Judge Was Right to Lift Obama’s Deepwater Drilling Moratorium (Updated)
In what I think is the first judicial ruling that the Obama administration exceeded its authority and had to be reined in, U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman (no relation) on Tuesday lifted the administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling and enjoined the government from enforcing it.
Obama temporarily halted all drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet on May 27 to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations. More than a dozen Louisiana offshore service and supply companies sued U.S. regulators to lift the ban. The U.S. said it will appeal the decision.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman today granted a preliminary injunction, halting the moratorium. He also “immediately prohibited” the U.S. from enforcing the ban. Government lawyers told Feldman the ban was based on findings in a U.S. report following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast in April.
“The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium,” Feldman said in his 22-page decision. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”
“The court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the agency, but the agency must ‘cogently explain why it has exercised its discretion in a given manner,’” Feldman said, citing a previous ruling. “It has not done so.” (Bloomberg video).
Judge Feldman in a separate order “immediately prohibited” the U.S. from enforcing the drilling moratorium, finding the offshore companies would otherwise incur “irreparable harm.”
The Department of Justice will apparently seek an emergency stay of that order, but for the reasons I’ll explain I think the judge was right and there is no way his order can be stayed without the drillers and the public suffering irreparable injury. I also believe it is unlikely the government can persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn the lower court because the facts are so clearly on the side of the plaintiffs and the judge’s opinion is so sound.
Courts should not enjoin administrative actions lightly, but in this case Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar acted capriciously, irrationally, mendaciously, and without regard to the great injury to the public interest in issuing a moratorium which would have destroyed the deepwater oil drilling industry and the economies of the Gulf states which are heavily dependent on the industry.
Its not the Oil leaking, it is the Methane that is causing the real concern. A hurricane is a low pressure system that will draw Methane out of the ocean and as crosses over land Methane may cause much more causalities that oil ever could.
Instead of a Moratorium, there should be more inspection of regional geology and gas deposits, and more govt oversight of deep sea drilling.
Methane gas is lighter than air. I would guess that, if released during a hurricane, it will be well-mixed by wind into the atmosphere, with a negligible change in the oxygen content of the air, and with negligible danger of ignition. Eventually, like helium, it would find its way to the top of the atmosphere.
It’s not that much methane, and methane isn’t particularly poisonous. Not even after a big lunch at Taco Bell.
For a year I worked with cows on kibbutz, if only intermittently. As the #2 on one of the rotating milking teams, I got to bring in 300 cows first into a holding pen, then into the 16-station milking area. Aside from the thrill of ‘herding’ enormous cows and the dangers of slip-sliding into stamp-able oblivion in the inner pen, I always felt a little light-headed. Now I know the reasons for my current condition – sustained methane inhalation. I knew it was something, Charlie.
For everyone’s information, Methane Gas is Natural Gas, and, it is the same Gas used in 20,000 lb. Daisy Cutter Bombs. It will kill you dead in your Kitchen, with your head in the Oven.
Part of what you say is information, part disinformation, and part just plain wrong.
WHile it may be true that methane is used in Daisy Cutters, (I thought it was one of the denser hydrocarbons, but I’m not an expert on military ordinance), it’s also true that setting off a Daisy Cutter is a delicate business, involving very carefull coordination between the size and shape of the dispersal charge and the timing of the ignition. The idea that an open air leak especially from a widely dispursed source could explode like a Daisy Cutter is nothing but a lie.
WHile natural gas is used in your stove, it won’t kill you, unless you seal the oven tight. But then if you do that, you will suffocate from lack of oxygen in a few minutes anyway. Back when people used ovens to kill themselves, ovens used what was known at the time as coal gas. WHich is the what you get from partially burned coal, and it was mostly carbon monoxide.
You know, that is a very large load of BS. Natural Gas has killed thousands upon thousands of people just because a Pilot light went out on a Stove during the night, and, the house filled up with gas (not to mention just blowing all to hell).
I build Natural Gas Plants, all over the world, including LNG’s, I study what I build. I grew up in a world where many people still had Gas Lighting in their houses (Gas Mantles), and, the danger was one of the pushes toward Electrical Lighting. I’ve even lived in houses on Ranches that had Butane/Propane lighting.
I’m almost seventy years old, I’m a Millwright, and, I’ve been on an adventure apanning the world for 50 years of that, studying the chemicals produced in the Plants I’m building as a part of ‘doing it right.’ In many cases, it’s a matter of survival wrapped up in knowing what symptoms to look for that warn you you’re walking into a dangerous situation, and, your life depends on your knowledge ‘of’ the danger. Natural Gas is completely oderless, until you inject what I call “Skunk Juice,” and, this is one of the processes in a Gas Plant (name starts with a ‘P’ and right now, that’s not important).
In the case of a “Daisy Cutter,” at a certain altitude above the Surface a Parachute pops out releasing the Covers which fly off the Bomb and open the Ports, the Gas spews out into an imense cloud, and, a Grenade touches it off (it’s called a “Fuel/Air Bomb”) in an explosion that has the power of a Tactical Nuke.
