Everything you wanted to know about the Obama administration's response to the oil spill

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response

Response Timeline

Current Operations and Ongoing Response

Area plans

It has the deepwaterhorizonresponse link included.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/deepwater-bp-oil-spill

:patriot:

:hi:

:thumbsup:

But then pasting links to content-free propaganda is SOP.

There is content there so that statement is bullshit.

First mate, get me my brown pants.

Salazar should have never allowed the operation to start to begin with. That being said, there is very little they are going to be able to do, except try their best to clean up the fucking mess.

Salazar had nothing to do with this.

As Sec of Interior he oversees MMS. It's his responsibility to have made sure this FUBAR didn't happen. He didn't, so he should resign. And the previous? They should be in front of a judge, along side Salazar explaining why they shouldn't be in jail.

His responsibility wasn't to stand on the rig 24/7 and ensure that BP didn't cut corners in cementing it and testing it.

"They should be in front of a judge, along side Salazar explaining why they shouldn't be in jail."

More irrational commentary.

Did the MMS have someone looking over their shoulders?

Since you profess to have all the answers, i.e. "all you need to know" answer the question.

You said he should go to jail. Was he aboard the rig?

I understand that you want to protect Obama. But this is not the way.
Each day that goes by and no one takes responsibility for allowing something that we environmentalist have been saying for years was gonna happen, is another bad day for Obama.

And this crap "all you need to know" hurts him worse than anything.

And you never answered the simple question about MMS. Why? Because you don't know.

"All you need to know" my ass!!

No matter how much nonsensical crap you introduce ("I understand that you want to protect Obama"), BP fucked up.

The notion that the administration is responsible for a drilling operation that failed is ludicrous. Maybe the President should have ended drilling in 2009, but reducing the number of permits issued by 95% was a major start.

MMS waived NEPA last year allowing this rig to go to work?
Is that on your link? No, of course not.
So was there a government inspector aboard the rig?

You should have wrote in your OP that "it's everything Pro Sense needs to know".
That would have been truthful.

For you to even suggest that is everything I need to know shows utter contempt for education and seeking of knowledge.

Back to square one for you, eh?

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

What the hell does that have to do with the cementing that occured within hours of the explosion?

What the hell does that have to do with the fact that BP ignored the test results, sending home the test crews 11 hours before the explosion?

If there had been a government inspector onboard, and he was worth a shit, he would have shut down the unsafe practices.

Now.... was there a government inspector onboard?

What it means, I guess, is that MMS, and the Coast Guard failed to make sure those money grubbing bastards didn't rush the job.

Or, as they will end up claiming: The Obama administration failed.

And that the culture of deregulation allowed this problem to occur.

Is that on the website you think has everything we want to know?

If govt. truly isn't responsible for the havoc businesses wrack in our borders and waters, then why the hell were we so critical of Bush all those years? By our new standards of expectation for the Obama administration, Bush really wasn't that bad. Civilian deaths in Iraq? Blackwater's fault alone. Economic crisis? The banks alone are to blame. No room to criticize the government there!

it that BP fucked up.

What we are debating is:
1). Whether the govt. has a role in preventing said fuck-up
2). Whether the govt. has a role in repairing said fuck-up
3). How well the govt. has performed these roles

Debating? No people are insisting that the government is responsible for the explosion.

I'd refer you to the information at the link in OP, but that has been dismissed as propaganda and irrelevant.

I have not seen anyone claim that the govt. is responsible for the explosion. The blame for that rests with BP alone.

The govt. should have done a better job preventing the explosion, Obama himself has admitted that on several occasions and has taken preliminary steps to rectify the situation.

Who is responsible for the aftermath is the sticking point. So far the govt. has undeniably taken a backseat in the response. BP is also clearly not getting the job done. The bulk of the arguments I have seen on DU regard whether the govt. should be stepping up and getting out of the backseat. I am with team "Yes" and if you are with team "No", I'd like you to justify why you trust the survival of the gulf states to a corporation like BP (preferably elaborating beyond "it's BP's fault"). Explain to me why you think BP can handle this alone without unnecessary further destruction to ecosystems and economies.

What?

Obama Faults 'Cozy' Oil Setup

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama angrily criticized the federal government's "cozy relationship" with the oil industry, saying he would end a Minerals Management Service practice that allows companies to drill offshore without properly assessing potential threats to protected sea life.

Mr. Obama's brief Rose Garden remarks came ahead of a new round of hearings on Capitol Hill next week on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the administration's response to it. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other administration officials will face questions about the government's readiness to handle a significant oil spill, and about the alleged lax supervision of offshore drilling by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service before and after Mr. Obama took office.

Mr. Salazar said this week that he would split the agency into regulatory and revenue-collecting arms. On Friday, Mr. Obama said he ordered a "top to bottom" overhaul of the agency.

"It is pretty clear that the system failed, and it failed badly," Mr. Obama said. "And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it."...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575243923672173634.html

stop being responsible when the ship hits an iceberg.

Salazar's department approved the rig under current shitty regulatory environment given to him by his predecessors.

