On 4/20/2010, one of the oil wells off the coast of Louisiana exploded, causing 11 deaths and a massive oil leak that has caused mass pollution.
The massive pollution has shut down the fishing & tourism industry in the nearby coasts. All the sea life within the area has died.
And with that, several controversies to go over.
1) The common question is "why are we drilling for oil in the ocean in the 1st place?"
Some environmental activists want to ban all oil drilling! Not going to happen! Our lifestyles are too dependent on oil!
Yes, there's talk of alternate energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear energy! Lot of homes use these power sources for electricity!
But those sources are basically useless when it comes to transportation! Our cars, trucks, buses, ships and planes are nearly totally dependent on oil.
The oil has got to come from somewhere.
But drilling with oil always comes with environmental risks.
The best places to drill will be in areas with the least amount of risk.
The problem is that some environmental activists are so against oil drilling anywhere, they even successfully placed safer areas "off limits". These limits has some side effects!
Interesting points from Charles Karuthammer
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer052810.php3
Here's my question: Why were we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?
Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we've had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
So we go deep, ultra deep -- to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That's a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?
In other words, a lot of these legal limits on oil drilling ended up leading to oil drilling in more dangerous places, oil drilling in places where it's harder to fix mechanical errors (ie deep oceans), and more dependence on oil drilling in countries with governments less concerned about pollution than ours!
Another interesting editorial, this one by Terry Anderson
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575318591702015252.html
Whether more exploration on federal lands would make the U.S. energy independent is debatable, but more onshore development would certainly be safer. In early June there was a blowout in western Pennsylvania. Did you see it on the nightly news? No, because it was capped in 16 hours. The Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates oil and gas production there, recorded 102 blowouts of oil and gas wells since the start of 2006, resulting in 10 fires, 12 injuries, and two deaths. None of those made the nightly news either. The largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope in 2006 was from a pipeline leak. It dumped only 6,357 barrels and had no disastrous impacts.
Drilling can be done with greater environmental sensitivity onshore. For many years the Audubon Society actually allowed oil companies to pump oil for its privately owned sanctuaries in Louisiana and Michigan, but did so with strict requirements on the oil companies so that they would not disturb the bird habitat.
(skipped paragraphs)
The blowout at BP's well has increased pressure from environmentalists and the Obama administration for greater emphasis on alternative energy sources. Even if they are successful, this will have a trivial impact on our unquenchable thirst for fossil fuel.
Enforcement of stricter safety regulation on deepwater drilling may reduce disasters like the current one in the Gulf. But the only real way to reduce the risk of catastrophic spills is to say yes to drilling in our backyard.
In other words, because our lifestyle is dependent on oil, and other energy sources aren't efficient in powering our transportation, we need to drill for oil in places which are less problematic. That means on land, instead of deep oceans!
2) Typical reactions of the anti-capitalist Left is " "corporations can't be trusted ever, so make all oil drilling fall under government control"
While some corporations can't be trusted, what makes you think governments handle it better?
If the US government take over all oil drilling operations now, what's to stop future presidents from hiring their incompetent friends to run future oil drilling operations?
Remember, a major part of the failure in the Hurricane Katrina rescue operations was because then-FEMA director Micheal Browne was hired for that job, despite his TOTAL INEXPERIENCE in disaster recovery, because he had the proper connections to the president!
You want that in your oil drilling operations? That is HIGHLY POSSIBLE if government takes over oil drilling operations.
Then there's the pro-business right who claim any criticism of big business, no matter how legit, is "anti-capitalism", "anti-business", blah, blah, blah!
While the most successful countries are the ones that lets businesses bloom, sometimes business do receive legit criticism.
British Petroleum has been accused of over-looking warning signs that its oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico that could lead to pollution! Since they own it, they deserve every legit criticism coming its way!
Also, British Petroleum has also been known to block efforts to save sea turtles. British Petroleum was using controlled burns to contain the oil spill, and when animal rescuers attempted to get the sea turtles out of the area before the controlled burns started, British Petroleum got in the way! You're dam right that company deserves criticism.
For more info, check out http://news.discovery.com/animals/sea-turtles-endangered-burned-alive-oil-spill.html
When British Petroleum decided to compensate those affected by the oil spills. That is the right thing to do. But some Republican politicians called it a "shakedown", as if someone who did some damages shouldn't expected to pay for the fixing!
But the most ridiculous things were said by Congresswomen Michelle Bachmann
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/06/17/populist/index.html
Then there is Bachmann, who represents a district in Minnesota and therefore cannot be excused for standing up on behalf of a regional economic interest. To her, the escrow fund represents a scheme for "redistribution" of wealth -- as if the people who will receive money from it are undeserving welfare recipients and as if BP had done nothing to injure them. She derided the BP executives who will pay into the escrow account as "chumps."
