Fox article scapegoating FedGov on behalf of BP

[AZRedhawk44]

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/losing-war/

There are so many obvious reasons why the BP oil leak is a disaster, but beyond the obvious tragedy of the situation  is this reality: it has presented another opportunity for the Obama administration to launch its latest assault against capitalism.

The endless deflection of accountability to the oil spill from the White House to BP could work with some voters, opening the door for the kind of takeover of the industry that has occurred in healthcare and is being cobbled together right now for the financial industry. The White House has a playbook with one play: It's all about bringing big business to its knees. The way to do that is demonization. BP's CEO Tony Hayward has been such an easy foil central casting couldn't have produced a better villain. But that isn't good enough - every single day the flames of anger and hatred must be fanned by the administration. We must hate Wall Street, the healthcare industry and oil companies.

Under this cloud of hate and fear and distrust is it any wonder our economy has ground to a halt? Is it any wonder banks have been hoarding money and businesses hoarding money, and consumer spending went back into a shell in April. Of course BP is going to pay for the damage, but that isn't going to be enough. The industry has to brace for a series of investigations and hearings and public floggings. Executives will have to travel to Washington and try to answer dumb questions obviously designed for further embarrassment rather than solutions - and everyone there will arrive thanks to crude oil. Then again, I'm sure everyone in Washington has seen businesses grow from money raised on Wall Street and have benefited from the amazing medical industry America possesses, the best in the world.

I continue marvel when the president tells people or industries to take his wrath and shut up. It's called survival instincts. Of course Wall Street has hired lobbyists. Of course BP is going to spend money on trying to get out their message. Did they really want all of this oil to spill into the Gulf? Did Wall Street really want the economy to collapse? If anyone wants to see the economy collapse it would be a follower of an ideology that despises the foundation of this economy. Last week President Obama mentioned his ideas on what the pillars of the economy should be, and hinted that government is needed to control all four. Over the weekend he lashed out at BP paying a dividend to shareholders, a shot across the bow of investors just as little old ladies with GM bonds were painted as greedy and cold hearted. They must be salivating at the White House. What a gift, putting another industry (pillar) under their thumb.

America could only lose its position on top of the world through self destruction. I've talked about this for half a dozen years … fear and self-loathing. Now the idea of supplanting capitalism with a better system is underway. You can call it fettered capitalism but it’s more akin to socialism. It has never worked and never will. The very threat of this shift gave us Friday's jobs result. Trillions of dollars tossed at the housing market from government programs, Fannie Mae (FNM: 0.9001, -0.0298, -3.2%) and Freddy Mac (FRE: 1.1675, -0.0225, -1.89%) bailouts and support (unlimited) and FHA backing all mortgages hasn't stopped housing prices from continuing their descent. The steadfast and unwavering determination to fundamentally change our economy is impacting it faster than I thought it would.

Can everyone hide in their bunkers forever? Can we afford it while everyone braces for the moment it's their turn to be crushed rhetorically and under the weight of regulations and rules designed to control and punish? Where is the tipping point, where even if we tried we couldn't reverse the impact of this anti-business war on success? I don't know the answer to that I do think there is time to fix this. But the message isn't resonating. Take this moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. According to Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association the impact of halting work on 33 exploratory wells will be devastating:

    Rigs - $250,000 to $500,000 a day means loss of up to $16,500,000 per day in costs for idle rigs.
    Supply boats - $30,000 day for 33 rigs will cost about $1,000,000 a day.
    Employees - up to 140 per shift at $1,804 week could add to $330,000,000 a month lost wages.

The gears of commerce have been locked, sealed shut the way Constantinople held against siege after siege until succumbing to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

Banks want to lend, businesses want to grow and people want prosperity - unless all that stuff is going to be taken from them, at which point they only want to survive. I still believe in the business cycle and the uniqueness of the American capitalistic system. From time to time it needs nudging but it recognizes the difference between a takeover and a helping hand - not that it's hard to tell the origins and intents of government overtures these days.

Yes, Obama is a pinko-commie-socialist turd of the Nth degree.  I agree.

However:

The endless deflection of accountability to the oil spill from the White House to BP could work with some voters, opening the door for the kind of takeover of the industry that has occurred in healthcare and is being cobbled together right now for the financial industry.

How on Earth is it possible for the White House to be culpable for an oil spill 5000 feet underwater?  BP is 100% at-fault for this... or whomever was contractually obligated for safety and disaster planning during this phase of well drilling.  Halliburton, deepwater horizon, or whomever else.

