The BP Oil Spill. The Disappearing Corpus Delicti

Corpus Delicti is a fundamental principal in law. Essentially, it means that you must have a body of facts on which a crime is based. A dead body, for there to be a murder. A missing something or other, for there to be a theft, and so on.

Certainly, in the case of the BP oil spill there was an initial Corpus Delicti: a body of facts that said there was an oil spill. We all saw the oil spewing from the broken pipe. We saw the birds covered with oil. We saw the tar balls washing up and we saw the beaches and marshes drenched with sticky goo.

The White House and many others declared this the worst environmental disaster that has ever occurred in the U.S. But, was it?

Right now, the oil has almost mysteriously vanished in the open waters of the Gulf, and the coastal areas have not seen much more damage than had been seen early on (Click here to See Story: 200 Million Gallons Later, Clean Up Crews Can’t Find Any Oil).

In this week's TIME Magazine, this usually liberal-leaning publication is even questioning whether or not the impact of the BP oil spill has been exaggerated or if it will even come close to having the negative environmental impact of the Exxon Valdez spill of some years ago (Click here to See Story: The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated? ).

The fact is that the waters of the Gulf are a much different animal than the waters of Prince William Sound that were so brutally damaged by the Exxon spill. The water is faster moving and a helluva lot warmer; allowing the oil eating microbes to do their jobs. The Gulf of Mexico is laden with oil and, on given day, there are thousands of gallons of naturally seeping oil that is managing quite well with little or no damage to the general environment. One scientist put the BP spill into proper perspective with respect to the total waters in the Gulf by saying it was like spilling a single can of Coke in the middle of the New Orleans SuperDome.

Currently, the political left and the environmental movement is using this now-questionable disaster as a means of pushing their anti-0il, coal, and gas agenda. Many of the politically oriented, like John Kerry, are using it as the basis for ramming his Cap and Trade bill through Congress. And, Obama has used it to shut down all new exploration and drilling in his attempt to take complete political advantage of the situation. Like the housing collapse and the recession, it appears we might be in the midst of another "crisis" that will help Obama and the Democrats push their continuing left-wing agenda. In my opinion, that body of evidence, that Corpus Delicti, that they are using to justify Cap and Trade and the drilling ban, will have long since abated while America will still be stuck with the job killing effects and high cost of energy that will result from the Democrat's use of another exaggerated crisis.

Jimmy Buffett Should Shut Up Or Get Some Learnin'

Recently, at a concert for those affected by the Gulf oil spill, Jimmy Buffett decided to take a left-wing shot at George W. Bush by specifically blaming him for the BP oil spill (Click here to See Story: Jimmy Buffet Organizes Gulf Benefit, Blames Bush for Spill). However, if Mr. Buffett hadn't burned up a few million brain cells by hammering down margaritas in Margaritaville, he might have done a little research and found out that the deepwater drilling in the Gulf got its genesis, primarily, during the Clinton Administration. By the time George W. Bush took office, there were more than 32 active deepwater oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico with hundreds of rigs and wells on each of those fields. The Bush Administration just continued the policy of Clinton. And, yes, Obama followed the policies of Bush.

Today, there are more than 112 active deepwater oil fields with thousands of active rigs, or capped and idle wells and well holes in the Gulf at depths of 3,000 feet or deeper. All told, the Gulf of Mexico has more than 50,000 oil rigs providing almost 1/3 of all domestic oil. Drilling and oil production goes back decades and not just since Bush took office!

It has been the actions of Presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that have forced us to be more dependent on offshore drilling for our domestic oil. Those two Presidents have federalized millions of acres of land, therefore placing known oil reserves like the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and the Bakken oil fields of the upper Midwest off limits to oil exploration. Just last March, Obama signed into law another 2 million acres of land that are now deemed to be wilderness conservation areas; and, again, restricted from oil exploration. Additionally signed into law by Obama, were 26 million acres of land to be defined as the National Landscape Conservation System and everything from oil drilling to hunting and fishing was banned. Currently, 30% of American territory is federally owned and controlled; mostly in the oil-rich western states. For example, nearly 70% of Alaska is federally controlled. Natural gas rich Utah is 58% federalized. Colorado is 37% off limits to gas and oil drilling. (Click here to See Story: Federal Lands in the U.S.)

