This is STILL a big deal.
The EPA told BP to use a less toxic dispersant (if any dispersant was to be used, instead of a legitimate and efficient clean-up response of putting boom in place and getting tankers to siphon up the oil), and BP told the EPA to "stuff it".
There was no "consensus" about any of this, but if you believe so, cite your sources.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Of what is known about Corexit (banned in the UK) is that one of the ingredients causes damage to red blood cells and kidneys in laboratory animals
A professor with the University of Maryland noted there has not been adequate research to say if Corexit, or any dispersant, is less harmful than oil.
"What you're doing is...makin
The EPA originally approved the use of dispersants on May 10 and BP has defended the use of the chemicals even after the agency began questioning the toxicity levels. Ault said dispersants allow the oil to break down under the water, avoiding a large, and visual sign, of BP's liability.
"It's trying to reduce the surface impact," he said. "The reason they are using it is to reduce the obvious visual effect."
http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
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BP is still using Corexit on this gusher.
Concerns are mounting over the chemical dispersants BP's using to fight the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now that over 1 million gallons of the chemical have been pumped in Gulf waters.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday that officials are now worried about the toxicity of the chemicals — Corexit 9500 and Corexit EC9527A — and will begin cutting back on their use.
"I believe they're worthwhile. But I think there's enough concern as we approach the million-gallon mark ...regardi
According to the Environmental Protection Agency about 1.08 million gallons of dispersant have been deployed in the Gulf, with 779,000 gallons used on the surface and 303,000 gallons used under the water.
Jerald Ault, a professor at the University of Miami, said Corexit could have "significant" effects on the food chain and on environmental and human heath.
"It's uncharted waters and the magnitudes are so large," Ault said of the potential consequences and of the reports that dolphins and other animals are dying from the chemicals. "Eventually the correlation starts to say, (the animals) weren't dying before and they are dying now. Geez, I wonder what the correlation is."
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
On the Rachel Maddow Show, after spending the last two weeks in the Gulf, Dr. Samantha Joye (professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia) talks about the nature and the danger of the massive underwater oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Of what is known about Corexit (banned in the UK) is that one of the ingredients causes damage to red blood cells and kidneys in laboratory animals
A professor with the University of Maryland noted there has not been adequate research to say if Corexit, or any dispersant, is less harmful than oil.
"What you're doing is...makin
The EPA originally approved the use of dispersants on May 10 and BP has defended the use of the chemicals even after the agency began questioning the toxicity levels. Ault said dispersants allow the oil to break down under the water, avoiding a large, and visual sign, of BP's liability.
"It's trying to reduce the surface impact," he said. "The reason they are using it is to reduce the obvious visual effect."
http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Concerns are mounting over the chemical dispersants BP's using to fight the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now that over 1 million gallons of the chemical have been pumped in Gulf waters.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday that officials are now worried about the toxicity of the chemicals — Corexit 9500 and Corexit EC9527A — and will begin cutting back on their use.
"I believe they're worthwhile. But I think there's enough concern as we approach the million-gallon mark ...regardi
According to the Environmental Protection Agency about 1.08 million gallons of dispersant have been deployed in the Gulf, with 779,000 gallons used on the surface and 303,000 gallons used under the water.
Jerald Ault, a professor at the University of Miami, said Corexit could have "significant" effects on the food chain and on environmental and human heath.
"It's uncharted waters and the magnitudes are so large," Ault said of the potential consequences and of the reports that dolphins and other animals are dying from the chemicals. "Eventually the correlation starts to say, (the animals) weren't dying before and they are dying now. Geez, I wonder what the correlation is."
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Supervisors in Harrison County, Louisiana, voted unanimously Monday to oppose BP using the Pecan Grove landfill in Harrison County to dump waste from the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Supervisors found out last week during a meeting with elected officials that the unified command's preliminary plan called for putting debris into the landfill. The board said it is "stringently opposed" to that plan.
Supervisor Marlin Ladner said the landfill takes in waste within 100 miles of here, so that would mean debris from Mobile to New Orleans could be put there.
“That’s something we’d have to deal with for years to come,” he said. “I don’t think we should be responsible for taking care of the debris.”
Marti Powers, a spokeswoman for BP, said every agency involved with unified command received input about the best way and the best places to put the debris. She said Pecan Grove was on a pre-approved list of sites.
“We are open to suggestions for other places to put waste,” she said.
http://www
No plan for spill, no plan for waste, but Obama wants to open up more of the Gulf to offshore drilling.
This isn't any different than the plans this administration has for building more nuclear power plants.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
A decade ago, U.S. government regulators warned that a major deepwater oil spill could start with a fire on a drilling rig, prove hard to stop and cause extensive damage to fish eggs and wetlands because there were few good ways to capture oil underwater.
The disaster scenario — contained in a May 2000 offshore drilling plan for the Shell oil company that McClatchy has obtained — is now a grim reality in the Gulf of Mexico. Less predictably, perhaps, the author of the document was the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, the regulatory agency that's come under withering criticism in the wake of the BP spill for being too cozy with industries it was supposed to be regulating.