I find his predecessors actions to be criminal and Salazar's department of Interior to be negligent and stupid.

It is a theme that seems to keep coming up with this administration in various departments.

The arguments get more ridiculous.

Salazar is responsible for the Interior Department, which includes the MMS. He also doesn't sit in every MMS office 24/7 overseeing every employee's actions.

The action in 2009 had nothing to do with the operation that caused the explosion.

Is responsible for the operations of the people under them or is Salazar king of the department of Interior and his MMS employees just troubling nobles who got a little out of hand.

Salazar's job is to implement administration policy. The drilling was reviewed and approved by the administration in 2009. If the drilling did not occur safely, than yes the administration is responsible in many ways for approval of the drilling in the first place.

they cement a rig and disregard the results without government approval?

The government does not inspect rigs on a daily and hourly basis.

prior to this administration taking office has more to do with this. The administration is negligent in not being aware, the last administration has more responsibility for creating this disaster, however the Obama administration should have been aware they were walking into a fucking mess allowing anyone to drill with what the last guys built.

That is my position. Negligence in not understanding how bad things were. Which is a trend on a shit load of issues.

Did George W. Bush and Bill Clinton gut effective government regulation. Yes. Is the President stuck with this shitty environment. Yes.

I think they had no fucking clue what the last two Presidents had done on the front of letting the top 1% run fucking amok and they are having a very quick and steep learning curve.

I wait for their response.

statement such as this. should never have been allowed. how does he get the blame. and how does that work....

and gets a very nice job probably in some awful industry. He won't be a lobbyist of course, but if said industry has a problem, there is no law saying he can't have dinner with an old friend.

Dispersants

How much oil?

Where is the oil that has sunk going?

What will happen if it goes until August, as planned?

****************

What else are they hiding?

The link you posted is a whitewash. Still black as oil but is so devoid of real information that anyone saying it's "all you need to know" appears to be a blatant suck up to BP.

who work in the industry say about the whole thing.

But, then they might have a bit of knowledge about it and FUCK THIS wouldn't be such an easy response.

Everything you want to know is right there on that one website that is produced by the CG and BP.

That is a very large error and shows a lack of recognition that there is more.

And you just showed it by pointing out another site that has more. You just proved the OP to be bunko. Good job.

And that a lot of people might be helped to understand what a complex situation we're talking about--in which our government has no expertise--by looking at the oil drum site.

It certainly lets me know how much I don't know. In fact, my friends who've been in the business read stuff about it and say, "I didn't think of that".

Just seemed like much of the prevailing, "Obama...BP...should...nuke the well...send scientists in..." posts might be more informative if people spent more time looking at sites, and I include the OP's, where more information than the MSM's "we couldn't go there" theme is offered.

Are they reliable?

But you certainly get a cross section of opinion, a lots of links to technical information and it's quite obvious which people actually work in the Oil Patch.

The one thing that someone mentioned was that the Oil Patch is a vast network of contractors, consultants, companies who all work on interact all the time on individual wells. Which means that in contrast to the "it's only BP" idea that we read here, there are lots of different people from across the industry working on dealing with this spill.

It also means that there are lots of different eyes and ears and chatter that can't be completely hushed up by BP--as is often suggested here.

From others who've been around the industry, that seems to be a correct appraisal.

Apparently, federal law mandates that the company responsible for the spill MUST foot the bill and do all the work. The feds can only advise. The law goes back to the Exxon Valdez, and is a way to make private companies pay for their messes.

This may explain why we don't have federal agencies doing the work.

:shrug:

does not have to mean directing the operations. It just means footing the bill and doing the work. Another entity could take over directing.

LAW PREVENTS FEDERAL TAKEOVER

"Still, as simple as it may seem for the government to just take over, the law prevents it, Admiral Thad Allen said. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez spil in Alaska, Congress dictated that oil companies be responsible for dealing with major accidents -- including paying for all cleanup -- with oversight by federal agencies. Spills on land are overseen by the EPA, offshore spills by the Coast Guard.

'The basic notion is you hold the responsible party accountable, with regime oversight' from the government, Allen said. 'BP has not been relieved of that responsibility, nor have they been relieved for penalties or for oversight.'"

The government can take over direction of the operations. Instead, it seems the departments with the authority (Coast Guard, EPA) are taking their marching orders from BP.

That's not what it says at all.

Congress dictated that oil companies be responsible for dealing with major accidents -- including paying for all cleanup -- -with oversight by federal agencies. Spills on land are overseen by the EPA, offshore spills by the Coast Guard.

Oversight means more than standing by, watching what BP decides to do, and carrying out their wishes.

And you'd better believe they can tell us exactly what we have to do. And make us pay for it.

That's ridiculous.

Good to know. :rofl:

'The basic notion is you hold the responsible party accountable, with regime oversight' from the government, Allen said. 'BP has not been relieved of that responsibility, nor have they been relieved for penalties or for oversight.'"

When the cost to clean this up, exceeds BP's liquid assets...well than we shall see what the Administration thinks.

:kick: