{"id":7880,"date":"2010-07-12T15:00:39","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T22:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/?p=7880"},"modified":"2010-07-12T18:24:56","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T01:24:56","slug":"oil-spill-response-is-%e2%80%9cstuck-on-stupid%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/?p=7880","title":{"rendered":"Oil Spill Response is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stuck on Stupid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morning Bell: Oil Spill Response is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stuck on Stupid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a><\/h2>\n

(From the Heritage Foundation!)<\/p>\n

...Ironically, royalties  from offshore drilling<\/a> in Louisiana are\r\ndesignated by the state  constitution to pay for critical\r\ninfrastructure protection and coastal  restoration. The longer\r\nthis drilling moratorium continues, the longer  Louisiana has to\r\nwait to protect itself from future disasters. Eric  Smith, an\r\nenergy expert at Tulane University, pointed out that the\r\nmoratorium also increases the risk of a spill because that threat\r\nincreases every time you start and stop operations. Smith also pointed\r\nout that putting two to three independent safety inspectors on each rig,\r\npaid for by the oil companies, would be a low-cost alternative\r\nto the  moratorium.\r\n\r\n...Offshore  platforms are already leaving the Gulf<\/a>, and many more\r\nare marketing  their services elsewhere. Once they leave, it may be\r\nyears, if not  decades, before they return. And if they do return,\r\nit will be at added  cost due to the potential for more broken contracts.\r\n\r\n...The second  item we heard most often was that unnecessary  <\/a>\r\nfederal permitting delays<\/a> were making environmental and\r\neconomic  protection impossible. The marshes, waters and estuaries\r\nmake up a  complicated eco-system that protects south Louisiana\r\nfrom flooding and  prevents oil from reaching inland. Yet, without\r\nthe ability to build  rock jetties, dykes and sand berms, the\r\nenvironment is going  unprotected. Why? Because the left absurdly\r\nbelieves the protective  measures might cause long-term damage,\r\ndespite assurances that all  measures are temporary, could be\r\nremoved, and BP would pay for it.  Ignoring this crisis in favor\r\nof a mythical one 30 years away must end,  today.\r\n\r\n...Local officials are positive that plans they have had in\r\nplace for years will work, and that shallow water vessels exist that\r\nminimize potential long term impacts. In the last ten years, these\r\nsame  communities have helped build 700 acres of new protective marsh.\r\nPresident Obama needs to listen to their input and stop the delays.\r\n\r\n...We  also discovered that response crews are being prevented  <\/a>\r\nfrom working at night or for more than 20 minutes out of every hour<\/a>.\r\nAnd apparently, those 20 minutes an hour aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even in shifts, but\r\ntotal stoppages. Louisiana fishermen are no strangers to working at\r\nnight, or long hours. BP could easily afford the GPS, maps and lights\r\nneeded to extend work hours. But so far, the daily response time to this\r\ncrisis is simply unbalanced to the disaster itself...\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
***end quote***<\/address>\n
The President has apparently spoken three times on the spill since it started; His administration has gone out of it’s way to make sure that no one knows about the results of the spill (press and people are banned from entering areas to report on the oily birds and such); His administration has stopped efforts to build barriers to keep the oil from reaching the shore for fear something might hurt the environment; His administration declined help from outside the US to collect the oil and let the oil drift; His administration is trying very hard to end oil drilling, period.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of hard on the people of the Gulf that need the jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, the drive to make BP pay for everything\u00c2\u00a0 RIGHT NOW is killing the company…but if the company was kept healthy they could pay for cleanup until, ummmm, it was all cleaned up?<\/p>\n
~Curtis in \/\\\/\\onTana! {=-{<<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Morning Bell: Oil Spill Response is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stuck on Stupid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (From the Heritage Foundation!) …Ironically, royalties from offshore drilling in Louisiana are designated by the state constitution to pay for critical infrastructure protection and coastal restoration. The longer this drilling moratorium continues, the longer Louisiana has to wait to protect itself from future disasters. Eric Smith, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7880"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7887,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions\/7887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dailylife.barrowroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}