The End of the Drilling Permitorium? Guess Again
Supporters of a sane, productive national energy policy must surely be popping champagne corks and blasting their vuvuzelas all across the land this week. After 314 days of the United States government holding the nation’s oil industry hostage in a fashion which hearkened back to the Carter administration, the first deep water drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico has been issued.
Or has it?
As The Hayride points out, this wasn’t actually a new permit. It was awarded to Noble Energy for a well at the Santiago project, located off the coast of Louisiana, not far from the scene of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Last summer the operators had already drilled more than 13,500 feet down, well on their way to the estimated 19,000 feet required to reach the oil when they encountered an obstruction. The permit in question was actually permission to bypass that obstruction and complete the original job.
None of that stopped Michael Bromwich, head of the Obama administration’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, (BOEMRE) from proclaiming it a glorious benchmark in the efforts of the oil industry to work with the federal government.
“This is a new well in the sense it is going into a reservoir and therefore was barred under the moratorium,” Bromwich said. ”So we treat an application for a bypass like this much as we do for new wells. I don’t think it’s right to say, ‘Oh it’s just a bypass so its not as significant as a permit for a new well.’”
The truth is that there is a significant difference which the administration is attempting to downplay. This was a well which was nearly completed at the time of the BP accident and it could have been online and producing long ago. But even though there were no serious concerns raised about this rig, they have been forced to jump through one hoop after another, installing new equipment and documenting modified protocols for months on end.
None of that is a bad thing in and of itself. While human error and a cascading series of mechanical failures were to blame for Deepwater Horizon, a potential weakness in standard systems was identified and energy developers needed to respond. And they have.
The problem is that BOEMRE isn’t going to accept — at least at this point — a new safety system being put in place for the industry or each individual company. They currently want a discrete review conducted for each and every individual drill site permit, no matter how repetitive, with the same level of reporting and review required before the necessary paper is issued. Industry insiders have already expressed private concerns that such a system will continue a de facto permitorium indefinitely.
Jazz Shaw is not a former Northeastern Rino, he is a Rino in good standing, his credentials are in order.
Sincerely yours,
Mitt Romney
Can Judge appoint a Special Master to insure that permits get issued at a realistic pace? Is that a good idea or precedent?
I have to keep asking whose interest is being served. It is not in the interest of our own nation nor is it an environmental issue. The BP blowout was,to the best I can gather, a management failure not a technical failure. There is sufficient information to show that technical warnings were ignored by management and also by our government. Once the die was cast our government failed to adequately respond with available technology.\
It is a matter of record that the so called environmentalist, and by so called I mean that the environment is only used as a fulcrum to pry their agenda over on us, have steadfastly blocked any progress in using our blessings to enhance our prosperity.
We have the same spirit hard at work in Wisconsin right now.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry
Is a rundown on top union compensation, yet they call us who sweat to earn our keep, greedy!!
~ 1Ti 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.~
Money has its function but we tend to see money as substance rather than a medium of exchange we use to gather that substance. If we were paying more attention to our living and less to our paycheck we might have more purchasing power for our output.
When you spend your time working for wages someone else has to be working to supply your needs. You are the customer and you are in charge of what you spend your money for but you are not in charge of those supplies. A field or a garden does not raise itself and neither do the things you want come free of effort.
You go fishing to get fish, not to get money. Still takes effort but that is something many of us like to do. Can we see our production and our wages in that light?
I have to keep asking whose interest is being served. It is not in the interest of our own nation nor is it an environmental issue. The BP blowout was,to the best I can gather, a management failure not a technical failure. There is sufficient information to show that technical warnings were ignored by management and also by our government. Once the die was cast our government failed to adequately respond with available technology. Safety seems to be more a political football than a real concern for safe operations. The oil patch has come a long way and has learned from some serious mistakes in the past. Apparently the government does not think business is smart enough to learn and are not due an adequate profit. Businesses are just greedy. But who doesn’t have self-interest? Greed never translates into satisfaction.
~ Ec 5:10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.~
It is a matter of record that the so called environmentalist, and by so called I mean that the environment is only used as a fulcrum to pry their political agenda over on us. They have steadfastly blocked any progress in using our blessings to enhance our prosperity. Whose interest do they serve?
We have the same spirit hard at work in Wisconsin right now.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry
This link is a rundown on top union compensation, yet they call us who sweat to earn our keep, greedy!!
