HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO GIVE THIS OUTFIT A FREE RIDE

[luckyleftyme2]

NowIknow I'm not the only one who is asking this question:
And Congressman Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a tough letter on Friday to Halliburton, asking for an explanation of its work on the rig, according to a spokesperson for the committee.

Last year, Halliburton was also implicated for its cementing work prior to a massive blowout off the coast of Australia, where a rig caught on fire and spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.

In that incident, workers apparently failed to properly pump cement into the well, according to Elmer Danenberger, former head of regulatory affairs for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, who testified to an Australian commission probing that accident.

WHAT DO YOU THINK AMERICA IS IT TIME TO GET BY THEIR GLIB LAWYERS AND INVESTIGATE THIS COMPANY?
ALONG WITH THE OIL COMPANIES AND THEIR ADHERENCE TO SAFETY CODES.
AND LETS GET MORE IMPUT AND LESS INFLUENCE FROM BUSINESSES WRITING THE RULES OF SAFETY!

[geckosfeet]

1. Why has this NOT been reported on any of the major networks?

Don't reporters report anymore?
:sarcasm:

[tavalon]

27. No, they say what they are told to say

[annabanana]

2. (And they STILL get multi-million dollar contracts)

It stinks

[dotymed]

18. Yes, and NO UNIONS.

If they had Union workers who are continually trained, then this wouldn't happen often. I know. I've worked both sides of the fence in construction. The difference is like night and day. The Union workers earn every cent of their pay and benefits.

[flyarm]

3. No one is going to stop them..that has been proved daily! Their powder will always remain dry!

and a " TABLE " SITS EMPTY..Just ask Nancy about that table..

JUST THINK..THIS IS WHAT WE ARE SEEING WITH OUR OWN EYES..JUST THINK WHAT IRAQ AND AFGANISTAN ARE REALLY LIKE??????? and how much eco system has been destroyed by the good ole USA in those countries! And no one is ever held accountable..no one..not yesterday and not today..except the most vunerable ..like our soldiers.

Then look at what is being done to my back yard..


Leaked report: Government fears Deepwater Horizon well could become unchecked gusher
By Ben Raines
April 30, 2010, 2:18PM

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwater_horizon_secret_memo.html


'The following is not public' document states

View full size(AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard)This image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard Saturday April 24, 2010, shows oil leaking from the drill pipe of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig after it sank. A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could be on the verge of becoming an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf. A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

"The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

Asked Friday to comment on the document, NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen said that the additional leaks described were reported to the public late Wednesday night. Regarding the possibility of the spill becoming an order of magnitude larger, Smullen said, "I'm letting the document you have speak for itself."

In scientific circles, an order of magnitude means something is 10 times larger. In this case, an order of magnitude higher would mean the volume of oil coming from the well could be 10 times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day coming out now. That would mean 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 million gallons a day. It appears the new leaks mentioned in the Wednesday release are the leaks reported to the public late Wednesday night.

"There is no official change in the volume released but the USCG is no longer stating that the release rate is 1,000 barrels a day," continues the document, referred to as report No. 12. "Instead they are saying that they are preparing for a worst-case release and bringing all assets to bear."

The emergency document also states that the spill has grown in size so quickly that only 1 to 2 percent of it has been sprayed with dispersants.

The Press-Register obtained the emergency report from a government official. The White House, NOAA, the Coast Guard and BP Plc did not immediately return calls for comment made early this morning.

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- per day.




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration video, shot as officials coordinated response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, shows that federal officials almost immediately worried that the oil well could leak up to 110,000 barrels per day, or 4.6 million gallons.

The video appears on a federal Web site.

It was filmed in Seattle, at NOAA's Western Regional Center, as scientists and federal officials in Seattle, Houston and New Orleans engaged in telephone conferences, according to a companion document on the Web site.

snip:

A confidential NOAA report, dated April 28 and circulated among federal agencies, makes similar projections regarding spill size in a worst-case situation.

View full size(NOAA video still)A hand-drawn map of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill dated April 22, 2010, is seen in this image from a video downloaded from the NOAA Web site. The video shows federal officials discussing the oil spill soon after the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

It describes newly discovered leaks in the tangle of riser pipe, attributing them to ongoing erosion of the pipe. The riser pipe, in this case about 5,000 feet long, connects the wellhead on the sea floor to the drilling rig on the surface.

