Project Katrina

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post Plum Line nails why just about every Republican should just STFU:

It’s the deregulation, stupid: One of the outstanding questions about Obama’s handling of the spill has been whether he’d seize on it to make an aggressive case against the knee-jerk deregulatory ideology that ran rampant before he took office.

Now he’s done that in an interview with Politico, taking direct aim at the hypocrisy of those who pose as anti-government diehards but are suddenly demanding a robust Federal response to the spill [....]

It’s an interesting paradox: Even as the spill’s destruction dramatically illustrates the need for more robust Federal regulation, the government’s inability to respond effectively to the spill now that it’s in motion risks undermining his larger effort to move the debate in the right direction. Polls show very low confidence in the government’s handling of the spill.

One can only hope the public realizes that the inability to halt the spill shouldn’t have any bearing on the argument over whether more Federal regulation, and real Federal energy reform, are required to prevent such disasters in the future.

In my own head I often ponder if Republicans are either really smart, or really dumb. On the dumb part of the spectrum do they even grasp if they belittle government 24/7, underfund everything other then the DoD, and cut regulations, it is kind of hard then to blame the Democrats with something like what is unfolding in the Gulf occurs. I mean they can connect the dots can’t they?

Or are they really, really smart. Meaning they can slash regulations, underfund important departments, cut taxes, and then be able to blame the Democrats when something goes terribly wrong, knowing a large percentage of the population will believe them.

I just don’t know which it is.

Writing in the Toronto Star, David Olive takes apart TonyHayward:

The biggest oil spill in U.S. history quickly found, in the one person of Tony Hayward, its Michael “Brownie” Brown, hapless head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. And its delusional Baghdad Bob, the Saddam spokesman who coalition forces would never take the capital even as American tanks were visible a few thousand yards from where BB stood.

This morning on Face The Nation Bob Schieffer is talking with Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour,  and Alabama Governor Bob Riley about the BP oil spill gusher. Jindal has never met a camera he didn’t like, so I kind of wonder what exactly he is doing today.

In response to countless media reports that BP has been blocking journalists from covering the oil spill and speaking with clean-up workers, BP CEO Doug Suttles issued a letter last week saying that such reports were “untrue” and reporters can and do have full access:

Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue. BP fully supports and defends all individuals rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose.

BP has not and will not prevent anyone working in the cleanup operation from sharing his or her own experiences or opinions.

However, this just isn’t true. Not even close. This is reinforced yet again when on Friday, WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans got to Grand Isle, Louisiana. Private security officials confronted the reporter and said he couldn’t even have access to the public beach. Here is the mind-numbing exchange:

OFFICIAL 1: Every single security guard here has given the instructions to every single news crew that you can be outside of 100 yards of the workers or along the boom.

WALKER: And who’s saying that? Because no one can tell me that, unless you’re the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, you’re the Coast Guard, or you’re the military, can you tell me where to go on this public beach.

OFFICIAL 1: I can tell you where to go because I’m employed to keep this beach safe. And right now, those are my instructions. I’d like to keep the workers safe as well.

WALKER: I’m going to try to talk to the worker under the tent. Can I do that?

OFFICIAL 1: No, no.

WALKER: He’s on break.

OFFICIAL 1: You are not allowed to interview any workers.

WALKER: The workers can talk to the media, according to the BP CEO two days ago. Still hasn’t trickled down to you all?

OFFICIAL 2: We already heard that one too.

WALKER: What do you mean you’ve “heard that one”? It’s true.

OFFICIAL 1: The e-mail did not explicitly give you permission to do that.

Exactly how much longer is this shit going to keep going on before it stops? I mean when exactly can a private security guard tell anybody, much less a local reporter, that they can’t have access to a public beach.

It is kind of hard to turn on MSNBC and not see Steve McMahon, Democratic consultant telling me as a liberal what I should be thinking about this or that. I could never put my finger on it, but the dude always seem like a total asshole. Now I know why I always felt that way.

[BP] declined to say how much it is spending on the [advertising] effort. It has suspended all of its regular corporate advertising, and is using its ad budget to address the oil spill and the resulting environmental crisis. Last year, BP shelled out almost $100 million on ad time and space in the U.S., according to an ad-tracking unit of WPP PLC.

BP bypassed its longtime ad agency, WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, to create the new television ads, enlisting Purple Strategies, a Washington public-affairs firm that is owned by Republican strategist Alex Castellanos and Democratic consultant Steve McMahon, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In Crashing the Gates one of the core questions asked by Markos Moulitsas is why so many high-profile Democrats running for elected office hire political consultants that have a track record of losing more often than winning. I don’t think we really know. But one thing is clear, folks like Steve McMahon will work for just about anybody or any cause if the check is large enough.

