For all the empty MSM chatter about the Gulf oil spill as “Obama’s Katrina,” the president’s failure to adequately emote, the potential political ramifications, etc. etc., one thing I haven’t really heard is much in the way of cogent, logical criticisms relating to specific, impactful, preventable errors or omissions in the response to the spill.
Haven’t heard, that is, until now. The London Independent reports on a bit of bureaucratic bungling that’s truly damning, if the report is accurate. (Leave it to the British press to do some actual journalism on this, instead of just sitting around clucking about how Obama needs to apply the Care Bear Stare more effectively.) It’s all about the sand berms:
In the past few days the oil, which seven weeks ago began pouring from BP’s crippled seabed well 40 miles out, has finally started to come ashore in quantity, and Plaquemines is where it has made landfall. It has begun to collect on the beaches of the barrier islands just off the marshes on either side of the Mississippi, leading to the pictures of desperately oiled birds that have gone round the world, and it is beginning to seep into the marshes themselves.
[Plaquemines Parish director of coastal zone management] PJ Hahn has feared for weeks that this would happen, as he has held a key concern from early on: the protective booms were not working. The long floating barricades that are meant to hold back oil on the water were insufficient in this case, because there are enormous quantities of oil under the water, which are getting through. But PJ has had a plan: to constrict big sand berms (man-made ridges) just outside the barrier islands where the oil can be allowed to wash ashore and then easily removed. The scheme, for 20 miles of berms, is beginning this weekend; it will cost $240m (£170m), which BP will pay; it will take a month to complete.
Yet it has taken a month to obtain permission for it, from all the agencies that have had to be consulted, and the very thought of this delay sets PJ’s cold blue eyes on fire. “It shouldn’t take a month to get a permit! We need this stuff to start happening now, we don’t have time to wait. This is waiting, right here,” – and he jabs his finger down on a photo of a dead brown pelican he took on Sunday, a bird so obscenely dolloped in crude oil that it looked like it was part of a stew. …
[A] lot more oil is on the way, much of it beneath the surface – hence the need for the sand berms.
They are going ahead now. But the delay in sanctioning them, caused by the necessity for various US government agencies to agree, has left him incensed. “If we had started this a month ago, we could have stopped the oil that’s come in here right now,” he said. “We had a conference call and I was so angry, I was so outraged, that I started cursing – I thought my assistant had left my phone on mute.
“The bottom line is, this is an emergency, yet we’ve spent all this time just aiming! We need to start shooting!“
It’s unclear who exactly is to blame for this, as the Independent doesn’t go into any detail about the agencies involved or the processes that have led to the delay, and in fact, appears to be relying on the word of one man to establish the delay’s very existence. (Maybe I was a bit too fulsome in my praise of this “actual journalism.”) So there’s clearly a lot more reporting to be done on this topic — or maybe it’s already been done, and I just haven’t seen it; anyone have relevant links to share? — and maybe such reporting would reveal some important nuances that change the picture a bit. But on the surface, this sounds bloody terrible, and deserves some more attention.
U.S. journalists have been reporting since the beginning of May that the federal gov’t had a plan for dealing with oil spills in the Gulf that it failed to follow:
To be fair, this criticism isn’t limited to the Obama administration, assuming the gov’t didn’t have the necessary fire booms going back to when the plan was first drawn up during the Clinton administration. That said, when your answer to every problem is to increase the scope and power of the federal gov’t, then you will rightly take the blame when the federal gov’t sh*ts the bed, especially if you are its chief executive (just ask the last guy).
There is a company (in New England I believe) That makes oil containment booms. When the owner saw the oil leak, he immediately began producing the booms as fast as he could, sure that BP and/or the federal government would began buying it.
He is still waiting, with a warehouse full of booms……
gahrie, maybe it’s not the New England company you refer to but I heard a containment-boom manufacturer in the town of Seymour, Connecticut say on the local TV news that he’s been cranking ’em out 24/7 trying to keep up with the Demand. Said his shop had been a Madhouse since the onset of the thing.
“For all the empty MSM chatter about the Gulf oil spill…one thing I haven’t really heard is much in the way of cogent, logical criticisms relating to specific, impactful, preventable errors or omissions in the response to the spill.”
Well speaking of Boom, Brendan, you should’ve been listening to the cogent & logical Rachel Maddow, whose Chatter is always sparking but veryseldom Empty. ;} Granted, her ideological anticapitalist bias does come Booming out BUT she’s also been reporting (in consultation with Guest Experts) on specific, impactful, preventable errors and omissions in the response — perhaps most notably, in regard to the failure to Tend the Booms. Seems BP’s Boom philosophy is, Set it and Forget it. So, the oil-Absorbent variety of boom (in those random instances when it happens to get Correctly deployed in the first place) does its job fairly well — until it reaches the Saturation point when it’s supposed to be removed from the water & disposed of [where? I dunno ;] & replaced by Fresh boom to continue Sucking the crap Up. Which is exactly what Doesn’t Happen. So, the petroleum-laden boom just kind of Floats around out there, useless & unattended & unreplaced, until it comes Untethered and the gentle Oily waves push it Ashore, delivering its nicely-packaged load of sh*t to the very Marshlands it’s supposed to be Protecting.