Sadly, people like Buffett are able to use their celebrity to promote lies in the pursuit of their own political ideology. Even sadder, a lot of dumb people believe them. Instead of blaming Bush, Mr. Buffet would be better to question why "his" President, through "his" constant "inaction" and by blocking tactics of those agencies under "his" direction, is actually allowing the complete destruction of this country's beautiful and fragile Gulf shores.

Is America Tiring Of The Oil Spill Disaster Already?

You can just feel it. Since last week, the focus on the oil spill disaster is starting to wane. No longer does it occupy the headlines or open as the top story on cable news. Once again, America's attention span seems to have run it's course.

During Katrina, the heat stayed on Bush because the media kept it there. Hollywood personalities flooded New Orleans and kept the cameras focused on their activities. From Sean Penn's almost comical rescue efforts to relief concerts.

Now, the mainstream media seems to be satisfied that Obama has done his job by creating a $20 billion BP escrow account. And, Hollywood? From day one, they were nowhere to be found. Yet, the oil is still gushing and the much-needed clean-up equipment continues to be held at bay by the Obama Administration, as they fail to allow any foreign expertise onto our shores without having to go through all the typical bureaucratic rigmarole.

Rarely, now, do you ever really see a story on the destruction in Haiti. Rarely, too, does anyone follow up on the failures to rebuild New Orleans; now five year later. America does seem to have a short attention span and politics is a mess because of it. Anger always seems to fade into complacency and, I am afraid, that the Gulf oil spill will follow that well-worn scenario. Following 9/11 the slogan was "We Will Always Remember". However, today, we seem OK with relegating terrorism, again, to a simple police action. A Mosque will be built at "Ground Zero" in Manhattan. We seem willing to treat terrorists like common criminals and not the destructive and hateful enemies that they are. In a way, the 9/11 slogan would have been more accurately stated as: "We Will Probably Forget!"

Obama's Silly Man On The Moon Argument

In this week's pitiless and pitifully political oval office speech, Obama threw out another one of his patented and idiotic rhetorical questions. In his immature thinking about replacing oil as an energy resource, he said: "Well, if we can put a man on the moon, why not this?".

The stupidity of that comment is that it cost billions to send a man to the moon. Other than through massive and dedicated government spending, that feat would never have seen the light of day. And, no government, since, has replicated that accomplishment. In fact, this very President, earlier this year, scrapped NASA's plans to return to the moon. Why? Because it was too damned expensive!

Obama is no realist. He's a pie-in-the-sky liberal that seems to think that the replacement of the energy complex in this country is a simple legislative task. The reason that we are up to our eyeballs in gasoline and oil, today, is because it is cheap, portable, relatively safe and compactly storable; and, it is ubiquitous in its application. At the same time, the engines using oil-based fuels are reliable, relatively inexpensive, and powerful. No other energy source can, as of now, claim all those attributes. That includes ethanol, natural gas, wind, and solar.

Sure, we can make cars that run on something other than oil, but those cars have to be economical in both cost and operation before the masses of society accept them in their everyday lives. We have oil-based transportation systems today because petroleum beat out the horse and carriage and other technologies like the steam engine, when automobiles were in their early infancy.

If Obama wants us to get off of oil, he should get the automakers of the world together and ask them how we can migrate away from it. For sure, any acceptable fuel source has to be readily deliverable; so, any new fuel must be able to compete with the currently embedded base of millions of pumping stations that already span this country. That's why a fuel like natural gas has been limited to local fleet operations for buses and some trucks. Because these vehicles come back to a centralized garage everyday, they can easily refuel at that centralized point. But, for Americans to accept natural gas or any other fuel, they need to be able to refuel without going miles out of their way to do so.