There's a movement afoot to somehow "blame" Obama for not being passionate enough in his response to this.  All the talk radio circuits are now abuzz with talking points about how Obama is robotic and devoid of emotion or drive in his response to this situation.  It's every bit as dumb as the "Bush hates black people and he blew up the levvies" junk that was going around during Katrina.  Rush, Hannity, Barry Young (local), Mike Broomhead (local).  All on the same talking points on this.

I agree that Obama, either maliciously or through inept ivory tower pig-headed elitism, is out to derail capitalism.

But attacking him over this oil spill is not the way to gain any traction.

Attack him on policy.

And keep the heat on BP to fix this thing.  Congrats to them for their current stop-gap prototype fix, and I hope their larger dome-fix to come next month works even better.  And I wish them expedited success in drilling relief wells.

[taurusowner]

And as soon as BP fixes this, get rid of the farking bans on offshore drilling so no one is forced to drill in mile-deep water.  That's one of the biggest causes of this disaster.  Oil companies have to drill in dangerous, deep, and unstable waters because they're not allowed to drill anywhere else.

[grampster]

Ragnar has a point. 

[longeyes]

We live in angry, polarized times, and no small part of that is owed to people like Obama.  Just today Obama is talking about "kicking ass;" this is one angry fellow underneath that oft-remarked cool exterior.  Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.

Obama didn't engineer the spill, but his administration dropped the ball on oversight and planning, and they seem inept in marshalling a concerted, coordinated response that is not about legal punition and political scapegoating.  And, yes, the environmentalists bear some of the blame in this with their medievalist views of man's fate.

Will Obama use the crisis?  You bet, but long-term he is just another guy in a suit who can't make energy or repel the bandits.

[Jim147]

But when it looked like the first fix was in sight we had this.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/95031939.html

WASHINGTON - On the defensive more than five weeks into the nation's worst-ever oil spill, President Barack Obama insisted Thursday that his administration, not oil giant BP, was calling the shots in the still-unsuccessful response.

"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama declared at a news conference in the East Room of the White House. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill dominated the hour-long session.

He called the spill an "unprecedented disaster" and blasted a "scandalously close relationship" he said has persisted between Big Oil and government regulators.

Obama announced new steps to deal with the aftermath of the spill, including continuing a moratorium on drilling permits for six months. He also said he was suspending planned exploration drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and on 33 wells under way in the Gulf of Mexico.

The president's direct language on being in charge of the spill response, which he repeated several times, marked a change in emphasis from earlier administration assertions that, while the government was overseeing the operation, BP had the expertise and equipment to make the decisions on how to stop the flow.

As recently as Monday, the top federal official in charge of dealing with the oil catastrophe, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, declined to broadly say the federal government was "in charge." Instead, when asked about that, Allen told reporters that BP was responsible for the cleanup and the government was accountable to make sure the company did it. "I would say it's less a case of 'in charge,'" Allen said when asked about that phrase.

Yet with each passing day, public frustration with Obama's administration has grown, and his poll numbers on the matter are dropping.

So who is in charge? And who is to blame?

jim

ETA: I'm talking about the start of the story. It was the first source google pulled up.

[AZRedhawk44]

Very telling that Obama:

1 - Announced blame from on high, when a technologically insurmountable feat needed doing;
2 - Assumed the mantle of responsibility once a reasonable solution started being implemented.

I condemn the government and enviroweenies for making technologically responsible drilling impossible, I condemn BP for failing to build adequate systems to control a rig toppling failure, however I applaud BP for keeping at the task and continuing to engineer in the face of repeated defeat. 

Tenacity like that is rare nowadays, and is reminiscent of 1960's NASA glory.

[Ben]

As recently as Monday, the top federal official in charge of dealing with the oil catastrophe, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, declined to broadly say the federal government was "in charge." Instead, when asked about that, Allen told reporters that BP was responsible for the cleanup and the government was accountable to make sure the company did it. "I would say it's less a case of 'in charge,'" Allen said when asked about that phrase.

Exactly and correctly said by ADM Allen. This is how it's outlined in the Incident Command System (ICS) and Area Contingency Plan (ACP). The .gov only step in and federalizes if the Responsible Party is showing negligence or inability to do the job, or an inability to pay to do the job. The Federal On-Scene Coordinator (in this case USCG) still has 51% of the vote in the ICS Command structure, so they can override decisions by BP if they feel those decisions are not in the best interests of the response effort.

