Obama Distances Himself From BP
[Guest post by DRJ]
President Obama distanced himself from BP and its oil spill today, and even suggested the possibility of criminal charges:
“President Barack Obama on Tuesday used the strongest language yet to suggest that BP could face charges in connection with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the resulting oil spill, saying if any laws were broken, “my solemn pledge is that we will bring those responsible to justice.”
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Several Senate Democrats have urged the administration to consider criminal charges against BP. In a letter sent last month, eight members of the Environment and Public Works Committee asked Attorney General Eric Holder to probe whether BP made “false and misleading statements to the federal government regarding its ability to respond to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.”“In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it does not in any way appear that there was ‘proven equipment and technology’ to respond to the spill, which could have tragic consequences for local economies and the natural resources of the Gulf of Mexico,” said the letter from Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Holder is in the Gulf Tuesday visiting the area affected by the spill and meeting with U.S. attorneys. He is expected to make a statement at 3:30 p.m.”
Obama has also named a commission to investigate the spill to be chaired by former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) and William Reilly, the Republican former head of the Environmental Protection Agency. My forecast is the report will throw BP, and possibly the entire offshore drilling industry, under the bus.
— DRJ
Nice try by our esteemed POTUS, but since he already laid complete and utter claim to this problem a few days ago when it looked like it would be capped, any and all attempts to deflect responsibility now ring hollow. He can flog the BP execs in public, he can kangeroo – court them in a congressional hearing, but unfortunately he’s going to reap what he’s sown – watch the other Dems run for the hills as the huge globs of oil start stacking up on the shores of LA…and FLA…and ALA…
Dmac (3d61d9) — 6/1/2010 @ 12:13 pmHaving taken the wrong lesson from King Cnute’s beating of the waves and the subsequent retreat of the tides, The Won retreats.
htom (412a17) — 6/1/2010 @ 12:20 pmComment by Dmac — 6/1/2010 @ 12:13 pm
Yep yep – he wanted easy credit and now he looks like even more of a jerk.
He reminds me so much of a small-office boss beating his chest to Regional about how well his office handled the latest crisis and how hard he worked to make that happen. Then when the crisis turns out to have a new twist, he’s raging and staff and moaning to management about what a bunch of morons he has working for him.
The man is completely out of his depth and even the MSM is beginning to admit it.
Waiting patiently for the narcissistic-rage meltdown. Wonder how much longer…?
no one you know (196ed7) — 6/1/2010 @ 12:23 pmReally went out on a limb with that prediction, didn’t you!
dfbaskwill (e97ba1) — 6/1/2010 @ 12:24 pmThe meeting was caught on video….
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 6/1/2010 @ 12:26 pmmy prediction is that the report will blame obama enough to defend him against the claim that the investigation was a foregone conclusion, but not enough to really damn him.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 6/1/2010 @ 1:25 pmThe buck stops over there.
jakee308 (ace517) — 6/1/2010 @ 1:50 pmNo, no. I said OVER THERE! Not here.
The buck doesn’t come anywhere near HERE.
jakee308 (ace517) — 6/1/2010 @ 1:51 pmwtf, the people that ran the well are to blame for the fuckup. The US government wasn’t running the well, british petroleum was. So they get the blame for the spill. The us gov can have the blame for not having more regulation. Obama can have the blame for not cleaning up the mess Bush left quickly enough, or taking this seriously enough. But I’m going to blame the oil company that fucked up the well for the spill.
Time123 (b7cad2) — 6/1/2010 @ 3:51 pmtesting
Dmac (3d61d9) — 6/1/2010 @ 4:01 pmDon’t worry, guys — even if Dear Leader is distancing himself from BP and showing remarkably low interest in the oil spill, we can rest easy knowing that we now have Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson on the case.
Yeah, this one is probably going into the spam filter thanks to that link, but I figured it might be worth the laugh.
[Yep… but fished out. 😉 –Stashiu]
JVW (264cc1) — 6/1/2010 @ 4:35 pmThe Clown-in-Chief’s DOJ will now proceed to travel down to the Gulf to spend time second guessing, looking over shoulders and perusing criminal and civil statutes as the administration does everything humanly possible to facilitate the clean-up effort.
GeneralMalaise (8de279) — 6/1/2010 @ 4:51 pmtime123 — according to the government, everything that BP did was allowable and approved of. So how is it BP’s fault? The great supervisor of all knowledge and understanding approved (that is, the government agency), this must be the work of some evil demon.
htom (412a17) — 6/1/2010 @ 4:56 pmAnother dizzying, desperate “pivot” in the saga of Just Plug the Damn Hole.
