Obama to aide: "Plug the damn hole!"

[Clio the Leo]

Obama administration conflicted about relying on BP to stop gulf oil spill

By Karen Tumulty and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 25, 2010; A01

The tenuous alliance among the Obama administration, the oil firm BP and Gulf Coast officials was visibly fraying on Monday, with exasperation on all sides mounting as oil from a deep-water gusher began lapping at the region's environmentally fragile shoreline.

Meanwhile, the administration faced growing questions about whether it should be taking more control of the situation, rather than ceding so much of the decision-making about stopping the oil spill to the company that created it.

On the coast, local officials complained that Washington has been too slow in helping them hold back the oil. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said that the administration has not provided enough equipment -- including booms, skimmers, vacuums and barges -- and that it has stood in the way of his proposal to erect artificial barrier islands. Federal officials say that latter plan needs more study.

"BP is the responsible party, but we need the federal government to make sure that they are held accountable and that they are indeed responsible. Our way of life depends on it," Jindal said at a news conference in Galliano, La., with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Edited to confirm to DU's fairuse policy for copyrighted material - Lithos, DU Moderator

"Plug the damn hole," Obama told them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052404071_pf.html

[liberal N proud]

1. It is time that someone at the federal level start running the show

Someone needs to be telling BP what they will and will not do because BP is not doing all it should be doing to stop this gusher or clean up the mess.

Closing beaches and chasing reporters away does not clean up the oil and announcing that in 3 or 4 days an procedure MIGHT be preformed in an attempt to tap, siphon, cover, cap but not plug the well.

[Teaser]

2. why do you think there is anything BP can do?

the relief well is the most likely strategy for success. That will take months.

[niceypoo]

4. BP is incompetent

Its like having Al Capone clean up Chicago

[Teaser]

31. if they are incompetent

than we are doomed. Because no on else has the resources necessary to stop this thing.

[Phx_Dem]

39. That sounds like some lame platitude from Chris Matthews.

BP may be willfully negligent (and I believe whey were) with respect to safety and taking necessary precautions, but that doesn't mean they are incompetent. Negligence and corruption do not equate to incompetence.

It's not like no one is working with BP to solve the problem. And no one else has figured out how to stop it either -- aside from the relief drilling which takes a couple of months.

[liberal N proud]

8. Part of me still believes that BP has been hoping they could save the well

Or try to capture the oil for themselves.

They are trying things that have in other disasters proven ineffective, yet they tried them anyway. And why all the delay on getting these attempts. Its like they have to announce it 5 days ahead that they are going to make their next attempt. Just DO IT already!

[AllentownJake]

16. Nah,

I just believe they know they are fucked for 90 days till they can try a relief well and they are doing a PR campaign to try to make the populace believe they are doing all they can.

[Phx_Dem]

41. That doesn't make sense. No matter how they plug the well, they

can still drill a relief line to siphon the oil from another area. Either way, they are losing millions of dollars in oil every day that they are unable to plug that leak. Millions of barrells of oil every day that they will never be able to recapture.

Even if they don't care a wit about the ocean and the environment, I'm sure they care very much about their lost "product" and money.

[Cha]

3. So now jindal wants federal help

but will never miss a chance to whine about big government.

[stray cat]

5. DUers could fix the leak if they cared.....

after all they have about as many workable resources at this depth as the federal government

[AllentownJake]

9. No one can

Which is kind of the point. The sooner that reality hits you, me, the President and everyone else involved, the quicker we get to not having this happen again and punishing those involved in this disaster.

You know how I know a solution is probably not going to work, I don't hear a percentage tied to it of a possible success rate, I'm sure there is one, but no one wants to hear shooting Golf Balls into it has a 3% chance of stopping it.

:-)

[DrDan]

6. why is it we are starting to conduct studies now . . . after the catastrophe

I would have thought berm height and oil dispersal chemicals would have been studied ad nauseum in the past.

[AllentownJake]

10. Because this would never happen

I mean the odds of an oil rig drilling so far into the ocean and seabed testing the limits of human engineering...what could possibly ever go wrong.

