Another Oil Disaster In The Gulf Is A Growing Threat

(Image is from The Washington Post.)

The Trump administration wants to substantially increase off-shore oil drilling on both the east and west coasts of the United States. That may sound good to some Americans, but they would not be aware of the problems being experienced in the Gulf of Mexico.

There is an oil leak in the Gulf that has been happening for about 14 years now, and it's growing worse because the company (Taylor Oil) has been unable to plug the leak. In fact, the leak will soon be a bigger ecological disaster than the BP Oil disaster.

Here's some of the report by Darryl Sears on this in The Washington Post:

An oil spill that has been quietly leaking millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico has gone unplugged for so long that it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history. 

Between 300 and 700 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from a site 12 miles off the Louisiana coast since 2004, when an oil-production platform owned by Taylor Energy sank in a mudslide triggered by Hurricane Ivan. Many of the wells have not been capped, and federal officials estimate that the spill could continue through this century. With no fix in sight, the Taylor offshore spill is threatening to overtake BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster as the largest ever. . . .

The Taylor Energy spill is largely unknown outside Louisiana because of the company’s effort to keep it secret in the hopes of protecting its reputation and proprietary information about its operations, according to a lawsuit that eventually forced the company to reveal its cleanup plan. The spill was hidden for six years before environmental watchdog groups stumbled on oil slicks while monitoring the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster a few miles north of the Taylor site in 2010. . . .

On average, 330,000 gallons of crude are spilled each year in Louisiana from offshore platforms and onshore oil tanks, according to a state agency that monitors them.

The Gulf is one of the richest and most productive oil and gas regions in the world, expected to yield more than 600 million barrels this year alone, nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. oil production. Another 40 billion barrels rest underground, waiting to be recovered, government analysts say.

About 2,000 platforms stand in the waters off the Bayou State. Nearly 2,000 others are off the coasts of its neighbors, Texas and Mississippi. On top of that are nearly 50,000 miles of active and inactive pipelines carrying oil and minerals to the shore.

And the costs are high.

For every 1,000 wells in state and federal waters, there’s an average of 20 uncontrolled releases of oil — or blowouts — every year. A fire erupts offshore every three days, on average, and hundreds of workers are injured annually.

BP has paid or set aside $66 billion for fines, legal settlements and cleanup of the 168 million-gallon spill — a sum that the oil giant could, painfully, afford. But many companies with Gulf leases and drilling operations are small, financially at-risk and hard-pressed to pay for an accident approaching that scale.

One of them was Taylor Energy. . . .

Nearly a decade after the oil platform went down, the government determined that the actual level of oil leaking into the Gulf was between one and 55 barrels per day. Now, the new estimate dwarfs that: up to 700 barrels per day. Each barrel contains 42 gallons.

Despite that finding, NOAA is still in the early stages of a resource assessment of marine life that could explain the impact of the Taylor Energy spill, and is more than three years behind a deadline to issue a biological determination of the BP spill’s impact on marine life. . . .

Fourteen years after the Taylor spill, and 10 years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the federal government still doesn’t know the spills’ full impact on marine life. And there is no economic analysis showing the value of the oil flowing into the sea and potential royalties lost to taxpayers. Activists also want an analysis to determine if oil is ruining marshland and making its way to beaches.

Three Oil Pipeline Leaks This Last Week

First it was the Exxon pipeline near Mayflower (Arkansas) that dumped a few thousand barrels of oil (diluted bitumen) into the environment. Then a Canadian pipeline was broken by a train wreck in Canada and dumped a few hundred barrels of oil there. Now there has been a third pipeline leak in the same week -- this one in Texas (West Columbia). The company, Shell Oil this time, admits that several hundred barrels of oil leaked from the pipeline, and at least 70 barrels made it to the Gulf of Mexico (and the odds are that is a gross underestimate).

The media is making a big deal out of there being three pipelines leaking oil in one week -- like it's an unusual occurrence. But those to pay attention to such matters know that it isn't. Last year, there were 364 "incidents" (pipeline leaks) -- very close to one every day. Most of them are small, dumping only a few hundred barrels of oil, but all of them are hurting the environment.

And now the oil companies want President Obama to approve a huge new pipeline running right down the middle of this country from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast -- the XL pipeline. And this new pipeline will be much larger than existing pipelines. The Arkansas pipeline carries about 90,000 barrels a day, but the XL pipeline will carry about 800,000 barrels a day. Just imagine, a pipeline break of it could dump hundreds of thousands of oil (actually diluted bitumen) into the environment in just a few hours.

And unfortunately, that pipeline will probably be approved. The president has a history of giving the corporate interests most of what they want, and the oil companies want this huge new pipeline. There are those who will tell you this new pipeline will create jobs and help this country be less dependent on foreign oil. Not true! Only a couple of hundred permanent jobs will be created (unless you count the workers that will be needed to clean up the future pipeline leaks). And none of that Canadian oil is destined for this country. It will be refined in Texas and sold to other countries (primarily Asia).

This proposed XL pipeline is a bad idea -- both environmentally and financially. It will endanger the environment and only financially benefit the big oil companies. It should NOT be built!

Exxon Won't Have To Pay For Clean-Up

The picture above shows a tiny portion of the oil spill in Arkansas. It is from a pipeline owned and operated by Exxon -- and that company admits that thousands of barrels of oil were released from the broken pipeline before it was discovered and shut down. Now this city (Mayflower, Arkansas) faces a difficult clean-up (and the realization that the ecology of their area will be negatively affected). And guess who won't be paying for any part of that clean-up -- that's right, the Exxon Mobil corporation.

