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.
Jim G,
Well done for seeing through the fog where others fail to see their own feet. George Soros’ playground has been shrinking dramatically with China being the last to focus in on his actions within their market. In France I would guess a car accident in a tunnel somewhere isn’t off the table for the man handing out allowances to America’s far left. Just imagine how much $$$ you could make on fear alone if only you also had a method of delivering “doom and gloom” to the masses like an online media machine. I’d just bet America has been enviably good to dirty`ol George these last 2 panic stricken year$.
What took them so long to drag out the whitewash bucket?
David says:
July 26, 2010 at 6:54 am (Edit)
“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.”
Well, you misread it. The argument isn’t that people are better off cleaning up the oil spill rather than working their normal jobs. The argument is that at least they have work to do (it remains unreported and undocumented whether these people were as gainfully employed in the current economy prior to the spill) while oil workers have no work to do during a moratorium. Which is the lesser evil?
The Obama administration has already fired two inspector generals without comply with the law. Since then other IGs have issued critical opinions about law and policy violations by Obama that have been ignored.
Obama is above the law on such matters. If the DOI IG concludes that skulduggery occurred, his opinion will be ignored. If he goes public he will be fired. So, expectation of a whitewash is reasonable unless the IG is both ethical and brave.
The Obama administration has already fired two inspector generals without complying with the law. Since then other IGs have issued critical opinions about law and policy violations by Obama that have been ignored.
Obama is above the law on such matters. If the DOI IG concludes that skulduggery occurred, his opinion will be ignored. If he goes public he will be fired. So, expectation of a whitewash is reasonable unless the IG is both ethical and brave.
Here is an excellent article that sheds light on why all the effort to bring out the truth gets little headway or seems to not matter.
Davet
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/1
a quote from the lead-in article:
“Members of the two classes do not like one another. In particular, the ruling class views the rest of the population as composed of ignoramuses who are vicious, violent, racist, religious, irrational, unscientific, backward, generally ill-behaved, and incapable of living well without constant, detailed direction by our betters; and it views itself as perfectly qualified and entitled to pound us into better shape by the generous application of laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations, and unceasing declarations of its dedication to bringing the country – and indeed the entire world – out of its present darkness and into the light of the Brave New World it is busily engineering.
This class divide has little to do with rich versus poor or Democrat versus Republican. At its core, it has to do with the division between, on the one hand, those whose attitudes are attuned to the views endorsed by the ruling class (especially “political correctness”) and whose fortunes are linked directly or indirectly with government programs and, on the other hand, those whose outlooks and interests derive from and focus on private affairs, especially the traditional family, religion, and genuine private enterprise. Above all, as Codevilla makes plain, “for our ruling class, identity always trumps.” These people know they are superior in every way, and they are not shy about letting us know that they are. Arrogance might as well be their middle name.”
It is a long read, but worth it. Light gets shed on many areas. I printed it – 22 pages.
Alan F says:
July 26, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Jim G,
“Well done for seeing through the fog where others fail to see their own feet. George Soros’ playground has been shrinking dramatically with China being the last to focus in on his actions within their market. In France I would guess a car accident in a tunnel somewhere isn’t off the table for the man handing out allowances to America’s far left. Just imagine how much $$$ you could make on fear alone if only you also had a method of delivering “doom and gloom” to the masses like an online media machine. I’d just bet America has been enviably good to dirty`ol George these last 2 panic stricken year$.”
One can usually follow the money to the answers to most of the issues we discuss here on WUWT. Research fuding grants, political donations, government favors, etc. The media bias is the one that does not compute for me as most of the liberal media are losing audience to the conservative media? Less audience = Less ad $$$. Any ideas there? Is old George popping them $$ under the table?
Son of Mulder: the root cause of the disaster is actually pretty mundane, and would have easily been avoided if BP had simply followed the SOP for deep well casing design that everyone else in the industry follows. Btw, I did oilfield work for quite a few years and have been onsite for more cement jobs than I can count or remember now.
Don’t know if everyone is familiar with how wells are completed after they’re drilled – the wellbore is kept from collapsing in on itself by putting steel pipe (casing) in place immediately after the borehole is drilled, and then pumping cement down through a valve and the bottom of the casing and back up through the “annulus”, the gap between the steel pipe and the formation. Once this is in place the wellbore is safe and solid, and nothing can move out of the formation until zones of interest are perforated with explosive charges – and even after that the rest is still sealed off.