[DrDan]

14. I guess you are right . . . . who would have thought a corporation would

push the limits for a few extra dollars

[AllentownJake]

15. Insanity I tell you to even think such thoughts

An entity that has one purpose to extract as much money as possible at the lowest expense with limited legal liability on the officers that run it would do such a thing.

Shocking I tell you, fucking shocking.

[izquierdista]

17. It has to be funded privately

To get a product on EPA's National Contingency Plan, the manufacturer has to conduct the studies. Now there's not a lot of profit in conducting studies on a product you hope you don't have much need for, hence the dearth of approved dispersants out there. See, EPA only reviews contingencies that the industry will tell them they anticipate. :wtf:

[DrDan]

18. I just have a feeling there are dissertations addressing berm heights in several University Civil

Engineering departments.

And probably some studies of dispersment chemicals in Chem departments.

I just find it hard to believe we are now embarking on studying these critical issues.

[izquierdista]

26. I kinda doubt it

I've never heard of a Chemistry department doing tests like that for private companies. The companies get their knickers in a twist fearing they will lose "intellectual property". They either do it themselves, or hire a private laboratory where they can get confidentiality agreements in place. If it's a school or a government lab, companies are distrustful of the confidentiality agreement.

You would find it easier to believe if you separated knowledge into two categories: (1) information critical to health and safety and (2) information necessary for product development, marketing and sales. Category (2) always wins out in the private sector and category (1) only gets funded by government grants.

[DrDan]

29. there just seems to be something wrong with a picture that

suggests we begin studies like this after a catastrophy hits.

This is a monumental event for the environment. And we are just woefully unprepared.

[AllentownJake]

7. "Plug the damn hole"

We can't sir. The fact is what they were doing was extremely dangerous and they had no plan on how to deal with how to remedy the situation if something went wrong and they will lie to your face if you ask them. They are sociopaths sir and they will blame you for it.

If you had the power, I'd recommend rounding them up and summarily executing the executives, kind of like how we deal with Al Quaeda in Pakistan with Predator drones, but you don't so your next best bet is to send in the FBI and arrest anyone involved and put them on trial and prepare to spend about $300 billion in the federal budget for 2011 and another $200 billion in 2012 and that is being a conservative estimate for relief and clean-up efforts sir because I'm sure the company is moving money to Switzerland as we speak.

Remember the guys on Wall Street, these guys are actually worse sir.

[LiberalFighter]

11. If they had follow procedures required in Canada this probably would had been over.

Canada apparently requires oil drillers to drill a relief pipe at the same time so that they have the ability to shut down if there is an incident.

[AllentownJake]

13. The Canadians aren't bat-shit insane

nor are they arrogant, ignorant, or have a political party dominated by a group who thinks it is their mission to implement God's law (which they invented out of a twisted interpretation of a book written for a culture that does not exist anymore) on mankind.

[paparush]

12. So he heard Palin's latest speech?

:-)

[HughMoran]

19. It's a no-win situation

frustrating just to read it

[freddie mertz]

20. Reading this should make anyone sane be very very worried.

We have been doing this shit for years with NO PLAN AT ALL to deal with the consequences of things going wrong.

The Canadians at least insist on having a second relief well.

But we have nothing, and now we are paying the price for the bottomless corruption and incompetence of our corporations AND our government, which we can finally state, definitively, are one and the same thing.

Too bad we found out too late.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. If a DU poster said 'plug the damn hole'

they be told that they have no concept of the difficulty level of deep sea work, they would be asked what magic wand they think should be waved to plug it, if they thought divers should go down with a cork, that sort of thing.
But he puts it well. Plug the damn hole.

[Forkboy]

24. Too true.

[Clio the Leo]

27. Have *I* said that?

You realize we dont all camp out over at the BOG and decide how to think right? Those who are more likely to be critical of the President dont own the monopoly on diversity of thought. ;)

[Lochloosa]

33. If a DU poster said 'plug the damn hole"

The thread would be locked for a "Sex Thread" :evilgrin:

[spiritual_gunfighter]

38. They would also be accused of really wanting President Sarah Palin n/t

[treestar]

50. Um, where are all those posters to back Obama up on this?

It's as if he is on their side of it!

