Obama takes a stand: No more offshore drilling unless oil companies promise no more disasters.

What more can one ask from lawless, profit seeking, environment destroying multinational corporations than a promise? Problem solved. Drill, baby, drill, but promise, baby, promise. Just to be safe, however, they should have to cross their heart and hope to die while promising.

"Out of focus ideology
Keeps the masses from majority."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7133937.ece

President Barack Obama yesterday declared that offshore oil drilling would only be allowed to continue if firms gave assurances that disasters such as the present Gulf of Mexico spillage would be avoided.

As BP fights to contain that leak, Obama announced the launch of a commission to find the cause of the accident, sparked by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Obama said: “We can only pursue offshore oil drilling if we have assurances that a disaster like the BP oil spill will not happen again.”

The president hinted for the first time at the possibility of a separate criminal investigation into the leak, which threatens to overtake the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill as the country’s worst ecological disaster. He also suggested that the “cosy relationship” between oil companies and regulators has “long been a source of concern”.

BP has pledged to be as open as possible in dealing with US authorities. Tony Hayward, chief executive, said on Friday: “We are committed to providing the American people with the information they need to understand the environmental impact from the spill and the response steps taken.”

more...

the President? If so, we are in some deep trouble.

nt

the hysteria around here a few notches.

I think.

I can start envisioning how it might cause things to start changing for the greater good.

If this disaster can be the start of standing down Big Oil and the Oligarchy, there will be some good from the sacrifice.

Tom Hanks and Robert Redford co-starring, too.
wonder who will play the Vampire Squid?

:hi:

I have been a staunch President Obama supporter, even when I have disagreed with him these past 16 months; however, this is HUGE and IMVHO, he needs to do much more!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=drilling+permits+awarded+may+2010&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

edited to add...i am not going to tolerate attacks, which GD is notorious for. i am only putting forth my own opinion. we used to be a family (i've been here since almost day 1). these attacks that happen regularly are what keep many of us, with GOOD ideas, thoughts, and intentions, out of here. help make it better :hug:

only 8% of our energy comes from ALT-energy and even the houses ill doesn't dramatically increase the use of renewable fuels. Alt usage hasn't changed since 1945, when they started keeping track, and this offshore crap is just a stopgap.

Get tough, that will show 'em.

That is like asking the airlines to promise no more crashes, or oil tankers to promise never to have an accident again, or the military to never have an accident with a nuclear weapon. (There have been several, but luckily they didn't explode. One tripped all the triggers except one.) Shit happens despite the best plans. That does not absolve BP as it is apparent in hindsight that they didn't have the best plans, and in some aspects they seem to have had no plan.

If they can't even honestly make a promise not to destroy the planet - MAYBE THEY SHOULDN'T BE DRILLING!

"Promise?" "Cross your heart and hope to die?" "Okay, you can keep drilling."

It sounds as if he thinks the BP executives did this on purpose.

Imagine if this principle was extended to other industries that can potentially cause harm. Don't regulate them or control them, just make them put up their right hand and say "I swear I will not kill anyone."

How can a corporation make a credible promise anyway? Only a person can do that. A corporation is little more that a mindless profit-making machine. Its promises mean nothing.

I would have easily believed that George W. Bush said something like this, but not Barack Obama.

Can you really read it any other way? I can't.

"You promise to keep it safe?"
"Yeah"
"Okay, here is your lease"

"You promise to pay your share when you get a chance?"
"Yeah"
"Okay, here is your lease"

etc.

Promises? That is just one more way of saying 'industry self regulation'.

Say the oil companies with crossed-fingers behind their backs.

That means having the legal and technologic ability.

We all know that further disasters will happen and companies will struggle/refuse to clean them up. It's the natural course of greed. It will be easier to separate oil from water in the Gulf than it would be to separate oil companies from greed.

:thumbsup:

"It will be easier to separate oil from water in the Gulf than it would be to separate oil companies from greed."

Truer words were never spoken.

when they gave them categorical exclusions from all environmental reviews and BP *promised* it could clean up a *spill* 6 times the size of this one.

More hollow rhetoric for an empty box of *hope*.

BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon
By Ben Raines
May 19, 2010, 5:00AM

In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the ongoing Gulf disaster.

...


As of Tuesday, BP reported recovering 6 million gallons of oily water since the ongoing spill began four weeks ago. BP spokesman Tom Mueller said that only about 10 percent of the skimmed liquid was oil, which would amount to about 600,000 gallons of oil collected thus far.

Mueller also said via e-mail Tuesday that "the spill has stayed about the same size or even shrunk on the water as a result of our response efforts."

...

An emergency would activate the company's Oil Spill Response Plan, a 582-page document submitted to federal regulators in 2008 and designed to cover all BP operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

...

In the document, BP states that the company "has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst-case discharge," which it defines as 300,000 barrels, or about 12.6 million gallons, of oil per day.

It goes on to detail dozens of skimming vessels available around the Gulf that could collectively recover 17.6 million gallons a day.

It says dispersants will be able to sink 6,080 to 7,600 barrels per day into the Gulf.

A safety data sheet about the principal dispersant that the company has reported using during the ongoing spill says "no toxicity studies have been conducted on this product," and labels "the potential human hazard: High."

...

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/bp_told_feds_it_could_handle_o.html

No more flights until they promise no more airplane crashes.

:evilgrin:

You're really going to defend BP? Really?

Accidents will happen no matter how many promises are made. This article is disingenous. Even if Obama does somehow extract promises and oaths it isn't going to keep shit from hitting the fan oce in a while

nt

:eyes:

I mean, we need to make promises count.

Do the oil companies have a hurricane boom hidden somewhere?

OMFG.:eyes:

We can't do this to our oceans. If we kill all that is in them, we kill ourselves. It's what helps our planet to live. I'm happy Schwarzenegger finally did a good deed in California by denouncing it for our coastline and I'm certain Jerry Brown will keep that promise. However, if Meg Whitman becomes governor, you can be sure there will be oil rigs all over the coastline by the time she's done finishing the job of trashing our state that Pete Wilson began.

IOW, pander to the corporations.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/10/headlines

snip...

Obama Administration Approves 27 New Offshore Drilling Permits

The Center for Biological Diversity reports the Obama administration is continuing to exempt new offshore drilling operations from environmental review despite the Gulf disaster. Since the April 20th explosion at the BP rig, the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service has approved twenty-seven new offshore drilling permits. All but one of the projects were granted the same environmental review exemption used to approve the BP drilling site. On Saturday the Sierra Club held a rally for volunteers in New Orleans to help organize the clean-up from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

~emphasis added

Boy, that Obama sure is a tough negotiator.
Did you see the way he got tough with Lieberman and The Republicans over HCR?
.
.
.
.
Oh wait.
No he didn't.
He gave away everything the Republicans wanted, and got back NOTHING!
My bad.

Easily made and easily broken.

It's not binding without pinky swears.

and make them add "Cross my heart and hope to die"

nt

stands around with his finger up his ass doing nothing.

But what can we expect from Capital's 'front man in chief'?

k&r