In this case people may be mad at BP, but the government has no resources to do a better job in mitigating spill damage, and I don't think taxpayers would appreciate footing a bill currently at around a billion dollars and rising that BP is currently on the hook for.

[KD5NRH]

And as soon as BP fixes this, get rid of the farking bans on offshore drilling so no one is forced to drill in mile-deep water.  That's one of the biggest causes of this disaster.  Oil companies have to drill in dangerous, deep, and unstable waters because they're not allowed to drill anywhere else.

As I've said elsewhere; if this had happened in an onshore well, it would have been killed before the first news crew could refuse to run the non-story.

[KD5NRH]

1 - Announced blame from on high, when a technologically insurmountable feat needed doing;
2 - Assumed the mantle of responsibility once a reasonable solution started being implemented.

Convenient, isn't it?

I condemn BP for failing to build adequate systems to control a rig toppling failure,

A working BOP would have made this a non-event, as shown by the Discoverer Enterprise's more-or-less non-event with a catastrophic riser failure a while back; nothing was lost but some synthetic mud and chunks of riser.  (And for the record, that adequate system was built by Cameron and owned by Transocean.)  However, the annular seals were damaged, (and there are witnesses to a statement by the company man that strongly suggests he was aware of this) and the hydraulics also developed some sort of crippling problem at the last moment.  No matter how well you design a failsafe, somebody will manage to push it hard enough to break it.

[freakazoid]

[roo_ster]

BHO did not cause the mess, but he is responsible for standing in the way of folks who want to address it.

Two examples are educational.

1. Louisiana governor wanted to dump a bunch of sand barriers (30+) to protect LA coastline.  Fed.gov said NO for weeks and then allowed one.  Now it is too late.

2. The email traffic between agencies talk about all the red tape BP must go through to implement each possible fix.  Some bureaucritters made the case to cut through the red tape to get the possible fixes completed ASAP.  Others argued that they ought to make BP cross every excruciating "t" and dot every time-consuming "i."  Guess which camp won out?

In either case, BHO could have said "Make it so."  But, that would have required him to show intestinal fortitude and leadership.

[seeker_two]

Here's my question: What keeps BP from saying that they've had a bellyfull of Obama's posturing, pulls out their equipment, and gives the Feds a single-finger salute as they let them handle it?....

[longeyes]

The Wrath of Obama?  He's quite capable of drumming up support to expropriate BP's American assets. Think Hugo.

[AZRedhawk44]

Here's my question: What keeps BP from saying that they've had a bellyfull of Obama's posturing, pulls out their equipment, and gives the Feds a single-finger salute as they let them handle it?....

Simple politics.

And the fact that it IS BP's responsibility to clean it up.

Obama has a dangerous game here... BP was siphoning a portion of the spill before the idea of a top-kill was floated by the White House and his supposed experts.  The WH pressured BP to stop the partial siphoning and attempt a top-kill.

All the oil that spilled between the withdrawal of the first siphon, and the attachment of the second siphon, can be laid squarely at Obama's feet.  That's HIS fault.

If BP goes out on too aggressive of an anti-Obama campaign here, Obama already has the rabid anti-oil lobby in his pocket.  He just unleashes them.  And does what his left consitituency wants him to do... crash the American oil industry.

So, BP plays nice and simply puts the facts out in a polite and subtle way rather than laying the cards out for Doofus Americanus to read more clearly.

And Obama keeps the foaming mad libs on a leash.

[Waitone]

Louisiana governor wanted to dump a bunch of sand barriers (30+) to protect LA coastline.  Fed.gov said NO for weeks and then allowed one.  Now it is too late.

Jindall did everything he could to get fed.gov to do its freakin' job but failed.  I would have loved to see Jindall at a presser announce a constitutional crisis and simply do what he wanted done and challenge fed.gov to stop him.  Maybe there is a chance for it to happen later but for now Obama got away with dragging his feet.

[taurusowner]

I too was really hoping Jindal would just build the berms without the license and dare anyone to stop him.

[stevelyn]

And as soon as BP fixes this, get rid of the farking bans on offshore drilling so no one is forced to drill in mile-deep water.  That's one of the biggest causes of this disaster.  Oil companies have to drill in dangerous, deep, and unstable waters because they're not allowed to drill anywhere else.

If this happened onshore they would have been able to fix it immediately, and any clean up would have been in a very small area where the spill could have been contained.