That’s great–Obama can’t get booms to LA but he’s siccing Stedman on BP in the midst of an economic/environmental crisis.
Patricia (160852) — 6/1/2010 @ 7:25 pmEarlier this evening I saw a supposed live feed with the “jaws” on the pipeline, presumably ready to make a clean and straight cut across the pipe.
Are any of our knowledgable professionals still out there? Can’t they crimp off the pipe and seal it? (Metal of pipe too brittle?) I don’t understand the reported pessimism on the story, going back to my semi-serious/semi-spoof of a few days ago, after the pipe has a clean cut made, thread into it a smaller pipe with an expandable collar around it. “They” design hook-ups that can refuel airplanes in flight, this target is sitting still. What am I not understanding?
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 6/1/2010 @ 8:21 pmMD in Philly — I think that the largest problem at the moment is the tremendous uncontrolled pressure of the fluid flow. The tanker (or parts in the drogue) can start and stop the fuel in the pipeline to the receiving aircraft; if the pumps were full on and there was no control of the fuel flow aerial refueling would not work. The current mess has those controls broken; this new BP scheme is to cut them all off, and to then attach new ones. Simple with no flow, with flow it’s hard to just put the new part in place.
htom (412a17) — 6/1/2010 @ 10:52 pmThanks for the response htom.
Apparently (other thread) the saw apparatus is now stuck.
I guess I still don’t know why they can’t crush the pipe from outside, unless the metal is too strong for the kind of equipment they can get down there (I doubt that), or the metal is brittle enough that instead of bending shut it would break. The other possibility is that they are still trying to stop the flow in a way that will allow the well to produce, instead of making it a priority to “just make it stop leaking”.
As far as they flow issue goes, that’s why instead of capping it I suggested threading a small pipe (relatively streamlined) into it, and once inside far enough, “blow up a balloon”. (Heart catheterizations, etc., “go against the flow”.) I guess it is possible since it is oil, afterall, there would be inadequate friction between the walls of the pipe and the balloon to hold it in place.
Earlier we had posts from several folk who seemed to be professionals familiar with these things, I wonder where they are now?
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 6/2/2010 @ 12:20 pmThey did thread a smaller pipe (with a stopper device) inside the larger one. It worked for awhile but it only caught a fraction of the oil because the pressure was too great.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/2/2010 @ 12:27 pmThanks DRJ,
I’m not sure what the purpose of that pipe was. if the cross sectional area of a pipe is 3.14159 x (radiusxradius), then approx the cross sectional area of the 12″ pipe is 3x6x6=108, the area of the siphon tube was 3x2x2=12. Of course the smaller tube was going to capture only a very small percentage of the total oil flow. Did they give up on that and take it out? Was it pushed out? In medical procedures once a “tube” (vein/artery) is accessed, larger or smaller tubes/wires are threaded inside or over the original “line”. Were they planning to insert a larger tube over the 4 inch?
Whatever they were trying to do, it doesn’t seem like they were trying to close and seal the pipe. If they can thread a 4 inch diameter tube into the pipe trying to siphon 10% or so, they can thread a device like a collapsed umbrella covering a deflated balloon with sharp metal feet that can impale the inside walls of the pipe. The device threads down into the pipe, the “umbrella” is opened and the force of the oil rushing out forces the tips of the umbrella into the pipe wall, then the kevlar “balloon” or “bladder” attached to the umbrella is filled with high pressure gas to inflate it and occlude the pipe. Perhaps liquid concrete could be piped down, it would be contained within the balloon and held in place by the umbrella ribs until hardened.
For Mike K and others this should bring to mind a “Greenfield Filter” (oriented backwards) like device over an angioplasty balloon, but just a tad bigger.
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 6/2/2010 @ 1:10 pmAnother factor is that the excessive flow has continued for so long, heating and wearing (through friction) the inside of the pipe. Attempts to squeeze it close may result in zipper-like cracks, perhaps.
(The Greenfield filter itself was a modification of a sludge filter used in the oil industry, and that modified from an anti-theft-by-siphon gadget for cars! The things you learn when your brother is sick.)
htom (412a17) — 6/2/2010 @ 3:02 pmThe Greenfield filter itself was a modification of a sludge filter used in the oil industry
That’s an interesting bit of knowledge…
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 6/2/2010 @ 5:03 pmwhich means they have even less of an excuse for not using it already!