Is Dick Cheney To Blame for the Oil Spill? Signs Point to Yes.

[babylonsister]

http://www.tnr.com/blog/william-galston/forget-offshore-drilling-until-we-get-some-answers

Forget Offshore Drilling Until We Get Some Answers

William Galston

snip//

First, an oil-drilling procedure called cementing—which is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor—has been identified as a leading cause of well blowouts. Indeed, a 2007 study by the Minerals Management Service (or MMS, the division of the Interior Department responsible for offshore drilling) found that this procedure was implicated in 18 out of 39 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over the 14 years it studied—more than any other factor. Cementing, which was handled by Halliburton, had just been completed prior to the recent explosion. The Journal notes that Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea off Australia. While BP’s management has been responsive to press inquiries and relatively forthcoming as to its responsibility, Halliburton has refused to answer any questions—an all-too-familiar stance on its part.

Second, the oil well now spewing large quantities of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico lacked a remote-control acoustic shutoff switch used by rigs in Norway and Brazil as the last line of defense against underwater spills. There’s a story behind that. As the Journal reports, after a spill in 2000, the MMS issued a safety notice saying that such a back-up device is “an essential component of a deepwater drilling system.” The industry pushed back in 2001, citing alleged doubts about the capacity of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency backup. By 2003, government regulators decided that the matter needed more study after commissioning a report that offered another, more honest reason: “acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly.” I guess that depends on what they’re compared to. The system costs about $500,000 per rig. BP is spending at least $5 million per day battling the spill, the well destroyed by the explosion is valued at $560 million, and estimated damages to fishing, tourism, and the environment already run into the billions.

There’s something else we know, something that suggests an explanation for this sequence of events. After the Bush administration took office, the MMS became a cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interest. In September 2008, Earl Devaney, Interior’s Inspector General, delivered a report to Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that has to be read to be believed. One section, headlined “A Culture of Ethical Failure,” documented the belief among numerous MMS staff that they were “exempt from the rules that govern all other employees of the Federal Government.” They adopted a “private sector approach to essentially everything they did.” This included “opting themselves out of the Ethics in Government Act.” On at least 135 occasions, they accepted gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies with whom they worked. One of the employees even had a lucrative consulting arrangement with a firm doing business with the government. And in a laconic sentence that speaks volumes, the IG reported: “When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse.”

So here’s my question: what is responsible for MMS’s change of heart between 2000 and 2003 on the crucial issue of requiring a remote control switch for offshore rigs? What we do know is that unfettered oil drilling was to Dick Cheney’s domestic concerns what the invasion of Iraq was to his foreign policy—a core objective, implacably pursued regardless of the risks. Is there a connection between his infamous secret energy task force and the corrupt mindset that came to dominate a key program within MMS? Would $500,000 per rig have been regarded as an unacceptably expensive insurance policy if a drill-baby-drill administration hadn’t placed its thumb so heavily on the scale?

more...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/william-galston/forget-offshore-drilling-until-we-get-some-answers

[Cha]

1. cheney's legacy to the Gulf as the response

to Katrina was bush's.

[blogslut]

2. Mr. Dick has been awfully quiet lately

Golly. I hope he isn't sick or something.

[Hissyspit]

7. I've been wondering that myself. The guy wouldn't shut his piehole for a minute a while back.

Why isn't he trashing the heck out of Obama over this like he usually does? I think we know the answer to that one.

http://www.georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/04/dick-cheney-caused-gulf-oil-disaster.html

[babylonsister]

10. He's in Saudi Arabia...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8273857

[Teka]

8. LOL - I just started a thread asking the same thing

Great minds think alike!

[MadMaddie]

3. Halliburton seems to always be involved in shoddy work results

When they were in Iraq doing work supposedly for the military and now.....

<snip>
Cementing, which was handled by Halliburton, had just been completed prior to the recent explosion. The Journal notes that Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea off Australia.
<snip>

We need to know what happened in those meetings that Cheney had!

[AuntPatsy]

4. You mean this guy? Why would we think he was involved in anything shadier than his little deal

with the Iranians regarding Haliburton and shielding Iranian supposedly terrorist activities that was brought up for investigation between "96" and "98" and viola, he became powerful enough to become untouchable between the years 2000 - 2008...




I for one do not understand for the life of me why he and his co conspirators are not in jail?