The 2000 warning, however, indicates that some federal regulators were well aware of the potential hazards of deepwater oil production in its early years, experts and former MMS officials told McClatchy.
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
On Dylan Ratigan's Show yesterday, oil expert Matt Simmons talks about the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and that BP is doing everything wrong --
It's spewing 150,000 barrels of oil a day and BP is patching the wrong part, BP put the wrong size cap on, more oil and gas is escaping, the right size cap has been order & will arrive next month, a relief well isn't going to fix this, and the whole N. Atlantic Ocean is at stake.
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Even if there are 1000 plus wells out there and they do not have a leak
==========
Actually, there are over 3000 oil & gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico alone, and they do leak. They leak all the time, some small, others huge, but unless there's a blowout like on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, where lives are lost and there's no denying it, it's not likely to make the news.
http://en.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You say that Obama is "far more concerned with the average family in Louisiana" (than Bush-Cheney who cared for the wealthy)?
Well Obama certainly doesn't care about their health, their having to live in that toxic soup and eat the poisoned fruit of that sea.
Obama has the power and the ability to transform not only the region, but the woes of the entire country, by seizing this moment and promising what he campaigned on: A new economy based on GREEN SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT.
Obama has let every opportunity to undo what Bush-Cheney & Republicans have done to the country go by the wayside. Everything from breaking up the banks and Wall St. to real job stimulus.
Democratic politicians dream of moments like those we've experienced these past 18 months, to effect real change, to connect themselves to the People through their inner FDRs, but all that Obama is doing is channeling Herbert Hoover. Obama is a DINO -- A Republican
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama appointed Ken Salazar, a longtime proponent of offshore drilling, as his Secretary of the Interior. Salazar helped open up the Gulf for drilling, including the lease bloc that BP drilled. As soon as Obama got in office, he & Salazar went full speed ahead, pushing for more offshore drilling. Last year Salazar put more acres up for lease in the Gulf than any year ever. 2009, all time high.
As president, you don't put a person like this into your cabinet unless you're exactly like Bush & Cheney.
Do you know that Ken Salazar was a US Senator prior to becoming Obama's Secretary of the Interior? Do you know what his record was as senator?
As a senator, Salazar voted to end protections that limit offshore oil drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast. http://www
He also voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, a vote that the League of Conservation Voters notes is anti-environment. In the same year, Salazar voted against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major petroleum companies.
http://www
Salazar was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the United States Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You're quite the apologist for this administration.
The fact is that there are only two choices: Obama is either corrupt or he's inept. I've determined he's corrupt, but you're free to believe whatever you want.
Obama has kept Bush appointees in his administration & in government, continued Bush's policies, while excluding liberals & handicapping them and their positions.
Obama's reneged on just about all of his campaign promises, done 180-degree turns on policies, most notably to this conversation is his support for offshore drilling. The "culture" inside the MMS was no secret. Anybody with a pulse knew that Bush&Cheney had planted cronies throughout the government to prevent oversight and regulatory compliance.
KEEP READING
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I absolutely do agree with you that we could stand to learn the lesson of the Tea Party.
But I want more than just making "political beltway corporatists sit up and take notice".
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Sestak, with his full-throated support for the war, is no prize. Obama&Emanuel will work with Sestak just fine. Sestak (like Scott Brown) will distance himself from those that brung 'im once he's in the Senate.
And neither is Howard Dean any prize. Dean wants to play with the Big Boys so badly, he has repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of history every time the left begins to get any traction on an issue (the public option in healthcare reform was just the latest example). As soon as they get what they want, they cast him aside and leave him to the scrap heap of obscurity (again).
They've all got to go.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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We just have to keep working, identifying targets like Lincoln and Sphincter so Pelosi, Reid and Obama get the message.
==========
They got the message; they don't give a chit.
We need to stop thinking that the DLC/DSCC/DCCC is open to reason and negotiation with the left. They're not.
They've succeeded by deceiving Democratic voters about who they are and what they're about. Most registered Democrats have no idea what the DLC is. Most registered Democrats think the Clintons are liberals, and Obama is to the left of them.
Since its creation in 1985, the DLC has been working to purge the Democratic Party of its base, move the party to the right, and make it more hospitable to Republicans. In order to govern "for 100 years". Obama's & Emanuel's first act in office was to go after Limbaugh & Palin, make them, two extremists, the face of the Republican Party. Obama&Emanuel still have not gone after the actual leaders (or politicians) of the Republican Party. Because O&E want to make the Republican Party inhospitable to any Republican to the left of Limbaugh & Palin. It's about bringing Republican politicians & their supporters into the Democratic Party.
KEEP READING
About Gulf Oil Spill
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Yes.
And, we'll know more about that, the real source(s) of the breaches, when the Thomas Jefferson arrives there at the end of the week.
So then it becomes a question of the lesser of two ev!ls -- Letting the oil continue to gush, which means the death of the oceans (and humans on the planet, as 80% of our oxygen comes from the oceans) or exploding a nuclear device on the rupture to seal it.