Bachmann's homestate of Minnesota got plenty of small lakes. Bachmann would react differently had someone dump a whole bunch of pollutants in all those lakes!
3) Some have called the oil leak "Obama's Katrina". As you may well remember, George W. Bush's popularity had a dramatic decline after the slow rescue efforts when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. Some say the oil leak and Obama's reaction will have the same effect on Obama's popularity.
It's too early to tell if Obama's poll numbers will remain that way for the rest of his term.
But Obama could've done things better.
Here's Bill Clinton's former advisor Dick Morris criticizing Obama for not being aggressive enough in clearing bureaucratic hurdles getting in the way of the oil leak recovery!
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0610/morris062110.php3
Contrary to what the Constitution says, the president does not run the executive branch of the federal government. It runs itself. Following Newton's Laws of Motion, it is "a body in motion that tends to remain in motion in the same direction and at the same speed unless acted upon by an outside force." The bureaucracy keeps doing what it is programmed to do unless someone intervenes.
And that intervention is the proper job of the president. He has to step in, ask the right questions, get inside and outside advice, and decide how to intervene to move the bureaucracy one way or the other. President Clinton had an excellent sense of how to do this and when to get involved. President Obama does not.
More from Dick Morris
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0610/morris061710.php3
Why did he not waive the Jones Act (he still hasn't) to allow foreign vessels to ply our waters to clean up the spill? Not because he was against it. He couldn't have been against so obvious a course as waiving it. It was likely because nobody told him about it and he never knew to ask.
Why did he let the bureaucracy use only US contractors to dredge the Gulf and build the berms that Louisiana wanted? Why did he spurn the offer of Dutch assistance (half the country has been dredged from the sea and is below sea level)? Not because he wanted the jobs to go to Americans. That would have been an insane consideration in the face of this crisis. it is probably because he never realized that our capacity for dredging needed augmentation. Because he never asked.
What is this Jones Act that has been mentioned?
It is a really stupid law passed in 1920, that bans any foreign ship from going to one US port to another US port.
In other words, a French ship can go from France to the US. But that same French ship is BANNED from going from Boston directly to New Orleans. Only US ships can do that!
This means also means a Japanese ship on its way to California CANNOT stop by Hawaii to drop off a few items!
This stupid law has kept many foreign ships from coming in to assist with cleanup from that big oil leak!
Barack Obama campaigned for US President with the rhetoric of "respecting our allies, respecting other countries, ....."
If that's the case, then why did the Obama administration reject help from oil-skimming ships from Norway, Netherlands and Belgium?
Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill came “from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that . . . possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration didn’t accept their help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions.
[UPDATE: later news reports say that it was the EPA, not the Jones Act, that blocked the Dutch skimmers. See the excerpts from a news story reprinted at bottom].
“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So" the U.S. Coast Guard "can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.”
Yeah, Obama later accepted help from foreign ships. But late responses in the Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts damaged George W Bush's legacy! Just imagine when Obama runs for re-election in 2012, when anti-Obama ads remind us that Obama's acceptance of foreign assistance in the oil cleanup CAME TOO LATE!
This stupid Jones Act has been defended as "job protection for US ship workers and US ship builders", but in an emergency IT DOESN'T MATTER where the ships are made, who owns the ships, or citizen status of the ship workers. In an emergency, the most important thing is GET SOMETHING DONE! If it means accepting help from foreign ships, THEN ACCEPT THAT HELP!
Even though Hawaii has been hurt by this stupid Jones Act, our 2 US Senators (Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka) support this stupid law! This stupid law PREVENTS foreign ships (especially Asian ships) from dropping off items while going from Asia to California! This stupid law PREVENTS foreign ships from offering cruise rides from Hawaii to the other states. This stupid law INCREASES our cost of living!
Yet our 2 senators defend this stupid law with the rhetoric of "saving US jobs, national security, blah,blah, blah" but in reality, it's more about rewarding campaign contributors from Matson, SeaLand and ILWU!
And the 2 senators get away with such crap because shipping issues is seen as a "boring" issue, not something as exciting as debates over civil unions or the homeless camping in many local parks!
Now that Charles Djou is now representing urban Honolulu in US House of Representatives, he is taking a stand against this stupid Jones Act law.
Learn more at
http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/research/national-battle-rages-over-jones-act-exemption-in-bp-oil-spill---and-hawaiis-congressional-delegation-is-in-the-fray
and
http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorials/20100627_Time_To_Ship_out.html
4) Hopefully, the attempts to stop the oil leak is successful, and the recovery goes well.
But it's also important we all learn the right lessons from this!
Our economies depend on oil, but we need to drill for it in a safe manner.
And it's time to end this stupid Jones Act law already!
