While this isn’t our normal fare here at WUWT, I found it interesting and relevant, since WUWT covered the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling spill story early on here, with several follow ups. This story is a result of that spill. – Anthony
Guest post by WUWT moderator Mike Lorrey
US Department of Interior Inspector General Kendall is now investigating claims by seven members of the National Academy of Engineers that Interior falsified statements by them in order to support the Obama Administrations arguments for a moratorium on offshore oil drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill.
As you may recall, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was asked by President Obama for recommendations on new drilling safety recommendations. On May 27th, Obama announced a six month moratorium on offshore drilling based on Salazar’s report, the top recommendation of which was a moratorium on drilling.
The Department of the Interior later said it didn’t intend to imply that the experts had supported the moratorium. Oh dear, that must make it all better. After all, good intentions helped the hockey team get away with their climategate related actions.
Fortunately, the courts aren’t having any of this sort of argument. The engineers complaints are also a central part of the federal lawsuit against the moratorium, which to date, has gone badly for the Obama administration.
A Justice Department attorney, Brian Collins, argued in the case before Judge Martin Feldman that the government was justified in acting because the potential environmental and economic harm that would come from the risk of a second rig disaster would far outweigh the costs of the moratorium. Collins said a better question (versus the 10,000 oil drilling jobs at stake) is the tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods are harmed by the ongoing oil leak.
Feldman frequently interrupted attorneys Montero and Collins with questions about the “probity” of the record on which the Interior Department’s decision was based, the basis of the six-month time frame, and why steps aren’t taken to shut down other industries if there’s a horrible accident.
Indeed. By this sort of logic, the hockey team’s claims of catastrophic global warming justifies shutting down the entire global coal and oil industries no matter what the economic impact.
Now, claims of economic harm from the ongoing oil leak are difficult to assess. Primarily because those most impacted by the spill, for instance, shrimp fishermen and beach/vacation industry employees, are largely being employed by BP on a full time basis to clean up the oil mess, from skimming oil on the water to cleaning up tarballs on beaches. One would be hard pressed to say whether these people are working harder or not than they would have in an otherwise depressed economy, where family budgets for vacations and shrimp food products may be otherwise limited. Given the type of work, one might say they are earning more per hour doing this cleanup work than they would be doing their normal labor.
It is, however, far easier to assess damages when entire industries are shut down with no alternative employment during the interim. While the moratorium has been lifted by court order, the Obama administration continues to enforce it and is fighting it on appeal. Uncertainty due to this fight is creating a de facto moratorium as companies are loathe to risk capital drilling when they don’t know if they may be shut down from day to day in the political tug of war.
Similarly, uncertainty over cap and trade legislation has created similar uncertainty in the wider economy for businesses of all types, making them loathe to spend capital on business expansion, productivity improvements, and hiring, when they do not know from day to day whether they will need that capital to pay for carbon credits or other emissions mitigation efforts.
Now that Senator Reid has taken cap and trade off the schedule for the remainder of the term, we may see that business, in a sigh of relief, will open their purse strings to helping finally to capitalize a true economic recovery, not the fake recovery of earlier this year in the teachers and police union industries, as well as in the temporary census worker industry. They may hold off on this until after the elections deliver a significant loss of control in Congress, particularly if it leads to the removal of Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker with the GOP regaining a majority in the House.
Either way, on the Interior Department investigation, I suspect we will see a whitewash similar to recent climategate related inquiries.
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Just as with Blagojavich, Obama will fire this IG too.
I understand the “whitewash” expectation. However I would have thought this move would be seen in a more positive light given that, as far as I know, there has been no real pressure on the Inspector General for an inquiry?
Typo (twice):
“loathe to” should be “loath to”
(The first means hatred, the second means reluctant. They’re pronounced differently too–the ending of the first is drawn out, the second’s isn’t.)
If the President of the United States (George Bush) can subvert a respected and distinguished Military Officer (Colin Powell) into telling the world a lie of massive consequence (Iraq has WMD), why should anyone be surprised or concerned by this tiny little tempest of no consequence about deep water oil drilling technology?