Getting off of oil is a lot more complex than this naive President seems to think. There needs to be a decision as to what fuel will best suit us in the future. It can't be a hodgepodge of a bunch of short-term technologies. The conversion away from oil is only going to happen when the majority accepts it. People are not going to plop down thousands of dollars on a vehicle that they know can't take them anywhere but from home to work and back. They need cross country capability.

I personally think that the future is in hydrogen as fuel. It can be produced economically by using the electricity produced from environmentally-friendly wind and solar. Hydrogen, when burned, produces only water vapor. For the climate alarmists and the environmentalists, this is pure heaven because there is no CO2 associated with it.

I think that Obama would be smart to develop some kind of regional plan where the government, in cooperation with private industry, establishes a hydrogen production and delivery system in, say, the Southwest (ie. California because of the existing density of cars). Then, too, the auto industry would have to agree to produce hydrogen-run automobiles that would be targeted for that specific region or area of the country. If both properly implemented and economical, hydrogen's usage will naturally spread across the country; just as gasoline and diesel spread throughout the U.S. in the early days of the automobile. Then, finally, America will be free of its dependency on oil. That, to me, would be the smarter plan rather than punish America economically through some dumb Cap and Trade system that has done nothing, elsewhere, to reduce the world's dependency on carbon-based fuel. In fact, counties that fully embraced "green" technologies, like Spain, are in near bankruptcy and, now, forced to back off of their plans for solar and wind. For once, I would hope that Mr. Obama looks to those failing "green" countries before he tries to impose Cap and Trade or some other carbon tax system.

Why BP Is So Bad

As one the world's largest oil companies, British Petroleum is also one of the worst when it comes to safety. If I recall, more than 126 workers have died in recent years working for BP. With this oil spill, it is all too obvious that too many shortcuts were taken on the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the years, BP has accumulated over 760 safety violations while a U.S. Company, Exxon-Mobil, had a single violation.

But, how is it that they are so bad in comparison to the other big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil? Well, to answer that you have to simply look at an extremely brief history of BP as a corporate entity.

Up until the late 1980's, they were principally owned and operated by the British government; and, I think, therein lies the problem. Even though Marget Thatcher was able to privatize BP, the culture of a government-run operation was ingrained in their corporate mindset. In effect, BP is to the oil industry what our post office is to the freight and shipping business here in America. It is a poorly run and incompetent company that probably shouldn't be allowed to drill anywhere in the world.

Obama and his people should be careful with all the promises that they seem to be getting from BP. That escrow account ($20 billion over "four" years) could very well wind up being a dry well and just a pipe dream. To understand this, you have to recognize how BP operates. They are an arms-length company; meaning that they have little or no hard assets of their own. As much as possible, they lease equipment and contract services. For example, the only thing they owned with regard to that failed oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was the lease allowance to drill the oil; and, that was sold to them by our own government. They contracted that whole operation. So, in all too many cases, if BP does go belly-up in bankruptcy, the only things of value they own that our government could glom onto is a bunch of oil leases that actually belong to us anyway. And, I doubt very seriously the we could even tap any of the foreign assets of the British company without years of litigation in international courts.

The bottom line is that the oil spill was caused by an incompetent company. But, too, it was our own government's failure to properly supervise BP's operations.

The Minerals Management Service (our government) is just as responsible as BP for that oil spill. They should have been all over them; especially because of their known past behavior. For sure, BP is a bad company but, it was our government agency that failed to oversee them and allowed them to live up to it's very bad reputation. And it was the combination of government-run mindset (in the case of BP) and the typical failed bureaucratic behavior of the Minerals Management Service that, in combination, was a lethal mixture. When all is said and done, we are going to find out that BP took too many shortcuts and we will also find that it had the tacit approval of the very government agency that was supposed to watch over them. For this reason, anyone who believes that a government-run anything is better than the operations of the private sector ought to have their head examined.

