The Spill, The Scandal and the President(rollingstone.com)
rollingstone.com
The Spill, The Scandal and the President
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965
5 comments
You bring up a good point. There is a tendency on the part of figures of authority to pretend they have more power than they do. For Obama to take "responsibility" is total hubris. He's about as powerful to stop the spill as you or I.
The question he must ask himself is, "how can I act like I have power?"
The question he must ask himself is, "how can I act like I have power?"
Can you post your sources so I can better inform myself?
Here's TransOceanic's Spec Sheet For DeepWater Horizon:
http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.htm...
From the NY Times: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/0521spill....
Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100529174827AA...
There were more at boston.com including excellent photos of the spill and the efforts to control it.
... to name a few.
From the NY Times: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/0521spill....
Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100529174827AA...
There were more at boston.com including excellent photos of the spill and the efforts to control it.
... to name a few.
I can understand -- sort of -- holding up lax regulation as something blameworthy here. More to fault is BP for not taking the possibility of disaster seriously and (apparently) having a dramatically worse safety record than other large oil companies.
But other than that, I don't get it. Why blame Obama for taking a week to act? What could he have done? And what can he do now? Imagine the volcano in Iceland had been caused by human agency somehow. Would people still demand "action" or "leadership", especially from politicians, to magically stop the volcanic eruption? Maybe it's just not possible to stop once it's started.
But other than that, I don't get it. Why blame Obama for taking a week to act? What could he have done? And what can he do now? Imagine the volcano in Iceland had been caused by human agency somehow. Would people still demand "action" or "leadership", especially from politicians, to magically stop the volcanic eruption? Maybe it's just not possible to stop once it's started.
> But other than that, I don't get it. Why blame Obama for taking a week to act? What could he have done?
He could have invoked the plan for such leaks the very first day. (Yes, there was a plan. A lot of the "surprises" were actually addressed by said plan. For example, burning would have made a huge difference at the beginning.)
It's not just the first week. There are choke points where barriers (sand and others) can be constructed to block oil from getting to sensitive places. In many cases, the regulatory agencies didn't bother to approve until too late. (Yup, the sand might cause some disruption, but the alternative is oil....)
And there's the small matter of the Dutch skimmers. Can't have them - they're foreign, but the Jones act can be waived by the president.
This weekend, we found out that a number of oil sucking barges were sent back to the docks (after they'd spent several days sucking up oil). Why? Because the Coast Guard couldn't verify the number of life preservers and fire extinguishers on board and couldn't contact the owners.
Coasties can and do count LPs and FEs on boats every day, so the count question is bureaucratic ass-covering and ownership matters only if you still haven't waived the Jones act requiring domestic ownership.
He could have invoked the plan for such leaks the very first day. (Yes, there was a plan. A lot of the "surprises" were actually addressed by said plan. For example, burning would have made a huge difference at the beginning.)
It's not just the first week. There are choke points where barriers (sand and others) can be constructed to block oil from getting to sensitive places. In many cases, the regulatory agencies didn't bother to approve until too late. (Yup, the sand might cause some disruption, but the alternative is oil....)
And there's the small matter of the Dutch skimmers. Can't have them - they're foreign, but the Jones act can be waived by the president.
This weekend, we found out that a number of oil sucking barges were sent back to the docks (after they'd spent several days sucking up oil). Why? Because the Coast Guard couldn't verify the number of life preservers and fire extinguishers on board and couldn't contact the owners.
Coasties can and do count LPs and FEs on boats every day, so the count question is bureaucratic ass-covering and ownership matters only if you still haven't waived the Jones act requiring domestic ownership.
Lax regulation? Not only was regulation lax, but there was a liability cap on spill damages. That's a regulation that amounts to a handout!
To your second point, at the critical moment of public outrage Obama lowballed the estimate of how much oil was flowing into the gulf. His actions have mainly had the effect of buying time and preventing public outrage.
What if he handn't acted this way? Maybe the American people would have demanded an end to all offshore drilling.
