Patterico's Pontifications

6/16/2010

Presidential Malpractice in the Gulf

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 6:11 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

If this is true, it seems like decision-making malpractice by the President and his hand-picked team:

“Three days after the Gulf oil rig explosion, the Netherlands offered to send in oil skimmers to pump oil off of the surface of the ocean. The Obama Administration turned them down because they were not 100% efficient and small amounts of oil would be pumped back into the Gulf with the excess water.EPA regulations do not allow for residue water to contain any oil. So rather than use equipment that was not 100% efficient the Obama Administration chose to let all of the oil run into the Gulf.”

Further, the article states “the administration still has not given the OK to allow emergency workers to use a Maine company’s oil boom even though they were made aware of the warehouse full of containment boom back on May 21.” According to Hot Air, the Maine company’s boom is reportedly superior its competition.

— DRJ

26 Responses to “Presidential Malpractice in the Gulf”

  1. I love the part where ” …EPA regulations do not allow water with oil to be pumped back into the ocean”.

    They can’t figure out that removing some of the oil out of the water is better than leaving all of the oil in the water?

    And I bet somewhere there is are EPA bureaucrats who are defending the policy. Perhaps it’s good that they work for the government, they’d starve if they had to survive in the private sector.

    steve sturm (116925)

  2. Hey, the EPA has rules, and those rules WILL be observed.
    Having Carol Browner’s, and Lisa Jackson’s heads assplode would be an ugly sight – welcome, but still ugly!

    AD - RtR/OS! (eef339)

  3. This is what you get when, like progressives, you make a fetish out of the power of the administrative state.

    Fritz (0b0d73)

  4. “If the life of just one child is saved….”

    AD - RtR/OS! (eef339)

  5. Huh

    Experts and Nobel prize winners….

    Lemme see.

    BP is prime contractor. Whose ass to kick one day 3-5? BP.
    BP will in turn get after their subcontractors.

    Duh.

    I could have done this after 6 margaritas.

    Then I could have another round and call the EPA and tell them to get over their rules for a minute or two

    But then I’ve run a jobsite all by myself without needing a Nobel prize winner
    (like the value of that award hasn’t been diluted)

    Plus, Nobel?
    Really?
    Obama has one and it is worth zero, but he is out there saying “hey look at his Nobel (and well, ahem… mine…)”

    SteveG (9fb25f)

  6. “Magical thinking” is what children commonly do, When adults do it, things don’t work out too well, as in, “We will use a 100% efficient system”, assuming one exists just because you want it to. People in leadership positions who don’t know how to lead do this all the time, like Obama’s, “Just plug the hole!”. (Just get the report done by Friday!!! I don’t care to hear your excuses why it can’t be done, I want it Friday!!”)

    What is the chance that someday there will be a Congressional panel, or some other process with subpoena powers and consequences for perjury? A book on this will be required reading for every MBA student and public policy/administration student- “How to turn a difficult problem into an environmental, financial, and political disaster”.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  7. haiku think big O
    not know what do nobel prize
    useful as boar teats

    ColonelHaiku (523269)

  8. Perfect is the enemy of the good, or something like that. Or, they are just a bunch of douchenozzles.

    JD (4b684a)

  9. Somebody in this clown show has to realize that the next Congress will have a feeding frenzy of investigation as Republicans take over. The Dims were going to have war crimes trials for Bush and Cheney. The difference is that these guys really have committed crimes.

    Mike K (82f374)

  10. Does any American still believe that government can rescue us from any and all predicaments?

    We had a “bad” president and now we have a “good” president, in their worldview–but he’s a bigger screw up than the first one.

    Wise up, liberals.

    Patricia (160852)

  11. “It’s right here in the manual, Wrangler Jane. You can’t use inefficient skimmers, or accept help from an ally without the proper paperwork.”

    Captain Wilton Parmenter President Barack Hussein Obama.

    Matador (5f7b37)

  12. Maybe Bobbie Jindal could go up and pick up some booms from Maine. It looks like Obie Loser isn’t going to do so any time soon.

    TimothyJ (a61b05)

  13. You know that there’s diddly all that the Federal gubmint or Obama could do to stop the well once the explosion occurred. The government simply has no expertise or equipment to do that job at 5,000′ below the surface. That’s BP’s pie along with their contractors.

    There is/was a hell of a lot that the federal government could do and should have done to stop the oil from coming ashore. BP will have to pay for it but first and foremost, it’s a government show. You get the Coast Guard, the oil booms, the sand berms, the skimmer boats, the fire boats, the National Guard mobilized et al. Yes BP pays for it—but it doesn’t do it.

    If Obama and the cabal of cretins that surrounds him there in Washington had been managers and executives instead of posturing politicall opportunists, there would have been a face to face meeting, or at least a telephone conference call between Obama, the head of FEMA, the Coast Guard, the Governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida on no later than day 3.

    Obama’s questions would have been: 1. How bad is the spill? 2. What are you going to do to fix it?
    3. How can I help you get it done? 4. What does it look like as far as coming on shore? 5. What steps can we take to mitigate that? 6. How can I help you expedite the process?