The people who died, died because the concentration of methane reached the magic level and the house blew up. It had nothing to do with methane being poisonous, which it isn’t. The only way methaned can kill you is if it displaces enough air that the oxygen content in the air falls below the level that can support life. Somewhere around 9 or 10%, with the natural O2 concentration being around 21%.
Again, BS. I know what the normal Oxygen level is, I have to test it every time I enter a confined space. And, if Methane is not explosive, how is it that you can light a Fart (it’s the same organic gas)?
You know, Mark, you’re not too bright, and, you’re talking to a man who’s been down roads that you can never reach.
Gordon, do you even bother reading what I write? I have never said that methane is not explosive. I said that it is only explosive when it is within a narrow range of atmospheric concentrations.
DO you see the difference between the two statements.
For somebody who has been claiming that methane is poisonous, you have a lot of gall accusing others of being wrong, especially when you have to misqoute me in order to do it.
Mark,
I’ve used enough Testers to know the atmospheric concentration of Oxygen, and, it is always within the range necessary for combustion except in confined spaces, like, inside of Vessels that you’re about to enter, etc.. If that was your intent, you have my apology.
But, I hope you agree that one of the reasons we don’t have Gas Lighting in homes anymore is because it’s so naturally dangerous. Of course, AC Current is naturally deadly too, and, this was the source of a virulent, years long fight between Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison (Tesla promoted DC, Edison promoted AC).
Obama has instructed Salazar to prep another executove order for a moratorium in defiance of the ruling of this Federal judge.
Just like the last time, history will record that civil war was instigated by the Democrat Party.
You want a civil war. Bring it on but it won’t be the Democrats inciting it. Salazar is correct in issuing another moratorium. There should be no further drilling until we know specifically what happened with the Deepwater Horizon and how it can be prevented from ever happening again. Is that too hard for you to get through your skull? Moreover, the judges injunction is a joke coming from someone who owns stock in BP. Conservatives have no conscience at all. The only thing they care about is beating Obama. Tribe first, country second.
Imagine if Republicans ran the country. Well, they used to, and their response to the BP disaster ought to remind voters why they never should again
Actually Salazar is the joke. No doubt he owns stock in some of those pie in the sky “green” companies no? As for BP it is your corrupt Presidente O’Blame who is BP’d(bought and paid for). What with sending billions to his Masters investment.. Petrobas and Sorro’s.
Face it, your little tyrant is being stopped by the Rule of Law, and you leftist scumbags just cannot handle that.
As for when Republicans were in power.. well you are right we do not have to wonder. Less than 5% unemployed, actually winning the war against moslem aggression, freedom to choose ones own health plan, in fact lots of freedom to choose many things .. like what car we drive. No multi-trillion dollar deficits, in fact no trillion dollar deficits even.
Yes, your boy blunder is a real peach. His actions in delay have compounded this oil spill. An oil spill as much his fault as BP’s as TOTUS granted permission to BP to take the shortcuts they did.
Yeah,, there was a wreck, with casualties on interstate 59 today, All cars and driving should be immediately banned. Idiot! and the last I checked, the republicans are not in charge, and have not been for a good number of years..FAIL!
Tell me, Praetorian, if you’ve ever cut yourself with a knife, did you immediately swear off all bladed instruments forevermore? The magnitude of the damage is different, but the basic concept is the same as shutting down all offshore oil rigs because of one accident.
Now, because you’ve been emotionally injured by one internet story, I expect you–if you’re going to be intellectually consistent–to swear off the internet forever.
“Salazar is correct in issuing another moratorium”
That’s insane even for you. Salazar is “right” in telling a Federal court to shove its injunction, he’s going to ignore it?
Jesus, you liberals really are contemptuous of the rule of law, if it gets in the way of Absolute Power.
@Praetorian
A civil war would be fine with us. You stay with your gay liberal hippie tree hugging Obama hopey changers and I’ll stay with Red State America. Excuse me while I go load!
Praetorian:
Exactly how do you know that the judge is “corrupt” and “owns BP” stock? Moreover, your apparent lack of understanding of forensic science and engineering would be remarkable if it weren’t so overt. Did you not notice that multiple experts from the National Academy of Engineering not only disagree with you; they vehemently did, as noted by their protests that they were misled by the Interior Secretary. You show no logic, technical reasoning, or comprehension for what was written in the article; you only made unsubstantiated claims against a Federal Judge.
I, like most Americans, prefer the rule of law over the rule of thugs. You – as someone who writes like a devoted leftist ideologue – seem very much to prefer the later.
The judge sold that stock last year. Something you would know if you bothered to check your facts. Which you never do.
As to having no conscience, spreading lies about a good man is not the act of someone with a conscience.
As to Salazar, the experts that he hired to advise him, to a man, told him that a complete moratorium was both unneeded and a bad idea.
It is liberals who have no conscience, they don’t care who they have to destroy in order to get their way.
I suspect we are about to learn a whole lot of details around Judge Feldman’s private life, investments, etc.
Clintonology will go into full effect with this judge!!!
