ORANGE BEACH, Ala. -- The federal government has given BP until the end of the weekend to find ways to speed up efforts to contain huge amounts of oil gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a letter released Saturday, as large globs of brown crude coated Alabama's white sand beaches.
Question, has Obama and crew said they were the ones calling the shots since day 1? Perhaps if they packed up and went home leaving the job to the professionals instead of government lawyers, this spill would be fixed by now. Just a thought.
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I guess this means we could see somebody get their "ass kicked" Monday morning. Obama should have given this order on day one, and the well would have been capped buy the end of the first week.
C. Davis
__________________ Am I greedy because I don't want to give you what is mine?
or
Are you greedy because you want to take what is not yours?
I think that the President is extremely frustrated and finding it hard to believe that BP's continued blunders are merely the result of incompetence rather than a lack of a sufficient sense of urgency to solve the problem. It seems inexcusable that BP had to limit the amount of oil they were collecting with their current device because they did not have enough storage capacity on hand at the surface to accomodate all of the oil.
It would seem that BP would have plenty of incentive to stop the leak since they are liable for a fine of $1,100 for a every barrel of oil that is spilled in addition to the costs of cleaning up the oil and compensation to the large and growing number of parties that have been damaged by the spill. It seems that BP simply never anticipated that it would have to deal with a massive spill from a wellhead a mile deep in the ocean and had no contingency plans in place for fixing it.
The President may also be angry because he might believe that BP has not been honest with the Government about the size of the leak. With what we know now, BP's initial statement that only 1,000 barrels per day were leaking seems adsurb and possibly an attempt to minimize the amount of the fine they would have to pay. However, I doubt that the Government is going to use BP's numbers when it assesses the fine. The Government will develop its own estimate of the amount of oil spilled and will likely fine BP 3 to 4 billion dollars. BP should be aware that it will have little choice but to pay since it has many valuable assets in the U.S., such as its large share of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield, that the U.S. Government could sieze to settle the debt.
At its heart the spill is an engineering problem that there may be no short term solution to no matter how much political and economic pressure is brought to bear on BP. The President may or may not understand or accept this and that it is possible that large amounts of oil will continue to flow into the Gulf until August when the relief wells are scheduled to be completed. However, either way he can not simply appear to be satisfied with the current situation and must instead be seen as keeping BP's feet to the fire.
Yep, the big wheel in charge of BP whined: "I want my life back". The familys of the 11 guys killed on that rig want their loved ones lives back. The folks in LA whose livlihoods have been trashed by BP's leak want their lives back.
It is high time that someone jerked BP into line. For a long time BP has been the bad boy of the oil companies. BP has this Brit attitude that everyone who is not a Brit is a "wog".
In 2005 BP had a refinery explosion in TX that killed 15 workers and injured 180 more. BP was found guilty of a felony in that explosion. BP also managed to earn another US felony conviction. BP has been assessed more in fines that all the other oil companies combined. BP has been fined for manipulating the propane market.
In their 2009 oil spill plan for that well, BP claimed that one of their experts was a Dr. Lutz. Problem is that Dr. Lutz died in 2005.
BP wanted to drill only one intercept well. They were over-ruled on that issue by the white house. Someone mentiond that BP has the expertise. Not one oil company, and especially not BP, has any expertise at stopping a runaway oil well one mile down in the ocean. That is what a blowout preventer is for. BP blew that one by their modifications to the blowout preventer, failure to properly maintain the BOP and a failure to immediately initiate the emergency shutdown system as the rig was burning.
There is a good chance that this well will continue to spew oil into the fall. The intercept well is not a sure thing.
A BP bankrupcy is not in the best interests of US taxpayers. There are far out radicals in the so called US congress who would just love to see BP go under. They are fools.
BP needs to get their act together because Exxon and Shell are waiting in the wings with baited breath, ready to pick up the crumbs from a BP bankrupcy.
In two separate disasters prior to the Gulf oil rig explosion, 30 BP workers have been killed, and more than 200 seriously injured.
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BP's safety violations far outstrip its fellow oil companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the "egregious, willful" violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
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Paying Fines
Yet BP never fixed the problems in Texas City. Just last October, OSHA fined the company $87 million because it has failed to correct the safety problems at the rebuilt Texas City plant. That represented the largest fine in OSHA history.
In 2007, a BP pipeline spill poured 200,000 gallons of crude oil into the pristine Alaskan wilderness. In researching the environmental hazard, investigators discovered BP was aware of corrosion along the pipeline where the leak occurred but did not respond appropriately. The company was forced to pay $12 million more in criminal fines for the spill, in addition to another $4 million to the state of Alaska.
Quite frankly our President's willingness to make such statements as how he's going to "kick some a$$", merely proves yet again how grossly incompetent and completely ignorant he is.
Instead of giving a time limit he needs to keep his mouth shut and use hie ears more.
Giving such an ultimatum to someone who has expertise in an area where he has none shows his inability to use common sense and logical thinking skills.
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Life is what we make of it.
Last edited by sconnyhunter; 06-13-2010 at 12:03 PM.
I'm not apologizing for BP or anything, but maybe they would have done a little better so far if they had not had a "boot on their neck." Also, I wonder if BP would have been a little more truthful about the initial amount of oil if the President would not have waited until this last week to finally talk to them. Wait a minute....They are not even scheduled to meet until next Wednesday, June 16. The president has not even talked to them yet. I guess the distant threats are easier to do.
Obama has really done nothing but give threats. The whole point of this thread is that what good is this one going to do? 48 hours?
Why did Obama wait so long to give them 48 hours, when he said he has been on top of it from day one? Maybe the president would not have been so easily bamboozled had he really been on top of it.
I think Obama has quickly gone from "The One," ......to "He did it."
C. Davis
__________________ Am I greedy because I don't want to give you what is mine?
or
Are you greedy because you want to take what is not yours?
Why did Obama wait so long to give them 48 hours, when he said he has been on top of it from day one? Maybe the president would not have been so easily bamboozled had he really been on top of it.
Obama has never "been on top" of anything. Obama and the Sec'y of the Interior, Salazar, were well aware that the Minerals Management Service was totally incompetent and corrupt. Salazar got wrapped around the axle with feel good stuff like protecting wolves while the woman he picked to run MMS did nothing to reform that agency. The corrupt career civil service types are still at MMS; they will remain there because no one has the guts to fire them.
Deadline........would that be like a deadline to close Gitmo? Just more meaningless hot air!!
I'm pretty sure if BP had a solid idea of a solution to stop the leak, they'd be on it. I mean, it's not like they don't want to stop it!!
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
Deadline........would that be like a deadline to close Gitmo? Just more meaningless hot air!!
I'm pretty sure if BP had a solid idea of a solution to stop the leak, they'd be on it. I mean, it's not like they don't want to stop it!!
I don't think for the first 2 weeks or so Obama wanted it stopped. I think he wanted something he could call a disaster to advance his agenda. I don't think he imagined it could go this long. Now he is looking like the goat that he is.
This is forcing him to be a President, and that is the real reason he is really teed off. The only problem is, he is nothing more than a community organizer / agitator, and that is not getting him very far.
He is way out of his realm.
C. Davis
__________________ Am I greedy because I don't want to give you what is mine?
or
Are you greedy because you want to take what is not yours?
Obama didn't want it stopped for the reason that C. Davis said...
Quote:
I think he wanted something he could call a disaster to advance his agenda.
BP doesn't want to cap it permanently because they don't want to loose the well head and the oil that it will produce in the future.
__________________
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency........... Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."
Obama gives BP a deadline or?????