The White House has responded already that it has no intention of doing the latter ("it's madness"). According to the Rolling Stone, US submarines were at the site shortly after the explosion surveying the damage. http://www
It's hard to fathom that if Simmons and others are correct and there is another rupture, that the submarines wouldn't have discovered it and that Obama wouldn't have detonated a nuclear device to seal it by now.
But I can't dismiss Simmons' and others' expertise and opinions. Particularly in light of Obama's failure to clean house of Bush-Chene
So we wait to hear from the Thomas Jefferson.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Which is why I also wrote:
"This is an opportunity that a real environmental president, a real DEMOCRATIC president, would leap at. It holds the solution to just about every problem we've got. It's what Obama talked about during the campaign, but once in the White House he turned his back on, and has since continued all of the Bush-Cheney policies."
If Obama handled this as a real environmental president, as a real DEMOCRATIC president, it would address everything else you've mentioned. They really do all link.
Change one thing and you change everything.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
"Unlimited oil spill liability" is NOT the same thing as "No cap".
There's that weasel lawyer-talk again by Obama.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Yesterday, Obama expressed repressed anger, sarcasm and snark, and it provided an insight into what's wrong with him -- He's angry at the wrong people, "the talking heads". Not BP.
Then, in the face of the rising anger on the Gulf Coast over the loss of jobs and income from a drilling moratorium, Obama said he's moving quickly to release new safety requirements that would allow the reopening of offshore oil and gas exploration in shallow waters.
This disaster didn't happen because there were no regulations and oversight controls. It happened because BP didn't abide by regulations and the government failed to oversee and enforce the regulations. This was colossal failure of government, lack of oversight and cozy cronyism, a government filled with lobbyists that switchback between the government and the corporations.
There is no way to safely drill offshore.
And the people of Louisiana who want offshore drilling to continue want it because they want & need JOBS -- They don't have to be in the oil industry.
This is an opportunity that a real environmental president, a real DEMOCRATIC president, would leap at. It holds the solution to just about every problem we've got. It's what Obama talked about during the campaign, but once in the White House he turned his back on, and has since continued all of the Bush-Cheney policies.
Obama's refusal to investigate and prosecute Bush says it all. When he's ready to do that, we may get something of a working government back.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Yesterday, Obama expressed repressed anger, sarcasm and snark, and it provided an insight into what's wrong with him -- He's angry at the wrong people, "the talking heads". Not BP.
Then, in the face of the rising anger on the Gulf Coast over the loss of jobs and income from a drilling moratorium, Obama said he's moving quickly to release new safety requirements that would allow the reopening of offshore oil and gas exploration in shallow waters.
This disaster didn't happen because there were no regulations and oversight controls. It happened because BP didn't abide by regulations and the government failed to oversee and enforce the regulations. This was colossal failure of government, lack of oversight and cozy cronyism, a government filled with lobbyists that switchback between the government and the corporations.
There is no way to safely drill offshore.
And the people of Louisiana who want offshore drilling to continue want it because they want & need JOBS -- They don't have to be in the oil industry.
This is an opportunity that a real environmental president, a real DEMOCRATIC president, would leap at. It holds the solution to just about every problem we've got. It's what Obama talked about during the campaign, but once in the White House he turned his back on, and has since continued all of the Bush-Cheney policies.
Obama's refusal to investigate and prosecute Bush says it all. When he's ready to do that, we may get something of a working government back.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
This began and persists as a strawman of sorts, a set-up by a member of the White House press corps, as a sort of challenge to Obama about his non-participation in a catastrophic event, an ongoing attack on the US.
In a different setting, the reporter might have asked Robert Gibbs if Obama suffered from constipation.
Nobody is suggesting that if Obama expresses anger, SHALAKAZAAM!, the oil will be back in the ground under the sea.
But anger as a laxative, to get Obama unstuck and moving. Because there is much that Obama can do and should be doing.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
As Secretary of the Interior under Obama, "Salazar put more acres up for lease than any year ever. All time high. Salazar has always been for drilling and he helped open up the Gulf for drilling, including the lease bloc that BP drilled, WHEN HE WAS A SENATOR so he's always been for this and he went full speed ahead as soon as they got in office and then they pushed for more offshore drilling".
Do you know that Ken Salazar was a US Senator prior to becoming Obama's Secretary of the Interior? Do you know what his record was as senator?
As a senator, Salazar voted to end protections that limit offshore oil drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast. http://www
He also voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, a vote that the League of Conservation Voters notes is anti-environment. In the same year, Salazar voted against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major petroleum companies.
http://www
He was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the United States Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. http://www
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Rolling Stone's executive editor Eric Bates reports that before the explosion on Deepwater Horizon, Obama knew well in advance that it had a major problem with the regulatory structure and did nothing to reform as he'd promised to. Ken Salazar put up more acres up for lease in the Gulf than anyone else in history.
Then after the explosion, Obama knew the spill could be very big from the first few hours, but dropped the ball.
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There is no way to drill safely.
On Dylan Ratigan's Show yesterday, oil expert Matt Simmons talks about the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and that BP is doing everything wrong -- "It's spewing 150,000 barrels of oil a day and BP is patching the wrong part", "a relief well isn't going to fix this", and "the N. Atlantic Ocean is at stake".
http://www
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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