Rachel went down there (with an Expert) and Saw this happening, and of course Videoed it for our Outraged viewing pleasure. / She waxed wroth — but still in a Cogent & Logical way. ;>
I love how conservatives are jumping all over the Obama administration for basically doing what Conservatives keep claiming they want them to do, i.e. let buisness do what buisness wants and stay out of the way. BP et al. pushed for less regulations, they pushed for less oversight, they promised us it would be safe and more effective if they policed themselves. Shockingly they cut corners to make more money. Further, the law states that BP would take the lead role on any clean up. The Obama administration has been following that law and providing assistance as requested.
Now conservatives like moron-queen Sarah Palin think they should be doing more? Can we get some consistency here?
Then again maybe Chris Rock is right, Obama would have been a better President during Katrina because he cared about the people, Bush would have been a better President now because he cares about oil…
From what I’ve seen, David, the conservative “response” to your criticism is that “Obama held himself out as being the country’s all-powerful savior — why, he even said he’d heal the oceans! *snicker, snicker* — and furthermore, advanced a philosophy whereby the federal government is responsible for everything … so now, he has to pay the price politically when the federal government can’t do something, and he doesn’t get to complain that people are expecting too much, because it’s HIS FAULT people expect so much of him and of the federal government!”
Of course, as an answer to the point you’re raising, this is a complete copout. Leaving aside whether it’s a fair characterization of Obama’s statements specifically, and liberalism’s philosophy generally, it isn’t a coherent argument coming from conservatives, given that they want to run the country based on their philosophy, and therefore their criticisms of Obama should be grounded in that philosophy, not in his!
If conservatives believe the feds are responsible for the Gulf Coast clusterf**k, they need to advance a philosophically consistent argument for that position from a conservative perspective, not from a government-should-do-everything liberal perspective. I’m not saying that’s impossible, I’m just saying it’s a very different argument from saying “Obama’s own political philosophy invited this public anger, now let’s sit around and gloat about it, without addressing whether we think it’s actually justified.”
If conservatives rely on the amorphous public anger that has been stoked (they say) by the public’s Obama-fueled belief that government can and should do everything, they’re being pure opportunitists — which is fine, as far as it goes (all’s fair in love and politics), but it won’t change the nanny-state attitude that they supposedly abhor. On the contrary, it furthers that attitude, and even gives it something of a conservative impimatur. That’s short-term tactical thinking based on pure politics, not long-term strategic thinking based on both politics and the desired mode of governance.
Except that BP was a founding member of USCAP and supports cap-and-trade, tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, gov’t subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels, and has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.
BP et al. pushed for less regulations, they pushed for less oversight, they promised us it would be safe and more effective if they policed themselves.
The flaw in this diatribe is that the government cleanup and containment plans were there, the rules and regulations were there…they just weren’t enforced. Corrupt, inept and apathetic government bureaucrats are the villains here.
But gahrie, didn’t you get the memo? It’s “incoherent” for the Right to
point outgloat that Obama’s governing philosophy reaps what it sows in setting public expectations too high given that gov’t bureaucracy, at least from a conservative perspective, is inefficient at best and incompetent at worst!The flaw in this diatribe is that the government cleanup and containment plans were there, the rules and regulations were there…they just weren’t enforced. Corrupt, inept and apathetic government bureaucrats are the villains here.
Of course, if this were a Republican administration, you would undoubtedly be highlighting BP’s failed responsibility to self-regulate as businesses should.
As it is, though, it makes political sense for you to blame the Democrats for not being as Democratic as they said they would be. That’s what Brendan’s getting at. You’re criticizing Obama for not following through on the position you already disagree with, when you should be looking at how the position you support, that businesses should be self-regulating, is problematic.
It’s “incoherent” for the Right to point outgloat that Obama’s governing philosophy reaps what it sows in setting public expectations too high given that gov’t bureaucracy, at least from a conservative perspective, is inefficient at best and incompetent at worst!
Care to address the actual problem, Joe, or is it easier to talk about Democrats not being as big-government as they said they would be and ignore how this has exposed serious flaws in conservative thinking on regulation? It’s always easier to cherry-pick irrelevant issues than draw attention to weak areas in your own beliefs.
Of course, if this were a Republican administration, you would undoubtedly be highlighting BP’s failed responsibility to self-regulate as businesses should.
Noooo…I would be blaming corrupt, inept and apathetic government bureaucrats. This failure and fraud goes back at least as far as Pres. Clinton and includes Pres. Bush.
r is it easier to talk about Democrats not being as big-government as they said they would be and ignore how this has exposed serious flaws in conservative thinking on regulation?
No…the issue is that the Left insists that more government will solve our problems and the Right insists that government is incapable of solving our problems. This crisis is merely exhibit #1,245,765,432 in that argument.
As to regulation…again the problem is not too few regulations, the problem is that the faceless government bureaucrats didn’t enforce them. What good would it do to pass more regulations that will also go unenforced?
