Obama Administration Was Warned It Was Underestimating Threat Of Serious Spill

It would be interesting to see the reaction if this had happened during the Bush II regime and similar warnings had been ignored.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/noaa-warned-interior-was_n_561615.html

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration officials last fall warned the Department of Interior, which regulates offshore oil drilling, that it was dramatically underestimating the frequency of offshore oil spills and was dangerously understating the risk and impacts a major spill would have on coastal residents.

NOAA is the nation's lead ocean resource agency, and the warnings came in its response to a draft of the Obama Administration's offshore oil drilling plans. The comments were Web-published in October by the whistle-blowing group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

But NOAA's views were largely brushed aside as Obama went ahead and announced on March 31 that he would open vast swaths of American coastal waters to offshore drilling -- a plan now very much in doubt as a blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico spews out an estimated 200,000 gallons of oil daily, for the 13th straight day.

The memo, which NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco wrote was based on the agency's "extensive science, management and stewardship expertise related to oceans, coasts and marine ecosystem" recommended that Interior conduct "a more complete analysis of the potential human dimensions of offshore production."

NOAA complained that the draft report overstated the safety of offshore oil production by using information on frequency of spills from 1973 to 2004. NOAA pointed out there was a "substantial increase in spill volume in 2005, primarily due to spills associated with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Some of the damaged rigs and pipelines damaged during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons continue to have episodic releases, and repairs have not been fully completed."

Citing Interior's own data, NOAA scolded it for asserting that it had "been many years since any substantial environmental impacts have been observed as a result of an oil spill caused by the production and transportation activities."

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the fault of this admin. Whatever policy they decided on, and will hopefully subsequently change, was not in effect when this happened.

The article states the admin was particularly unresponsive to NOAA's concerns about offshore drilling in general.

We must defend the president!

say it is.

Reality check time.

Let me ask you this.

Would Obama and his policy, which he has not flipped on up to this point, be held responsible by you, if a rig is built and then explodes and spills in the future as a result of his policy of offshore drilling exploration?

perhaps you'd be more comfortable in an obama photo thread.

It was suggesting that the decision to open larger areas was made based upon assumptions that spills like this weren't as much of a risk as they have turned out to be. And that assumption was made, not based upon the science, but upon a flawed interpretation of the data, of which the administration was warned, and ignored.

No one is suggesting that THIS spill wouldn't have happened. They are suggesting that the spill demonstrates that the assumptions upon which the policy was advanced were flawed.

This was suppose to be the administration that "returned science" to the decision making process. But there does seem to have been more "wishful thinking" than science in this one. Potentially, more politics than process to the policy.

they are not.

They are blaming this administration for not looking at the facts *before* pushing for offshore drilling.

And they are blaming this administration for slowness in response to this gush -- which the record shows was NOT from day 1 as they are now trying to claim.

And no matter how many times you try to trivialize this looming catastrophe by labeling it a "spill" it is NOT a spill.

It is oil gushing virtually unchecked from a deposit of potentially 10s of millions of barrels --hundreds of millions of gallons -- into an uncontained area.

Given priceless positions, while our food sources go south.

Nor do we have to worry that he would do something that really smells to high heaven, like appointing the last official head of the Goldman Sachs division in Germany to the position of US German Ambassador.

Nothing to smell, er see here, just move on along.

can gamble that they won't have a catastrophe like what happened. that is not obama's fault beyond forcing them to put in these kinds of things like that gizmo that would have prevented this mess in place before they can do any drilling.

So NOAA warned them, as if the democratic party could have passed regulations in time to change anything. It took them 18 months before passing a very feeble health insurance reform bill. They have yet to get rid of DADT or close Gitmo. This is far from the disasters created and encouraged by the bushes indifference, ignorance and greed.

The well had already been permitted, even if legislation had passed, and that's a big giant IF, there would have been a grandfather clause that would have exempted it.

I feel Obamas’ just been unlucky on this one.

Rather than silly little diversions like safety.

Not surprised.

D's & R's don't mean a thing.

k&r

Unfortunately you are totally right.

Unfortunately, that's been my experience at the local city/county level, the state of Florida level and am finding this to be more and more true at the national level.

We now know warnings have been issued by official government entities. Will Obama now heed those warnings or will he continue with his new policy of allowing new offshore drilling? We will see how this Administration goes forward from here..

We shall see.

nt