• We all heard of if not seen the BP ads featuring Tony Hayward talking about the company’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its commitment to cleaning it up, Well Huffington Post reports the ads, part of a $50M campaign, have been placed on network and cable news networks, but none of the spots purchased by the company have been in local markets in states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or Florida.
• Multiple teams of scientists studying the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout now say the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico ranged from 20,000 barrels a day to as much as 40,000 barrels a day before the riser pipe was sheered off on June 3.  At a fine of $4,300 per barrel (per EPA regulations), BP could face a fine of up to $7.74 billion if the 40,000 barrel per day number ends up being accurate.
  
• Bank of American has estimated BP’s total liability, in a best-case scenario, is $28,000,000,000. That would be on top of their stock losing $80,000,000,000 already. I bet it goes much higher.
• On the Don Imus show today Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was ask how he ever thought we could restore the Gulf region to its pre-spill state. His response, “I’ve made two trips to Alaska and you know our environment heals itself in time.”

If I’m reading this correctly, the newly installed containment device is working better then planned and sucking up a large amount of oil. But according to new data, we’re finding out that the amount still going into the ocean is as much and perhaps much more than we thought last week. As the AFP puts it:

A containment device fitted last week is now capturing 15,800 barrels a day, but the latest data suggests at least 4,200 barrels and possibly up to 25,000 barrels—more than a million gallons—are still spewing into the sea each day. At least 40 million gallons of crude have already poured into the Gulf, and perhaps double that. That is roughly four times as much as the Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast in 1989.

This is a perfect example of why not “owning” up to the flow rate from day one was so stupid on the behalf of BP. Equally as much that the White House allowed it to happen. Of course BP wanted to low-ball the numbers, cause each barrel means up to a $4,300 fine. But this should be seen as a success, one of the few the White House can claim. But since now the oil from the well is going onto a ship, and it is stupid simple to measure, there is no longer anyway BP can hide the full extent of the problem. What should be a success and a good news story for Obama, is actually an epic fail. Ugh!

Agence France-Presse reports:

Most oil-struck birds and turtles will die alone and uncounted at sea or buried in coastal wetlands, amid warnings the true toll from the Gulf of Mexico spill may never be known.

“Historically, they estimate that 10 percent of [oiled] birds are found,” said Rebecca Dunne, of Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. “Others sink or they’re scavenged.”

Some 1,075 birds—633 of which were dead—have been recovered in the 50 days since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank spectacularly some 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It took weeks for the massive, undulating slick to reach shore. Nearly half of those oiled birds have been found in the past 10 days.

Complicating rescue and recovery efforts are the sheer size of the slick and the fact that so much of it remains offshore. Dead birds sink in a matter of days. Oiled turtles and dolphins rarely end up on beaches.

Add to that the long-term impact from giant plumes of oil floating deep in the water column and a massive quantity of chemical dispersants that multiply toxicity levels. Most experts agree that the chemical dispersants are needed to keep as much oil as possible out of fragile coastal wetlands, but others have expressed concern that they could do more harm than damage to marine wildlife.

• Oh where to start? How about with John Boehner. When asked by Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo if he agreed with a statement made last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, that both BP and the Federal government (that would be taxpayers) should pay for the clean up he said:

Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that.

• As you might expect, later in the day a spokesperson for Boehner tried to walk back the statement, saying he didn’t understand the question. Yeah sure, that is the ticket.
• Elsewhere in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) wants to limit the EPA ability to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles and industrial facilities starting next year. She currently has 41 co-sponsors, including three Democrats. Does anybody think, even as we witness our coast under attack from oil, anything is every going to change in DC?
• The mayor of Orange Beach, AL isn’t happy. Tony Kennon told the Mobile Press-Register, “It’s been like a Chinese fire drill,” Kennon said. “It was a very discombobulated and discoordinated effort. It still is and they’ve had five weeks to plan this.”
• BP shares “plunged” in London trading today, “as political pressure mounted over the spill in the Gulf of Mexico and investors were shaken by the prospect that the British oil giant might cut its dividend.” British business leaders are upset at the criticism the Obama administration is firmly directing at BP, and Prime Minister David Cameron even plans to speak with Obama about BP this weekend. I wonder how PM Cameron would feel, if say Exxon was dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the English Channel or North Sea, and lied to his government 24/7? You know, just saying.