This blog is a repository of observations and random thoughts of someone with a serious case of wanderlust
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Obama Administration's Response to the Gulf Oil Spill
The conservative biased media are having a field day spewing lies about how the Obama Administration is doing nothing to counteract the horrific oil spill that British Petroleum has foisted on the Gulf of Mexico.
The scene in the digital image above was taken earlier this afternoon from the Interior Department's command post in Mobile, Alabama.
Mobile? Why Mobile? The oil spill isn't anywhere near Mobile. What is the Obama Administration doing in Mobile when the spill is in Louisiana?
Questions I'm sure the conservative-biased media would be asking.
However there are government command posts in place in Louisiana. The Acting Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Regional Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service are both in Houma Louisiana with Interior Department officials working feverishly to stave off as much of the ecological disaster as possible.
Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Department officials are also in Mobile Alabama setting up contingencies for IF the oil gets that far east. Moreover there are Interior Department officials (in the person of the Director of the National Park Service and others) just up the road from me in St. Petersburg Florida making the same preparations there as they are in Mobile. Just in case.
The irony of all the complaining about Obama Administration is that British Petroleum is to blame for this disaster not the Federal government.
It was British Petroleum that obtained the drilling lease. It was British Petroleum that hired a contractor (TransOcean) to drill the well and it was British Petroleum that REFUSED to include in their contingency planning any possibility of a mega disaster that British Petroleum has created for us all now. British Petroleum did this not the Obama Administration.
So far what has the Obama Administration done? Damned near everything they could. Barack was in Louisiana a couple days after the spill first occurred meeting with people and getting things rolling.
What happened with Hurricane Katrina? Bush was at a fund raiser in San Diego and as an after thought had Air Force 1 fly 11,000 feet over New Orleans. Remember this picture below? The Chimp "assessing" the damage from 11,000 feet in the comfort of his jet?
Contrast that photo with this video of Barack in Louisiana right after the spill.
No hemming and hawing, no worrying about who gets what in campaign contributions from British Petroleum. He told it like it is rather than his predecessor telling his Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie."
British Petroleum laments the fact that the oil spill has cost them $350 million "and counting". Before you get all teary-eyed worrying about British Petroleum's costs, remember that in the last QUARTER alone, British Petroleum's after-tax profit was $ 5 BILLION and change. That is one quarter of the year - 3 months. The $350 so far is chump change to these bastards.
The biggest impediment to resolving the oil spill issue right now is getting the well head capped - its 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. This will be no easy task. Estimates are that it will be at least 90 days until that can happen. The well is spewing 5,000 barrels of crude oil per day. There are 42 gallons in a barrel. 5,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 210,000 gallons each and every day. If it goes on for 90 days that is 18,900,000 gallons of crude oil gushing into the ocean and onto our shores.
Already we are finding oiled birds in Breton National Wildlife Refuge - a sacrosanct sanctuary for nesting seabirds that has been invaded by oil.
Whether it takes 9 days or 900 days to fix this problem the Obama Administration in the persons of hundreds of dedicated Interior Department employees will be there 24 hours a day 7 days a week doing what needs to be done to stave off as much damage as humanly possible.
To anyone who gets their "news" about this spill from the Faux "News" channel and who believes that my former colleagues (and thereby the Obama Administration) aren't doing what needs to be done to ease the pain on the environment, I offer you two words of advice.
"Fuck You!"
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