Obama's Oval Office Speech

Like most of you, my wife and I watched Obama's speech last night. I think my wife summed it up the best. She said it was like being in the middle of a heart attack. You're laying in the emergency room, in overwhelming pain and gasping for breath. Then instead of using every tool in their arsenal to stop the immediate crisis, the doctors sit down and start advising you on proper diet and exercise.

Nowhere in his speech was there a forceful outline to stop the leak and clean up the spill. Instead, he is shamelessly using this crisis as a preface to implementing his foolish and expensive wind, solar, and Cap and Trade plans. He even distorted what China is doing about energy by saying that they were investing in clean technologies. Oh, really Mr. President? China is busy drilling for oil all over the world and quickly building coal-fired power plants so that they can -- using Obama's own words -- kick the world's ass economically. This guy is just unbelievable!

When The Going Gets Tough The Weak Go To The Teleprompter

Using the BP oil spill, Democrats have decided this will be their "sweeps week", in order to, as in the television industry, try and get some major ratings increases. Today, the Democratic leadership in Congress has decided to make a "really big show" by dragging in all of the CEO's of the major oil companies for a public flogging in front of mainstream media's TV cameras. Yesterday, Obama walked the oil soaked sand of the Gulf; ate a snow cone; and, posed with the natives to show that, for only the 4th time, he is fully engaged with the problem. Tonight, he will hit the teleprompter again to give his first-ever "Oval Office" speech. Tomorrow, he meets with the CEO of BP; even though it might have been smarter to meet with Tony Hayward beforehand in order to incorporate the results of that meeting into the speech. But, the all-knowing Obama obviously knows what BP's CEO is going to say, since that was the reason he gave for why he never met with him until the 59th day of the oil spill.

Expect, too, that Bush will be blamed for his obvious irresponsibility. Even though Obama claims that a President can't personally stop the oil spill, he will, however, make it clear that, somehow, Bush was personally responsible; as has been claimed for the last 58 days.

I'm tired of the blame game from Obama. Every speech he gives, he blames BP and provides no solutions. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that BP isn't responsible. That's a given. So why keep telling us that? Obama does this because of a complete lack of leadership skills. He is not a leader and has absolutely no solutions. This is a diversion by a weak President to keep the focus on BP as a means of keeping the focus off of his own inabilities. It's a typical tactic for a poor leader to hide behind a bogeyman to avoid taking any heat; just as in the case of the Democrats in Congress having their phony show-trials of the oil executives. Quite simply, it's all political theater.

Time is wasted by the day as the oil spill grows larger. Stopping all offshore drilling isn't going to stop the damage or clean up after it. An escrow account, too, doesn't clean it up. Bashing BP and George Bush isn't stopping the leak or cleaning up the spill. Having the Attorney General threaten criminal charges against BP isn't cleaning up the oil spill. And, for sure, having government agencies (reporting to Obama) block one solution after another isn't cleaning up the spill.

Obama claims he can't don a wetsuit and cap the hole himself. Certainly, that's true. But, not allowing foreign vessels to come to our shores to siphon off the oil is something he can do and he hasn't. He could have waived environmental regulations but, instead, he kept Louisiana waiting for weeks before they could build offshore berms to protect the fragile near-shore environment. Their are dozens of creative Americans, who have come up with viable solutions for aiding the clean up. Yet, neither this President nor BP have even contacted those people. A good leader would have allowed trials to be conducted to see how effective these techniques really were and quickly employed those that had proven themselves. But, not Obama. These are all things that don't require superhuman skills and don't require him to don a wetsuit.

The real story here is a lack of leadership. The oil is pouring onto our shores as this President just talks; and, talks. If ever there was repeat of "while Rome is burning Nero fiddles", this is it! And, God help us all if this guy is simply allowing the effects of the spill to worsen in order to push his left-wing, anti-oil, Cap and Trade legislation.

