His involvement with the MMS has covered a wide range of issues. He has been actively involved in how MMS conducts its resource projections and its environmental reviews, and THE OPERATIONAL SAFEGARDS IT IMPOSES.

BP secured approval to drill the Prospect from MMS in March 2009 without MMS requiring use of an acoustic blowout preventer actuation alternative.

my 2 cents ... Whats true or not is for individuals to decide

[Kalun D]

14. Bullship

""He couldnt have done anything... He stepped in as POTUS and inherited a federal bureaucracy.""

At almost every turn Obama has appointed corporate insiders. Just look at the Republicans Geitner and Bernanke, appointed to banking oversight, yeah right. Why would Obama re-appoint a Bush appointee like Bernanke? Because he's going to do what's best for the banks. Go down the list, Eric Holder, Ken Salazar.

""The People he appoints to "Head/Lead" those agencies are just political appointees. The real power lies in the Civil Service Pro Managers that are the defacto heads.""

Agency heads do have authority, they can take actions. But if it's a corporate insider they are only going to take actions that benefit the corporations.

[merh]

10. Prevention is not the issue.

Containment and clean up.

BP has no intention of plugging this well.

The government has been relying on BP for the information and expertise and that is their first and largest mistake.

Relative to specifics http://journals.democraticunderground.com/merh/194

[Kalun D]

15. Prevention

Prevention IS the issue if you are going to advocate for expanded offshore drilling just like the White House did weeks before this disaster.

Did the White House examine the oversight agency MMS BEFORE they went ahead with their push for more offshore drilling? You would think that would be a no-brainer after 8 years of big oil running the White House.

Agree with you though, BP needs to be taken out of the loop. They are only doing what's best for them and disregarding all the devastation.

[merh]

16. I don't advocate for offshore drilling.

So, do you think that every new administration should fire all the agency employees and rewrite all policies and regulations?

Policies existed and BP ignored them and the MMS allowed BP to circumvent them and/or to comply only on paper.

As I understand it, upon learning of the major failures in the MMS the administration has ordered a full investigation and overhaul.

How do you fix something that is broken if you don't know it is broken?

[Kalun D]

17. I don't advocate it either

but why would you advocate an increase without at least a cursory examination of an oversight agency that was run by Bush for 8 years?

[merh]

19. I don't advocate an increase

I also am a grown up and do not expect each new administration to fire everyone employed by all the federal agencies that exist. I don't expect them to rewrite all policies and/or regulations or to conduct examinations of all oversight agencies that exist. I'm also very practical, I know that the administration could not know to fix what they had no idea was broken. The regulations were in place, the policies and requirements were supposed to be in play, the people in charge were just not requiring that they be followed.

Now mind you, I live on the Gulf, I am affected by this disaster and am angry as hell that the feds have wholly failed to do what they are supposed to do, protect the shores and the citizens. I've been opposed to offshore drilling at any depth for just this reason, drilling is not a safe or a fail safe practice. I work as a wildlife rescue and rehab volunteer and have for years.

With all that in mind, I am very passionate about this catastrophe but that doesn't mean I threw my common sense out the window.

The truly sad part about this is it has happened in the past and the technology still doesn't exist to clean up and contain, to limit the damage and the death. The tried and true methods have been ignored, BP lied and continues to lies, puts band aids on the problem, hides it under the rug and has never really wanted to plug the well and our government has allowed them to continue to get away with their lies and their crimes against the planet. I won't and cannot condemn the administration for what happened before the disaster, I can be angry and disappointed at what they haven't done since the disaster. BP doesn't have the only experts in the world on their payroll and using that as an excuse is bullshit.

[Kalun D]

22. I don't advocate increase either

I still think they at least could have made a cursory glance at the MMS before advocating more drilling. Everyone knows the previous admin was oil if nothing else.

The clean up is being totally botched. The current boom technology is not that bad but in this case it's being done sparsely and improperly. Dispersants are being used to hide the oil, they make clean up more difficult. Why is BP being allowed to conduct clean up? Why would you allow a criminal to clean up a crime scene?

boom fail (Maddow report)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=471790&mesg_id=471790

boom tech and boom fail (language alert)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x472104

I condemn the admin for either being ignorant or uncaring of lax regulations as regards to offshore drilling. They were clearly in favor of more drilling, so they were looking at drilling but did not even glance at regulation?