Really deep wells need multiple strings of casing, one inside the other. (not going into the engineering reasons why this is so, but trust me, it is) Good practices dicate that the smaller diameter casings overlap extensively with the outer casing, manytimes all the way back to the wellhead, and the gap in between the casings is also cemented shut. No room left for fluids to migrate anywhere in between the strings.
Also, when cement is pumped, it’s best practice to pump cement until the entire annulus is filled – a bit more expensive than may be absolutely necessary, but in the overall scheme of drilling a well a minor cost increase in exchange for absolute safety downhole.
BP screwed up *Every* *Single* *Stage* of this operation, from the design right through the implementation. First, from the start they planned on doing the cheapest possible casing design they could get away with, with multiple strings but little overlap in between them. Stupid on a well with anticipated pressures like this! And to add to the problems, they pumped the bare minimum of cement they thought they could get away with on *every* cementing stage. (I think there were 5) resulting in a half-assed, hole and void filled cement job all the way from top to bottom of the wellbore. THEN they didn’t even bother to properly test the last stage before taking all the heavy pressure controlling mud out of the well!
*Every* part of this well design was intended to cut financial corners as much as they thought they could away with, and they ended up a disaster directly because of their idiotic well design and idiotic decisions.
The final insult – the afternoon before the explosion, multiple men on that rig heard the driller having a screaming phone conversation with the execs back in Houston. He was telling them that if they pulled the heavy fluid out now and replaced it with seawater, the whole damned rig was likely to blow up. They told him that THEY knew best, not him, and that he was being paid to shut up and do what he was told to do. So he shut up and did what he was told.
3 hours later the rig blew up.
mikelorrey says:
July 26, 2010 at 12:14 pm
David says:
July 26, 2010 at 6:54 am (Edit)
“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.”
Well, you misread it. The argument isn’t that people are better off cleaning up the oil spill rather than working their normal jobs. The argument is that at least they have work to do (it remains unreported and undocumented whether these people were as gainfully employed in the current economy prior to the spill) while oil workers have no work to do during a moratorium. Which is the lesser evil?
The argument is whether peoples livelihoods are at stake. Since their livelihoods are not cleaning up oil I think its fair to say that they are.
Once the main clean up is finished many of these people may well still be out of a job. Any way you look at it its an appalling argument.
They ground planes in some cases whilst investigating the cause of an accident. I don’t see why they cant do it for oil drilling.
” wws says:
July 26, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Son of Mulder: the root cause of the disaster is actually pretty mundane, and would have easily been avoided if BP had simply followed the SOP for deep well casing design that everyone else in the industry follows. Btw, I did oilfield work for quite a few years and have been onsite for more cement jobs than I can count or remember now……………………………………….”
Thanks wws. Taking on board all the points you have made was it the removal of the heavy mud that allowed the blowout or did the well integrity below surface actually fail? As I understand it at present the blowout preventer has essentially been ‘capped’ and oil is no longer escaping which sounds to me (as a layman) that the well integrity below surface maybe OK though not ideal.
“claims of economic harm from the ongoing oil leak are difficult to assess”
Specific claims may be hard to assess but general claims could be estimated if anyone bothered to look at history.
Ixtoc-1 blowout was remarkably similar – 3Mba blowout of light crude over 9 months, 50 km offshore – on the other side of the Gulf, so similar a climatological locale (unlike Exxon Valdez).
I see little or no reference to this piece of history in the hyseria so far. Fortunately the environmental damage seems not to have been that bad, but surely there are learnings for what the true economic damage was, and to which sectors of the economy (so compensation can go to those who aren’t rent seekers).
If you ignore history you’re condemned to repeat it.
son of mulder says:
July 26, 2010 at 11:54 am
” Andrew30 says:
July 26, 2010 at 10:09 am
The Big Bang,
OK let me rephrase
Was the root cause a known possibility that wasn’t managed according to known best engineering practice?
Thank you wws for replying so succinctly. No thanks to Andrew30.
From what I have read, the engineers planning or supervising the drilling and completion operation on the well failed to follow known best practice. Best practice would have controlled the well with very little problem, however BP’s operations engineers apparently did the opposite of best engineering practice.
In the face of advice from interested parties, including Halliburton and the driller quoted by wws, they cut corners to save money and to finish the well quickly. This backfired so horribly that eleven lives were lost. Additionally, these smart-ass engineers crippled their employer, costing BP and others billions of dollars, put thousands of people out of work, and perpetrated an environmental disaster.