The Worst Possible Presidential Cabinet For Our Times

In recent weeks, a lot has been said and written about Obama's ineptness and complete lack of management skills. But, the lack of experience and expertise in addressing the problems that currently face this country go well beyond the President. It goes deep into the cabinet members that he has selected.

Obama has completely surrounded himself with a bunch of cabinet officers who have no management experience. Instead, he has created a cabinet that is completely theoretical and professorial. Worse yet, almost all of these people are anti-capitalists and pro-environmentalists. This, at a time, when we're trying to recover from a recession and when we are now faced with one of the worst environmental disasters that the world has every seen. Most of his appointees have spent their entire lives fighting Wall Street, the banks, big business, and the oil, coal, and gas industries. Yet, these are the industries that they are being asked to work with in their various cabinet positions.

This complete lack of experience and understanding has manifested itself in a variety of ways since Obama took office.

First, we have the failed stimulus package because it was too pro-government, too socialist, too anti-business, and completely ignored the vital elements that would actually help drive this economy and create jobs.

Then, take, for example, John Morton, the Assistant Secretary who is in charge of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Recently, he told a newspaper interviewer that he had no intention of working with Arizona if illegal immigrants are handed over to any of his agents. So, in effect, he was saying the he would no longer fulfill the responsibilities of his own job because of his ideological attitude towards the newly passed Arizona law on illegal immigration. Obviously this man doesn't take seriously the "Enforcement" responsibilities that are clearly spelled out and included in the very title of the agency that he manages. After all, it isn't the Immigration and Customs "Non-Enforcement" agency!

The same, too, is true of the massive BP oil spill. There is no coordination among cabinet members and no centralized control from Obama. For example, one agency has directed BP to use dispersants to break up the oil. Days later, another agency, the EPA, says no to dispersants. Then, for whatever reason, the EPA suddenly changes saying its ok to use them. Then, because dispersants have been used, OSHA says workers involved in cleanup procedures have to take breaks every 15 minutes to avoid getting ill. All along, Bobby Jindal had requested permission to build sand berms to provide protection from the ravages of the oil, however the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers ate up valuable time because they were "programmed" (as in non-emergency times) to conduct an environmental impact study before giving approval.

Thursday, there was another perfect example of why these people that Obama has surrounded himself with should have never been allowed to be in charge of anything. Some days after it was finally recognized that the spill could be a serious environmental disaster, Obama convened a panel of experts to review the situation and come up with recommendations for addressing it. This panel actually reported up to Obama through Ken Salazar; his Secretary of the Interior. Following a review, the panel wrote up their recommendations in a report. But, unbeknownst to the panel, Ken Salazaar, at the direction of the White House (?), wrote into the report, a non-scientific and politically motivated opinion that all new and unfinished offshore drilling should be stopped; and, Obama acted on it. Now, we find out that the panel would have never made such a recommendation because to stop the drilling and idle these platforms could literally be dangerous (Click here to See Story: Experts Say White House 'Misrepresented' Views to Justify Drilling Moratorium). At the very least, thousands of rig workers and support personnel are now without jobs because of Salazar's personal recommendation. Additionally, those rigs, if idled too long, will be towed elsewhere in the world. They contain some highly sensitive technologies that were developed by the United States and, as a result, could result in the loss of any competitive edge that these afford in deep water drilling.

The Salazar (maybe Carole Browner) stunt shows what can happen when you have an agency headed up by an individual who has had an axe to grind with an industry that he/she is responsible for overseeing. This kind of mindset shows why Obama had never met with or even talked to BP's CEO prior to next week's hurriedly scheduled meeting that only resulted out of public outrage.

Watching this mess unfold, one can't help but get the feeling that we have given the keys to this country, to an immature President and a group of children. As a result, I think that history will record this administration's cabinet as being the worst possible to meet the challenges of our time.