Years ago a fund was created to pay for oil spills. It is called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (and it is badly needed since at least 54,000 barrels of pipeline oil was dumped into the environment in 364 separate incidents last year).  But according to Oil Change International:

“The great irony of this tragic spill in Arkansas is that the transport of tar sands oil through pipelines in the US is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Exxon, like all companies shipping toxic tar sands, doesn’t have to pay into the fund that will cover most of the clean up costs for the pipeline’s inevitable spills.”

That's because, in their infinite wisdom, the U.S. Congress let the oil companies talk them into passing a law that exempts those who ship this kind of crude oil (called diluted bitumen) from having to pay the 8 cents a barrel fee the fund requires. That's because they were able to get this particular kind of crude as not being defined as oil. And it is not the kind of crude oil that can be gotten by drilling a well. Instead, it is scooped from the ground as a solid, and chemicals are added to make it a liquid that will flow through the pipeline. That liquid is much like a thin asphalt, and is actually dirtier than the crude coming out of a drilled well.

So Exxon has not paid a single penny into the OSLT Fund for the sludge they are sending through that pipeline (and which has now spilled into the Arkansas landscape). And guess what, the companies that want to ship this same kind of dirty crude through the proposed XL pipeline won't have to pay into that fund either -- and that pipeline will pump nine times as much as the Arkansas pipeline does (which means of course, that it poses nine times the ecological danger to the environment).

This spill should serve as a warning to Americans -- that the XL pipeline should NOT be built. And the law exempting oil companies from having to pay into the OSLT Fund when they ship this noxious crude through our country should be repealed. It simply doesn't make sense.

Arkansas Spill Highlights Pipeline Danger

The right-wing Republicans in Congress have once again sold out to corporate interests -- this time to the Big Oil corporations. They are pressuring the president to approve construction of the XL Pipeline, which would cut right through the heart of America (running from the tar sands oil pits of Canada to the Gulf Coast refineries of Texas). They say that pipeline would be a real boon for this country -- creating jobs and lessening the country's dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, neither is true.

The numer of jobs the pipeline would create are mostly only temporary. Less than 200 permanent jobs would be created. That's an insignificant amount, considering the amount of jobs this country needs (and the Republicans have blocked in Congress).

And the idea that the pipeline would reduce the dependence on foreign oil is ludicrous. The oil being pumped through the pipeline IS foreign oil (since it is being built solely for the transporting of Canadian oil). In addition, the finished product after it is refined is destined to be shipped to foreign countries (mostly Asia). It will not stay in this country.

And then their is the way land is being procured for that pipeline. The government is backing an obvious misuse of eminent domain laws. Those laws were designed to let the government get property for the public good. But there is no public good in the building of this pipeline. The only entities being helped are giant oil companies -- the Canadian companies who will put their oil in it, and the American companies who will receive that oil to refine it. In other words, private property is being seized through eminent domain for the financial benefit of private corporations -- a clear violation of private property rights (which the Republicans claim to support).

But perhaps the best reason for stopping the pipeline from being built is to protect the environment. The pipeline will cut through the middle of this country -- crossing many thousands of acres of valuable farmland. Every acre of that land is in danger of being polluted with the very dirty Canadian oil. Proponents of the pipeline has shrugged off any danger to the environment, but a pipeline break just this last week in Arkansas (carrying the same kind of Canadian oil) shows this is a real danger.

That pipeline broke (see pictures above) and, before anyone realized it had happened, thousands of gallons of oil polluted the area near Mayflower, Arkansas. The authorities are not letting the general public near the spill, but the pictures above were taken by people living near the spill. And this was just a small pipeline, carrying about 90,000 barrels of crude per day. The XL Pipeline will carry about 800,000 barrels per day -- making a break much more serious than the one in Arkansas.

As the Arkansas break shows, we are not talking about whether a break can occur with the XL Pipeline -- only when and where such a break will occur. That monstrosity should not be built!

More Environmental Damage From "Big Oil"

There has been a lot of talk recently about how oil (and other fossil fuels) are ruining our environment by cars and plants pumping pollutants into the atmosphere. It is not only making our air unbreathable in places, but it is also fundamentally changing the environment in negative ways. But the oil companies are also damaging our environment with their product before they even get it to the refineries.

Everyone has heard of the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, which dumped millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf and caused damage to the environment which it will take many years to recover from. This was just the big spill that made the news. The truth is that most of the Gulf wells leak at least some oil.

Then you have the tanker disasters that occur every so often. The worst one in this country was the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska a few years ago, but they happen more frequently than the oil companies would like to admit. But perhaps the most common environmental damage from oil is a result of pipeline breaks. Now there is a new pipeline leak, this time in a very pristine area of the country.

A pipeline belonging to ExxonMobil has sprung a leak and fouled the Yellowstone River in Montana with crude oil (see picture). It is believed that at least seventy miles of the river have been affected by the oil leak. ExxonMobil says it has shut down the section of the pipeline with the leak, and they are currently trying to locate the leak and fix it.

Governor Schweitzer says, "The parties responsible will restore the Yellowstone River." He seems to have a lot more faith in Big Oil than I do. he might want to remember that ExxonMobil promised to clean up Alaska also, but then fought that responsibility tooth-and-nail in court.