I think it's relevant to point out that if Obama were the kind of guy who would even remotely consider cracking down on oil industry excesses he would not be in the oval office today.
To your second point, at the critical moment of public outrage Obama lowballed the estimate of how much oil was flowing into the gulf. His actions have mainly had the effect of buying time and preventing public outrage.
What if he handn't acted this way? Maybe the American people would have demanded an end to all offshore drilling.
I think it's relevant to point out that if Obama were the kind of guy who would even remotely consider cracking down on oil industry excesses he would not be in the oval office today.
For the nth time, the $75m liability cap only applied to cases of genuine accident, not those involving gross negligence; it only capped punitive liability and not mitigation costs anyway; and it was a statutory provision made into law back in 1990, a generation ago. Pointing to this as if it was indicative of current political machinations is completely misleading.
What is an accident? Why was the recent spill the result of negligence rather than an accident? The difference is a matter of some bureaucratic definition, not of reality.
Offshore drilling is always a gamble. Any diffusion of the risk to the public / taxpayers shows that the firms used their influence with regulators to stack the deck in their favor, and that regulators complied.
Offshore drilling is always a gamble. Any diffusion of the risk to the public / taxpayers shows that the firms used their influence with regulators to stack the deck in their favor, and that regulators complied.
Absurd. The public necessarily shares some risk to the extent that it asserts a claim over, and collects royalties for mineral resources extracted from US territorial waters.
You are saying that the American Public should feel lucky that BP is extracting oil and just tolerate spills and incompetence?
You did not address my remark about the difference between accidents and negligence. Also, the public bears the risk of environmental damage which should be offset by an additional disincentive not to have 'accidents' underwritten by taxpayers.
"...but there was a liability cap on spill damages."
I believe it is called "tort reform".
I believe it is called "tort reform".
"Most troubling of all, the government has allowed BP to continue deep-sea production at its Atlantis rig – one of the world's largest oil platforms. Capable of drawing 200,000 barrels a day from the seafloor, Atlantis is located only 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana, in waters nearly 2,000 feet deeper than BP drilled at Deepwater Horizon. According to congressional documents, the platform lacks required engineering certification for as much as 90 percent of its subsea components – a flaw that internal BP documents reveal could lead to 'catastrophic' errors."
If Obama were the sort of guy who would even remotely consider messing with the oil industry, he would not be in the oval office right now.
Similarly if he were the sort of guy who would even remotely consider pulling out of Iraq he would not be in the oval office right now.
It's important to realize how much intrenched power the oil industry has and to what extent it is able to influence policy. Obama will dish out a lot of tough talk and fines to BP, but he won't mess with the industry as a whole by enacting meaningful reforms.
Similarly if he were the sort of guy who would even remotely consider pulling out of Iraq he would not be in the oval office right now.
It's important to realize how much intrenched power the oil industry has and to what extent it is able to influence policy. Obama will dish out a lot of tough talk and fines to BP, but he won't mess with the industry as a whole by enacting meaningful reforms.
People interested in this might also be interested in how Senator Obama handled a tritium leak in Illinois before he ran for president: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html
(EDIT: deleted carping about moderator changing title of post.)
(EDIT: deleted carping about moderator changing title of post.)
I'm not sure what the one has to do with the other.
In one case, a power plant near Rockford is associated with elevated levels of tritium, and Obama, a freshman senator with almost no regulatory affiliation to nuclear power generation, attempts to pass a bill requiring more stringent notification of possible radiation leaks. Meanwhile, state and federal regulatory bodies that Obama has no oversight over take over the incident, fine the plant, and create more stringent notification requirements.
In the other, Obama, now elected president, is forced to decide whether to allow an allegedly expert company with severe conflicts of interest to coordinate and direct the mitigation of the largest environmental disaster the country has ever faced, a disaster they themselves caused, or instead create from whole cloth the federal capability to coordinate and direct that mitigation.
