Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Well, Golly! There's An Oil Spill Going On Now...!

No kidding, Sherlock!  After ignoring the real disaster of a rapidly expanding pool of oil leaking from a damaged BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 days to speak repeatedly about the mythical disaster of global warming, the Obama administration is finally on top of the oil cleanup.  Of course, they seem to have missed one tiny little detail:

If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.

The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms.

But in order to conduct a successful test burn eight days after the Deepwater Horizon well began releasing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf, officials had to purchase one from a company in Illinois.

When federal officials called, Elastec/American Marine, shipped the only boom it had in stock, Jeff Bohleber, chief financial officer for Elastec, said today.

At federal officials' behest, the company began calling customers in other countries and asking if the U.S. government could borrow their fire booms for a few days, he said.

A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore.

"They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose."

This from the administration that bashed its predecessor's handling of Hurricane Katrina on its very first day in office.  How could this catastrophic failure have occurred?  The answer can be found in the #1 rule of politics: follow the money.

During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP — a Center for Responsive Politics' "heavy hitter" — contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

Ah-hah!  While this doesn't excuse the failure, it certainly goes a long way toward explaining it.  Hot Air offers this commentary, which makes a lot of sense to me:

It's funny, because the left still brings up President Bush's "slow" response to Hurricane Katrina. Here we have another disaster, in the same area, and an even slower response. The only difference is that now, the liberal media is dutifully looking the other way.

On top of that, you won't ever hear about Obama being in the pocket of "Big Oil". That was always hurled at President Bush, but never at Obama. Yet here is Obama, taking the largest amount of donations from BP related PACs and individuals. I assume that it's, of course, just coincidence that he dragged his feet in responding to this catastrophe. Now that he has, though, BP should prepare themselves. They may have donated heavily to Democrats and to Obama, but that won't keep them from being thrown under the Obama bus. Loyalty has no home in this White House.

Nor does honesty or truth, but that's something we're seeing on a daily basis now, especially as the lies to various audiences start stacking up.

There's my two cents.

11 comments:

The All Real Numbers Symbol said...

An oil spill? You don't say. I didn't hear about this 'til yesterday becuase my president didn't mention it. (/end sarcasm)

But actually, I've known for a lot longer than that because I don't give a crap what Obama says and I don't need him or the MSM - that's what my blogroll's for! (And BHO is NOT my president.)

With all these lies going all over the place, I'm surprised something hasn't broken yet. Actually, I'm wondering when the next Civil War is going to be, now that Baracky's calling out the SWAT team to handle the Tea Parties. What in the world has happened to this country?

B J C said...

TARNS - If the media was doing its job, this news would have broken by now. But no...

Anyway, I think what's happened to this country is a rapid statist Europeanization. Bad news, bad news...

B J C said...

RSCovey - Why yes, of course it's Bush's fault! After all, he's an oil man, you know. Clearly, he hired his own Halliburton agents to sabotage the oil rig and destroy as much of the Gulf as possible. ;)

RSCovey said...

Oh, there will be something. That is the only reason why NorthCom is receiving troops for duty within the "US", the suppression of same.
How far will it go? Once you let loose the dogs, they have a tendency to run hard and fast.

B J C said...

RSCovey - when you're right, you're right! And you, I think you're right!

RSCovey said...

Somewhat of a foregone conclusion, imho.
Chaos serves those in power, and they can ratchet it up just by sending out press releases these days.
As for MSM, all know they are nothing less than the propaganda dept for whoever is running the show.
None report, only parrot. They have lost all legitimacy.

Amy D said...

8The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF THE IMAGES OF THE WATER. reMIND YOU OF BLOOD??? DOES THE RIG LOOK LIKE A HUGE MOUNTAIN ALL ABLAZE?????

B J C said...

RSC - yep, you've got it. It's great that there are people in this country who see what is going on and understand the ramifications of it. Gives me hope.

B J C said...

AmyRoseDouglas - hm...now that you mention it, yes, it does. Creepy...!

Thanks for your comment! :)

RSCovey said...

2Cents, there are times when I wish not to be right... this is one of them.

B J C said...

RSC: Isn't it terrible how often you and I have had that thought over the past year and a half?