Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

In a hearing of the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment yesterday, Chairman Brian Baird declared that, “Whether the moratorium on drilling activities in the Gulf is lifted in 30 days or 30 years, we must accept that the hydrocarbon reserves in these fields will be produced someday.”

Why? Why must we accept that offshore drilling for oil in the riskiest deepwater environments is going to take place?

Don’t we have the freedom to choose another course? Is our government that much in the thrall of the oil industry that our leaders will accept no possibility of an end to deepwater offshore drilling?

Yesterday, on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Ted Poe said, “The Federal Government needs to get out of the way and let us continue safely to drill offshore and provide the energy needs of this country.”

Continue to drill offshore safely? How can something be continued if it hasn’t started yet?

Doesn’t Ted Poe get it? Offshore drilling has been proven to be deadly dangerous. It’s killed people. It’s killed one of America’s natural treasures. It’s killing the American economy.

Sorry, Representative Poe, but no, the government does not need to get out of the way of offshore drilling. The government needs to end offshore drilling.

This Sunday, a march to protest BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling oil spill will take place in Franklin County Florida. The march will start soon after 5:30 PM at the Apalachicola City Hall and will end at the Franklin County Courthouse.

Call D.T. Simmons at 323-0344 for information before the march.

On July 16, 2008, Colorado’s Congressman Doug Lamborn declared that the United States had to allow more offshore drilling for oil. “We must lift the moratorium imposed by Congress on offshore drilling,” he said.

Last time I checked, Colorado didn’t have any offshore anything. I guess Representative Lamborn figured he didn’t have anything to lose, proposing that other states put their coasts in danger with the risky operation of offshore drilling for oil.

Now, for three weeks, the Gulf of Mexico has seen an oil spill raging after the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing eleven workers. So, what does Doug Lamborn have to say about offshore drilling now?

Funny thing – all of a sudden, Congressman Lamborn doesn’t have anything to say about offshore drilling any more. He’s gone completely quiet on the subject since the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.

Postscript: Doug Lamborn is a Republican. So, what do the Colorado Democrats have to say in response to Lamborn’s craven silence?

Nothing. The Colorado Democrats aren’t even running a candidate against Lamborn this year. Thanks to their inaction, voters in Colorado’s 5th congressional district have the choice to vote for Doug Lamborn, or vote for nobody at all.

The National Weather Service has issued the following advisory for the site of the Deepwater Horizon, the offshore oil drilling rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico one week ago this evening:

SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE WILL QUICKLY TRACK ACROSS THE AREA WEDNESDAY
WHICH WILL SUPPRESS WINDS AND FLATTEN SEAS. AS THIS RIDGE
CONTINUES EASTWARD WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WINDS WILL THEN SHIFT BACK TO
THE SOUTHEAST. THIS HIGH WILL SETTLE IN THE WESTERN ATLANTIC
THROUGH THE WEEKEND. MEANWHILE, A SERIES OF SURFACE LOWS WILL
DEVELOP AND MOVE THROUGH THE SOUTHERN PLAINS. THE RESULTING WINDS
BETWEEN THESE 2 FEATURES, SPOT AREA, WILL BE STRONG PERSISTENT
SOUTHEAST WINDS OF AT LEAST 20KTS FROM THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH
SATURDAY NIGHT. IN ADDITION, EXPECT SEAS TO BUILD TO A PEAK OF
8-11 FEET DURING THIS PERIOD. ALTHOUGH A FRONT IS EXPECTED TO
APPROACH THE COASTAL WATERS LATE THIS WEEKEND, AT THIS TIME IT
DOES NOT APPEAR THAT IT WILL PUSH THROUGH UNTIL POSSIBLY EARLY
TO MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. THUS, SOUTH WINDS WILL CONTINUE INTO
EARLY NEXT WEEK.

The practical upshot: Winds will be coming from the south starting tomorrow all the way through into next week, pushing the growing crude oil slick into Louisiana’s coastline. Two national wildlife refuges are directly in the path of the oil. Starting on Thursday, the seas will be too rough for an effective effort to contain the oil spill.

The effort to prevent landfall of this oil spill has failed.

What’s at stake:

As of 1:30 PM this afternoon, the oil spill was 21 miles from the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, 69 miles from the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, and 69 Miles from the Bon Secours National Wildlife Refuge. Also in the path of the growing oil spill are the Gulf Islands National Sea Shore, and the Fort Pickens State Park Aquatic Preserve.

NASA released this satellite photograph of the rapidly expanding oil slick coming from the site of the wrecked Deepwater Horizon. As you can see, when this photograph was taken, the oil slick was clearly larger than the city of New Orleans. I was astonished by that. Now, that’s small potatoes. The oil slick is at 28,600 square miles, larger than the state of West Virgina.

So far, all efforts by BP to stop oil from surging up from the wellhead and riser on the sea floor have failed, and the slick is getting closer to shore day by day, threatening fisheries, shrimping grounds, oyster beds, tourist beaches, and the mangroves that protect the delta from being washed away by hurricanes. The slick is now just 30 miles from shore and should hit the Breton National Wildlife Refuge and the Delta National Wildlife Refuge first.

The Obama Administration says that it will continue pushing ahead with its policy to expand offshore oil drilling, unchanged, despite this offshore drilling disaster. How is that different from the approach the Bush Administration took? Is that what we voted for in 2008?

Big oil companies, and their political lackeys in Congress, are always going on about how oil spills aren’t very common. But then, oops, reality comes along, as it did yesterday for the Contango Oil company, which had to shut down 6 oil wells when one of its pipelines started leaking petroleum into the Atchafalaya River down in Texas.

Never worry. It’s a rare thing. Really.

Back in the 1980s, the United Kingdom went to war against Argentina in the Falkland Islands. Both nations claimed ownership of the islands, which are used to farm sheep and to drill oil. Hint: It wasn’t for the sheep that the British pushed their claim of ownership of the Falklands. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was even drawing up plans to drop nuclear bombs on Argentina in order to win the conflict.

A generation later, the United Kingdom is starting the escalation toward war again by moving an offshore drilling rig into the waters around the Falklands, with the intention to drill there starting today.

For more news from the Falkland Islands, visit:

- Falkland News Network
- Penguin News

Earlier this year Barack Obama accused John McCain of have a “sudden 2008 urge to drill for offshore oil”. Barack Obama’s campaign called offshore drilling “a distracting idea which won’t reduce gas prices but will boost oil company profits.”

So, why is it that, as of August 1, 2008, Barack Obama is supporting John McCain’s “distracting idea” to boost oil company profits without benefitting the American people? Why is it that Barack Obama has joined George W. Bush’s crew to push for offshore drilling?

Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to bring an end to the politics of greed and the power of lobbyists? Why is Obama now doing their bidding?

Why is Obama siding with the Republicans against progressive Democrats, in favor of offshore drilling?

Source: New Energy for America (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy) – August 2, 2008

Republican politics in Washington D.C. brings us this polluted equation:

40 billion dollars of profits for ExxonMobil in 2008 plus record oil prices plus ever escalating economic damage due to fossil-fuel-fueled climate change equals continued tax breaks for ExxonMobil

This is no joke. It’s what’s really going on. We’re getting another record-breaking federal budget next year, but ExxonMobil won’t be paying its share.

The Republicans in DC are nothing but an oil slick across America’s pocketbook.