~ 1Ti 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.~
Money has its function but we tend to see money as substance rather than a medium of exchange we use to gather that substance. If we were paying more attention to our living and less to our paycheck we might have more purchasing power for our output. There is a lot involved in production and pricing and certain natural laws that cannot be violated without undesirable consequences. We have violated those laws and Detroit is a shining example of those results.
When you spend your time working for wages someone else has to be working to supply your needs. No quarrel with this. it works and works well. Are their wages or profits less important than your paycheck? You are the customer and you are in charge of what you spend your money for but you are not in charge of those supplies. A field or a garden does not raise itself and neither do the things you want come free of effort. The more efficient our economy the less effort it takes to supply our needs. It cannot be efficient while taking our efforts in taxes and distributing our wealth as entitlements.
You go fishing to get fish, not to get money. Still takes effort but that is something many of us like to do. Can we see our production and our wages in that light?
Sorry, did’t intend to post but once. you can delete the extras
well stated ..both times
regards
Actually, The One wants $10/gallon gasoline to “prod” people onto public transportation. After all, his SecTrans, the well-named Ray LaHood, has stated that his job is to “coerce people out of their cars”.
(IMHO, when a Federal official says his job is to “coerce” the American people on any subject, he should immediately be fired. Period. Dot. Because he obviously has never read the Constitution, or else thinks it doesn’t apply to him, her, or it.)
Also, nobody has noticed that while The One is busy “slow-walking” drilling permits, he is simultaneously “no-walking” nuclear power. Not only has the Energy Department not issued any new licenses, The One has allowed Harry Reid to keep the Yucca Flats Storage Facility closed.
He also is continuing the irrational policy of dismantling hydroelectric dams to “make rivers wild again”; i.e, to allow fish to swim- and lowlands to be flooded on a regular basis, prevention of the later being the reason many of these dams are where they are to begin with. (It’s called “multitasking” today; back when we had rational policies, it was called “killing two birds with one stone”.)
The result of all these policies is going to be sustained misery for a lot of people. Which probably explains why the environmentalists have a conniption fit whenever anything, even a minor thing, is done to reverse directions on these insane policies. After all, they consider humans the First Enemy of Holy Mother Gaia, and would be happy to exterminate the lot of us. (See the “No Pressure” ad if you don’t believe me; these idiots aren’t kidding, folks.)
The one continues to pander to his cronies in the “We Hate Everybody, All Gotta Die” crowd at every opportunity. One more good reason to give him the gate twenty months from now.
And tell him not to let it hit him in the arse on his way out.
clear ether
eon
Back in 1970, when I was released from active duty with the Army Jag Corps, I worked briefly at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. I was assigned to a section charged with intervening in proceedings before various federal administrative agencies.
Within that section there was a small subsection dedicated to the
developmentretardation of nuclear power in the United States. They spent most of their time, very happily and successfully, in making development as difficult as possible. Their tool was to require electricity generating companies and their affiliated electricity distributing companies to prove that they had never been in violation of the antitrust laws — regardless of whether it had ever been alleged that they had violated them. Proving that negative successfully was a requisite for getting the necessary licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. None of this had even a remote connection with power plant safety.Proving that one has never done something, particularly over an extended period of time, is almost impossible. That, of course, was the idea and, as I recall, it worked quite effectively.
““This is a new well in the sense it is going into a reservoir and therefore was barred under the moratorium,” Bromwich said. ”So we treat an application for a bypass like this much as we do for new wells. I don’t think it’s right to say, ‘Oh it’s just a bypass so its not as significant as a permit for a new well.’””
More Orwellian doublespeak. They already had a permit for the well, they just needed permission for a bypass. Is anyone in the media going to hold them accountable for this lie?
Mr. Shaw:
“I also keep clinging to the idea that Devo will have another top ten hit any day now.”
Doesn’t everybody?
The Odministartion’s play here is laughingly transparent, even by Chicago standards.
GE owned NBC, which of ‘em all was most “in the tank” for the Alleged Hawaiian. Obama is poking Oil and Coal in the eye with a stick and cock-blocking the US consumer to repay his marker at GE, who stand to make the most loot from the Green Technology booshwa.
All one needs to do to confirm that this is how the Undocumented President rolls is look at whom has received waivers from his ObamaCare Federal Medical Slavery Law.
I worked seventy hour weeks in the eighties to interface my work with the opening of the Yucca Mountain spent fuel repository, the Fort Knox of spent fuel. By law, it was to accept shipments by January 1998. It has yet to open. It should be containing 70,000 tons of spent fuel; it holds nothing, and has cost you $40 Bn. Once, I headed a team of superb engineers going to an NRC meeting, mid week, mid morning, in metro D.C. on this technology. The weatherman called for a minor snow in rush hour; we got about 2 “, and the government announced a liberal leave policy. When we arrived at the NRC office building late morning, perhaps 8 stories high, almost a block in foot print, we learned that we, and the guard were the only people present. I learned that liberal leave, for a regulator, means roll over and go back to sleep.