If the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (Alan Greenspan) can tell the elected representatives of the people (the Congress of the United States) a falsehood of astonishing stupidity (No one could have predicted the housing industry collapse and resulting banking turmoil of 2008), why should anyone be surprised or concerned by this tiny little tempest of no consequence about deep water oil drilling technology?
The American people have lost their moral compass on these matters. Why do they keep reelecting these people?
The political strategy for carbon control is two-pronged. First reduce or eliminate use of refineries, coal plants, etc. This is already underway by the EPA and the Senate voted last month to let it continue (including my two very stupid senators). The second prong is to bribe or cajole electric providers to sign up the rubes for 30 year contracts for “solar” power (meaning “no” power). That is underway in Front Royal VA where a few of the rubes have noticed that there is not much sun and solar power is really just a scam. Lots of stories about it at nvdaily.com
What’s new?
Preconceived agenda, ignore experts if differing from agenda, proceed.
IPCC revisited.
It reminds me of the IPCC report where the signed off version had six statements saying there was no evidence that the warming was caused by man. But an altered version mysteriously had those statements deleted and an added statement saying it was caused by man.
I’m beginning to think this administration either doesn’t know what makes an economy grow or doesn’t want our economy to grow. I’ll be generous and say they’re horribly ignorant on how economies grow. Shutting off the power supply probably isn’t the best way to jumpstart an economy. Putting people out of work probably isn’t the best way either. Doing both at once is either willfully evil or incredibly stupid.
I think the masses of the world and particularly the masses of the U.S. have had their fill of “white-washes”.
Anthony – the common spelling in British English is “loth” (“loath” is an acceptable variant). The “th” in the word “loth” is unvoiced (in the word “loathe” it is voiced).
So it should be: “making them loth to spend capital on business expansion”. They may loathe spending capital, but they are loth to spend it. A common error.
Good to see that the courts in the USA, like Britain, are not yet giving free favours to the AGW movement. All the best.
Christchurch, New Zealand
James Sexton @ur momisugly 4:08
The question for awhile has been whether all this destructiveness is from incompetence or deliberation. I say both!
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In the end we’ll find that most of the economic losses were not from the thin film of oil, but from the panic deliberately generated by the gov’t and the media. Tourist-oriented businesses especially should be suing CNN, not BP.
The BP leak presented our wannabe tyrant with a opportunity to tighten his grip on the US economy. Why would he waste it? Never forget that The Objective is to fundamentally transform America. It is continuing apace, and Obama and his followers will take every opportunity to advance that agenda. From their point of view, this was a very lucky break indeed.
Obviously BP didn’t donate enough $ to Obama, Clinton and the Democrats to exert much influence.
It seems you don’t get much return for making $300,000 in political donations.
I should add to my post above, search for “solAVerde” in nvdaily.com It’s a long sad tale of AMP, Standard Energy and a local company “SolAVerde” to sell solar power to the rubes of Front Royal at 50% more than current power costs. Benefits? Zero, except for some false promises of jobs, alleged cash bribes, etc. Drawback? Unreliable. The contract for the power specifically states that no power delivery will be guaranteed.
kim says:
July 26, 2010 at 4:15 am
James Sexton @ur momisugly 4:08
The question for awhile has been whether all this destructiveness is from incompetence or deliberation. I say both!
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————————————————————————-
So, Kim, you’re claiming deliberate incompetence? Now that takes planning and if you’re incompetent, you can’t plan. Got it? ;o)
Correction: That should be $400,000 in total donations to Democrat politicians from BP.
I ownder what Obama did with the $71,000 he got from BP?
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000091&chamber=S&party=D&cycle=2008&state=&sort=A
I very much doubt that there will be a whitewash – remember the biggest difference between this situaion and the Climategate inquiries: This report is going in front of a *Real* Court, and the people preparing it know that, rather than the kangaroo kourts that were ginned for the CRU inquiry. The possibility of real indictments for lying under oath will concentrate the minds of those involved wonderfully, I think.