The only thing these two stories have in common is that there's no "good guy", "bad guy" template to lay over them, unless you want to try for "cheap and inevitably unsafe energy bad", "bicycles good".
In one case, a power plant near Rockford is associated with elevated levels of tritium, and Obama, a freshman senator with almost no regulatory affiliation to nuclear power generation, attempts to pass a bill requiring more stringent notification of possible radiation leaks. Meanwhile, state and federal regulatory bodies that Obama has no oversight over take over the incident, fine the plant, and create more stringent notification requirements.
In the other, Obama, now elected president, is forced to decide whether to allow an allegedly expert company with severe conflicts of interest to coordinate and direct the mitigation of the largest environmental disaster the country has ever faced, a disaster they themselves caused, or instead create from whole cloth the federal capability to coordinate and direct that mitigation.
The only thing these two stories have in common is that there's no "good guy", "bad guy" template to lay over them, unless you want to try for "cheap and inevitably unsafe energy bad", "bicycles good".
In one case, after a radioactive byproduct of an Illinois power plant leaked into his constituents' well water, Senator Obama sponsored legislation to require nuclear power plants to report all abnormal leaks, not just ones they determined to rise to 'emergency' levels. The power company, Exelon, believed that the leak arose from "millions of gallons of water that had leaked from the plant years earlier but went unreported at the time" because the leak was not considered an 'emergency'. Faced with stiff opposition to the bill from industry and Republicans, Obama "removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators," and added "new wording sought by Exelon making it clear that state and local authorities would have no regulatory oversight of nuclear power plants." Exelon subsequently became a big Obama supporter, with exectives in the company becoming important fund-raisers, and direct corporate contributions of $227,000 to his Senate and Presidential campaigns. The full Senate never voted on the bill.
In the other case, Obama, now elected President, fails to follow through on reform of an agency he had decried while running for office, and instead continues to allow the foxes to mind the hen house, as detailed in the Rolling Stone article.
What do the two articles have to do with one another? As you say, there's no "good guy" or "bad guy" template to lay over them. But there is a tension, or ambiguity, between whether Obama is a populist reformer, or a conservative (in the original sense of the word) pragmatist. These two articles show how Obama is good at rattling his saber and mobilizing the base while on the campaign trail, while also being willing to make deals and accommodate industry interests in order to get things done (and perhaps not incidentally accrue contributions to his campaign coffers).
This is a far subtler picture than the socialist caricature painted by the right, and the Messiah caricature painted by the left. It is probably incorrect in places. But these two articles help me to put that picture together. I think Obama would've been comfortable with the moderate Republicans of twenty years ago, ideologically and temperamentally. Today's moderates seem to need to play more strongly to their left- or right-wing bases than they used to in order to get elected. I'm starting to see this playbook, and starting to see Obama (and Clinton before him) as being a master of that playbook.
I'm no student of politics or history, this is just the gestalt I see.
(EDIT: delete first sentence, edit last sentence of next-to-last paragraph)
In the other case, Obama, now elected President, fails to follow through on reform of an agency he had decried while running for office, and instead continues to allow the foxes to mind the hen house, as detailed in the Rolling Stone article.
What do the two articles have to do with one another? As you say, there's no "good guy" or "bad guy" template to lay over them. But there is a tension, or ambiguity, between whether Obama is a populist reformer, or a conservative (in the original sense of the word) pragmatist. These two articles show how Obama is good at rattling his saber and mobilizing the base while on the campaign trail, while also being willing to make deals and accommodate industry interests in order to get things done (and perhaps not incidentally accrue contributions to his campaign coffers).
This is a far subtler picture than the socialist caricature painted by the right, and the Messiah caricature painted by the left. It is probably incorrect in places. But these two articles help me to put that picture together. I think Obama would've been comfortable with the moderate Republicans of twenty years ago, ideologically and temperamentally. Today's moderates seem to need to play more strongly to their left- or right-wing bases than they used to in order to get elected. I'm starting to see this playbook, and starting to see Obama (and Clinton before him) as being a master of that playbook.