"If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked," reads the report.

On Thursday, the day after the NOAA report was circulated, BP officials said they were worried about "erosion" of the piping.

Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. The raw crude rising from the bottom of a well carries sand and other abrasive materials. In effect, the oil is sandblasting the piping as it rushes through with tremendous force, according to petroleum engineers.

"I think we need to be prepared for it to be the spill of the decade," Debbie Payton of NOAA, the meeting's coordinator, says during the NOAA video.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and don't for a minute that Obama is any different..he is not!

While you are looking one way these bastards do this shit......

Dems spark alarm with call for national ID card

By Alexander Bolton - 04/30/10 06:00 AM ET

A plan by Senate Democratic leaders to reform the nation’s immigration laws ran into strong opposition from civil liberties defenders before lawmakers even unveiled it Thursday.

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

go read it all.........


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/95235-democrats-spark-alarm-with-call-for-national-id-card

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and don't for a minute forget this..we in Florida with our oceans now at serious risk will not forget what both parties were doing to our waters..and it did take both parties to do this shit!

Obama: “Oil Rigs Today Generally Don’t Cause Spills”

Obama Repeats Katrina Oil Spill Myth To Defend Offshore Drilling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm8gLmuTvJ4&feature=play ...


By: David Dayen Thursday April 29, 2010 1:42 pm

snip:

What a difference 18 days makes. Here was Barack Obama, on April 2, before the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming that oil rigs are safe to justify his position on offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

Not only does this quote look ridiculous in hindsight, it wasn’t true at the time, as Brad Johnson points out:

Obama’s claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.”

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/29/obama-oil-rigs-t ... ’t-cause-spills/


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


YouTube - Barack Obama on Offshore Oil Drilling ( to Florida voters while asking for their votes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fkbEuCQss&NR=1

[Kalun D]

11. Only One Mistake In This Post

""I think we need to be prepared for it to be the spill of the decade," Debbie Payton of NOAA, the meeting's coordinator, says during the NOAA video.""

I think we need to be prepared for the largest oil spill in history.

[Lorien]

12. This post deserves a thread of it's own. nt

[goclark]

4. Cheney at the wheel for them ~ still

THEY and "Other Bush Buddies" are still in charge and own our country.

[lonestarnot]

5. Their pocketbooks should be drained along with BP's.

[me b zola]

8. I'd also like a few executives from both companies to share a jail cell. n/t

[lonestarnot]

31. Wouldn't mind that either.

[spanone]

6. they may very well BE our government....who knows who runs this country.

[tblue]

25. That's it! Our unelected gov't! We are the United States of Halliburton.

Omg, does that not explain it all? No wonder we've had to keep begging, protesting, beating our heads against a wall: No one is listening to us!!!! No one who could do anything anyway. Sure they let us think we have elections and that they matter. I can't stand it. WTH are we gonna do?

[MadMaddie]

7. Shoddy work and short-cuts follow Halliburton wherever they

go. Cheney had stock in Halliburton if I remember correctly.

[MadMaddie]

9. I will say this again for those that are blaming President Obama

for this event.

HELLO!! President Obama did not implement deregulation and "Free Market Self Regulation" policies. That has been going on since Reagan and his small government mantra.

President Obama has been in almost 1.5 years and he and his administration has had to address huge multiple issues.

BP OWNS THIS CATASTROPHIC EVENT! Stop beeing fooled that this is this administrations fault. BP and the MSM have started their marketing to blame the administration for poor response. Candy Crowly interviewed Salazar and Napolitano and her line of questioning was pointing the blame at the government and not BP.

What is your solution? You want us to end our dependency on foreign oil? (so do I). You want alternative sources of energy? (so do I).

What is your transition plan. Stop all oil production in the U.S? I hate it as much as you do but it is what it is the alternative until we can make the transition.

"Free Market Self Regulation" MUST DIE! That is President Obama's job to implement.
The Oil industry MUST be regulated just like the Coal Industry.