Before it’s over this man’s entire life and all the corners will be full press. He defied “the obama”…
The public needs to get past the smear that is to come and realize he is doing what is best, Obama is not.
Where is James Carville? Did they shut him up> he was very vocal about the crisis along and Gulf.
Spot on.
Exraordinarily harsh indictment? Good grief, this administration is destroying whole industries. This kind of crap would never have even been contemplated let alone attempted by other administrations. Have you been reading other news of this administration’s latest capers with immigration, health care, you-name-it? We’re living in the twilight zone. I pray we don’t get past “harsh indictments,” but let’s face it, we have a tyrannical regime in power now doing things we would not have thought conscionable only a few years ago, and would NEVER have been tolerated by the founders or anyone else for that matter. We simply don’t want to believe what is going on in front of our very eyes. It’s like islam. We don’t want to believe the threat is as grave as it is, because the level of force needed to oppose it and rid us of it will likely be an utterly horrible reality. But that doesn’t mean we can avoid the coming horror, or the tyranny of this administration unfolding before us. Let us hope the legal and electoral system does its job, or can.
Overheated rhetoric? I pray it is, but events unfolding around us appear to show otherwise.
Oh please, just more clap-trap from tribal conservatives in their own echo chamber. People like regularguy could care less whether we have another devastating deep water leak that further devastates the Gulf economy, even though we now have irrefutable proof that we don’t have the technology to stop serious leaks. But yet you want to continue with more drilling. Yes! Drill baby drill!
To regularguy, all that matters is that his tribe wins, so the moment he reads that a Lousiana trial court judge has ruled against the Obama administration. take that you libruls.
To hell with the environment and the millions of perople whose livelihoods can be devastated by an uncontrollable oil leak; Obama lost, and that’s all that matters, right, regularguy?
Gee, next thing you know, Republicans will be celebrating the recent rise in unemployment in Nevada, just so Harry Reid will lose? Oh, wait, they’re already doing that over at National Review.
Republicans: Tribe first, country second.
Projecting much?
You don’t give a rip about containing the spill any more than the Bam & Ram Show does; and you certainly don’t care that there was ZERO scientific or legal basis for the moratorium: Kill the Evil Oil Companies! That’s all you give a rat’s ass about, and to hell with the devaqstated Gulf economy (screw them, they’re just rednecks). Tribe first, country second.
So tell me (O nontribal one)- why has the Emperor actively BLOCKED every meaningful attempt to contain the spill?
“Gee, next thing you know, Republicans will be celebrating the recent rise in unemployment in Nevada, just so Harry Reid will lose?”
You mean, like you guys actively cheering the deaths of US servicemen in Iraq?
This administration is on a mission. Will I live to read the book that uncovers the corruption and evil intentions of these radicals.
It’s the “War on Reality” as Rob Long has termed it.
“War on reality.”
Liberals constructed a fantasy universe where the general laws of cause and effect don’t apply (I must say that liberals are actually leftists/progressives and conservatives now occupy the place of traditional liberals). These leftist/liberals don’t care about how things really are, they’re only interested in how things ought to be. They aren’t builders, they’re wreckers. They think if they can wreck what exists now the utopian world they’re constantly dreaming of will automatically come to be. Basically they hate the world as it is, it’s unfairness and injustice and all they think they have to do is destroy it to usher in an era of peace and justice.
Sounds like Islime
The AP is reporting that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar plans to issue a new order for a drilling moratorium based on a different finding of facts.
Ah yes, the true mark of the Progressive. “Facts” can be generated on the fly, as needed, when needed. Two plus two does indeed equal five when it is inconvenient to say it equals four.
To all those who voted for “teh One” you’re getting what you deserve. Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Don’t forget to feed your government issued Unicorn.
Not only that, but the Federal Government has decided to stop sand dredging for building sand berms: http://www.wdsu.com/news/23997498/detail.html
HT: The Hayride: http://thehayride.com/2010/06/unbelievable-salazar-announces-2nd-obamoratorium-to-come/
The judge is an idiot (and possibly corrupt)– it’s turning out that when things go wrong with deep water drilling, they can go catastrophically wrong, and that BP’s contingency plans were the same as the other big oil companies. Actually Exxon-Mobil’s plan is kind of amusing in an eye-rolling way.
The bottom line is that few really understood the added risks to deep water drilling and how unprepared the oil companies were for serious problems. Oil rig disasters apparently happen frequently enough to more than justify a whole reexamination of the systems that are in place. This is not fundamentally differently than say automobile recalls due to some safety issue except that it’s a bit more awkward to recall an in-place drilling rig. So you need to make sure that before any more are constructed, they are either much more disaster resistant or else there are much more robust contingency plans in place.
I’ve noticed that none of the other big oil companies have come up any ideas of their own to help deal with the leak, even though though it would have been much in their best interests to do so, indicating than none of them had indeed planned for such a thing occurring.