It might be time to rethink the major pipeline that Big Oil wants to build from Canada through Texas. This would be an even larger pipeline than the one in Montana, and would completely bisect this country -- running through several states. This might be a boon to the big oil companies, but with their record-profits, oil subsidies, and record of paying no taxes, I'm not at all sure they need more help. The one thing we can be sure of with a pipeline is that someday it will break.

Isn't it time to wean ourselves off of oil -- both foreign and domestic?

Oil Disaster Not Over Yet

We don't hear too much about BP's disastrous oil spill anymore on the news.   The leak has been plugged and most of the oil on the surface is gone.   BP has paid off a few people (and ignored lots of others), and the Republicans are back to demanding deep-water drilling be continued (and even expanded) in the Gulf of Mexico.   It's all over and everything is back to normal -- right?

Wrong!   While the politicians may think the Gulf disaster is over, the scientists know better.   The oil is not on the surface anymore because what wasn't scooped up now rests on the sea floor.   Scientists have discovered a "dead zone" of about 80 square miles, where oil covers the sea floor with a thickness of 3 or 4 inches.   Anything not already dead in this zone is in the process of dying.

And this won't go away quickly.   Scientists believe it may take decades for this area to get back to normal (if it ever does).   This whole thing is just sickening.   Since the devastation is out of sight, the politicians and big oil companies can just go back to business as usual -- poisoning not only the seas, but the air we breathe.   After all, corporate profits are more important than a clean environment or healthy humans.

We already have the technology to wean this country off a significant amount of carbon-based fuels, and with some investment we could probably put these dirty fuels on the shelf for good.   It's hard to believe that we could send a man to the moon, but are incapable of developing cleaner and renewable sources of energy and protecting the enviornment (which humans and other animals need to even exist -- whether they know it or not).

We live in a very sick time -- a time when corporate profits are more important than human life is.

Republicans Are Getting Even Nuttier

Republican senate candidate in Kentucky, Rand Paul, has made numerous weird and ridiculous statements since winning the Republican nomination. But he didn't pull his nutty beliefs out of thin air. He came by them honestly -- from his father. His father, Ron Paul (pictured), a congressman from Texas and former presidential candidate in the Republican primary (that even Republicans weren't crazy enough to nominate) has quite a few unorthodox and looney views of his own (and they seem to be getting worse).

The elder Paul recently appeared on the right-wing radio show of Alex Jones. Jones floated the idea that BP had intentionally caused the oil spill because they wanted the American government to nationalize the American branch of their company (even though it is absurd to think any oil company ever wants to be nationalized). He also said that BP and President Obama were working together to get a new "carbon tax" and the global warming bill passed, and that this would lead to a world government. He then accused President Obama of wanting the oil disaster to get worse so he can institute "forced evacuations".

Ron Paul not only agreed with that nutty assessment, but tossed in a couple of his own assertions. He accused the president of using an executive order to force BP to put $20 billion into a fund to pay for damages caused by the oil spill. That was not just nutty but an outright lie. Their was no executive order and the contribution to pay for damages was negotiated and agreed to by both the president and BP.

Then Paul gets even sillier. He accuses the president of not being able to provide National Guard troops to help in the Gulf because he's using them all in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's another outrageous lie. The truth is that the president has authorized the use of thousands of National Guard troops, but many are not being used because the Republican governors of the Gulf states have failed to come up with any plan on how to use them. Once again, the president is being blamed for the Republican's own incompetence.

And Paul is not the only Republican pushing the oil spill conspiracy theories. Just a couple of days ago in a Georgia town hall meeting, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) tried to float the notion that the president is intentionally failing to stop the oil spill because he wants to use the disaster to pass a new "energy tax". It wouldn't surprise me if these clueless liars tried to next blame President Obama for starting the Civil War and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

Meanwhile, Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, has come up with a couple of absurd ideas of her own recently. She claims that 87% of undocumented Mexican immigrants have a prior criminal record -- a claim that federal immigration authorities deny. When asked where she had gotten such a ridiculous statistic, her office replied that they couldn't remember. The real reason they couldn't remember is because it's a lie. It has never been true and it's not true now.

In defense of Arizona's recently passed racist law Gov. Brewer said, "We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime to the drugs to the kidnapping and the extortion and the be-headings. . ." Be-headings?

The Arizona Guardian wondered if there had really been a rash of be-headings in Arizona by undocumented immigrants, so they questioned the coroners of some of Arizona's most populous counties (Yuma, Pima, Maricopa, Pinal, Santa Cruz and Cochise). It turned out that there hasn't been a single be-heading connected to undocumented immigrants. It was just another lie.

I think Brewer (and many of her Republican colleagues) have been spending too much time around the Alaska quitter, Sarah Palin. They've started saying whatever nutty thing that pops into their empty heads, sure in the knowledge that someone somewhere will be stupid enough to believe it. Facts are just an inconvenience to be ignored.

The next time you hear a Republican say something, anything, it would be wise to ask for proof.

BP Oil Hits The Texas Coast

Well it had to happen sooner or later. The oil from BP's Gulf oil disaster has been affecting the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for weeks now, but Texas had been spared. No longer. On Saturday and again on Sunday tar balls were found washed up on the beach at Galveston, Texas.