[Thrill]

22. Funny how those Southern Governor's love to call

for help from the Feds but love to tell them to stay out of their business

[depakid]

23. The Post is so bizarre that it reminds me of Mad Magazine circa 1975

Seriously, WTF was that?

[marshall]

25. Step one: Harsh Language!

Step two: Pounding table top with fist!

Step three: Stamping floor with foot!

[seabeckind]

30. Worked with Wall Street didn't it?

:sarcasm:

[seabeckind]

28. I'm starting(?) to see a trend here

Every emergency we've had so far gets the same response.

At some point the admin must realize that the coporations aren't in the solution business, they're in the profit business.

Doing a heckuva job, ken.

[Teaser]

32. what's the solution?

tell us.

[avaistheone1]

44. +10

[LiberalVoice]

34. It's about time we start telling BP what to do about this problem.

Beyond incompetence, they are sugar coating a huge disaster with absolute disregard for the environmental disaster taking place. Their only interest is the bottom line.

[tavalon]

36. I know it's been repeated ad nauseum,

but no one has a back up plan. There is no one who can fix this in a timely fashion. We all get to sit here and watch the Gulf of Mexico being murdered and none of us can do a damn thing about it, not BP, not the government, not us. It is excruciating and the rage is fully understandable, but if we decide to kill one BP executive each week as incentive, this disaster will not be solved one minute sooner. Now, we can talk about how it might make us feel better, though somewhat hypocritical, to round up these evil scoundrels, waterboard them and then kill them, it isn't going to solve this. This should never, ever have been done and should never, ever be done again and we get to watch in slow motion, exactly why. And hope that the message lasts longer than the gusher.

[LiberalVoice]

37. Whoa

I didn't say any of that.

[tavalon]

42. Sorry, I've seen too many posts demanding what isn't even available

I just got off a grueling 12 hour shift and didn't think through how that would sound. My bad.

[LiberalVoice]

46. Why isn't more oversite available?

Why are we accepting the lies BP is feeding us? Why isn't our government putting their own engineering experts in front of camera's refuting BP's claims?

On a side note can you provide me with a link to an article explaining why we can't just drop a hundred tons of cement into/onto the hole? I am admittedly ignorant as to why the whole cannot be plugged.

[Enrique]

35. sounds like a fictional scene

put out a vivid picture of Obama being very engaged and concerned.

But who knows, maybe this happened, just as described. That's a problem with anonymous sources. You can't know.

[Arkana]

40. Very 'Josiah Bartlet' of him.

[Arugula Latte]

43. That's what she said.

Sorry, this situation isn't funny at all, but someone had to say that.

[Yavin4]

45. That's What She Said

For you fans of "The Office" out there.

[marshall]

47. Simple, blunt, but eloquent

Now get somebody to do it.

[Blue_Roses]

48. this is really the "jist" of the whole problem

"If you could control an oil spill with lawyers and regulation-writers, and by signing papers and obtaining court injunctions . . . then maybe the U.S. government could do something," said Byron W. King, an energy analyst at Agora Financial. "But really, Uncle Sam has almost no institutional ability to control the oil spill. For that, you need people with technical authority, technical skill and firms with industrial capabilities."

[martymar64]

49. On a side note: Tony Hayward needs to be beaten severely.

The entire BP, Halliburton and Transocean board of directors need to be sent to prison.

[lynne]

51. If its that easy, why didn't he say this a month ago?

Seriously. :shrug:

[zenprole]

52. Hire Nixon's Plumbers

Obama could stop the oil blowout by throwing the blowout preventer in jail. He's done just that with two major whistleblowers: problem solved.

Oil isn't sequestered as easily as information, you say? Then the gooey mess must be incorporated or given a security clearance. Then Obama could get tough with the leaks - throw some serious legal language at it, in that famous baritone, of course.

(For the record, I don't think this post is funny, either.)