Setting aside BP’s negligence – which, I’ll admit is considerable, that negligence only caused the original blowout. However, the environmental and economic disaster that is resulting from the spill is entirely the Federal Government’s fault. By Law (the Clean Water Act Section 311 – Oil and Hazardous Substances Liability, and The Oil Pollution Act of 1990) the Federal Government has responsibility for cleaning up such spills. This only makes sense, due to the potential size and cost of such efforts and the authority required to do things like close federal lands and waterways, request Coast Guard and Naval ships, and coordinate federal, state, and local agencies. The EPA can – and should – send BP the bill afterwords, but ultimately the responsibility is theirs.
But: the government provably did not implement its own plans for containing such a spill (and still has not), it did not have the equipment on hand that was required by its own plans, and it refused help that was offered by other countries that did have such equipment.
Under President Bush, FEMA always said that it would take 3 days to respond to an emergency such as a hurricane; response prior to that would be the duty of the state and local authorities (who, in Louisiana, totally failed in their responsibilities). If President Obama’s administration had lived up to even President Bush’s standard, there would be very little news to report.
See also An Oil Spill Is Not a License to Suspend the Rule of Law
Katrina and BP, Two Sides of the Same Coin
“The judge is an idiot (and possibly corrupt)”
Typical BC.
No reasonable person of good will can possibly object to Teh Won’s imperial pronouncements: therefore the judge must be stupid and evil.
Never mind the LAW, which applies even to His Majesty. Regulatory actions must be based in actual facts, not shrieking scaremongering or not-letting-a-crisis-go-to-waste. Not even when Lula’s and Soros’ Petrobras really, really wants those drill rigs.
Can you even read? Bam and Salazar IGNORED their expert panel, and then LIED about it.
To see the White House “panel of experts” check out 6/22/10 WSJ lead editorial about who is on that “panel of experts.” That would include all green activists whose common thread is to end “oil addiction”. There are no drilling engineers. There is one optical physicist. What we have for advisors for this saftey issue is a kangaroo court of inquisition. The greater irony is that they disagreed to halt exploration so the White House made up it’s own truth.
BC
Since Obama turned down the Netherlands help immediately after the leak started, what makes you think he would accept help from the other oil companies? You don’t know if they offered or not.
The bottom line is that few really understood the added risks to deep water drilling and how unprepared the oil companies were for serious problems.
I would agree that the issue of how to contain a blowout in five thousand feet of sea is to a big degree unknown territory. However, the events leading up to the Macondo blowout are not issues of “unknown risks,” of not knowing what is the right thing to do, but of repeatedly not doing the right thing. The issue with the Macondo blowout was that BP did not follow standard industry procedures, tried too often to cut corners, and paid the price. As a former engineer on drilling rigs, when I read what BP had done on the rig, I thought to myself, what were these IDIOTS thinking? I suggest that you consult the many excellent Wall Street Journal articles on the issue. The May 11 WSJ is a good place to start.
This Weekly Standard article,Beyond Pathetic: BP’s Gulf disaster was no surprise to those who understood the corporate culture, points out the Macondo blowout had its precursor in the corporate culture. It quotes former BP chairman John Browne about the outside review of the 2005 Texas City refinery disaster: We had not done enough to make process safety a core value. We had emphasized that individuals had to be safe when they went about their daily work—‘personal safety.’ … But we had not emphasized that processes and equipment had to be safe under all circumstances and operated in a safe way at all times—‘process safety.’”
BP called itself the company “beyond petroleum.” BP pioneered cap and trade concepts. It lost track of its core business, petroleum. As the author of the Weekly Standard article points out, it is more than ironic to use the failure of BP at its core business of petroleum as an incentive to pass cap and trade, when BP had been one of the pioneers in cap and trade.
For background on events leading up to the blowout, I suggest you look at my comments in this thread from Bookworm Room,especially #8 and #23. I also provide links, which I recommend more than my comments.
BP, in theory at least, had more than enough resources at the ready and to call upon. And very much unlike Katrina, the responsible feds were in place right away. All the other stuff you may have heard, especially that bit about the Maine oil boom, was never more than the same old, same old, insipid, malicious, GOP rock-throwing BS. That Maine company had 15 miles of boom, but it had not passed a quality control test for how it was going to be used, and BP and the Coast Guard initially had plenty of other suppliers. Instead of getting your info from politicized and badly confused media sources, this industry site has a not bad timeline of what happened and who did what.
But for what it’s worth, the Maine company’s boom product is being tested now, although I suspect that this is more due to politics than real need.
In theory, liberals have brains. In reality, they never use them.
BP had all the resources it needed???? Are you completely and utterly delusional.
As to your claim that the Feds were on hand immediately. Yes, the Coast Guard was there to help sink the drilling platform so that the crisis could grow exponentially. However the Fed had none of the fire booms on hand at all, and still don’t.
Beyond that, the Fed has refused to do any of the dozens of things it could do to help lessen the crisis.
As to Katrina. FEMA’s policy has always been that it will take them three days to get on site, it took them two.
“BP, in theory at least, had more than enough resources at the ready and to call upon.”