After investigating those tar balls both the Coast Guard and Texas officials now admit they are from the oil released by the BP well that is gushing oil into the Gulf. Texas beaches are about 400 miles from the BP well that exploded so it took a little longer for the oil to start arriving here, but the wait is over.

Texas officials had hoped the oil would not come here. In fact, many were crowing that Texas would benefit from the disaster because people who could not go to beaches in other Gulf states would bring their vacation to Texas instead. Looks like they spoke too soon. Although most Texas beaches are still clean, as the oil disaster continues unabated, more and more oil will start to show up on all of them.

Some officials are still in denial. They are saying the oil could have come off a ship from the oil disaster zone. If so, then those ships are not obeying the regulations which say a ship must be decontaminated before entering the port. It is more likely that the oil spilling from the BP well is just finally starting to arrive on Texas beaches.

It now looks like none of the Gulf states are going to be able to avoid being affected by the oil disaster.

Judge's Decision Feathers His Own Nest

When BP's shortcuts caused an oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama made what I think was a good decision to impose a moratorium on deep-water off-shore drilling. Now that it's months later and the damaged BP rig is still pouring millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, Obama's moratorium looks even more like the right decision.

But a Louisiana company, Hornbeck Offshore Services, didn't like the moratorium and sued to have the decision overturned in court. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman agreed with the drilling company and ruled that the moratorium was illegal. He said the moratorium was "arbitrary and capricious" and would have an "immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country."

You may be asking yourself why the judge would make such a questionable decision in the midst of the current oil disaster. I know I was. But it begins to make some sense when you look at the judge's financial holdings. The judge owns stock in at least 21 different energy companies, including Halliburton and Transocean. He also owns stock in J.P. Morgan Chase (which holds 28.3% of BP's stock). Here are the other companies that the judge holds stock in:

BlackRock
Ocean Energy
NGP Capital Resources
Quicksilver Resources
Hercules Offshore
Provident Energy
Peabody Energy
PenGrowth Energy
RPC Inc
Atlas Energy Resources
Parker Drilling
TXCO Resources
EV Energy Partners
Rowan Companies
BPZ Resources
El Paso Corp
KBR Inc
Chesapeake Energy
ATP Oil & Gas

This judge obviously had no business making any decision in this case. He should have recused himself from the case. If he had decided in favor of the government, he would have suffered financially from his energy holdings. By deciding for the drilling company, he protects the oil investments that he has and his own financial well-being. How can we trust that he made a fair and impartial decision in this case? Answer -- we can't!

Fortunately, the White House is appealing this ridiculous decision to the 5th Court of Appeals (and the Sierra Club is joining in the appeal). But it is questionable whether they will get a fair hearing there either. Just last month, in a case against energy and chemical companies, so many of the 5th Court Appeals judges recused themselves for ties to these companies that there weren't enough judges left to hear the case.

Are there any judges left out there that aren't owned by the oil companies?

BP Is Not Alone In Disaster Incompetence

BP seems to be the very picture of incompetence as we watch its futile efforts to control the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The leak has been pouring oil into the Gulf for months now as BP tries one thing after another to get it stopped. So far, nothing has worked and the future looks very dark for both the Gulf and the shorelines of the coastal states (and the businesses dependent on both).

Meanwhile the congress varmints (mostly Republicans) that have been the recipient of money from Big Oil want the off-shore oil drilling to continue. They would like for us to think this is something that could only happen to BP and even then is just an "accident." I wish that was true, but it is not. Even the other oil companies know it is something that could have happened to any of them, and none of them are any more prepared to deal with an oil disaster than BP was.

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson admitted as much in his testimony before Congress. He admits that none of the oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (and other off-shore areas) have even the slightest clue about how to deal with a BP-like oil disaster. Here is the exchange he had with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), the chair of the oversight committee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

STUPAK: So if you can’t handle 40,000 [barrels of oil a day], how are you going handle 166,000 per day?

TILLERSON: The answer to that is is when these things happen, we are not well equipped to deal with them.

STUPAK: So when these happen, we can’t handle them?

TILLERSON: There will be impacts as we are seeing. We have never represented anything different than that. That’s why the emphasis is always on preventing these things from occurring because when they happen we are not well equipped to deal with them. And that’s just a fact of the enormity of what we’re dealing with.

STUPAK: We call upon the same resources. No matter which one of the oil companies before us had the blow-out, the resources are not enough to prevent what we are seeing day after day on the gulf. Not only the loss of 11 people, but we — we are on day what? 56 or 57 of oil washing on shore. There is no way to stop it until we cap the well? Correct?

TILLERSON: Right.

STUPAK: But it could be Exxon tomorrow or Chevron tomorrow?

TILLERSON: Not if we follow our practices and procedures it won’t be.

STUPAK: But if it does we can’t handle the spill. This worst case scenario is pie in the sky and oil in our waters.

TILLERSON: The MMS and Coast Guard require us to calculate using their methods and that’s why it’s in there. I think that’s all that matters is the point is we have to take every step to prevent these things from happening. When they happen, it is a fact that we are not well equipped to prevent any and all damage. Damage will occur.

Does this admission make you want to encourage even more off-shore drilling? There are over 6,000 drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico alone. And any one (or more) of these could be another oil disaster waiting to happen. And if another disaster strikes it won't matter what company is doing the drilling because none of them have the capability to deal with it.

