Gulf catastrophe: Congressional agencies begin to pick apart Obama admin's lack of preparedness.

[Karmadillo]

I hope they don't go the no one could have believed a blowout preventer could have failed route.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37373.html

After beating up on Big Oil all last week, congressional panels are beginning to pick apart the federal response to the oil spill, as the Obama administration will face questions about why key agencies seemed unprepared for the scope of the disaster.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Monday that the government might not have been equipped to handle such a large oil spill, and he criticized regulators for relying so heavily on the blowout preventer, the mechanism meant to stop a massive deep-water oil gusher.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, expressed outrage that only the Minerals Management Service approved oil-spill response plans without the Coast Guard having a say.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the first of several Cabinet officials scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill this week, admitted the government has “limited capability and expertise” in dealing with such disasters in very deep water.

And she said nobody would have predicted that a blowout preventer wouldn’t work.

“I think before the blowout, it is clear that there was an assumption that a would never fail,” Napolitano said.

more...

[geckosfeet]

1. Oh wait - gubmint is supposed to regulate the oil industry? More gubmint regulayshun?

The hypocrisy truly astounds.

I think it was 5D dicK and his sidekick (the shrubette) that de-regulated the oil industry.

[Selatius]

2. Napolitano's words eerily remind me of former Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice's words

She said that before 9/11, no one would have ever imagined that planes would be used as missiles. Any person with a background in the oil industry with an engineering degree will tell you that any mechanical device in such an industry is not fool-proof, is subject to breaking down, especially when it's due to gross negligence.

[Karmadillo]

3. "Massive oil spill was foreseeable." 117 Blowout Preventer failures.

And that's just from the late 1990s.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/oilr-m03.shtml

<edit>

Neither the company nor the government had in place any backup plans in the event of a failure of the BOP. Options currently being considered to plug the well will take weeks or months to implement and may not be successful.

“We’re breaking new ground here,” said Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen. “It’s hard to write a plan for a catastrophic event that has no precedent, which is what this was.”

But was a failure of the BOP really unforeseeable?

A 1999 report from the government’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), leaked by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, found that there were 117 BOP failures in a two-year period in the late 1990s.

While none of these failures resulted in a spill at the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon, they clearly demonstrate the fallibility of BOPs. One crucial difference is that the other BOP failures occurred in shallower waters.

more...

There have also been a number of massive oil spills in recent years. “People in government and industry are saying that this is unprecedented, that it is impossible to be prepared for an event like this,” commented John Amos, president of SkyTruth, a non-profit firm that monitors oil spills and other environmental disasters. “But less than a year ago we had a very similar blowout and spill off the coast of Australia, from a two-year old rig.”

[disndat]

4. Pres. Obama has just issued

a statement that he is going to appoint an independent commission to investigate this disaster. Pres. Obama must come clean even if such a independent commission points to people high up in his administration. If there is another "independent" commission like the 9/11 commission led by Gov. Tom McKean, then we are headed for doomsday.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Independent Is The Key...

The MMS was loaded with lots of booosh era moles...many who remained in positions with this current administration and this needs to be investigated. Just the other day one of those moles resigned as the light was starting to shine on him...and I'm sure there are more quietly heading for the exits. I'm all for a truly independent investigation with the less politicians or former politicians as possible. If there are those in the current Admninistration who were negligent or complicit and their actions led to the slipshod actions of BP, then let's out them as well.

[Bragi]

5. This will help the industry status quo

The focus on the blowout as the alleged result of regulatory laxity actually helps to preserve the myth that ultra-deep oil extraction can be done safely, without the inevitable despoiling of oceans and shorelines, if we put in place proper regulation.

This myth is important because without it, people would demand that dangerous oil extraction of this sort be stopped.

Can't risk that, can we?

[KittyWampus]

6. Politico, Lieberman, Collins. Bet you couldn't post this fast enough.

[dionysus]

8. his bestest buddies!

:rofl:

[socialist_n_TN]

10. Yeah, I noticed that list of whiners too

Interesting to say the least. All part of the "Don't worry, deregulate" crowd.

[Karmadillo]

11. Anything factually inaccurate in the article? Is Napolitano telling the truth?

nt

[KharmaTrain]

9. Droopy Goes Scapegoating...

This was a diversion tactic to try to put the heat and blame on the Obama administration...trying to make it his "Katrina" as it was dealing with "Homeland Security" or dealing with the crisis at hand.

I watched the hearings and it was a joke. Joementum all but puckered up to the BP exec. McCain spent his time grilling Sec. Napolitano on the Arizona border fence (:wtf:) and Droopy let him ramble rather than rule his questions out of order. It was just another beltway Dog & Pony show with the intention of putting the major blame of this catastrophe solely on President Obama.

[ljm2002]

12. "There was an assumption that it would never fail"...

...kind of reminiscent of the Titanic and the assumption that it would never sink. Until that dratted iceberg showed up. Who could have seen that coming?

Same psychology at work: It could never happen == no need to institute all those pesky safety precautions.

Hubris. Nemesis. The ancient Greeks were really very insightful.