There is a silver lining, oil companies and drilling companies will review their own operating procedures and initiate greater adherence to best practice, hopefully permanently, even as the US government will impose more regulation on offshore drilling. Consciousness of safety is a learned attitude, and requires using independent thought.
Too many large companies impose or give lip-service to tiresome, redundant safety regulations but have a culture of cost control that tends to neutralize the effect.
Anthony –
I have to say I’m a bit disappointed that you posted this as is. The Interior Department engineers controversy is appropriate esp. as it might relate to EPA shenanigans, but the last few paragraphs seem to descend into just partisan politics. It may all be truthy, but it just cheapens your website IMHO.
David says:
July 26, 2010 at 6:54 am (Edit)
“The argument is that at least they have work to do (it remains unreported and undocumented whether these people were as gainfully employed in the current economy prior to the spill) while oil workers have no work to do during a moratorium. Which is the lesser evil?”
Actually David, there is another point that no one seems to cover. Does Obama expect the companies owning the various rigs, that earn millions per day, are just going to sit them in the Gulf until the moratorium is ended? I have not checked for a while (I will try to get the time today) but I wonder how many of those rigs are now under tow to new work in other parts of the world? It may take quite some time to get them back!
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James Sexton says:
July 26, 2010 at 4:08 am
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….
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This administration doesn’t want our economy to grow…EVER
Obama’s “Science Czar” Advocates De-Developing the US to World of Zero Growth
“John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and President Barack Obama’s top science adviser,… has co-authored works in the past that called for a campaign to “de-develop the United States” and said people need to eventually face up to a “world of zero net physical growth.”
…In their 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,” Holdren and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote:
“A massive campaign [Global Warming] must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-devolopment means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than the present one. [Agenda 21] Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
In 1995, Holdren co-authored a chapter with Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily—“The Meaning of Sustainability: Biogeophysical Aspects”–that was included in a book published by the World Bank….
The World bank has major investments in coal and oil but was given “effective control of climate change finance.” by the Danish Text.
“The so-called Danish text was devised by individuals who comprise a group called the “circle of commitment,” which, if you think about it, sounds either creepily Orwellian or like a motivational chart at a Mary Kay seminar. The text essentially ditches the hair shirt handed to the West by the Kyoto protocol, gives the World Bank “effective control of climate change finance,” according to the Guardian, and makes the third world responsible for cleaning up its own act. “ ‘Danish Text’ Another Leak in Global Warming Balloon
The Ultimate Goal??? UN REFORM – Restructuring for Global Governance
Commentary on this site often questions whether Obama, and those around him, are acting out of incompetence or out of deliberate malevolence toward the country. Many here seem to favor incompetence. I guess “deliberate malevolence” is just too scary to contemplate.
I suggest that Obama and the Marxists around him are committed “globalists”, and that a strong, sovereign America stands in their way. Destruction of NASA, weakening of the military, the collapse of the banking system, destruction of the energy grid, and increased racial strife are all part of a well-crafted plan to destroy America as we have known it and subjugate its people to a new one-world socialist order controlled by them. The Anthropogenic Global Warming scare is certainly a part of this design.
Pete Hayes says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:11 pm
“[…]Actually David, there is another point that no one seems to cover. Does Obama expect the companies owning the various rigs, that earn millions per day, are just going to sit them in the Gulf until the moratorium is ended? […]”
WSJ says only 2 rigs have left; 31 are still there and not planning to leave.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723604575379332167380458.html
In response to the question about what happened on the Deepwater Horizon to lead to the blowout: The WSJ ran an excellent article from the President of Sampson Oil & Gas on June 11 describing the human failures leading to the blowout. It is pretty good. URL follows:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703303904575293270746496824.html?KEYWORDS=%22terry+barr%22
Article follows:
In response to Tony Hayward’s June 4 op-ed “What BP Is Doing about the Gulf Gusher”: It is time that the publicity spin that BP is putting on this disaster is put into perspective. What is alarming about the content of the article is not so much what it says, but what it does not say.
Mr. Haywood, chief executive officer of British Petroleum, asks, “How could this happen?” The answer has largely to do with BP’s inability to follow its existing well-construction policies and those of the industry generally.
