Spill baby spill, slippery politics

....And if Moses had been elected, they'd ask for his birth certificate, too!
Remember Moses was "found" in the bulrushes and was raised by the King's
sister. No birth certificate, no run for President! Thank the Tea Partiers and
the Party of NO!

When our resident righties are tongue tied, they ask for a link. The more things change . . .

They chose not to talk about it because it is real, easily documented and true.

So, have you stopped your 120 mile commute to/from work yet? Has your oil addiction, which helped lead to this spill, been quashed by finally realizing the damage it could cause?

Your post made me laugh because it reminded me of how people will turn themselves inside out to support a position that may be unsupportable. In re: the silliness that continues over the Obama birth certificate: hey, I came across a parallel example.

I read one of the latest books attempting to disprove that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. The author is descended from the Earl of Oxford and makes the case that his ancestor actually wrote the plays. He uses the fact that William Shakespeare's birth was not registered as part of the proof that William did not exist as we think he did. However, his ancestor's birth also was not registered.

Now, a person might conclude that births were often not registered at that time but that is not what this guy thinks. He thinks his ancestor's birth was unregistered because he was the result of the rape of Princess Elizabeth (Queen Liz I) by Thomas SEymour!

Dream on, little dreamer, dream on!

As this story is already a week old and as the buffering can be unreliable enough to make listening impossible, I am pasting the transcript here. All Things Considered, 15 June 2010.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

The law governing the cleanup of the BP oil spill is the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, or OPA 90, as it's known. It was enacted by Congress in response to the EXXON Valdez disaster the year before. President Obama has said that law needs to be updated, that it's not adequate for a crisis of this magnitude. Well, what would that mean?

We're going to put that question to environmental law professor Zygmunt Plater. He was chairman of Alaska's oil spill commission legal research task force after the EXXON Valdez wreck. And their recommendations went to Congress as they drafted that law. Zygmunt Plater, welcome to the program.

Professor ZYGMUNT PLATER (Environmental Law, Boston College Law School): Thank you very much.

BLOCK: Do you agree with President Obama that that law, OPA 90, did no envisage a disaster of this magnitude that we're seeing now?

Prof. PLATER: Yeah, there's never been anything this big. We did know, however, that there was the possibility for mega-catastrophes the EXXON Valdez was a mega-catastrophe. And we had hoped that our recommendations and OPA 90 would forestall it happening again.

BLOCK: And you're thinking that that did not work in this case. What went wrong, do you think, in the regulations, in the law?

Prof. PLATER: Well, OPA 90 was heavily lobbied, so only parts of what should have been in there from our recommendations and otherwise, ever got into the statute. And in implementation over the 20 years, what we had seen in Alaska -which we characterized as complacency, collusion and neglect - continued to dilute what there was in the law so that over the past decades, what could have been wasnt vigilance and the results were predictable. We feel very frustrated looking at this.

BLOCK: Whats an example of that dilution that you're talking about?

Prof. PLATER: Well, one of the recommendations was that there had to be careful contingency planning before the fact, so that there would be command control centers, where the state and federal officials would know what they had to do to respond and the company clearly knew that it had to obey the command center. That clearly isnt taking place on the Gulf, and it's in part because the OPA 90 provisions were not insisted upon.

BLOCK: Is what you're saying that the provisions are actually in the law, they're just not being followed?

Prof. PLATER: Well, I guess what Im saying is that the statute provided a basis in many areas if there had been rigorous implementation. But there wasnt.

BLOCK: In some reading about the Oil Pollution Act, it does seem to address mostly spills from vessels or tankers, like you saw of course with the EXXON Valdez. I wonder if a rig explosion in deepwater, such as we've seen now, was not really foreseen when Congress wrote OPA 90.

Prof. PLATER: Well, there'd been an Ixtoc blowout in the Bay of Campeche in Gulf of Mexico 10 years before EXXON Valdez, so we knew about it. But it's true, it's focused on spills rather than blowouts. And overlooking blowouts turns out to be a very, very bad idea.

BLOCK: Well, as Congress thinks about this Oil Pollution Act and what might be redrawn with it, what would your advice be? What needs to be either strengthened or added?

Prof. PLATER: Well, one of our recommendations was put into OPA 90 but only for Alaskan waters. And that is setting up citizen oversight councils, so that no matter how much collusion or complacency there was between the industry and the agencies, there would be a council made up of fishermen, of local communities, of the people who could be harmed or killed by catastrophes, to make sure that the operation was running as safely as it could. And to make sure that if there was an accident - and of course there always is a risk - the response would be practical, meaningful and effective.

But without that third entity, nothing happens. And, of course, the lobbyists kept that out except for Alaska waters. I am convinced that a council of fishermen in local communities would never have allowed such deepwater drilling without consideration of blowouts, without consideration of the worst cases because of course, worst cases happen.

BLOCK: Isnt that though the job of the regulators? Why would they need a citizen's council to do that?

