Axelrod: President Obama to address the world in primetime Tuesday night on the Gulf

http://thepage.time.com/

National Address
Axelrod: Obama to speak to world in primetime after latest Gulf visit Tuesday.

Ha! I was right! Right on David! Right on!

From CNN:

The White House has asked U.S. television networks for time to broadcast Obama's address at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday. According to the White House, the address is expected to be about 15 minutes long and cover the Gulf oil crisis, including reorganization at the Mineral Management Service in the Interior Department, and how much oil is flowing from the broken well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

up with solutions and then congress spend whatever it costs to implement the best solution.

The continuing oil flow is beyond the capability of any one company to solve and threatens the entire world economy.

Obama can make only one statement that would satisfy me, "As president I have taken command of all efforts to stop the oil flow and I ask congress to give me a blank check to implement the best solution recommended by a panel of the world's best scientists and engineers to solve the problem".

The time for dithering is long past, it's time for decisive action.

It's Bush/Cheney's, BP's and Haliburton. Why he is taking the hit for someone else's mistake is appalling. But, of course, let's blame him for it. He spilt the Gulf oil himself!

and it was Obama who announced more offshore drilling because it was safe back on March 31.

Have you ever heard of command responsibility?

I can't believe you are falling into the trap of blaming this administration for previous administration's mistakes. The April Gulf explosion would have happened no matter what President Obama had done unless he took the at-the-time politically suicidal initiative of banning all existing and planned offshore drilling and ordering BP out of the GOM.

and we have seen how corrupt and cozy with the industry MMS was.

The MMS failed to do its oversight job under his watch - well after Bush and Co. left office.

Salazar was supposed to overhaul that dept. right away and did little - he's too cozy with the industry himself.

Obama will have no credibility on this issue until he removes Salazar and puts someone in that spot who will put our resources FIRST - someone like RFKJr.

of the areas that Salizar is responsible for .
http://data.wherethejobsare.org/bptw/detail/IN23

I know that the buck always stops with the boss, but eighteen months is really not a very log time for the boss to get to know who's doing their job & who's not in a workforce that big.

...had been turned over to the oil companies under Bush & Cheney.

We also have to remember that leases without proper environmental impact studies were given out under this administration - another area where administration rhetoric doesn't match its actions. Talking one game, playing another - counting on us not to notice.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/06/09/1315823/bp-c-plan.html

"Lutz is listed as a go-to wildlife specialist at the University of Miami. But Lutz, an eminent sea turtle expert, left Miami almost 20 years ago to chair the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He died four years before the plan was published.".


BP's Gulf spill plan outdated, error-filled

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, TAMARA LUSH and HOLBROOK MOHR
The Associated Press

Published: June 9th, 2010 10:32 PM
Last Modified: June 12th, 2010 11:38 AM

VENICE, La. - Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert.
He died in 2005..





Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.

The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.

"Look, it's obvious to everybody in south Louisiana that they didn't have a plan, they didn't have an adequate plan to deal with this spill," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. "They didn't anticipate the (blowout preventer) failure. They didn't anticipate this much oil hitting our coast. From the very first days, they kept telling us, ‘Don't worry, the oil's not going to make it to your coast.' "

In the spill scenarios detailed in the BP's exploration plan, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.

There are other wildly false assumptions in the documents. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume judging by the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.

The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.


The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. - one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill - links to a defunct Japanese-language page.


In early May, at least 80 Louisiana state prisoners were trained to clean birds by listening to a presentation and watching a video. It was a work force never envisioned in the plans, which contain no detailed references to how birds would be cleansed of oil.

And while BP officials and the federal government have insisted that they have attacked the problem as if it were a much larger spill, that isn't apparent from the constantly evolving nature of the response.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said in an e-mail Wednesday to the AP that he and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., have asked for a criminal investigation of some of the company's claims.

"The AP report paints a picture of a company that was making it up as it went along, while telling regulators it had the full capability to deal with a major spill," Nelson said in an e-mail. "We know that wasn't true."

This week, after BP reported the seemingly good news that a containment cap installed on the wellhead was funneling some of the gushing crude to a tanker on the surface, BP introduced a whole new set of plans mostly aimed at capturing more oil.

The latest incarnation calls for building a larger cap, using a special incinerator to burn off some of the recaptured oil and bringing in a floating platform to process the oil being sucked away from the gushing well.

In other words, the on-the-fly planning continues.

---

Some examples of how BP's plans have fallen short:

- Beaches where oil washed up within weeks of a spill were supposed to be safe from contamination because BP promised it could marshal more than enough boats to scoop up all the oil before any deepwater spill could reach shore - a claim that in retrospect seems absurd.

"The vessels in question maintain the necessary spill containment and recovery equipment to respond effectively," one of the documents says.

BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks - and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion of the spill has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.

The plan uses computer modeling to project a 21 percent chance of oil reaching the Louisiana coast within a month of a spill. In reality, an oily sheen reached the Mississippi River delta just nine days after the April 20 explosion. Heavy globs soon followed. Other locales where oil washed up within weeks of the explosion were characterized in BP's regional plan as safely out of the way of any oil danger.

- BP's site plan regarding birds, sea turtles or endangered marine mammals ("no adverse impacts") also have proved far too optimistic.

While the exact toll on the Gulf's wildlife may never be known, the effects clearly have been devastating.

More than 400 oiled birds have been treated, while dozens have been found dead and covered in crude, mainly in Louisiana but also in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On remote islands teeming with birds, a visible patina of oil taints pelicans, gulls, terns and herons, as captured in AP photos that depict one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the spill's impact. Such scenes are no longer unusual; the response plans anticipate nothing on this scale.