Reselling A Lemon

This week, Obama launched a week where he and members of his Administration will try to resell ObamaCare to the nation. This reminds me of a slick car salesman who sold someone a lemon and is now trying to convince them to keep it. So, in the middle of the BP oil spill---perhaps the greatest environmental disaster the world has seen -- Obama has, again, found time to push his left-wing agenda rather than take care of business.

If ObamaCare was such a great deal, he wouldn't have to resell it. But, a day doesn't go by that we don't find out another pitfall in this pitiful legislation. Direct costs are now well over a trillion dollars however, when selling this pig, Obama promised it would never reach that level. The cost of health care insurance, as noted by numerous independent studies, is only going to go up, not down as promised. Indirectly, corporations will be eating more taxes and, as such, some have already determined that, under ObamaCare, they might be better off dumping their Corporate-supported, private insurance and just paying the fines. Doctor's, too, have weighed in by turning their heads to any new Medicaid or Medicare patients.

The people aren't dumb but, this President is presuming they are with this new sales effort. Like too many things with Obama, he's clueless.

Obvious Desperation In The Gulf

When our government calls in the Hollywood film director James Cameron to brainstorm with them on the Gulf oil spill, you know that this Administration is at the end of its idea chain. This is the best we can muster? And, from the people that Obama claims to have been in charge from day one! How sad it is that they can't do anything else but bring in an "underwater" film maker to help solve one of the most massive oil spill disasters in the history of the world.

This spill requires years of knowledge of both the oil industry, hydrology, and hydraulic engineering to even understand what is going on at that well head; especially with the intense undersea water pressures that are involved with working a mile below the sea. I'll give you the fact that Cameron is a trained electrical engineer and that he has used that background to do some remarkable film work. However, his real profession, film making, with some smattering of electrical engineering and tinkering around hardly gives him the creds to work on a problem of this magnitude. I suppose we could call in Beau and Jeff Bridges too, because their father Lloyd starred in that famous TV series, "Sea Hunt".

We need the very best in the "oil industry" (not Hollywood) working on this disaster. A call out should have been made early on to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron and others; and, additionally, to some of this country's best oil service companies like Bolt Technology and Dawson Geophysical to help fix the problem. And, yes, Halliburton too. But, no! Instead, it was nine days into the spill and a few more golf games and fund raisers before Obama even seemed to be engaged. So, now, more than 40 days into the mess, we're enlisting the help of someone who is an avowed left-winger with past donations to the Democrats and Obama? Does everything with the President have to come down to one form or another of political payback? This is unbelievably silly and stupid!

Two Presidents. Two Disasters. Two Failures.

Bush and the Republicans paid a heavy price for the failures following Katrina. Now, with the BP oil spill, Obama is trying to deflect similar responsibility by blaming anything and anyone, totally outside of his Administration, having anything at all to do with the disaster.

However, in both cases, the problem is one of government response. Bush and his "Brownie" were late to the game in protecting New Orleans and, subsequently, the political punishment was severe. Now, Obama finds himself in a similar pickle because of his Administration's lack of response to the oil spill disaster. In yesterday's press conference, Obama, again, tried to have it both ways. On the one hand, he made the claim that his people were in charge from day one but, at the same time, he clearly implied that BP was on their own when he said it was BP's responsibility to stop the spill and clean up the environment. Either the government is in charge or BP is? Which is it?

Obama is the most powerful man in the world in terms of what is at his disposal to fix any problem. He has 3 million active and reserve military that he could have tapped into for any abatement and cleanup. But, Obama didn't use the military service except to rely on a few Coast Guard personnel to work on the spill. He could have commandeered any number of oil booms from around the country and used the Air Force to airlift them to the gulf for deployment.