I'm no student of politics or history, this is just the gestalt I see.
(EDIT: delete first sentence, edit last sentence of next-to-last paragraph)
Your accounting of the Byron plant story drastically oversimplifies the actual events. It casts Obama as somehow central to the story when, again, he had virtually no formal oversight over nuclear regulation. It attempts to read tea leaves about Obama's mentality out of the progress of pushing a bill --- itself a meaningless political reaction to an event in his backyard, a sop to his constituents --- past stiff opposition, as if the alternative to "watering down" this bill was strong new legislation on nuclear regs, which of course it wasn't.
In short, it attempts to make Obama the go-along get-along energy-insider-pol "bad guy" in a story that not only has no good guys or bad guys, but also almost nothing at all to do with Obama.
In short, it attempts to make Obama the go-along get-along energy-insider-pol "bad guy" in a story that not only has no good guys or bad guys, but also almost nothing at all to do with Obama.
"My" accounting is derived entirely from what I read in that New York Times article. I'm not clear if you're criticizing my read of the article, or the article itself. If the latter, do you have any other accounts that provide further detail? The vehemence of your responses suggests you might live in the area?
when, again, he had virtually no formal oversight over nuclear regulation
Elected members of a representative democracy are charged with producing the legislation that defines "formal oversight", and with using feedback from their constituents to do so. Who else should his aggrieved constituents have turned to in this case?
go-along get-along energy-insider-pol "bad guy"
Not really. His behavior is typical of politicians across the board (except the ones who don't get elected). I agree with you that his legislation might be characterized as "a sop to his constituents". This doesn't make him one of the bad guys, it just means he is not the leftist demagogue/messiah some make him out to be.
attempts to read tea leaves about Obama's mentality
Sure, I think this is fair game. He (like his predecessor) is a bit of a cipher.
Anyway, this thread started because you asked me what I saw in common between the two articles. That's what I saw in common. YMMV.
when, again, he had virtually no formal oversight over nuclear regulation
Elected members of a representative democracy are charged with producing the legislation that defines "formal oversight", and with using feedback from their constituents to do so. Who else should his aggrieved constituents have turned to in this case?
go-along get-along energy-insider-pol "bad guy"
Not really. His behavior is typical of politicians across the board (except the ones who don't get elected). I agree with you that his legislation might be characterized as "a sop to his constituents". This doesn't make him one of the bad guys, it just means he is not the leftist demagogue/messiah some make him out to be.
attempts to read tea leaves about Obama's mentality
Sure, I think this is fair game. He (like his predecessor) is a bit of a cipher.
Anyway, this thread started because you asked me what I saw in common between the two articles. That's what I saw in common. YMMV.
I live in Chicago, which is an hour or so from Rockford. I didn't actually manage to extract a "here's what Obama is about" narrative from the NYT article. Here's what I think:
• Take anything Obama touched during his time in the Senate.
• Note that we still have that problem. For instance: immigration, border security, mines, spending transparency, no-bid contracting, nonproliferation, and (of course) peace in West Asia. (Note how I cheated by reading 1 Wikipedia graf to generate that list. You could broaden the list by finding things he did in the Senate that weren't notable because they went nowhere.)
• For bonus points, find some large organization that contributes uniformly to major political candidates of one or both parties that is relevant to the problem Obama attempted to solve.
• Write a message board post with the same narrative as your original post.
• Take anything Obama touched during his time in the Senate.
• Note that we still have that problem. For instance: immigration, border security, mines, spending transparency, no-bid contracting, nonproliferation, and (of course) peace in West Asia. (Note how I cheated by reading 1 Wikipedia graf to generate that list. You could broaden the list by finding things he did in the Senate that weren't notable because they went nowhere.)
• For bonus points, find some large organization that contributes uniformly to major political candidates of one or both parties that is relevant to the problem Obama attempted to solve.
• Write a message board post with the same narrative as your original post.