[Lorien]

13. When has Obama ever taken a stand against free market self regulation?

[abelenkpe]

20. Better than the coal industry actually. nt

[flamingdem]

10. Problem is lack of guts to go after this criminal-cheney outfit nt

[truedelphi]

14. Oh everyone in Congress, will as usual, scramble to

See if Halliburton should have an overseer.

then as in all regulation and oversight efforts, the lobbyists from Halliburton will show up at the Capital Building, the deals will be made, and once the oil mess news quiets down, life will go on unchanged.

There is rarely any stopping of the Wall Street people, the DOD/Oil companies like H, or the Big Insurers.

Nor is Monsanto usually stopped.

Corporations are people too, you know!

[EvilMonk]

15. How much you wanna bet...

...that there is an official Halliburton Document with Obama's signature on it?

Why else would everyone stay silent as death until it threatened our lovely Floridian Beachhouses?

[inna]

16. K&R, but nothing will change until we have public financing of elections. :(

[MindandSoul]

17. Cheney still has a long arm! And the U.S. is unfortunately NOT interested

in what happens abroad! It's only when it hits home that they wake up. . .almost. . .for a short time. . .until they go back to sleep with big business propaganda and Palin "drill, baby, drill!"

[abelenkpe]

19. If public pressure can result in lawsuits

against Goldman Sachs then public pressure can bring Halliburton down. I did not know about the rig in Australia. You should email that to news organisations and papers. If we work together we can bring the same kind of pressure against Halliburton.

[liberation]

28. Did I miss something? When did Goldman Sachs go down?

I do not recommend one should sell a bear skin, if they haven't even ventured into the forrest yet...

[change_notfinetuning]

21. How long? At least as long as this administration is in power. And, no doubt,

the next administration, and the one after that, and so on until Americans demand better government.

[Jakes Progress]

22. It's not like we are giving them a free ride

It's more that they deign to let us give them money.

In short. They well not be called to answer. They will prosper at our expense and safety. There will be some foot stomping, which will not receive news coverage, and some indignant speeches, which will not be heard. In their oak-paneled club rooms, people like dick cheney will settle back into thick leather chairs and chuckle that someone even bothered. Our frustration and anger is only their amusement.

Every capitulation to the corporate agenda only cements their hold on our lives.

[femrap]

23. this is what

happens when Corporations buy Congress. Plus W gave them all the Cabinet jobs they wanted so they could let the Corporations do whatever they wanted.

Is anyone ever going to stand up to them? An elected Official, I mean? No one cares to rock the boat. There is no one with Courage.

[Quantess]

24. Fuck Halliburton.

[jgraz]

26. This needs to be the end of Halliburton

Liquidate the company and fit the executives -- and former executives -- for orange jumpsuits. Now.

[Quantess]

29. Yes, once and for all.

Orange jumpsuits would be the best! Not likely, but we can dream, anyway.

[SammyWinstonJack]

32. +1

:thumbsup:

[Uben]

30. IT's not just Halliburton

....they all do it. I've worked in the oilfield long enough to know. I've seen it, many times. I've seen em spread cement on the well head to give the appearance that it was cemented.
Not to say HAlliburton doesn't deserve to go down, but enforcement is very lax, and always has been. The railroad commission can't be at every well when it's being plugged. There are tens of thousands of plugged wells out there with little or no cement on the plugs. The sad part is, it is a simple, cheap procedure that takes only a few minutes to complete, but they know it is virtually impossible to get caught, so....
Most wells being plugged are either non-producers or old wells that have been pumped out, with no pressure to cause concern. There are forces underground that can breach a plug that is not cemented, but in reality, the chance of that happening is one in a million.

This is a huge well! Most operators only dream of oil flowing with this much pressure. This was a honey hole, so why were they plugging it? That's what I don't understand. They could have been placing a plug below a producing zone to keep out impurities such as saltwater or natural gas, which is my guess as to why they were putting a plug in a producing well. There had to be a sudden influx of pressure of monumental proportion to breach the safety valves involved. I'm not sure they could have stopped what happened. Mother nature can do some amazing things! Still, a little more cement may have been all that was needed to avoid the catastrophe, and if proper procedure was not followed, that may have been the cause of the blow-out.

I have not seen a plug in a producing well not being cemented (like this one). It is to their advantage to cement those properly because of the potential for contamination of a good well.

Will we ever know what really happened? I doubt it. There's a good chance the only one's who know are the ones who were killed.