It's time for the government to stop giving permission for new off-shore drilling ventures, and to sink some real money into finding and establishing new and renewable sources of safe energy. We got to the moon within 10 years once we put our efforts into it. Why can't we do the same with energy?

More Teabagger Lunacy And Lies

There doesn't seem to be a lid on the craziness displayed by the teabaggers. Just when I think they've reached the ultimate in lunatic ideas, they find a way to top themselves. This time the idiocy comes from a teabagger candidate running for the Republican nomination in a North Carolina congressional race. The candidate, who self-identifies himself with the teabagger group, is Bill Randall (pictured).

Randall is now saying that the United States government and BP may have engaged in a conspiracy to create the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. He doesn't say why either one would want to intentionally create an oil leak -- just that he thinks they might have done it. Here is what he said to the media last Tuesday:

“Now, I’m not necessarily a conspiracy person, but I don’t think enough investigation has been done on this,” Randall said at a media conference on Tuesday. “Someone needs to be digging into that situation. Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don’t know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.

“But then it got beyond what was anticipated, and we had an explosion and loss of life. And, oh man, then we have panic. Is there a cover up going on? I’m not saying there necessarily is. But I think there’s enough facts on the table for people that (they) really need to do some investigative research and find out what went on with that and get a subpoena of records and everything else.”

Randall admits that this idea is "purely speculative" and "not based on any fact", but he still wants to spend a lot of government money to investigate it anyway. I thought the teabaggers were whining about the government spending too much money, but I guess it is only expenditures that actually help people that they are oppose. It seems to be fine to spend government money on conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin continued to spin tall tales on nationwide television. She doesn't seem to care at all whether what she is saying is true or not, as long as it sounds good to her teabagger base. On Tuesday night she appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show and claimed that several nations have offered help with the Gulf leak but the U.S. government (President Obama) won't even return their phone calls. Here is her nearly incoherent quote on the show:

"They can’t even get a phone call returned, Bill. The Dutch. They are known, and the Norwegians. They are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills. They offered to help and, yet, no, they too, with a proverbial can’t even get a phone call back. That is what the Norwegians are telling us, and the Dutch are telling us, and then the entrepreneurial Americans."

Of course it isn't true. On the day before her interview, the Washington Post (certainly no bastion of liberality) reported that the U.S. had accepted help from those nations. But I guess I'm expecting too much of Palin since we learned in the 2008 campaign that she doesn't read newspapers. Here is what the Post said:

"In late May, the administration accepted Mexico’s offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway."

Big Oil Simply Cannot Be Trusted

BP has been asking us to trust them, and they've promised to pay for the damages they have caused to the Gulf of Mexico and our coastal states. But trust is one thing they have definitely not earned. While they and their political shills are trying to label the Gulf oil disaster as an "accident", we have learned now that the "accident" was really caused by BP officials demanding that safer traditional drilling procedures be abandoned and much riskier procedures be used -- just so they could maximize their profits.

We now know this effort to maximize profits not only caused an ecological disaster, but cost the lives of several employees on the off-shore rig. Now we learn that the cause of the disaster was not the only thing they have been lying about. They have also been lying about the size of the continuing oil leak -- probably in an effort to minimize the damages they will have to pay.

BP has been telling the public for weeks that the leak is dumping 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. It would be bad enough if that were true, but it's not. Scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) originally estimated that the leak was somewhere between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day (2-4 times as bad as BP had said), but now the USGS has revised its estimate.

The USGS is now saying the leak is closer to 40,000 barrels a day (8 times as bad as BP admitted it was and more than half of it is still leaking into the Gulf). BP now says it is capturing 16,000 barrels a day, but can we even believe that after the other lies. It's incredible that BP wants the American people to trust them since they have been lying about nearly everything since the first days of the oil disaster. I'm wondering now what else they are hiding. They have made the employees they hired for the clean-up sign a confidentiality agreement.

What are they trying to hide with that? The extent of the damage to wildlife and the coast? The toxic effects the oil and dispersants are having -- not only to their employees, but to innocent civilians and wildlife? Don't all the lies make you wonder if they intend to keep their word and pay for damages?

But BP is not the only member of Big Oil that is assuring the public of safety while cutting as many corners as they can to make an extra dollar. All of the oil companies are doing it. The Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety is currently meeting (a meeting that BP didn't bother to attend).

Testifying before the subcommittee, Jordan Barab (deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health) said that federal inspectors are finding an appalling lack of compliance with federal safety regulations at refineries. Barab said, "Time and again, our inspectors are finding the same violations in multiple refineries." These are well-defined and well-known safety regulations that Big Oil is just ignoring.

It should be obvious to anyone with even half a brain by now that Big Oil is willing to risk the lives of their own employees, the lives and health of the general public, and serious damage to the environment just to make a few more dollars (and earn bigger executive bonuses). And these are the same people that are assuring us that the drilling and refining is safe. They simply cannot be believed.

And many Republicans are now demanding that drilling be increased, even before the extent of the current disaster is known. Does that make any sense? Isn't it time we had a sensible energy policy that sinks enormous amounts of money into the development of safer and hopefully renewable sources of energy (and I'm not talking about something as silly as "cap and trade")?

BP Violated Established Safety Procedures

BP would like for all of us to believe they were just the victim of a tragic accident in the Gulf of Mexico -- something that could have happened to any company following established drilling procedures. They have even had some of the recipients of their generosity on Capitol Hill, especially Republicans, to take up the mantra that "Accidents will happen." And BP spokesman Robert Wine tells us that "BP's priority is always safety."