China is currently building four massive nukes, on a 4 1/2 year schedule; they are ahead of schedule. No US nuclear plant can compare with their program. Ours take more than a dozen years to finish. The time cost runs into the billions.
In life, time is money. Some claim it is necessary, due to safety, and quality. I say it is tyranny, by decision makers who either hate the technology they regulate, who hate corporations, or do not wish to make decisions. Whoever is correct, it is a certainty that practicing engineering in a regulated energy sector is a futile effort. Personal contribution, pursuing excellence, is worthless while people like Harry Reid destroy entire industries.
Every time you flip a switch, you pay for this “go slow regulatory” performance. It does not make things better; it makes thing much worse. It bankrupts people. I have read that 90%+ of energy costs can be traced to government requirements. It is the reason that our energy costs are skyrocketing, with no end in sight. As noted, the Head of DOE believes this is a good thing.
The energy policies of our nation may destroy us.
When someone speaks who knows what he is talking about the rest of us should listen, These political hustlers have absolutely no concern for our comfort and welfare and they lie when they say they do. Neither can they have any concern for our environment.
right you are ..the regulations and the UNIONS are screwing the country over. BIG !
Remember our president doesn’t want to help the economy, but rather bring it down . The man has an agenda,believe me !!
When I came out of WW II i enrolled in the GI Farm School and germ free was all the rage. They were trying to teach us to raise hogs and chickens in a germ free environment and it didn’t work. We have an immune system for a very good reason. Our environment is hostile but our immune system overcomes that hostility.
The greens and other so called environmentalists are still trying to herd us into that germ free environment that cannot exist. We must depend on our immune system which works on environmental concerns as well as it works on the common cold and the flu. If this were not so there would be no advantage in vaccinating.
No individual can comprehend all the details but pulling together we can prosper. Pulling apart only leads to defeat.
One of the 5 pillars of the progressive caliphate has to be the green energy agenda. As much as green energy is an oxy-moron, the lobby-driving tax-exempt-junk-science-eco-fascists have enough power and bucks and legal arm twisting to bend the coal,oil, gas, agriculture, lumber industries. That also depresses employment for the fanciful greener utopian tomorrow.
For a sane, productive national energy policy, the eco-lobby needs their tax exempt status reviewed: cancelled if their “science” has a political agenda.
The Obama energy policies appear to be carefully crafted national self sabotage. Why would his government try really hard to castrate fundamental and free economic development? Whatever the reasons are, this nonsense is beyond belief.
Obama has no intention of helping the drilling situation.
People who believe he is are foolish and delusional
He is out to ruin our economy and he’s doing a really really good job.
yes
I do not think the President is out to ruin our economy as a matter of fact but I do believe that he is foolish and delusional.
The result will be the same.
…he isn’t that stupid his actions have only one purpose and that is to destroy what was the USA.
there is not one policy he brought in that will help anyone but his cronies and union thugs and race mongers.
all the policies are done to diminish the country and the economy.
yes the results are the same but if it was stupidity you would at least see some things that were neutral or beneficial.
This article reports that the federal government on March 4 appealed Judge Feldman’s order that oil drilling permits be issued within thirty days (he is the judge who on February 2 had held the Department of the Interior in civil contempt for continuing the deep water oil drilling moratorium he had enjoined on June 2). In his civil contempt decision, he had stated that
I haven’t seen yesterday’s appellate brief on line yet, but according to the report it claims that it may be necessary
These things do take loads of time, particularly when they are unaccustomed to doing them at all. New stuff is very difficult to figure out; that alone can take many months — even more if they also have to decide out how to deny the permits without being held in contempt again.
Either the article I linked above is wrong or two pleadings were filed on March 4th, one with the Court of Appeals and one with Judge Friedman. Here is a copy of the text of a memorandum in support of a motion for stay filed with Judge Friedman. It complains, among other things, that
They sure do try to make it sound as though more time is needed to do what they hadn’t been doing. I particularly enjoyed the bit about how failure to grant a stay “will harm the public’s interest in the efficient development of oil and gas resources.” Bureaucrats at their best; clearly, more funding and more bureaucrats are needed, ASAP.
you know they will drag their feet lie and scream that they are complying or until it goes away or the public applies the constitution to the treasonous obama group.