Bureaucrats are the problem no matter who is president. What Federal failures there were in the Katrina travesty (most failures were state and local) were also the fault of bureaucrats.
The problem is not that we don’t have enough regulation of the U.S. economy, it is that we don’t enforce the laws and regulations we have. (where have I heard that before..can you say immigration?)
gahrie #10 – you’re just going to confuse the poor dears by being logical …
While liberals seem to delight in projecting everything as being black and white (Racists !), the conservatives that I know vary along a spectrum from dealing with Life in grey scales all the way through the proverbial 32 million colour scale … (16 shades of grey scale is still too limiting for some of us) …
Most of the conservatives that *I* know don’t care about party affiliation when it comes to crooks … crooks get caught, crooks should be punished appropriately …
Most conswervatives I know basically aren’t so much anti-regulation as anti-unenforced/arbitrary-regulation … if you are going to regulate financial institutions, regulate ’em all the same – don’t have some Senators going to regulators and saying “Leave Keating alone or else !” … (Yes, Venerable Joe – *that* Cranston) …
If you are going to regulate political speech, regulate *both* capitalists *and* unions … or get the %^#%# out of the way of all sides …
With immigration, either enforce existing federal laws (so States don’t get desperate enough to do so for themselves) or repeal the federal laws and let the States do it themselves …
It should be a major source of embarrassment to the US as an entire country that there should have been *anything* stopping Louisiana from building sand berms to try to protect their marshlands from the oil spill … at the first hint of an EPA challenge, the White House shoudl have had a quiet yet effective word with the EPA along the lines of “If you have a better idea, tell us what it is ! If you don’t have a better idea, GET THE @$#@ OUT OF THE WAY !” …
Care to address the actual problem, Joe, or is it easier to talk about Democrats not being as big-government as they said they would be and ignore how this has exposed serious flaws in conservative thinking on regulation?
Huh? Who thinks Democrats are not being as big-government as they said they would be? Certainly not me or any conservative on this blog. The actual problem, at least as Brendan defined it, is whether public anger over the federal gov’t (and thus Obama’s) response to the Gulf oil spill is justified, assuming arguendo that my characterization of Obama’s philosophy — that the answer to every problem is to increase the scope and power of the federal gov’t — is a fair one (which it absolutely is given his actions over the last year and a half). An important factor in that determination is the public’s expectation of what the federal gov’t response would/could/should be. If Obama is holding out the federal gov’t as the answer to every problem, then he and his ilk are responsible for the public’s expectations being artificially high (Yes we can!), and the resulting anger when they’re not met (Will we ever?). That conservatives disagree and see the federal gov’t as inherently flawed, at least with respect to many aspects of domestic policy, does not render them “incoherent” somehow for making the point that you reap what you sow. I’ll admit it’s not the most constructive criticism to make, but it certainly ain’t no affront to good governance to recognize that one of the pitfalls to advocating gov’t as the answer to everything is that the public might take you at your word.
Getting back to gahrie’s point, Exhibit A in support of the argument that gov’t bureaucracy/incompetence is the problem is the article I linked to in the first frikkin’ comment on this thread — there was a plan that wasn’t implemented. There’s your justification for public anger right there! Bobby Jindal has been clamoring about in-situ burn for the last month to anyone in the federal gov’t who will listen, and all he’s heard back is CYA bullsh*t from Obama about how engaged he’s been since day one. If that only makes sense to you when a non-conservative says it, then you’re the one with the coherence problem.
Joe:
My factory was in Maine:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/miles-of-oil-containment-boom-sit-in-warehouse-waiting-for-bp-or-u-s-to-use/?singlepage=true
gahrie: Ah. Well, we Nutmeggers do accept the New Englandry of the Down Easters. / Somewhat Sniffingly of course. Intra-yankee snobbery, y’know. 🙂 Thanks.
Mine was the Slickbar Products Corporation of Seymour, CT. I particularly recommend their top-of-the-line Oil Containment Boom Washing Machine. That’s Technology. :} Now if only they could come up with a Gulf of Mexico Washing Machine with a Coastal Wetlands Spin Cycle feature. :>
Then again, I guess Nobody can Top BP’s own excellent cycle of bloodybrilliant Spinning. I tip my Tophat to ’em. Why, only today their new Tone-sensitive spokesman allowed as how it all Depends on how your definition of Plume, uh, booms. A Topkiller argument, by Jove. / Up the long Ladder & down the Short Rope. ;0
(Per the abovelinked [I hope :] Greenwich Time article, turns out that since October ’08 Slickbar has been Owned by the Finns. So do I now have to recognize Finland as a New England state too? Are they even Eligible? I know they’re appropriately Cold but what’s their Effete Snobbery index? 😉
Venerable Loy – are Effete Snobs willing to even admit knowing any Finno-Ugric languages ?
The Finnic side, I can see – Effete Snobs do tend to be finicky … but Ugric ???
Nope – just can’t se it …
There are two sides to the sand berm issue, as illustrated by Dallon Weathers comments quoted here:
http://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/06/of-berms-and-bacteria-a-few-updates.html
Pingback: Lijiang | world travel tours