That's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for the oil giant except for one thing. It's just a bunch of lies invented to make BP look good and hopefully save it some money. The truth is that BP intentionally ignored established drilling procedures, and when the drillers objected BP ordered them to do it anyway. The company thought the drilling was taking too long and costing too much money, so they ordered shortcuts.

According to the surviving drillers, shortly before the explosion a BP company executive demanded that the heavy mud (injected into the pipe to lower the pressures) be replaced by lighter sea water. The chief driller (who died in the explosion) objected and said he didn't remember it ever being done that way. BP insisted and got their way. This failure to control the pressure in the established way was very probably the cause of the explosion.

These drillers have now filed suit against BP, and their attorney accuses the company of criminal actions. If what the drillers say is true (and I believe it probably is), then the attorney is right on the mark. It's bad enough that the actions of the company have poisoned the Gulf of Mexico and damaged beaches in several states, but several workers died in that blast. If the workers died because BP cut corners on safety precautions, that has to be at least manslaughter and someone needs to be held responsible (and that responsibility probably goes all the way up to CEO Tony Hayward).

It goes without saying that the company should be financially responsible for all the damage they've caused, but now it looks like maybe some jail time for some executives wouldn't be out of order. I'm not going to hold my breath for it though. Corporations may have all the rights of ordinary citizens, but they have too much money to have any of the responsibilities.

BP Solution Is Only Partial - Leak Continues

BP has actually gotten a funnel-like device placed on the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and they are now siphoning thousands of gallons of oil into a surface ship. If people just listened to BP and their publicists, they might think that BP had actually plugged the leak and the worst was over. That is just not true.

The truth is that the procedure BP did actually increased the flow of oil by 20% to 30%, and they are only able to contain and siphon off about half of the oil leaking out now. That means at least 60% to 65% of the original leak is still flowing into the Gulf and joining the already disastrous amount of oil already there. And there is little hope of staunching this flow until August, when it is hoped that two relief wells being drilled can take the pressure off the leak.

Meanwhile, over a hundred miles of beaches are already being affected by the oil -- from Louisiana to Florida. Even if the oil flow had been stopped (and it certainly has not been), Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said it will take years to get the oil out of marshlands and other habitats.

President Obama agrees saying, "It may take some time, and it's going to take a whole lot of effort. There is going to be damage done to the Gulf Coast, and there is going to be economic damages that we've got to make sure BP is responsible for and compensates people for."

I wish the president luck in getting BP (and Transocean and Halliburton) to pay for all the damage caused by the oil leak they are responsible for, but personally, I'll believe it when I see it. And I wouldn't count too much on help from Congress either, where many congressmen are literally swimming in oil money. BP spent $16 million on lobbying Congress in 2009, and spent another $3.5 million in the first three months of 2010 (and that's only one oil company).

And things may not be much better with the court system. Think Progress has learned that at least 58% of the active federal judges in the Gulf Coast region have financial ties to the oil industry -- 37 out of 64 federal judges in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama or Florida. Do we really think these judges will rule against their own financial interests? I wouldn't bet on it.

Right now there's only seems to be one bright spot in this whole mess. It looks like the American people are finally waking up to the environmental and financial dangers of off-shore drilling. For the first time, a majority of Americans believe increased off-shore drilling is too risky. In a new Washington Post/CBS News poll on the matter, 51% of the people now oppose new off-shore drilling and only 40% favor it. It's too bad that it took a mega-disaster to make people see the truth.

But for now there is only one sure thing -- the leak continues as does the damage to the Gulf and Gulf Coast states.

The Shameful Antics Of BP

I shouldn't be surprised by now at the uncaring attitudes of some corporations when it comes to taking care of their employees, but I still am. I guess it's because I really don't understand how some people (and corporations are run by people) can care so little about their fellow man. BP is now the corporation that is showing this lack of respect for those who are working for them.

It's not bad enough that BP has fouled the Gulf of Mexico so badly that over 20% of it is now closed to fishing (commercial or otherwise), oil is beginning to foul and will probably affect the coastal environment for years to come, and sea animals are beginning to die because of the oil (not to mention hundreds of birds). Now we learn that the humans involved in trying to contain and clean-up the oily mess are getting sick.

Many of the Gulf fishermen (who can no longer fish for their living thanks to BP) were hired by BP to help with containment and clean-up. BP put them to working with the oil and chemical dispersants and failed to provide them with any protective gear at all (not even gloves). Now many of these fishermen are getting sick and some have had to be hospitalized.

One fisherman relates that he had to be hosed down, and then take several showers before he was even allowed to enter the hospital. Obviously the hospital knows something that BP is not willing to tell the general public. Are they afraid of allowing the toxic dispersants into the hospital where they could affect staff or patients?

Then BP took all the clothing the sick fishermen were wearing and have refused to return them. Of course, this prompts the question -- What are they trying to hide? Are they afraid these clothes contain evidence of the poisonous atmosphere they had these people working in with no protection? If not, why steal these clothes and refuse to return them.

The BP CEO, Tony Hayward (pictured), is saying that the oil fumes and toxic dispersants are not making the fishermen sick. He claims it is "food poisoning". But doctors disagree. Dr. Michael Osterholm says the symptoms (nose bleeds, upset stomach, body aches, etc.) sound more like a respiratory illness.