Prof. PLATER: Well, the political scientists talk about agency capture, or the fact that when you have a dipolar system - industry and then regulatory agency - over time, they become if not collusive, too comfortable. You need to have not just a dipolar system, in political science terms, but you need to have a multi-centric institution so that you have people who are not bought in to the inside industry or agency's perspective but the ones who represent the fishermen, the communities and also the environment that's going to be hurt if complacency, collusion and neglect are allowed.

BLOCK: Zygmunt Plater, thank you very much.

Prof. PLATER: Thank you very much, Melissa.

BLOCK: Zygmunt Plater is professor of law at Boston College Law School. He specializes in environmental protection.

How many times have those whose politics is center to left argued against lobbying? How often have we said that the people have lost control of the government and of our lives because of the rapacious, selfish but well-funded sources of industry?

How many times have those whose politics are center to left decried lobbying? How many times must we point out that while it is true that the American people have lost safety and liberty, it was not to government, because government, too, has been lost, hi-jacked by lobbyists?

Government is not your enemy. Business is your enemy.

And the government supports business....so the government is supporting 'my' enemy. Doesn't that make the government my enemy also?

Is the friend of my enemy my friend too, or my enemy?

If the industry gets cosy with the regulators, who can be presumed to be highly qualified and well paid, why wouldn't it also get cosy with the other groups mentioned when it has a lot of money to spend and a long period of nothing happening. The Prof. is talking after the event and a political scientist ought to know better. Complacency is natural when a long-running party is going on without disturbance.

And the cheaper oil pumped out for years and years shouldn't be forgotten.

It's easy to be wise after the event. Imagine the number of "I told you so" types who would spring up if something serious arose from genetic modification and embryo research.

The push for cheap oil is inevitable when voters demand that their leaders produce growth and security in endless succession.

Well now, aren't you the little optimist?

Lobbying and other activities to influence legislation or favorable action by government bureaucracies is done by industry & corporations, labor unions (which are also corporations) as well as advocacy groups including environmental, political, social and other single issue groups. Overall thhere are as many or more such groups on the left of our political spectrum as on the right. Indeed as the "progressive" wing of the Democrat party extends the reach of the government into ever expanding areas of our lives the need and money made available for such activities grows rapidly for obvious reasons.

You oddly see only the evil of those whose interests are different from yours. Not exactly the perspective of one with a classical and liberal education as you portray yourself.

When I heard the live broadcast of the above transcript, I thought the man was right. More actors (those who act as in decide and not those who pretend on stage) involved in a decision, the less likely they are to be unduly influenced by lobbyists. See checks and balances.

You were the person who prompted me to post this transcript in the first place. I frankly think there is nothing but evil in the American right and will, therefore, continue to fight everything it stands for. To do less would be to abdicate my personal responsibility.

Now, you are certainly more articulate than the other identifiable righties who post here but when I first referenced this interview, you answered with a sound bite. Now, you put in a yawn of a lecture.

The left does not extend the reach of government as much as it should and the right only pretends not to extend the reach of government at all. Had the left done its duty and had it been listened to, it is possible that this spill would either not have happened or it would have been markedly less toxic. I am thinking specifically of Canadian law on off-shore drilling.

A rather pathetic attempt of the right to reach into private lives is a plank in the Texas Republican Party's Platform. The Lone Star State GOPers want to make oral sex illegal. Now, that is a long reach.

An important new poll commissioned by People For the American Way shows that Americans of every political stripe resoundingly reject the Roberts Court's dangerous decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which opened the floodgates of unlimited corporate cash in our elections.

We should have a government of, by and for the people. The polling results show increasing concern among Americans that, in part because of the Court's decision, which equates corporations with people, we are becoming a government of, by and for the corporations. The poll also shows broad awareness that when corporations spend unlimited amounts to influence the outcome of elections, it infringes on the rights of the rest of us by drowning out the voices of the average citizen.

The Court's decision in Citizens United was so disastrous that voters overwhelmingly support a constitutional amendment to correct it.

Three-quarters of voters said that they support a constitutional amendment to limit the amount that corporations can spend in elections. A similar majority are more inclined to support a candidate who has spoken out in favor of an amendment. This support cuts across party and ideology, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in support of the measure.

Leading up to Election Day, People For the American Way, along with Public Citizen and other allies, will be asking congressional candidates to pledge to support a constitutional amendment, and sharing that information with voters.

Here are some of the polling specifics:
85% of voters say that corporations have too much influence over the political system today while 93% say that average citizens have too little influence.
95% agree that "Corporations spend money on politics mainly to buy influence in government and elect people who are favorable to their financial interests." (74% strongly agree)
85% disagree that "Corporations should be able to spend as much as they want to influence the outcome of elections because the Constitution protects freedom of speech." (63% strongly disagree)
93% agree that "There should be clear limits on how much money corporations can spend to influence the outcome of an election." (74% strongly agree)
77% think Congress should support an amendment to limit the amount U.S. corporations can spend to influence elections.
74% say that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who pledged to support a constitutional amendment limiting corporate spending in elections.
You can read more about the poll here. (PDF)

They have all been "peer-reviewed" as I understand it and that's farmerman's idea of scientific proof. I was simply being realistic on the assumption that farmerman knows what he's talking about as many A2Kers appear to believe.