The BP testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 25 says it all, but perhaps that material needs to be explained. From looking at that evidence, this is what we know:
[snip: rest of the entire article. It’s all in the link. ~dbs, mod]
wws says:
July 26, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Who told the execs in Houston they were being paid to shut up and do what they were told to do?
Politics aside, the issue in the courts is whether this Administration or any Administration can discard, or worse falsify, the findings of “experts”.
It is matter of law. The Government is required under various laws to seek out expert advice. NEPA is a good example of a law that mandates a “process” wherein expert analysis must be obtained and RELIED UPON. The nuance under NEPA is that the Government may rely on its own experts — it need not rely on outside experts nor necessarily on any experts who submit findings, but it must rely on some experts of its choosing.
One can see how sticky the wicket can become, choosing this expert over that one, but the Government must make some sort of rational and seemingly unbiased choice. If there is perception of “tampering”, or if no expertise at all is obtained, the Government can be found negligent and in violation of “due process”.
In many ways, scientists or other experts are thus placed in an important position. The law requires that they be consulted, and requires that the expert findings be relied upon.
In this case the Government “tampered” and is obviously (IMHO) negligent. Whether that effectively negates the moratorium remains to be seen. But a larger issue is at stake: the extent to which “experts” control Governmental actions.
Another related case are the various appeals of the EPA’s carbon endangerment finding. The EPA relied on certain expert opinions and not others. They can legally do so, but only if there was no “tampering”. But it seems there has been significant tampering — evidenced by the EPA’s squelching of internal expert dissenting opinions.
Our legal system is a funny thing. It has its own internal logic, which may not be logical in a broader context, and may be poor policy. Nonetheless, it is what our legislatures and courts have made it to be. Bottom line: science is intimately woven into our laws, and scientists have been given considerable power — more power than say religious leaders, “laymen”, elected or appointed officials, or voters.
When authorities hold disproportionate power, the result is authoritarianism. That is true whether the authorities are wise or stupid, honest or dishonest, of impeccable integrity or corrupt.
I would find it impossible to keep a straight face when trying to argue anything in front of judge Marty Feldman
Here he is “weighing-up” the evidence.
Mike D. says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:25 am
All we have to do then is find an expert on experts.
wws says:
July 26, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Son of Mulder: the root cause of the disaster is actually pretty mundane, and would have easily been avoided if BP had simply followed the SOP for deep well casing design that everyone else in the industry follows….
The final insult – the afternoon before the explosion, multiple men on that rig heard the driller having a screaming phone conversation with the execs back in Houston. He was telling them that if they pulled the heavy fluid out now and replaced it with seawater, the whole damned rig was likely to blow up….
________________________________________________
I think the idiots responsible for giving the orders for a cheap well design and the guys responsible for telling them that to pull the heavy fluid out now and replaced it with seawater should be facing criminal manslaugher charges
I too have seen upper execs make the decision to ignore the guy with the knowledge and order unsafe practices because it was cheaper than doing it right. In both cases an industrial process blew up and people were injured or killed.
[snip]
[reply:]We get your point without the need for this extra amplification. RT-mod
wws says:
July 26, 2010 at 5:06 am
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…. 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.
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Remember Obama was a community organizer (read agitator) I sometimes think he was put in office (not elected) to agitate the US population into a rage. Between the immigration issue, Obamacare, and the bills for Cap and Trade and very strict farming regulations about to be passed he is pressing the American people hard. Sooner or later someone is going to set off the spark. The farming community, a bunch of independent cusses, has already been well primed with the decade long fight over Livestock tag tracking and the trashing of the Constitution that goes with it.
If we get violence then we get marshal law and possibly occupation by UN troops who have already been training on US soil.
Posse Comitatus Act is dead. as of 2006 a US Army unit is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. “An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted, in addition to emergency response, the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.”
In a political move that received little if any attention by the American news media, the United States and Canada entered into a military agreement on February 14, 2008, allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis, according to a police commander involved in homeland security planning and implementation.
The Origins of the Posse Comitatus
And then there is the Habeas Corpus (unlawful detention) mess.
No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
Obama wins the right to detain people with no habeas review
An example of violation of Habeas Corpus in the USA Henshaw Incident
Feldman stuck it to the DOJ attorneys and their bogus claims about the experts’ findings when he wrote: “The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium”
And as for Reid taking cap and trade off the schedule for the remainder of the term; he may still try some sleight of hand after the elections, in the lame duck sessions until January when the new congress is sworn in.