http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/06/19/mccain-katrina-spills/McCain is repeating a popular myth. As the hackish Newsweek and Washington Post editor Robert Samuelson wrote on April 30, 2008, “Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America’s Future Energy, an advocacy group.” In the weeks following Katrina and Rita’s one-two strike in the summer of 2005, the Bush administration claimed there was “only minor sheening” from offshore oil spills.
Picking up McCain’s talking points, a growing chorus of conservatives have repeated this claim as justification for expanded drilling:
– George Will: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed or damaged hundreds of drilling rigs without causing a large spill.”
– Wall Street Journal editorial: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn’t cause a single oil spill.”
– Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne: “When Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast where we have about 4,000 oil and gas platforms, 3,000 were in the direct line of the storms – the most significant storms we’ve seen ever – and 3,000 of those had to be shut down. We had no significant oil spill. The system worked.”
– Fox News’ Dick Morris: “And by the way, the safety concerns, Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause any leakage or any spill in the Gulf of Mexico oil wells.”
The truth is that Hurricane Katrina caused oil spillage so significant it was clearly visible from space. It also wreaked environmental havoc near the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU6vOEcdUIQ&feature=player_embedded
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