    Now Obama could have expedited the process by waiving the Jones Act, telling the EPA and the Corps of Engineers to take a frickin’ hike if they got in the way of mitigaation steps etc.

    Bur our petulant prepubescent posturing prevaricator never met a leader–or learned how to be one.

    Mike Myers (3c9845)

  14. “Three days after the Gulf oil rig explosion, the Netherlands offered to send in oil skimmers to pump oil off of the surface of the ocean. The Obama Administration turned them down because they were not 100% efficient and small amounts of oil would be pumped back into the Gulf with the excess water. EPA regulations do not allow for residue water to contain any oil. So rather than use equipment that was not 100% efficient the Obama Administration chose to let all of the oil run into the Gulf. This is not just bad policy, it is criminal.

    Is there a prohibition anywhere that would prohibit a state from criminally indicting a sitting president?

    Sara (Pal2Pal) (4d3f49)

  15. Demanding 100% efficiency is absolutely ridiculous. Better is better; removing some of the oil is better than removing none at all.

    Pathetic.

    And 30 days later he talked about exploring all possible solutions! [shakes head]

    Icy Texan (f9fbdf)

  16. Bureaucrats. As long as the process is followed precisely, they are happy. Results are irrelevant.

    LarryD (feb78b)

  17. This is the problem with letting government take over all of our economy, they get in the way of solutions.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  18. What we diddn’t hear from Oboma

    Skimmer boats available,,,, Oboma not interested

    “Today White House Environmental Advisor, Carol Browner told Fox News that the Obama administration had “not received a request from the Coast Guard to waive the Jones Act.””

    Well since the Coast Guard does not seem to have anything to do with the Jones Act, I would not look forward to such a request ever coming.

    Obama is waiting for the Chicago Dock workers union to make contact and approve this!

    TC (d10a59)

  19. I think one county in AL got tired of waiting for approval and put barges out to protect their harbor.

    Did Jindahl have approval before he started dropping sand bags?

    I guess it might be hard to tell somebody else to commandeer their ship in to help in spite of the Jones act and watch if the Coast Guard enforces it.

    I bet even Kevin Costner wishes he chartered a barge himself and just started using his machinery.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  20. The lengthening post – mortem on this fiasco is going to continue for years after the well finally is capped.

    Dmac (3d61d9)

  21. First off, the USCG is the enforcement agency for Maritime Law.

    Secondly, the 100% requirement from EPA for the efficiency of the skimmers is the same bureaucratic mindset that we see in their administration of the Clean Air Act:
    That technology has reduced the amount of polutants in auto exhaust approx. 97% from the levels found in 1965 (when the original CAA was written) is not good enough for the EnviroNazis; they want to eliminate that last 3% too, at an incredible increment of cost and with technology that does not, and possibly never will, exist.
    Once again letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

    Also, remember that it was Browner/EPA that bitched like Hell about the chemical dispersant that BP was using, claiming it was too toxic and that BP should substitute a less-toxic one – which was not available in the quantities that BP required, which EPA reluctantly acknowledged and subsequently backed-off.

    And, in controlling the spread of the spill, let us not forget that the first step called for in the law passed by Congress and the regulations written by the EPA/Coast Guard, was to surround the surfacing oil with fire booms and burn it while it was still containable.
    But, the Government – who wrote these requirements into law in 1994 – never bought any fire-booms to accomplish this task.
    I guess they figured they would magically appear when needed carried by unicorns and set the oil on fire using incendiary pixie-dust.

    AD - RtR/OS! (76c972)

  22. I worked in asbestos abatement for about a year. At that time the EPA was trying to muscle in to the regulation of the work and OSHA was pushing back.
    The major issue that they were fighting over was that OSHA required the contractors to vent the work space by venting huge amounts of air out of the containment area. The air is filtered through two sets of 99.9% efficient filters to capture the tiny fibers that may be floating in the air. This results in far fewer such particals in the air where people are working (in respirators).
    The EPA wanted to ban the venting of the containment areas which would have made the concentration of fibers much higher inside the work area to avoid the literally 1 in a million particle that avoids all of the filters.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  23. When I was doing that work I also wore those Tyvek suits and I feel for the guys working in the full sun in them in the gulf. It is completely rediculuos to have guys working in those suits cleaning up pea sized tarball while being watched by girls in bikinis.

    Believe me you have to wear one of those in a warm enviroment before you can understand it. Buy one at Home Depot and wear it for twenty minutes in the sun. Remember to seal the ankles and wrists with duct tape. I don’t know whether they are using the ones with hoods.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  24. The true tragedy in all of this is that there are numerous examples of when the government could have taken action and didn’t. This is what happens when you have someone in a leadership position who doesn’t know how to lead. Are you telling me that a Nobel Peace Prize winner can’t figure out that it is better to have water with 5% oil in it than water with 100% oil in it. Who gives a damn is a small percentage of oil is left that’s obviously better than what was started with. EPIC FAIL. And they don’t have the excuse of this has never happened before….rig explosion with drilling at those depths, no. Oil spill, yes it has happened and you still couldn’t respond.

    PRM (310ebf)

  25. Dishonesty in Obama’s recent speech is outlined by Powerline’s John Hinderacker.

    SPQR (26be8b)


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