Meanwhile, the BP CEO says he would like to have his life back. What a maroon! It would be nice if he could think of someone other than himself. I imagine there are a lot of people in the fishing and tourist industries along the Gulf Coast who would be happy to have their lives back also. If BP cares, they have yet to show it.

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In a related story, teabagger queen Michele Bachmann has decided that government intervention may be a good thing after all. Since President Obama came into office, she has opposed everything he has tried to do. She has called his efforts a "government takeover" and "socialism".

She has wanted to do away with the "socialist" government payouts (except those payments that she and her husband receive -- those are OK). Now she gives us even more evidence that she is not really a conservative -- just an anti-Obama opportunist.

After all of her howling about "government takeovers", she now wants to know why the government hasn't seized private boats to deal with the oil crises. She says:

"Where were the boats that could have been commandeered by the government to be sent into this region to deal with that oil plume as it was coming up in the water and destroying marine life? Nowhere to be found. Why? The administration was hands off on this policy."

That sounds like socialism to me. The truth is that Bachmann doesn't really care about socialism or anything else (except her own re-election). President Obama could do everything she has said she wants and she would still find a way to complain about it and oppose him. Like many other teabaggers, her only political principle is to oppose anything the president does.

No New Oil Wells In The Gulf !

Finally someone has taken some action to stop the insanity of off-shore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday an environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, filed suit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans requesting a stop to any new off-shore drilling. In light of the current ecological disaster caused by BP and Transocean (and Halliburton), that makes imminent sense.

There is a federal law (the National Environmental Policy Act) that requires a full environmental analysis before any drilling can proceed. However, the federal government's Mineral Management Service (MMS) has routinely been exempting drilling companies from fulfilling the requirements of this law. In fact, BP was given an exemption by the MMS for their disastrous well that is still pouring thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf every day.

It gets worse. In the past 60 days, the MMS has granted another 49 exemptions from the environmental law to companies for new off-shore wells (many of them granted since the BP disaster). It is only right that President Obama has fired the head of the MMS (who had to be brain-dead to keep giving out the exemptions). It is these newest drilling permits that the Center for Biological Diversity is trying to stop in court.

Maybe the president is finally coming to his senses. He had approved a large amount of new off-shore wells, but now admits he was wrong. He said he had thought the oil companies had the appropriate safety precautions and knew what to do in case of an emergency like the BP disaster.

It has since become clear to everyone that the oil companies don't have the remotest clue about how to handle an off-shore disaster. And it's not just BP -- it's all of the companies. If any of them knew what to do, you can bet they would have given that knowledge to BP by now. They know that the public's bad feelings about the drilling and any new laws and drilling regulations will affect every single oil company.

It is time to stop the off-shore drilling (at least stop giving new drilling permits). Saving a few pennies at the gas pump is not worth the destruction of our environment, and the drilling ban should not just be in the Gulf of Mexico, but in all coastal areas.

The picture above was taken from the blog called Walled-In Pond. It shows a map of the 6,357 oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (each one of them a potential disaster in the making).

How Low Can Rand Paul Go ?

As I posted yesterday, Kentucky's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate (Rand Paul) wasted no time in making sure everyone knew he was a racist and generally a mean person. He made it clear that he was opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act. He believes that businesses and property owners should be able to discriminate against African-Americans if they want to do so.

He also thinks they should be able to discriminate against disabled Americans of any color, saying businesses shouldn't have to obey the Americans With Disabilities Act. He had already come out in the past as a supporter of anti-government and racist militias. Frankly, considering all of the above, I thought Rand Paul couldn't get any worse. But I was wrong. He found a way to do it.

With his willingness to discriminate against minorities and the disabled still ringing in the ears of voters, Paul has now decided that the United States government is picking on poor BP Oil. He seems to believe that business not only have the right to discriminate, but they also have the right to destroy the environment -- even foreign companies (BP is a British company). Paul told George Stephanopoulos:

"What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, you know, 'I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault. Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I’ve met a lot of these miners and their families. They’re very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen."

BP may not have said they're not going to pay for the damages, but they have certainly been busy trying to minimize those damages. We're just now finding out that the 5,000 barrels a day that BP says is escaping into the Gulf is probably actually several times that amount. I personally think the president hasn't been hard enough on BP. It makes me wonder what the people of the Gulf States think about Paul and his defense of BP's right to contaminate.

As for the mine disaster, Paul seems to completely ignore the numerous violations the mining company had been given before the disaster. It is entirely possible that those miners would still be alive if the company had strictly followed federal safety regulations. But I guess he thinks businesses also have the right to ignore safety regulations and put their workers in unnecessary danger.

I honestly don't think Paul could get any lower on the Human scale than he already is, but somehow I think he'll probably find a way. Really Kentucky, are you guys seriously thinking of sending this sorry excuse for a human to the United States Senate?

BP CEO Says Oil Damage Is Minimal

BP CEO Tony Hayward tried to minimize his company's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Obviously, he is trying to stave off new drilling regulations and possibly limit his company's liability for damages, but I doubt it's going to work. Here's what he said:

"I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest. It is impossible to say and we will mount, as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environmental assessment as we go forward. We’re going to do that with some of the science institutions in the U.S. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest."