Then the moratorium on drilling is as specious as the judge you called an idiot maintains. If the resources are available to the drilling companies, and they are according to the industry sites, then the Obama administration has other motives for the moratorium. Can’t have it both ways
“And very much unlike Katrina…”
A tired old leftside fantasy. You are a liar, grossly misinformed, exceedingly ignorant, or all three. FEMA was in place along the Gulf coast and in NOLA within two days, well within the required time. The state and local response was criminally inept and the sole reason why the situation was a bleak as it was when FEMA took over management of the response and recovery.
‘…the responsible feds were in place right away.”
No, they were not. The ‘responsible Feds’ were never in place for the oil spill. There are no ‘responsible Feds’ in the same sense as FEMA managing the Katrina response. In an oil spill, the responsible party for containment and mitigation is the oil company. The ‘responsible Feds’ are supposed to expedite access to personnel, equipment, and supplies only, not manage the crisis. That is and has for many years been the federal policy on oil spills.
‘All the other stuff you may have heard, especially that bit about the Maine oil boom, was never more than the same old, same old, insipid, malicious, GOP rock-throwing BS. That Maine company had 15 miles of boom, but it had not passed a quality control test for how it was going to be used, and BP and the Coast Guard initially had plenty of other suppliers.’
Here you illustrate two things.
The first is your ignorance of the real world. In a well-managed crisis response , you do not reject assets because of quality control concerns. Your first and, at first, ONLY concern is to mitigate the immediate and in this case ongoing effects. Only in a crisis management by committee response, which was the federal approach in this case, would bureaucratic concerns like ‘quality control’ be voiced by a management team member worried that their toes were being stepped on. Only in an incompetent crisis management by committee response would that voice be given any attention.
The second is your habitual and risible acceptance of any strawman, no matter how ludicrous the logic, as a defense of the Obama administration clown show. If you can worm in a faux beneficial comparison to some mythical inadequacy of the prior administration, conservatives, republicans etc, why you’re in hog heaven.
‘Instead of getting your info from politicized and badly confused media sources, this industry site has a not bad timeline of what happened and who did what.’
Given your history of citing politicized and pseudo media sources to support your ignorant take on things, that statement just confirms that you’re a damned hypocrite as well as a jacka$$. Yank the beam out of your own eye before telling your intellectual and ethical betters to wipe the mote out of theirs.
‘But for what it’s worth, the Maine company’s boom product is being tested now, although I suspect that this is more due to politics than real need.’
For what it’s worth,for accuracies sake, the Packgen boom was tested as it was made. The data has already been submitted showing the boom meets applicable standards. Several weeks ago as a matter of fact. Several times now as a matter of fact. The issue is not testing the boom, but accepting the test results. And you suspect wrong. The Coast Guard is still maintaining that it has an immediate need for more containment boom. The Packgen boom will be eventually deployed. Late, but it’ll do some good.
Typical liberal. Assume that everyone who disagrees with you is either evil or stupid, if not both.
I like the way BC, like most liberals, skips right past the evidence portion of an argument and goes straight for the lame insults.
One would get the impression that liberals are incapable of arguing facts and logic.
“One would get the impression that liberals are incapable of arguing facts and logic.”
And one would be correct.
Obama’s moratorium is designed to halt exploration and drilling and drive gas prices up. You can be certain he has been advised that the drilling rigs are in high demand and will move elsewhere if they can’t be used in the gulf (Read overseas.). When the moratorium is lifted, there will be no drilling rigs available. “Too bad, so sad!”
This guy’s ideology is so warped, whatever he does will appear to be illogical to those rooted in reality.
The court noted that the Administrative Procedure Act governs suits challenging the secretary’s actions under the OCSLA and detailed the high hurdle a plaintiff must meet to bring a successful suit under the APA
We need more judges like this: willing to actually enforce the law as it is written rather than arbitrarily rule based on assumptions and desired outcomes.
Well, bc, if the facts are as you state, the Interior Department failed to collect them. Instead it chose to lie about the facts, distort the evidence and failed to justify such extreme action.Proof of that is Salazar’s announcement that he will redo a report and issue a new moratorium based on the new “facts” he finds.
But you fundamentally misunderstand our legal system. The government simply cannot direct our activities by executive fiat unless it can show a rational reason for doing that,
The government simply cannot direct our activities by executive fiat
—
To a liberal, this is a serious flaw in our system
…the decision-making processes of this administration.
What decision-making process ?
This one ? Hey, we can exploit the mess in the gulf to further our agenda, promote cap and trade, compromise the American economy, make George Soros happy.
George’s 900 million investement in Brazilian PetroBas is looking better and better. The US too, last year, committed to a $2 billion loan to PetroBas, drilling at a depth of something like 8000 feet, much deeper than BP’s Deep Horizon well in the gulf.
PetroBas is one of the bidders on the gulf rigs that would be idled under Secretary of the Interior Salazar’s (“keep our boot on the neck of BP”) braindead order for a moratorium on deepwater drilling for 6 months.
This administration claimed consulting “scientists” were on board for the moratorium decision, which was a lie.
The biggest story in the history of the USA is right in front of your face in the “gulf oil spill fiasco”; and not one “maim stream media” or PJ media or any other media has figured it out!