In Louisiana's Barataria Bay, a dead sea turtle caked in reddish-brown oil lay splayed out with dragonflies buzzing by. More than 200 lifeless turtles and several dolphins also have washed ashore. So have countless fish.

There weren't supposed to be any coastline problems because the site was far offshore. "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected," the site plan says.

But that distance has failed to protect precious resources. And last week, a group of environmental research center scientists released a computer

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/06/09/1315823/bp-c-plan.html

"Lutz is listed as a go-to wildlife specialist at the University of Miami. But Lutz, an eminent sea turtle expert, left Miami almost 20 years ago to chair the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He died four years before the plan was published.".


BP's Gulf spill plan outdated, error-filled

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, TAMARA LUSH and HOLBROOK MOHR
The Associated Press

Published: June 9th, 2010 10:32 PM
Last Modified: June 12th, 2010 11:38 AM

VENICE, La. - Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert.
He died in 2005..





Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.

The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.

"Look, it's obvious to everybody in south Louisiana that they didn't have a plan, they didn't have an adequate plan to deal with this spill," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. "They didn't anticipate the (blowout preventer) failure. They didn't anticipate this much oil hitting our coast. From the very first days, they kept telling us, ‘Don't worry, the oil's not going to make it to your coast.' "

In the spill scenarios detailed in the BP's exploration plan, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.

There are other wildly false assumptions in the documents. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume judging by the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.

The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.


The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. - one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill - links to a defunct Japanese-language page.


In early May, at least 80 Louisiana state prisoners were trained to clean birds by listening to a presentation and watching a video. It was a work force never envisioned in the plans, which contain no detailed references to how birds would be cleansed of oil.

And while BP officials and the federal government have insisted that they have attacked the problem as if it were a much larger spill, that isn't apparent from the constantly evolving nature of the response.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said in an e-mail Wednesday to the AP that he and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., have asked for a criminal investigation of some of the company's claims.

"The AP report paints a picture of a company that was making it up as it went along, while telling regulators it had the full capability to deal with a major spill," Nelson said in an e-mail. "We know that wasn't true."

This week, after BP reported the seemingly good news that a containment cap installed on the wellhead was funneling some of the gushing crude to a tanker on the surface, BP introduced a whole new set of plans mostly aimed at capturing more oil.

The latest incarnation calls for building a larger cap, using a special incinerator to burn off some of the recaptured oil and bringing in a floating platform to process the oil being sucked away from the gushing well.

In other words, the on-the-fly planning continues.

---

Some examples of how BP's plans have fallen short:

- Beaches where oil washed up within weeks of a spill were supposed to be safe from contamination because BP promised it could marshal more than enough boats to scoop up all the oil before any deepwater spill could reach shore - a claim that in retrospect seems absurd.

"The vessels in question maintain the necessary spill containment and recovery equipment to respond effectively," one of the documents says.

BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks - and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion of the spill has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.

The plan uses computer modeling to project a 21 percent chance of oil reaching the Louisiana coast within a month of a spill. In reality, an oily sheen reached the Mississippi River delta just nine days after the April 20 explosion. Heavy globs soon followed. Other locales where oil washed up within weeks of the explosion were characterized in BP's regional plan as safely out of the way of any oil danger.

- BP's site plan regarding birds, sea turtles or endangered marine mammals ("no adverse impacts") also have proved far too optimistic.

While the exact toll on the Gulf's wildlife may never be known, the effects clearly have been devastating.

More than 400 oiled birds have been treated, while dozens have been found dead and covered in crude, mainly in Louisiana but also in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On remote islands teeming with birds, a visible patina of oil taints pelicans, gulls, terns and herons, as captured in AP photos that depict one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the spill's impact. Such scenes are no longer unusual; the response plans anticipate nothing on this scale.

In Louisiana's Barataria Bay, a dead sea turtle caked in reddish-brown oil lay splayed out with dragonflies buzzing by. More than 200 lifeless turtles and several dolphins also have washed ashore. So have countless fish.

There weren't supposed to be any coastline problems because the site was far offshore. "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected," the site plan says.

But that distance has failed to protect precious resources. And last week, a group of environmental research center scientists released a computer model that suggested oil could ride ocean currents around Florida and up to North Carolina by summer.

and the words must be matched with actions.

BTW, it is his first oval office address. A majestic location.

just yesterday Steny Hoyer was quoted as saying that there was "funding fatigue."

done it at the beginning of May he might have saved himself a lot of unnecessary pain.

The facts before he speaks. And it's a good thing. Not rushing out just to talk

RFKJr in that spot, the President will have no credibility on this issue.

Some people will believe ANYthing associated with the name Kennedy, I guess.

The leak is obviously not Obama's fault, just like Katrina was not Bush's fault either. It's how they both handled the crises that people judge them on. We already know how poorly the Bush administration handled the aftermath of Katrina. Let's just see how well Obama's administration handles the Gulf spill. So far, other than finger pointing, there doesn't seem to be enough being done to prevent the oil already in the water from reaching the coasts of AL, MS, LA and FL.

Several nations and companies have offered help and most of them have been rejected (including the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia). Some argue that it's due to the *"Jones Act", but that the Act could be temporarily suspended via an Executive Order. When is the federal government going to take over the clean-up? Worry about prosecuting BP at a later date. Right now it should be all hands on deck.

:(

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920

there anything in the speech that we don't know about? Or is it just an overall explanation of some things already known. I am curious and reserving judgment until I actually see the speech.

a lot like I always do when he does one of his Addresses.