It seems almost in poor taste to discuss the politics of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but that is what we do here. I’m less interested in how the failure to cap the well will affect the Obama administration than in how it will affect the beliefs of Gulf Coast residents (and, to a degree, the whole nation). If Obama is going to take a hit for telling us offshore drilling was safe, the GOP is going to have to rethink it’s ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ ethos. How would Family Ties character Alex Keaton have responded to the decimation of sea life in the Gulf, along with soiled beaches, destroyed wetlands, and massive erosion of southern Louisiana? Perhaps he wouldn’t have adopted the hippy-dippy attitudes of his parents, but he very well may have abandoned his worship of big business and his anti-regulatory attitude. He probably would have become sympathetic to the environmental movement. The question I really have is whether the next generation of Gulf Coast residents will demand that the GOP adopt environmental planks or if they’ll simply abandon the party in favor of the Democrats.
The tension can be seen in a general non-partisan way in Louisiana. With their economy dually dependent on drilling and fishing, the politicians of both parties are trying to figure out how to preserve their way of life but are discovering that they can’t have it both ways. They have to choose between the fishermen and the rig workers. And it’s complicated by the fact that so many Louisiana residents and families work in both industries. But, in the end, this is not a close contest. There is no argument in favor of Big Oil here. Either deepwater drilling needs to stop or it needs to be very tightly regulated. The old conservative argument that anything that costs Big Oil money and hassle is bad for Louisiana isn’t going to cut it with the local eco-system in ruins.
No politician is going to say it, but the people of the Gulf are not innocent victims here. They voted for this. I don’t think they’re going to continue to vote for it. And that is going to shakeup the two political parties down there, and maybe everywhere.
Nola reporting that Bobby Jindal has spent so much time at the bully pulpit he’s been remiss in distributing funds to his state from BP & Feds.
Whether it’s BP’s staging of the 300 clean up workers for Obama’s benefit or Bobby Jindal’s priority of whine first take care of people second, the integrity of those playing in this pigpen is no where to be seen.
And they’re in a vise.
If the spill ruins the fishery for a generation or two, they’ll probably double-down on drilling. Why save what’s already been decimated?
Sadly, this is probably accurate.
I don’t think that will happen. The Gulf is not self contained, letting it die will have too many other consequences, also a large % of usa citizens don’t see oil as the future. not to say ecological catastrophe hasn’t tragically been the result of industrial greed elsewhere, in the Aral Sea and and Lake Victoria so precedent certainly suggests it’s possible
I hadn’t thought about that. Jesus. Definitely something to think about.
Yeah that’s what I’ve been thinking and saying. “it’s dead anyway might as well drill.” Probably don’ need all those pesky environmental regs if there are no fish to protect. Heck, if they ruin all the marshes, you could see a substantial drop in the population, which would provide more impetus to make the area into a giant drilling hole. And I’ll bet BP znd the rest have already considered this wonderful opportunity. Ta-daaaa: BP wins!
I just don’t see why we have to adopt this passive attitude – that the Gulf is ruined for decades. So if we used our entire Armed Forces and all the ships at sea to spend the next 3 years siphoning up this oil, we are still screwed? It’s been gushing for a little over a month from a 2 foot hole. I find it hard to believe that all those resources over a few years can’t get every drop of that into a bag or ship or boom – just OUT OF THE WATER, OUT OF THE MARSHES AND OFF THE BEACH.
I think we have a lack of imagination and lack of leadership. This is a far less catastrophe than Hitler in Europe – thank God we had leadership then that didn’t say, “we need to learn German”.
As of a few days ago the pollution covered an area about half the size of Lake Erie. And growing. There’s no tech fix for this. I want there to be one as much as you do, but there isn’t.
Yep. Here’s a Louisiana official already calling on Obama to stop the moratorium on deepwater drilling:
For sure. And to address Booman’s post, off shore drilling will absolutely continue but under tighter regulation. I heard this morning that there are approximately 3,800 rigs in the Gulf alone (I had no idea it was this insane!!) so there is no way underwater drilling is going away. That’s a lot of families dependent on that income and of course those oil rig workers earn a lot more $$ than fishermen.
So unfortunately it’s a matter of tighter regulation – not stopping the drilling.
Macondo Prospect is a watershed moment, consequences will play out over the next decades. 1- will empower local orgs, environmental orgs, citizen orgs because of how bp is handling it (spin, eye on their bottom line) – (seeMexico City Earthquake of 1985, PRI’s multiple failures in response). This will hurt GOP. Also, fisherppl from all over the usa have worked on that coast and they are in dialog with fisherppl affected by this.