Here's part of the reason why this mess occurred and it points to the operations of multi-national corporations.

Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules
The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon.
June 14, 2010|By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington — The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.


And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.

Now, as the government tries to figure out what went wrong in the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, this international patchwork of divided authority and sometimes conflicting priorities is emerging as a crucial underlying factor in the explosion of the rig.

Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — reducing the U.S. government's role in inspecting and enforcing safety and other standards.

"Today, these oil rigs can operate under different, very minimal standards of inspection established by international maritime treaties," said Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Some offshore drilling experts, as well as some survivors of the explosion that led to the massive spill, say foreign registration also permitted a confusing command structure and understaffing — factors that may have contributed to the disaster.

Senior members of Congress — including Oberstar and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) — have begun looking into the inspection and staffing issues. The House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation will hold a hearing Thursday on foreign-flagged rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Different types of rigs are classified differently, and the Marshall Islands assigned the Deepwater Horizon to a category that permitted lower staffing levels.

"Over the years, the manning dwindled down and down," said Douglas Harold Brown, chief mechanic aboard the Deepwater Horizon, who had been assigned to the floating drilling rig since shortly after it was manufactured in 2000. "I believe that safety was compromised by this," he said in an interview.

Brown's lawyer and others say the Marshall Islands licensed the Deepwater Horizon in a way that allowed rig operator Transocean Ltd. to place an oil drilling expert — the so-called offshore installation manager — ahead of a licensed sea captain in making decisions on the day of the explosion.

The dual command structure created confusion that delayed an effective response to the growing crisis aboard the Deepwater Horizon, he and others allege.

Officials at Transocean and the Marshall Islands reject the claims. They say they fulfilled all requirements of the law and met the highest industry standards, and those of the Coast Guard.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Transocean, called the complaints "egregiously unfounded and inflammatory." The disorganization reported by crew members who survived the Deepwater Horizon explosion was the result of a tragic and unexpected disaster, not deficiencies in manning or safety standards on the part of Transocean, Kennedy said.

"At the end of the day, I think the fact that 115 people got off the rig that night will be viewed as a testament to the training, skill and heroic acts of dozens of crew members," he said.

The Marshall Islands deputy maritime minister, Thomas Heinan, said the manning requirements aboard the Deepwater Horizon were "equal to those of the U.S. and in accordance with international standards."

A deepwater oil rig floats above the well, connected by thousands of feet of pipe, and is kept in position by thrusters and elaborate navigational systems.

Since World War II, thousands of ships and rigs from the U.S. and other industrialized countries have been registered in less-developed nations like the Marshall Islands.

Some members of Congress are expressing concern about the Marshall Islands and other countries that outsource their inspection responsibilities to private companies. Coast Guard officials confirm that more rigorous inspection procedures apply to the relatively small number of rigs registered in the U.S.

A foreign vessel will be reviewed by the Coast Guard, but the inspection is relatively cursory, relying on inspection reports prepared by outside firms that have been paid directly by the owners of the vessel.

The federal Minerals Management Service, which also has a role in overseeing offshore oil operations, deals only with issues "below the waterline" of the floating rig. It was not responsible for rig staffing, command structure or other above-water operations.

John Konrad, a licensed captain who publishes a maritime blog and is consulting with survivors, said oil rigs should be under the command of licensed sea captains.

"On the Deepwater Horizon you had the guy who does the drilling plans able to make the call on safety," Konrad said.

Such dual command structures would not be accepted for U.S.-flagged operations, experts say.

The Deepwater Horizon captain testified to investigators last month that he conferred with the drilling manager before he attempted to disconnect the rig. By the time a crew member decided on his own to push the emergency disconnect, it was too late.

Kennedy, the spokesman for Transocean, said, "Having two complementary positions that reflect the dual functionality of the rig, as the Horizon did, provides a clear but collaborative chain of command that has been employed by the industry for decades."

But Steven Gordon, a maritime lawyer in Houston representing Brown, six other survivors and the family of one of the 11 workers killed in the blast, said, "This course of action cost men their lives."

"It led to a jumble of disorganization on the Deepwater Horizon at the moment when organization was needed the most," he said.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Fair enough POM but how do you go about doing it. It is well known that there are a number of ways of skinning a cat. Not as many as there are for corporations to spend money to influence elections admittedly.

What do you think should be done about the situation described so well in your post POM?

I have a question for all you engineering types.

If a slight nudge by a robot is enough to cause damage to the venting system of the containment cap, why is it that past hurricane paths crossing directly over oil rig sites don't generate enough ocean movement to also cause damage or dislodge the piping systems of these well sites? What is it about the structure that allows it to ride out the huge ocean swells without any damage or major leaks?

I'm assuming the nudge by the robot was damaging due to the lesser flexibility of the pipe when in proximity to the point of entry in the sea floor. With that assumption, I'm wondering if there is also a similar lack of flexibility at the termination point of the pipe at the rig that is bouncing on the ocean surface in ocean swells. Do they have something like the pleats in a flexible straw that lets the pipe extend and contract when needed?