It's an interesting summation of your perspective, thanks. You depict Obama as one molecule in a sort of political Brownian motion, with me & the Times acting as a cherry-picking Maxwell's Demon.
A hard thesis to disprove, and I'll let it go from here. But I'll note that in contrast to the examples in your list (with the possible issue of no-bid contracting, I don't know about this), this tritium issue was local, raised by Obama's constituents. Also, "Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceed[ed] its support for any other presidential candidate."
A hard thesis to disprove, and I'll let it go from here. But I'll note that in contrast to the examples in your list (with the possible issue of no-bid contracting, I don't know about this), this tritium issue was local, raised by Obama's constituents. Also, "Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceed[ed] its support for any other presidential candidate."
It seems to me a 99.99999% near absolute certainty that he'd have been nowhere near nuclear regulation if this hadn't happened in his back yard. Which makes it, to my mind, a pretty silly thing to try to mine for insight. Any senator from any state would have had to react somehow to an incident like that.
In 1967 the the house estimated that Medicare would cost $9 Billion a year by 1990. The real number would turn out to be $67 Billion.
Every week or so the rate of the oil leak is revised upwards. What was once a spill has turned into a bad spill and now is being called a disaster. This seems consistent with the way most government estimates work.
Ironically it is almost as if we need an independent body with no power to spend money but with complete auditing power to get the public actual numbers.
Every week or so the rate of the oil leak is revised upwards. What was once a spill has turned into a bad spill and now is being called a disaster. This seems consistent with the way most government estimates work.
Ironically it is almost as if we need an independent body with no power to spend money but with complete auditing power to get the public actual numbers.
Let us hope that someone involved sends the truth to WikiLeaks! We can't expect to get it from Obama or from BP.
Now that the buck stops with Obama, we can expect him to actively work to prevent the public from getting outraged.
Now that the buck stops with Obama, we can expect him to actively work to prevent the public from getting outraged.
I guess that's why he got BP to put $20 billion into an escrow fund. What is it you want him to do, exactly?
Back when he was talking about the need for more alternative fuels etc. I kept hearing about how he was interfering too much with markets and was a closet statist/socialist/Communist. Of course a few months ago otherwise sane people were still chanting 'drill baby drill' at political rallies.
Back when he was talking about the need for more alternative fuels etc. I kept hearing about how he was interfering too much with markets and was a closet statist/socialist/Communist. Of course a few months ago otherwise sane people were still chanting 'drill baby drill' at political rallies.
Think about it this way:
What should be done: A systematic review of all offshore drilling practices and regulations and a significant reassessment, which would likely lead to the closing of hundreds of productive wells.
What will be done: A massive fine to BP and minor regulatory changes.
Obama is acting like a company man on this one, of course BP will be scapegoated, with the primary goal being to prevent widespread reforms from occurring and focusing on the idea that the problem is BP's negligence rather than on using the new information (spills can be very very bad) to question the practice of offshore drilling being worthwhile in the first place.
What should be done: A systematic review of all offshore drilling practices and regulations and a significant reassessment, which would likely lead to the closing of hundreds of productive wells.
What will be done: A massive fine to BP and minor regulatory changes.
Obama is acting like a company man on this one, of course BP will be scapegoated, with the primary goal being to prevent widespread reforms from occurring and focusing on the idea that the problem is BP's negligence rather than on using the new information (spills can be very very bad) to question the practice of offshore drilling being worthwhile in the first place.
Your way of thinking seems to involve substituting portentous phrases for actual argument.
We know spills can be bad; while the degree of damage resulting from this one should certainly be factored into cost-benefit calculations, and prospective drillers required to plan and put up security for such eventualities, we still need to consider probability too. The fact is that incidents of this kind are quite rare in developed countries nowadays.
"Obama = coroporate shill" is just as stupid and mindless as "drill baby drill". 'Systematic review...significant reassessment' - mere buzzwords. If you think his policy should be to just halt deepwater drilling then OK, I can respect that point of view even if I don't fully agree. But please stop hiding behind a mask of pseudo-objectivity.