Did they not know MMS was broken? If they did how come they did zero to correct it before their avocation and before the disaster?

Or did they not care that MMS was broken?

Either way they failed at least in part.

[Kalun D]

11. WHY?

Why did Obama push for more offshore drilling when he had to have known that the regulatory agency MMS was broken after 8 years of Bush?

Why is BP being allowed to run the clean-up? Fox guarding the hen house.

Why is BP being allowed to exclude the press? They are spending much of their resources on PR and hiding the spill.

Why is the Coast Guard helping BP to exclude the press?

Why is BP being allowed to use toxic dispersants that are banned in their home country of Britain? Dispersants make the oil harder to clean up and they hide the amount of oil.

Why did the White House ask BP to not use dispersants and why didn't they do anything when BP continued to use dispersants?

Why is BP being allowed to keep the workers from using respirators? The MSDS sheet on BP's dispersant Corexit mandates respirators, yet BP doesn't want respirators because of the image problem. Workers that try to use respirators are threatened with termination. Where is OSHA? Where is the EPA?

I'll tell you why to all of this. Obama is a corporatist, he does what's best for corporate interests.

BP should be up on charges right now, but Obama's Holder at justice is a corporate toad, it will be sidetracked and downplayed. Just like the Republicans Geitner and Bernanke that Obama put in charge of banking oversight. Corporate insiders.

Thad Allen the admiral in charge with the Coast Guard has been eating dinner with Tony Hayward. Hayward is the criminal that is directly responsible for the profit over safety method that caused this accident. How do you oversee someone when they are taking you out to dinner? Every chance he gets Allen downplays the amount of the spill and repeats the BP talking points.

Obama's appointee at NOAA Jane Lubchenco refused to contradict BP CEO Tony Hayward's statement that "the oil is on the surface" and "there aren't any plumes." This is in spite of several scientific studies that says there are underwater plumes. NOAA has conducted one study but has refused to release the findings.

All the government agencies involved have been low-balling the spill numbers. Consistently giving the low range of the figures that have been a consensus among the scientific community.

The booms aren't being used correctly and aren't being manned adequately. During Obama's 2nd visit to the area BP deployed 400 "photo op" workers. As soon as Obama leaves the workers disappear.



Rachel Maddow's reporting on poorly managed booms
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=471790&mesg_id=471790

An insiders look at how poorly the booms are being managed (language alert)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x472104

60 minutes story of one of the survivors on the rig and BP's profit over safety greed that caused the blowout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0onXmlFgF8I

say bye bye to the Pelicans, they are going back on the endangered list. In spite of what I just heard on the corporate news radio 95% of oiled birds end up dead.

[frustrated_lefty]

12. Obama inherited a lot of mess

and it's fair to say he may never fully uncover all of Cheney's backdoor deals with big oil.

I don't think Obama can be blamed for not preventing the Deepwater Horizon blowout. If you want to nitpick, he might have pushed for tighter regulation at a faster pace. I don't think that's really a fair claim because 1) the regulators already in place weren't doing their job, and 2) the republicans in Congress are demanding a super-majority to allow Obama to pick his nose. ANYTHING he could have done, which ain't much, would have been blocked by the party of "just say no."

The source of discontent is not what Obama could have done to prevent the catastrophe, but is instead what he has done in response. There is a lot of disagreement about this, but I personally think he should have placed BP in receivership about 2 weeks in. BP can not be expected to police BP. he should have placed an oil executive from another company and one or two senators in charge of handling the response. Another oil executive, because they know the possibilities, what can and what can not be done. A few senators to keep said executive honest. I think Kerry and Graham would have been perfectly suited to handle that.

[upi402]

20. Drill Baby Drill

He continued an oil administration's policies and personnel. And fails to reform a media that will be his demise.

He forgets to dance with who brung him -or has never seen a damn mirror!


fool

[Duer 157099]

21. In my fantasy world, the only way anything significantly positive

could come out of this administration would be if they came through the doors with a gangbusters attitude of reining in the corporations, an immediate thumb placed on ALL of them in terms of taxes and regulation; a 1000% increase in fines, and basically a take-no-prisoners take-no-bullshit take-no-money-from the corporate bastards who have ruined this country. And of course a thorough cleaning of the prior administration from every nook and cranny the minute he stepped into the WH.

But like I said, that's just in my fantasy world.