He could also have enlisted the talents of other oil companies in finding a solution.
From day one, Obama should have been on the horn talking to the CEO's of all the top American oil companies to ask them to join in on a task force to fix this blowout problem. He should have made it clear that all oil companies have a vested stake in this because it could affect the future of all drilling in this country. That would have been true leadership. But, Obama and all the Democrats are always at odds with the oil companies because of their "environmentalist" campaign contributions. However, oil is one of the most strategic commodities in all the world and absolutely essential to our national security; and, having an adversarial relationship with the industry is beyond belief.

Obama deserves the blame he's now getting and, by rights, a lot more. His ineptness is not only being criticized by the right, but by members of his own party. To say that this isn't his Katrina is just putting the hiding of Obama's ineptness above the destruction of the ecology and livelihoods of the Gulf region.

On The 38th Day

On the 38th day, the ravaging of the sea and earth continued and, then, out of the darkness, there rose a figure. With outstretched hands, he declared "no more drilling"; and, the drilling was stopped. To the left, he is truly the messiah. On the right, they cowered in awe and amazement. But, the vast majority remained unsure. Yet, the sea and earth continued to die because this messiah was a false messiah and he was 38 days late with any damn miracle!

Obama And Left Try To Blame Bush On The BP Oil Spill

It was inevitable that the left would try to pin the the BP oil spill on George W. Bush. Friday, Obama painted a picture of a cozy relationship that existed with the oil companies going back 10 years. Um? Ten years? Didn't Bush take office just about then? And, they can't let Cheney get off the hook either. After all, it was Halliburton that just completed the concrete slurry work on that BP oil rig that failed.

But, here's the truth. It was Obama's Department of Interior's Minerals Management Services (MMS) agency that gave British Petroleum (BP) a "categorical exclusion" on safety and environmental impact studies for that very oil rig in April of last year (Click to See Full Story: U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study). And, it is no secret that BP gave more money to Obama than any other candidate in the last 20 years; and, that includes donations to George W. Bush's original election and reelection campaigns (Click to See Full Politico.com Story: Obama biggest recipient of BP cash).

So, if you put it all together, doesn't it seem like the true "cozy relationship" began after Bush left office? I find it difficult to believe that any Democratic Administration, as cozy as they are with the environmentalists, would have given BP or any other oil company a pass unless it was money -- perhaps all that campaign money -- that bought and paid for that pass. Do ya think? As usual, this President takes no blame for anything. Not the miserable unemployment situation or now massive national debt. And, certainly, not for this oil spill or any of the mistakes that were made after it.

The Forgotten Dead

When that coal mining operation in West Virginia resulted in all those workers being killed, we almost had a day a morning in this country. But, when eleven workers on the BP rig, all Americans, died, not even a penny's worth of newsprint was spared to tell us their names. Apparently, 11 lives being lost in trying to help this country become oil independent is just expected and not really a tragedy. This fact just underscores the mainstream media's left-wing ECO-attitude towards the oil industry; even though coal is much dirtier than oil.

What The Left Can't Understand About Oil

Ever since the BP oil rig spill, the political left has been on the bandwagon to stop offshore drilling and, in fact, any drilling. Because of that, many are viewing this disaster as a godsend.

There have been immediate calls for more clean energy. People point to hybrids and electric as the means to get off imported oil. But, what the left can't seem to understand is that we have more than 200 million cars, boats, trains and planes that must use hydrocarbon fuels -- primarily derived from oil -- to operate. The average life of everyone of those cars is 9 years; including all those being sold today. As of this writing, hybrids only represent 3% of car sales with electric car sales being almost non-existent. That's because they're too expensive.

Further, while ethanol can somewhat reduce that dependency on oil-derived fuels, it doesn't address the fact the ethanol is very corrosive and it's application above 15% on anything other than an engine that was designed around the E85 standard can cause all kinds of expensive repair problems. Further, our increased use of corn to derive ethanol is placing a price hardship on all Americans. Since Congress has increased the use of ethanol in our fuels, the price of corn tripled from 2005 to mid-2008. Since then, the recession has forced the price of corn down but prices are still nearly 75% higher than in 2005.