In 1984, when I completed my ethanol distillery and converted my car to ethanol to keep us out of the war we are in now…”Ha Ha what are you talking about”, followed by the same lame canards/invalid objections…of course today: Brazil is ethanol energy independent… butt still the canards/invalid objections (Its a BTU “thang”, not) and with such arrogance!
By 1986 I delivered to congress: “downfall, by popular uprising, of the government operating out of Moscow”; 1989, that Gorbachev would be running around selling his books for”american dollars only”!
1989-1991, I delivered to every member of congress the exact nature of this war and the exact battle tactics that would be used against us; including my 1991 copyright: “Long…War”: “nice Long Lasting War and sell lots of weapons!
By Jan 1999, that the World Trade Center would be hit and I refused to travel south of 40th Street, NY after 1/1999.
2003; exact cause (limit oil exports from Iraq) and outcome of the “Iraq weapons deal” that parades as a war!
many many many others..
Now 2010, the biggest story in the history of the USA is right in the known facts of this oil spill and not one person, other than me, can figure it out even with me telling you the story is there! Same exact ignore I got from all of the above, at least you are consistent!
How many years are you going to keep posting this garbage. Your errors have been pointed out time and again, yet you keep posting this garbage. You get your ethanol so cheap because you ignore most of the costs of producing ethanol.
You ignore most of the energy inputs for producing ethanol.
You don’t even know the difference between producing ethanol from sugar vs. cellulouse.
It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than is in a gallon of ethanol.
The only reason ethanol is even close to cost effective is because govt is paying most of the cost.
“of course today: Brazil is ethanol energy independent”
A load of utter bullshit. Just as much as when Bill Maher claimed the same crap last week.
First off, the ethanol that Brazil gets comes from sugar cane, not the cellulouse that we have to rely on here in the US. Only a complete idiot wouldn’t know how much easier that is.
Secondly, as you point out, Brazil uses a lot of petroleum as well.
Thirdly, to get enough sugar cane to produce part of their energy needs, Brazil has had to cut down huge swaths of the rain forest. Since it takes much more cellulouse to produce the same amount of ethanol, does it really make sense to convert 20 to 30% of our farmland to growing fuel?
Finally, I just love the way he declares himself to be a genius and everyone else an idiot, because he is the only one being taken in by his dreams.
Of course, except for extreme circumstance, producing ethanol for anything except to drink is rather silly. Particularly as a substitute for oil based fuel. It’s costs in production and the ensuing environmental damage ensure that only those who ride the environmental “Short Bus” consider this a viable alternative.
The judge scores the first round:
Cajun Navy 1
Alleged Hawaiian 0
Eat my wake, sucka!
How much uncertainty?
This is not about science, jobs, or anything smart. This is about “Obama’s agenda,” nothing more nothing less. This is a takeover and control. There is a Trillion dollars of investment going by those in office into the green economy. Investigate… Why would Obama give Brazil over 2+ Billion dollars to invest in drilling there? Can we say Soros.?.?
Marxism/social justice is ALWAYS about take care of one group of people and bringing everyone else into compliance at the point of a bonnet and the barrel or the gun. After all they know best for all of us because we are too stupid. Just ask them!
Problem is the Constitution for this regime which Obama is running over. No one was elected a god or ruler. We do not belong to government, it belongs to us! Obama can’t stand that point.
The ignorance on this site in underwhelming.
It was a Methane bubble that created the explosion that started this whole spill and killed 11 rig workers, the response to this disaster are quite childish but typical. Fart jokes, Really..??
Methane bubbles are responsible for several events where regional ocean life are killed off, as well as other events.
It may be lighter than air with all things being equal, however a hurricane is a downdraft event, with air being sucked in and down at the rain bands. If Large amounts of methane are mixed in, there may be volatile situations.
Also the Judge owns various amounts of Equities in energy companies, as do most civil servants through their retirement programs. It will be difficult to find someone that is not invested in energy.
The ignorance on this site in underwhelming.
What was that you were saying about ignorance?
Even beyond his mispelling, he’s also misused the phrase itself.
He should have said that the ignorance is overwhelming. When you declare that something is underwhelming, you are declaring that it’s presence is hard to find.
What he actually ended up doing was giving us a complement by declaring that it is hard to find ignorance on this site.
Speaking of ignorance you display an amazing amount of it yourself.
A hurricane is not a downdraft event, it is a circulation event.
Air rises in the eye, and sinks throughout the rest of the hurricane.
Methane bubbles occassionally kill sea life because the methane reacts with the dissolved oxygen in sea water, depleting that oxygen.
To the extent that the methane led to the explosion it was because it was in a confined area.