We know spills can be bad; while the degree of damage resulting from this one should certainly be factored into cost-benefit calculations, and prospective drillers required to plan and put up security for such eventualities, we still need to consider probability too. The fact is that incidents of this kind are quite rare in developed countries nowadays.
"Obama = coroporate shill" is just as stupid and mindless as "drill baby drill". 'Systematic review...significant reassessment' - mere buzzwords. If you think his policy should be to just halt deepwater drilling then OK, I can respect that point of view even if I don't fully agree. But please stop hiding behind a mask of pseudo-objectivity.
We knew spills are bad before the Deepwater Horizon spill, however the estimates of environmental damage (for the worst case scenario foreseen) were far smaller than what has already occurred with the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Why? Because spills of the magnitude of this one are quite rare. But, like any low probability event, as the time horizon increases the probability approaches 1.
Obama knows that another spill is very unlikely to happen soon, so he is under no pressure to create a new regulatory environment that actually reduces that probability.
The gulf is a public resource, and so the question for the American people should be something along the lines of: If we are likely to get a Deepwater Horizon level spill every 20 years, should we still allow drilling? My guess is that (barring misinformation) most Americans would agree that we should absolutely not allow any offshore drilling at all.
Offshore drilling in the US does not have a meaningful impact on oil/gas prices as experienced by consumers. It simply enriches the firms that extract that oil, but not enough is extracted to significantly impact the market price of a global commodity.
Supporters of offshore drilling claim that gas would be $10 at the pump without it... which is total nonsense. If anything we'd see about a $0.05 increase per gallon at the pump.
What is your explanation for why Obama is not doing more to create systematic reforms that decrease the chances of another spill? It sounds like you think he wisely views the risk as acceptably low.
Why? Because spills of the magnitude of this one are quite rare. But, like any low probability event, as the time horizon increases the probability approaches 1.
Obama knows that another spill is very unlikely to happen soon, so he is under no pressure to create a new regulatory environment that actually reduces that probability.
The gulf is a public resource, and so the question for the American people should be something along the lines of: If we are likely to get a Deepwater Horizon level spill every 20 years, should we still allow drilling? My guess is that (barring misinformation) most Americans would agree that we should absolutely not allow any offshore drilling at all.
Offshore drilling in the US does not have a meaningful impact on oil/gas prices as experienced by consumers. It simply enriches the firms that extract that oil, but not enough is extracted to significantly impact the market price of a global commodity.
Supporters of offshore drilling claim that gas would be $10 at the pump without it... which is total nonsense. If anything we'd see about a $0.05 increase per gallon at the pump.
What is your explanation for why Obama is not doing more to create systematic reforms that decrease the chances of another spill? It sounds like you think he wisely views the risk as acceptably low.
Multinational comglomerates the size of BP have such a large quiver of resources at their disposal that it seemed all it would take was the desire to act and it would get done.
So I believed.
Here's one fact that has convinced me the Gulf of Mexico is lost and that only the riskiest and most extreme measures (a nuclear device or other such detonation) will seal the leak:
The oil is rushing into the Gulf at between 20,000 and 70,000 psi.
Nobody's certain of the actual value, but that's the range usually cited. This is a very different problem than capping the wellheads in Kuwait after Sadaam retreated.
Anyone familiar with a waterjet cutter knows they run at 55,000+ psi and are so powerful they can cut 6" steel like butter.
Imagine raw oil with sediment and impurities (similiar to the garnet abrasive) streaming upward into the Gulf the same way the cutting nozzle projects downward into the water basin. All at one (1) mile below the surface.
There is no conventional solution that is going to stop the flow at those psi's.
None.
If you factor hurricanes and tropical storms into the mix it quickly becomes apparent that this is an international crisis without parallel in our time.
The lack of leadership from both the private and public sectors and the overall lack of accurate information on the potential long term ramifications is stunning.
Screw the talk about alternative fuels or who's to blame. We need action now. Right now.