BP Oil Mess

Posted in: Opinion on June 25, 2010 at 7:47 am |

Douglas E. Hall

By Douglas E. Hall

I first wrote about President Obama right after his election 18 months ago, Nov. 4, 2008.  In that column, I frankly discussed the race issues our country faces.  I wrote that President Obama was, or should be, an inspiration to us all.

Over the past 18 months, he has in small and some large ways been a disappointment to me and many others.  I withheld criticism; although I recently thought that offering a job to U.S. Rep Joe Sestak if he would drop his challenge to Pennsylvanian Senator Arlen Spector was a serious violation of the law that merited a special counsel investigation.  Rep. Sestak admitted that he had been approached with a job offer, but turned it down, and subsequently defeated Senator Spector in the Democratic Primary Election.

But that’s small potatoes compared to the mess our nation faces today with the British Petroleum (BP) oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

As you read this, we are in the 65^th day of this oil leak that is now befouling the beaches and sensitive wetlands of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the panhandle of Florida.  With no solution in sight (except to drill a second well next to the damaged and leaking one, which will take months) the widening plume of oil may yet reach up the East Coast past the Carolinas to the beaches of New Jersey.

President Obama stands guilty of inaction and wrong decisions that include failing to respond swiftly to calls for help from local governors, declining offers of technical help from the British and the Dutch and a lack of a clear-cut step to take charge or put someone in charge of minimizing the spill and organizing a cleanup.  At various times, President Obama said BP was in charge, and at other times he said the federal government was in charge.

This was topped off by a White House meeting with BP officials where it was demanded that the company come up with $20 billion without a clear-cut plan of how this money would be used.

It didn’t help that a leak from that meeting claimed that Vice President Joe Biden told BP officials, “You’re not leaving this room until you come up with $20 billion.”

No wonder Texas Rep. Joe Barton felt compelled to apologize to BP and labeled the White House tactics a “shakedown,” a judgment echoed by commentators from the Right.

Congress has performed no better, staging something close to an old-style Soviet show trial in which BP CEO Tony Hayward was humiliated to the point he was even asked if he knew what day of the week it was.

Then, there’s the matter the quiet departure of S. Elizabeth Birnbaum who left federal service as director of the Minerals Managements Service (MMS) of the Department of the Interior on May 27.  MMS oversees off-shore drilling for oil and natural gas.

If Ms. Birnbaum was to be the sacrificial lamb for any government culpability on the April 20 deadly explosion (11 died) that released a gusher of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, someone forgot to tell President Obama.  When asked about Ms. Birnbaum’s departure, the president said he did know if she had quit or had been discharged.  Several days later, Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar said she had been fired.

According to a Department of Interior website, Secretary Salazar ordered a “fundamental restructuring” of MMS on May 19.  Well, fine Mr. Secretary, but you’ve locked the barn after the horse was gone.  There have been reports for years that MMS employees have been too cozy with the oil companies, accepting meals and tickets to sporting events, even+ drugs, not to mention frequent viewing of Internet porn by some MMS employees.

If Ms. Birnbaum was not performing up to standards, President Obama cannot blame this one on President Bush.  She was appointed by Secretary Salazar last July.

What should be going on is a federal investigation of MMS to determine if BP obtained all necessary federal permits to drill the now-damaged well and if all safety precautions were followed.

Beyond the self-satisfaction it accomplishes little is accomplished in continuing to heap verbal abuse on Mr. Hayward as the now demoted CEO, spent the weekend on his yacht watching a boat race.

If the Congressional Committee investigating the BP oil spill had any sense they would have begun with BP’s COO (chief operating officer) who would have a better grasp of day-to-day operations of the oil giant than Mr. Hayward.  Then they would follow that chain of command down to where BP interfaced with MMS and find out just how it came to pass that this oil rig blew up killing many of the workers on board.

The quicker the root causes of this tragedy can be determined the quicker drilling came be safely resumed at other locations in the gulf.  It should be a goal of the president to resume normal activities on other oil rigs as soon as possible to minimize job loss and enforce safely standards and bring in oil that our nation needs.

These steps should be given priority by President Obama over his recent mission to find out “whose ass to kick,” as he so crudely put it.  It may be his own.

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