The problem that America has is that, despite increases in fuel mileage and technology, our demand for oil keeps increasing in normal economic times. Only the recession has been able to temporarily abate the demand in the last two years. At same time, our oil production is declining and, now, it appears that, with this oil spill, any expanded domestic oil production is in jeopardy.

So, you figure it. If we have less domestic oil and more domestic demand, will we reduce or increase our dependency on foreign oil? Further, is having less environmentally aware and regulated countries drilling for our needed oil better for the world's overall environment? I don't think so. Would somebody please explain that to the political left! We need new sources of domestic oil in conjunction with new technologies in order to bridge the gap to an eventual migration to those new forms of energy. Otherwise, the increasing expense for gasoline continues to steal more and more money from every American; while sending billions to our enemies.

One last thing. Land-based drilling is a lot safer. I's pretty hard to fix a leak that is 5000 feet under water. Land based, non-ablaze, leaks can be stopped in short order. Yet, Obama has backed offshore drilling while blocking any drilling in Alaska or in the potential and massive 200,000 square mile oil fields of the Bakken formation located in Montana and North Dakota. Apparently, the left doesn't want ugly oil drilling, pipelines, and pumping equipment. Instead, they would prefer the attractiveness of thousands of 200 foot high wind turbines. This is insane. Literally, you might not be able to see the forest -- not for the trees -- but for the all Wind Turbines that are being built!

Why Didn't The Feds Do What They Said They Would?

In 1994, a Federal response plan, based on the mandates of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, was developed to insure that any oil spills were adequately contained and mopped up in the Gulf and elsewhere. The plan called for the use of In-Situ Burning of the spilled oil; using a containment device known as a fire boom. Yet, now 16 years after the response plan was developed and, only up until a couple of days ago, the U.S. Coast Guard was still without that crucial equipment, that if employed immediately after the spill, could have minimized or even eliminated the impending environmental oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (Click to See Full Story: Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill).

Like everything the government does, the Coast Guard spent more time investigating and testing than implementing. In fact, the last test that the Coast Guard did on In-Situ Burning was almost 10 years ago in September of 2000. And, it was successful. Yet, the equipment, as mandated by the response plan and the 1990 law, was never purchased. While all blame seems to be aimed at British Petroleum, I think it will come out in our courts that our own federal government was equally at fault for not protecting the ecology in the Gulf area. This fact may actually mitigate some of the charges and lawsuits against British Petroleum.

Here's a video on how the In-Situ Burning technique and the use of a fire boom system can effectively abate the ravages of a sea oil spill:



It literally took a week for the Coast Guard to get their hands on the only available fire boom in the country from Elastec American Marine in Illinois. In reality, this spill needed at least 8 of them. But, all they had was the one. And, so, we wait for the spill to reach the beaches and nature reserves all along the Gulf coast and, possibly, the Eastern seaboard.

The Seriousness of the BP Oil Situation Was Known From the Onset!

In my May 1st blog, I pointed out the fact that anyone knowing anything about the oil business knows that an explosion and uncontrolled fire on any sea-based or land-based drilling operation spells trouble. Now we know from a video (Click to See Full Story: Video shows federal officials knew quickly of potential for massive oil flow in Gulf spill) that was shot at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency's (NOAA) Seattle headquarters that the Federal Government knew early on about the potential danger! Yet, Obama was so preoccupied with Earth Day and his Wall Street agenda that he failed to mobilize anyone until 8 days into the disaster. I would think that Obama is in trouble on this; just as Bush was with Katrina. But, so far, the fact that this video even exists is being completely ignored by the mainstream media; thus, protecting their guy, Barack.

As a point of reference, NOAA is an agency that reports up to Obama through his Secretary of Commerce and the Commerce Department. So, he has no ability to claim that it is an independent agency; as in the case of the Securities and Exchange Commission filing suit against Goldman-Sachs. So, this screw-up is directly on his back.