Correct MarktheGreat! At the risk of sounding off topic, engineers talk of lower and upper “flammability limits” to define the concentration range where an explosion is possible for gases in confined or open spaces near an ignition source. For methane, the lower limit is 5% while the upper limit is 15% of the total local concentration of gas in the air; if the concentration of methane is below the lower limit or above the upper limit, explosions do not normally occur. However, methane doesn’t dissolve in water, at least at ambient temperature and pressure. Rather, and perhaps more interesting from a technical point of view, the existence of methane clathrates in the deep ocean is what I suspect that you are thinking about. The enormous pressure and extreme cold changes the nature of ice at those depths, and the ice literally become containers for methane molecules. Their has been intense interest in this, for obvious reasons, but their is not yet a technical solution for safely recovering this material because once you remove them from the enormous pressure and cold, the ice becomes ‘normal’ and releases the methane uncontrollably.
I just thought that you might like to know, although I suppose that all of this technical information is irrelevant to the leftists who are trolling on this site.
In my opinion, both this moratorium and Obama’s “shakedown” of BP in private meetings (I wish someone had a recording of his doubtless profanity laced invective) are such egregious and willful misuse of power and constitutionally guaranteed due process that they rise to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required for impeachment, and if the Democrats lose their majority in Congress this fall, impeachment should be pursued on those grounds — followed by formal criminal charges. No politician — Obama, Pelosi, Reid, included — should ever be free of the consequences of willfully and knowingly pursuing blatantly unconstitutional actions. If the Supreme Court finds it so, such politicians should be immediately and permanently removed from office and barred from any future office. This would be an important brake on actions by power hungry politicians that the Founders could never have anticipated.
In the 1950′s Truman seized private steel mills that would not lower prices as he wanted. The mills sued and won a US Supreme court decision that, among other things, Truman had denied the steel mill owners due process by seizing the mills as he did.
The action here was similar: it effectively condemned the rig sites to zero value for a time and deprived the owners of their property and maybe the employees of a right to try to make a living.
The administrative decision here ducked due process. It threatened the US with more lost jobs in an area already devastated by the spill, declining oil production, hundreds of millions more in payments to middle east oil sellers to our disadvantage, and all on what appears to be a cut and pasted report that was disavowed by the scientists involved. We all know that if the government was going to “review” the rigs, it would have stretched on for years not months.
Several states and their pension funds ought to intervene in the case and oppose any appeal. So, for that matter, should the ACLU.
it is a great country we live in. the judicairy is indepent…
During the Teapot Dome Oil scandal, the Supreme Court convicted one man
of accepting a bribe that another man had been acquitted of offering.
The stakes in money, jobs, and political fallout are higher now, and
the visibility of government actions to the public is _much_ higher;
The Supremes should keep in mind that they, too, can be impeached.
Humorous cartoon titled “ducks in a row” on the White Houses’ failure to respond adequately to the oil spill at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/oil/
As Obama’s attorneys pontificated before a Federal judge that deepwater drilling (below 500 feet) should be halted for at least six months because we humans lack the technology and expertise to drill that deep and still protect the planet, other Obama attorneys were quietly concluding an agreement to award $2 billion in U.S. tax dollars to Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras.
What’s the money for? Well, it’s to finance Petrobras’s plan to (…wait for it, wait for it…) drill in deep water! That’s right, drilling in 5,000 feet of water is so risky that we need to shut down the 33 rigs in the gulf and beach up to 150,000 American workers, but drilling in 12,000 feet of water as proposed by Petrobras is okay with Barak.
While this jaw-dropping disconnect in logic has escaped the attention of our so-called “news” media, it hasn’t been missed by Fox Network’s Glenn Beck.
During his Tuesday, June 22 television program, Beck laid out a case that the Obama drilling “moratorium” is part of a plot so sinister that it literally beggars belief. –that is until you recall the Chicago-style schemes displayed by this administration for the past two years.
Beck’s case begins with billionaire George Soros the secretive Hungarian emigrant who has poured millions of dollars into organizations he created like “Media Matters,” the “Open Society Institute,” the “Tides Foundation” and a slew of others that relentlessly push for ever bigger government and ever tighter controls on the American people.
It is not too big a stretch to say that thanks to George Soros, we’re stuck with this incompetent Chicago-machine politician as our president for the next two years. At the very least, Barak owes George BIG TIME. So it comes as little surprise that Soros, as puppet master, can pull a string here, tweak a string there and Barak will dance to his tune.
That brings Beck’s case back to Petrobras. Despite his call for the “greening of America”, Soros is infatuated with the oil giant. So infatuated, that he has invested nearly a billion dollars in Petrobras ($900 million). You see, Soros loves the Petrobras plan to drill in South American waters 12,000 feet and deeper because that’s where the oil is.
There’s just one thing wrong with Soros’ investment in big oil. One little fly in the ointment. With countries around the world desperately seeking oil off their shorelines, there’s a global shortage of rigs capable of drilling in the deep seas. Oil, oil, everywhere and no way to get at it. What’s a poor billionaire to do? One can almost imagine the lonely George Soros standing in the moonlight on the edge of the great Gulf of Mexico with face pointed to the heavens crying out, “What’s to be done? What’s to be done?” When, almost like Moses’ water flowing from the struck stone, out gushed the oil from BP’s stricken Deep Horizon pipeline. A miracle, he might have cried, if only he was a believer.