2. Jindal, as face of GOP is caught in the paradox of his sneering at $ for “volcano monitoring” and pleading for fed $ now. fail. do GOP congresscritters have any ideas right now except whining?
3.Environmental activists worldwide are already engaged – with technical and organizational expertise and I don’t think any of them (us) care what bp or the usa gov think. it’s our planet.
4. Does it hurt Obama? depends on how he handles it from here; he was building green energy from the getgo and Salazar fired the MMS chief. Obama had Stephen Chu has been involved from near beginning, and that shows engaged competence. Obama’s ok’ing some offshore drilling/exploration may provide cover vs. gopers who say “accidents happen” (e.g. Rand Paul) as it plays out. more publicity about what Obama admin has done, when it becomes appropriate, will help how Obama and usa gov are regarded. it’s good they’re not wasting time on that now, however, shows solving it is a higher priority.
I really, really HATE to agree with Tom Friedman, who concludes his NY Times column today with “A disaster is an inexcusable thing to waste”. But the truth is that this can and should be turned into a boon for the alternative energy movement, if the complex political land mines involved can be successfully negotiated. In that respect alone, Obama has more to gain than to lose here.
The political perils are real, though, and I think Obama is frozen temporarily because, excuse the pun, these are uncharted waters. The Russians and an increasing number of American oil veterans such as Matt Simmons (see Raw Story and Bloomberg News interview) would advocate an underwater nuclear explosion as the ONLY way this leak can be stopped. That’s clearly not politically viable, at least not yet.
No matter what hit the Obama administration deservedly takes, the big losers are the oil companies. Every day this drags on, their position weakens further, and imagine how bad things really are if the inept Top Kill was the best they’ve got after more than a month of obfuscating and misdirection. Obama needs to make his play relatively soon, though, or he’ll sustain even more damage and blame than he already deserves.
Great, just what we need, a nuclear explosion that’ll maybe trigger more oil gushers in the region while not even stopping this one. As an encore a little radiation csn be added to the soup of oil, natural gas en dispersants floating around in the Gulf. Desperation.
The fact that the Russians have used nuclear explosions to close wells does not mean they are advocating the US use them in a well in 5000 ft waters. And the Russians developed specialized nuclear weapons for this purpose, using them at depths of no more than 200 feet.
Access to the wellhead in 5000 feet of water is what is complicating the fix of this leak. That complication does not go away in delivering a nuclear weapon into the well casing.
Based on past experience, the most likely fix will be relief wells, which will take to August or so to drill.
Oh I agree, the Russian use of nukes was different enough to make it a poor model for using them at 5000 frickin feet. But don’t think that will stop the oil lobby and their enablers in Congress from pitching it as a magic bullet as this drags on. And what if there is a problem with the relief wells as August comes and goes?
I won’t be surprised if Wall Street comes up with derivatives and default swaps related to the plunging value of Gulf Coast property, or for that matter if BP is first in line to take advantage…..
Seventeen nations have offered assistance — but “the final decision is up to BP” to accept it, according to the State Department
Adm. Thad Allen, Incident Commander: “To push BP out of the way, it would raise the question, to replace them with what?” [White House briefing, 5/24/10]
TITLE 33 > CHAPTER 26 > SUBCHAPTER III
§ 1321. Oil and hazardous substance liability
Obama has the authority (of course) to direct or monitor all Federal, State, and private actions to remove a discharge, but he’s married to BP.
how is what he is currently doing in any material way different from what the law enables him to do?
He’s got his top scientists sitting in a room with the oil industry’s top scientists, making decisions on how to try to cap the well. And he’s delegated to the Coast Guard commander the responsibility for protecting coastlines, including marshaling whatever resources he feels are required.
I am Obama’s biggest fan but turning away help from other countries is dumb dumb dumb. Both from the hugely practical aspect of it to the optics of “are we doing everything possible?”. Obama needs to put BP’s underwater robots and their technicians under government contract TODAY and end all BP management of this 100%. Now. Yesterday.
Where have you read or heard that the White House is turning away help from other countries? The only “offers” that I have heard of are from Russia (and its nuclear bomb solution, which I have been told by scientists is far too risky at such depths) and from a couple of companies in the Netherlands, which have offered the use of their skimmers, which use a technique which is not considered environmentally sound according to U.S. environmental laws. One of the Dutch companies will be at work in the Gulf soon.