What astounds me most is that not only is this moratorium economically insane, it’s also politically insane! Remember we’re barely 100 days away from a major election, and no voting group strongly support this while many bitterly oppose it. I add this just to point out to readers outside of the US how this is playing out in the real world (not Washington) Enviro’s who may support this were already in the administration’s pocket with nowhere else to go, so nothing is gained by playing up to them. On the other hand, I have quite a few relatives in Louisiana and that entire state is outraged by this – quite rightly, they see it as an economic dagger aimed at their heart, just as they were finally about to recover from the hits of the last few years. As a consequence, it now looks almost certain that every dem running for statewide office there is going to be wiped out in November. Maybe it’s not a huge state, but Obama has just tossed this state and all it’s voters in the political trashcan, and for no advantage at all!
And then you take the Arizona situation – leave aside the merits (or not) of that situation, and focus on how 70% of that state is outraged that the Feds are suing them. Same thing coming – wipeout in November. That’s why I said this is truly insane – I have never in my life (and I’ve been watching since Nixon) seen a President and a Party just casually throw away entire states leading up to a major election. I’m at a loss to explain what sure looks like a death wish in their policy making.
Good to see more evidence of the ‘not so hidden’ agenda of Obama’s masters seeing the light of day.
I wonder how long it will be before the public of the USA make their feelings known about this travesty of an administration?
This is about tyranny and control of a sector this administration neither understand nor likes.
Obama tried to sell us 3 things.
1 Obama said he wanted to import less oil from the Persian gulf. This policy is the opposite of that.
2 Obama tells us he won’t sleep until we all have jobs. Then he lays off fisherman, drillers and tourist service people
3 Obama said they wouldn’t allow lobbyists and interests groups. Then Sierra Club is at the table approving whatever they want
Salaczar is dishonest but since he is loyal, he is safe.
Oil spill, not leak. A significant difference, in my opinion.
This article completely ignores a far bigger concern than any moratorium on drilling. That concern is the catastrophic (and I do mean *catastrophic*) health consequences that will in all likelihood induce hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people along the Gulf Coast to contract cancer and/or give birth to deformed babies over the coming years. The ocean affected by the oil contains benzene as well as methylene chloride, amongst other harmful chemicals — which are extremely toxic. I recently saw a video of children swimming along the western coast of Florida and there were tar balls all along the beach. The water they were swimming in is nothing less than a cancer bath (and just because you can’t see the oil doesn’t mean the toxic chemicals are not there), and it made my stomach sink to know that those poor children are very likely to contract terrible diseases in the near future, all thanks to the unbelievable greed and incompetence of BP. So mark my words — a health calamity the U.S. has never before seen is about to happen. And yet the U.S. administration refuses to warn people to stay away from the water!
Kim, H.R.:
Check out C. Northcote Parkinson’s essay, “Injelitance.” Might be a good indicator of the mindset you discuss, and it’s a good read, anyway.
Paul McCauley says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:18 am
Oil spill, not leak. A significant difference, in my opinion.
———-Reply:
And yet how does one “spill” oil from an oil well? It wasn’t tipped over like a bottle of ink. Nor was the oil contained in a storage tank or vessel that ruptured. I’d describe it more as a “gusher”, since that’s what it looked like from the video taken of the wellhead.
wws says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:06 am
“……….I’m at a loss to explain what sure looks like a death wish in their policy making.”
This is pretty much inline with what he’s been doing all along. He punishes the people that didn’t vote his way. Texas is probably a lost cause for the next election if you’re a lib, AZ is the same. Ala and Miss., also. Fla. may still yet go with the libs, because of the conservative in-fighting, but in this case, your right, and Fla is a big one. La. would have probably voted party lines and may yet still do it. They’ve some strange politics down there. So, he didn’t have much to lose if he really wasn’t intent on boosting the economy, but rather have an opportunity to punish an “evil” oil company along with some states that didn’t vote his way in the last election.
Am I missing something here.
What an appalling argument that people are better off working cleaning up an oil spill than working in their normal jobs whether it be tourism or fishing.
I guess the people in the gulf must really be counting their blessings. Definitely one of the most disgusting justifications I’ve seen on these forums in the whole time I’ve been visiting and posting.
I’m anti-AGW but posts/stories like this one certainly make this site appear like an oil industry mouthpeice which I find truly disappointing.