Was Obama lax in responding to Gulf spill...?
because he is too close to the big oil companies? duh...
because he is too close to the big oil companies? duh...
Anonymous
Favorite Answer
I think it was more because obama is a nincompoop who has no idea what to do about anything.
Concerned
This whole thing needs to be investigated. It's more than just strange that right after offshore drilling was approved this happened. Too many on the left are happy about this.
There are other issues.
BP did donate allot of money to obama's campaign.
I have to find the link of the exact article that BP was given relaxed regulations in 2009.
Safety responsibility shifted to companies The Canwest News Service also notes, “In a recent investigation, the Wall Street Journal found that the U.S. (Department of the Interior’s) Minerals Management Service (MMS), which regulates offshore drilling south of the border, has been gradually shifting safety responsibility to the oil industry.”
Documents show that no blowout plan was required for BP’s sunken Gulf rig because of relaxed federal regulations in 2009.
A Washington Post investigation concluded that in April 2009 the MMS granted BP a "categorical exclusion" from requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act to file papers on what it would do in the event of a blow-out at the new well. It reported that BP had lobbied for the exclusion just 11 days prior. Moreover in its own assessments, the MMS concluded that a blow-out at a deepwater well in the Gulf would be unlikely to generate spills bad enough for oil to threaten coastal ecosystems.
In 2008, the Interior Department took disciplinary action against eight MMS employees who accepted lavish gifts, partied and — in some cases — had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated. An investigation cited a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" involving employees in the agency's Denver office. Bush put forth 17 warnings in 2008 and the Democrats sat and fiddled.
If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.
The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.
A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore. "They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose."
Anonymous
He's not as close to oil companies as Bush and Cheney were. It was the deregulation of oil companies by the Bush adminstration that got us to this point. That's what happens when lobbyists are in charge of safety regulations.
But drill baby drill......and who needs government telling us what to do? Why do we need big government regulation the oil industry, the Republicans cry.
We want government out of our lives!
What there's an oil spill in the gulf? Well where is the government? Why is Obama not doing anything?
See the hypocrisy?? Can you see it now?
kat without a face
spill baby spill.
he could not do anything he is a politician not an oil man, if bush sere in office haliburton would be making another fortune right now.
Stuart H
Obama is just lax