The Federal government does not have the equipment or the expertise to plug or cap this well. And I don’t believe that we can nationalize a company that is not registered in the United States.
Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it.
Heidar Bahmani, the managing director of the National Iranian Drill Co., said his company was ready to help contain the spill, Iran’s state-funded broadcaster Press TV reports. “Our oil industry experts in the field of drilling can contain the rig leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent an ecological disaster in that part of the world,” he said.
A team of UAE experts have said they are `just waiting’ for the phone call to assist in tackling the oil spill disaster which is taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. The Crisis Management Team leader, Craigh Buckingham, said that `everyone and everything’ is set to go and that the team had an excellent track record.
etc.
So the result is no stoppage of the gusher and dispersing the oil with terrible chemicals instead of cleaning it up as the law requires. There are extensive capabilities available elsewhere in the world to do a much better job, but Obama is married to BP while flaunting the law.
I’m sorry, but your Obama-bashing doesn’t establish anything other than that you don’t like Obama. We get it.
I don’t see that the President isn’t carrying out what he is allowed by law to do. I have been paying attention, and I’m aware of the actions that the various departments in the Federal government have been taking.
We’re talking two House districts, tops. That’s statistical noise in a 435-member House.
Otherwise this will make no detectable difference to the policy of the region.
In order to continue to be represented by people who share his belief about the outcome of the Civil War, the median voter in the Gulf is simply going to have to put up with people who are the bought-and-sold creatures of the oil industry.
That median deep South voter has, with exceptions, been faced with variations on that bargain since 1875, and with exceptions, has always preferred to go with the people who ‘get’ 1861-1865. Ask Alabama’s Republican governor Bob Riley.
that’s it.
It seems to me that BooMan is contradicting himself. In the diary below he notes it’s all about race, here he thinks white southerners will start voting their economic interests. I agree with you that he was right in the other diary.
POLITICALLY,
what the President can do is
and DARE the GOP and Conservadems like that flunky Landrieu to open their mouths about this.
hire an environmental zealot who isn’t a flunky of any sort of big oil and let them go to town.
You sort of touch on what I think Obama’s biggest fault in all this is. He hasn’t used this for a teaching moment. Has he come out and specifically said that the Gulf of Mexico can’t be the wild west anymore? As he said that proper regulations and safety procedures must be followed? Basically, where is the framing of Bushism?Ray-gunism as a failure?
As best I can tell, Obama doesn’t do framing.
The pain is only beginning to be felt. Real people and communities will be wiped out and the ecological damage will be terrible beyond imagination. Now is not the time for Obama to play at politics. To me, the real question is, why do we have to wait for Obama? Ain’t his job — not yet, anyway.
It would be nice if more people could see that massive multinationals have captured government, eviscerated regulatory regimes designed to protect the public welfare, and not only have no concern for the historic costs the public bears because of their amoral greed-their management has this socialization of loss or damage as a prime goal. And that this pernicious concentration of capitol is the inevitable result of “free market” ideology.
It would also be nice if people began to have some sense of the irreparable and cataclysmic damage that our “non-negotiable” way of life is having on the world we live in, the air we breath, the water we bathe in.
Basically, americans need to begin to see that there is such a thing as a public good, that it can’t be secured or defended by private corporations, is in fact mortally endangered by them, and that these public goods are in fact the foundation of any kind of livable existence. And that possibly the most important public good or community value is this world that we live in and depend on!
Exactly right. You notice that since Raygun, the ‘general public’ has been looked down upon and scoffed at?
Raygun was against the public good and the attitude began to turn into the ‘lower classes’ should be subservient to the “upper class”.
Listen to the righters on radio.
The disdain for those in financial trouble.
The sneering at making life better for more Americans.
We have gone so far from being a country united in any way.
And I’ll not get started on the ignorant childish media.
The press has been inaccurate a lot of the time.
They don’t seem to know anything about this oil spill and what is being done. And by who.
whom?
Seventeen nations have offered assistance — but “the final decision is up to BP” to accept it, according to the State Department
Adm. Thad Allen, Incident Commander:
from TIME:
862/8/8/2/1 — we’ll BP decide?
The corporate conservatives will see pictures of oil-soaked pelicans flopping around the swamp and find it hilarious.
I’d like to see those meetings in Big Oil boardrooms up on YouTube.
Didja see those retard birds?