Vice President of the United States; Former Republican Representative (WY)

Sued in Supreme Court for keeping energy policy secret

The Bush administration's sustained campaign to build up the powers of the presidency and to extend the confidentiality of White House decision-making is due for a major test in the Supreme Court. The justices will hear an appeal by Cheney, who is defending his refusal to disclose files of his energy policy task force. The administration has raised the stakes on the preliminary decision by arguing that the case threatens "fundamental principles of the separation of powers" between the branches of government. Because of the sweeping constitutional arguments being made, the case has the potential to sharply curtail the power of the courts and, by implication, Congress to oversee the workings of the executive branch. The key argument is that the Constitution's separation of powers among the three branches means that the other two branches are without authority to second-guess the president when he and his staff are deciding how to use executive powers.

Source: Lyle Denniston, Boston Globe Dec 1, 2003





Energy use outstrips growth-so conserve AND drilling

Cheney believes that the fundamental energy problem was not a short-term price spike, but a longer-term gap between the growth in American energy production and the growth in American energy use. In 2000, the US for the first time imported more than half its oil; if the trends continue, the US would import 2/3 of its oil by 2020. Conservation would obviously help. But Cheney said that while conservation might be a "personal virtue," conservation alone was not "a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
The final report of Cheney's energy task force called for expanded oil drilling and for regulations to force companies to build costlier, more energy-efficient products. It called for reducing regulatory impediments to the use of coal, while subsidizing wind and solar power and other pet environmental schemes. It advocated careful consideration of an expansion of nuclear power-without ever quite endorsing that expansion.

Source: The Right Man, by David Frum, p. 62-63 Jun 1, 2003





Met with Enron representatives in drawing up energy plan

What is the Enron saga about? Enron’s bankruptcy, the largest in history, exposes the decay of corporate accountability in the new Gilded Age. No-account accountants, see-no-evil stock analysts, subservient “independent” board members, gelded regulators, purchased politicians--every supposed check on executive plunder and piracy has been shredded. Enron transformed itself from a gas pipeline company to an unregulated financial investment house willing and able to buy and sell anything- energy futures, weather changes, bandwidth, state legislatures, regulators, senators, even Presidents.
Bush is pressing Congress to pass the Enron energy plan, which features massive subsidies to energy companies and further deregulation. And while the White House has begrudgingly admitted to six meetings between Enron representatives and the Cheney energy task force, it continues to stonewall efforts by the General Accounting Office to find out who met with Cheney to draw up the plan.

Source: The Nation, Editorial, “Enron Conservatives,” p. 4-5 Feb 4, 2002

[joeybee12]

5. Hey Mods! I think posts like this you should be able to recommend more than once!!! n/t

[malaise]

6. Regulating Energy - ReTHUG style

http://politifi.com/news/Former-Interior-Secretary-Gale-Norton-is-focus-of-corruption-probe-219605.html
<snip>
Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is focus of corruption probe

Los Angeles Times - 24th Feb 2010
1
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal Law Enforcement and the Interior Department. The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department's 2006 decision to award three lucrative Oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary.

http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/64544
<snip>
Where was the Minerals Management Service (the regulatory agency governing offshore drilling)? Remember, this is an agency of the Department of the Interior. This department was managed in the Bush Administration by Gale Norton, the protégé of James Watt, the notorious anti-environmental Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan. During the Republican administration, the only distinguishing accomplishment of this agency was to get caught in a bribery, sex, and drugs scandal involving collection of oil and gas royalty payments. We are now tasting the bitter fruit of the past eight years of lax enforcement and allowing industry to set its own “voluntary” standards. We need a solid investigation of the Minerals Management Service to find out what the agency did and did not do to prevent this spill from happening, and the imposition of strictly enforced regulations to prevent this sort of incident in the future.

No doubt, the industry apologists will go on about how rare these events are, and how they have a good safety record. But with enormous risks, “good” isn’t good enough. We cannot afford to jeopardize the entire Gulf ecosystem. But apparently, that is what we have already done. We need to get over our technological hubris and stop taking enormous risks with our global ecosystems.

[SpiralHawk]

9. "Sneer." -xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R)

[BeFree]

11. Kicking- Cheney and Gulf n/t

[lonestarnot]

12. He should be sued too.

[glinda]

13. he has been awfully quiet for some time now

[Blue Owl]

14. Dick loves his precious oil so much

I wish he'd go splashing around in it for a really, really long time.