Right out of Rahm Emanuel’s celebrated playbook, here was a crisis way, way too serious to waste. Say what you might about the man, but Soros knows an opportunity when he sees one. A quiet word here. A suggestion there. And, like the dog in the old Victrola advertisements, Obama “Hear’s His Master’s Voice!” And Voila! Obama from thin air issues a six-month moratorium on all offshore drilling along the American continental shelf.
Now Obama may not be the “most intelligent man” ever to grace the Oval Office, but even I have to admit he’s no dummy, either. Obama knows that if you shut those 33 rigs down for the next six months, they’ll be gone in a week. And with the average cost of moving those rigs in the multimillion-dollar range, they’ll never come back. And with them will go 150,000 American jobs, 150,000 American families not to mention the billions of gallons of non-Arab, domestic oil.
And where will the rigs go? Gee, let’s spit-ball that one. Does the name “Petrobras” ring a bell? Indeed, according to Beck, within mere days of the President’s earth-saving “moratorium” announcement, guess who was on the phone to the firm that schedules oil rig work. Does the name “Petrobras” ring a bell?
Now, I don’t know whether Beck is right, or not. At the very least, it sure looks suspicious. Soros needs oil rigs. Barak supplies them. Pretty cool, huh? I have neither the time, nor the resources to find out. However, The New York Times does. The Los Angeles Times does. You know that if the name Barak Obama was changed in this little case study to George Bush, the media would be on this like flies on a road-kill.
If Beck is right (and I suspect even he hopes he isn’t), we have the specter of an American President willing to sacrifice 150,000 Americans and their families, sacrifice any shot we have left at becoming energy self-sufficient, increase our vulnerability in the world all for the honor of dancing to the tune whistled by a Progressive puppet master and his fellow travelers as they bum-rush us to socialism and, eventfully to serfdom.
So many people seem so sure of themselves here. How can one say that all these rigs are at risk…or not at risk?
If a plane crashes because a wing falls off, is it fair to ground all planes and have them structurally checked? Yes. It would seem to be a lot more difficult to do with the oil platforms because you are guarding against POSSIBLE bursts of methane and failures of various systems and their back-ups, especially the blow-out preventers.. From a distance there seems to be the practical economic consequences of stopping production as opposed to the possible risks that are out there. And how exactly does one sort this out and how long should it take to do?
If we say that a rig has to pass an inspection of x, y, and z before it resumes drilling, that would seem to be reasonable. What should be tested and what is a timely manner in which to do it.
As for the Feds/Coast Guard, whoever not having nearly enough oil skimmers, pumpers etc. it sems that millions, if not billions more has to be spent to acquire such things. Big oil needs more of them and Big government needs more also. What other conclusion can one reach?
Everyone here is missing the most important point. The rpoblem was not caused by equipment, but by BP’s lax standards. They have a rep for such. This is a recently approved drill. Who approved it? The Obama administration… depsite the terrible record of BP. No follow-up was done.
How came this to pass? Power, Patronage, Privilege. BP helped Obama come to power, so they had access. No, they had EXEMPTION. Privilege: the rules do not apply to you. So, they blithely continued in their lax fashion, because the regulations did not apply to them. They knew there would be no inspections, no shutdowns, et cetera.
Now they shall be consumed by the very Beast they were feeding. When will the Crony Capitalists learn that the Leftists HATE Capitalism? Now they shall be nationalized. Oh, not officially, but there will be all kinds of special rules and overseers. It won’t be CALLED nationalization, but it will be indistinguishable from the label.
The government created the mess, and they shall exploit it. To those who crave power, big government is good. Extensive rules are good. Why? Because the more rules you have, the more control you have. Most important is the ability to waive the rules for your friends, and to wield the rules against your enemies. To the power-mad, the rules are whips to keep people in line. Slave-masters wield whips.
As a post-script, consider the kind of individual who, when he discovers a way to use the rules as a whip, he rejoices, rather than recoils. He jubilates in the opportunity to lay the lash upon his fellow man.
What Monsters these Leftists be.
Everyone here is missing the most important point. The problem was not caused by equipment, but by BP’s lax standards. They have a rep for such.
Not everyone from my 10:00 am commetn on June 23:
“The issue with the Macondo blowout was that BP did not follow standard industry procedures, tried too often to cut corners, and paid the price.”
It is interesting that BP, who said it was “beyond petroleum” and who was a pioneer in cap and trade, didn’t pay attention to its core business of petroleum.
Re BP and the government. BP had an inordinate number of ad hoc changes in its drilling program, which the MMS all approved. The gummints hand are stained, also.
What we need right now is a Climategate equivalent to expose Obama’s real agenda … someone with access to the emails or voicemails or text messages, etc., that will show something as damning as his own words stating his intention to destroy the country, or his affiliations with foreign powers, sources of funding, etc. I’m not saying what it is, only that it’s out there somewhere. If I was a billionaire, I would offer $100million if necessary to anyone who could provide it — government employee, ex-KGB, Mossad, whoever. But something so damning and treasonous that no Democrat could even consider defending him. Discredit him in this manner (with real evidence, not fabricated) and you do the greatest possible service to the country while discrediting the Left possibly permanently.