He also said, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

But while he was trying to minimize his company's liability, the disaster continues to get worse. There is still at least 5,000 barrels of oil pouring into the Gulf each day (and many experts think the leak is much larger than 5,000 barrels a day). Hayward even admits that it will be probably July at the earliest before the leak can be stopped (that's another month and a half).

Meanwhile sea turtles and Dolphins are dying, and about 19% of the Gulf has already been declared off-limits for fishing. Thick oil has already reached the wetlands of Louisiana (see picture above), and tar balls are washing up on the beaches of Mississippi and Alabama. Yesterday, the oil reached the Gulf currents that will take it to the Florida Keys (and possibly around to the East Coast).

Making matters even worse is the fact that we are at the beginning of a new hurricane season. All it would take is one fairly small hurricane to blow the oil ashore and cause some serious damage.

Hayward may want to minimize the damage his company has caused (along with Transocean), but anyone with half a brain can see it's just not true. The Gulf may indeed be big, but that won't prevent the damage to this country.

Transocean Profits From Oil Disaster

I've posted about Transocean before. They are the company that was drilling the off-shore oil well for BP -- the one that exploded and caused the current oil disaster. They are also one of the corporations that turned their back on their country and set up a "headquarters" in a foreign country (Switzerland) to avoid paying income taxes in the United States. Now they are showing they still haven't found their moral compass.

The company has now announced that they will pay their shareholders a total of $1 billion this year. Evidently, they are feeling pretty sure they won't be needing any of that money to help pay for the damage they have done to the environment of the Gulf and several states bordering the Gulf.

Amazingly, while the Gulf Coast is looking at damages that could climb into billions of dollars, Transocean has actually turned a profit from the oil disaster. They have already received a payout from their insurance company of over $400 million. When the cost of their destroyed oil rig is subtracted from that, it leaves them with a profit of $270 million.

But don't expect them to spend any of that money helping to pay for the damages they caused by their shoddy drilling. They have already asked a court to limit their liability to a paltry $27 million. That's outrageous, considering the damages could go upward of $8 billion (even though BP must share responsibility for the disaster).

I hope the courts and federal government make Transocean pay their share of the damages. They obviously aren't going to step up to the plate and do it on their own.

Oil And Recycling

I got an e-mail from Zac Trahan over at the website TexasTakeBack.org. He asked if I would post an article he had written for that website. I thought the article was very good (and I agree with it), so I am reprinting it here in an attempt to give it a wider readership. I hope you enjoy it:

The still-growing BP spill is a stark reminder of the many dangers and
problems created by our society’s insatiable demand for oil. But as this
disaster forces us to confront these problems and put serious thought
into their solutions, it’s important to understand the connections that
tie them together. Our addiction to oil is fueled by more than
automobiles: it persists because of an attitude that we can consume and
waste our resources as if they have no limits. Trash and recycling are
connected to more than just landfills and green bins. The fact is, our
current produce it-use it once-throw it away society wastes more than
just paper or plastic – it wastes oil, and lots of it. If we can reform
this unsustainable, wasteful system, we can help reduce the need for
drilling anywhere.

Plastic products are a perfect example because they’re made primarily
from oil. Imagine a typical plastic water bottle filled 1/3rd with oil:
that’s how much oil was used to make it. Nearly 10% of U.S. oil
consumption, which equates to approximately 2 million barrels a day, is
used to make plastics. On the other hand, recycling plastic uses only
roughly 10% of the energy that it takes to make it from virgin materials.

There are similar energy savings for other products. Each ton of
recycled paper can save 380 gallons of oil, representing a 64% energy
savings. Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy needed to make it
from ore – while throwing away a single aluminum can wastes the amount
of energy equivalent to filling it half-full with gasoline and dumping
it on the ground.

Yet despite the clear benefits of recycling and reuse, many places in
Texas have very low diversion rates. Recycling isn’t always as easy and
accessible as is should be while many consumer products such as
electronics and foam packaging simply aren’t designed to be recycled.
This is due in part to the fact that the original manufacturers of such
products currently bear little or no responsibility for recycling their
own creations. Local governments—using your tax dollars—are left holding
the proverbial plastic bag, and they can only afford to do so much in
this time of serious budget shortfalls. Texas also has very weak
environmental standards for landfills. Combine these factors with heavy
tax subsidies for landfill space and we’re left with a system in which
dumping our consumer goods is far more profitable than recycling – up to
ten times more profitable, according to industry insiders. This is a
huge reason why recycling programs aren’t available in every community,
home and business.

Clearly, we can do better. Trash and landfills aren’t any more
inevitable or necessary than oil spills. Waste is simply a design flaw,
one that can and must be solved if we are to create a sustainable
future. Recycling isn’t a silver bullet, but rather a tool that’s proven
effective…and in need of sharpening.

The BP spill may very well be the worst environmental disaster this
country has ever seen. Collectively, Gulf fisheries and coastal
industries make up the 6th largest economy in the world. The planet’s
most productive gulf fishing grounds may be destroyed not just this
season, but for years to come. No matter how you feel about drilling,
coal or nuclear, stopping waste means reducing the need for energy along
with all the present and potential problems that come with it. Recycling
and reducing waste at its source is more than a “feel-good” way to “go
green;” in many ways, it’s also part of a long-term strategy to help
prevent the next oil spill.

Let’s hope that if nothing else, this latest human disaster leads us to
comprehend the underlying currents connecting a sea of problems and how
our individual and collective actions control the tides."

Zac Trahan
Program Director
Texas Campaign for the Environment