It's Obama's White House, but it's still Bush's world

It's Obama's White House, but it's still Bush's world

By Julian E. Zelizer - Washington Post 

Sunday, August 15, 2010; B01

When conservatives brand President Obama a socialist or a foreigner, his aides laugh it off. When critics disparage him as arrogant or aloof, they roll their eyes. But if liberals dare compare Obama to his predecessor in the Oval Office, the gloves come off.

"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told the Hill newspaper last week. "Those people ought to be drug-tested. I mean, it's crazy." Gibbs went on to deride such critics as the "professional left," who will be content only "when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon."

Even though Gibbs later semi-apologized, saying he had spoken "inartfully," it's not hard to see why the comparison stings. As the midterm elections approach, Democrats have made George W. Bush a focus of their fall campaign. Speaking at a Texas fundraiser Monday, Obama asked: "The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future -- do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?" Their message is clear: Republicans still embody the Bush agenda, and only with a Democratic White House and Congress will the nation be able to truly break from the past.

The president is correct in part. Just look at the health-care overhaul, Wall Street reform and the new emphasis on diplomacy in American foreign policy to see the difference that one election can make. Yet the break between Bush and Obama should not be exaggerated. Dismantling the past is extraordinarily difficult. In a host of arenas, Obama is holding on to the Bush administration's policies and practices, even some that he decried during his presidential campaign and vowed to undo. From the wars we fight to the oil we drill for, we're still living in the Bush era -- like it or not.

First, consider the strengthening of presidential power. Every president since Richard Nixon has fought to restore the authority of the executive branch that was diminished as a result of Watergate. No chief executive was as successful as Bush, especially since he had the help of Vice President Dick Cheney, who had dedicated much of his career to criticizing the 1970s reforms that he thought had emasculated the White House. Bush relied on signing statements and executive orders to implement initiatives such as warrantless wiretapping without having to get approval from Congress.

Obama has not done much to reverse the trend. While he has worked harder to court Congress, allowing legislators to craft the details of the health-care legislation, for example, he has not stepped back from Bush's robust use of executive power. He has relied on it to strengthen environmental programs and agencies that had been weakened since the 1980s. On national security, the pattern is more striking. Obama's Justice Department has turned to Bush's sweeping interpretation of the "state secrets" privilege to battle lawsuits involving the rendition and torture of terrorism suspects, and the president has defended the right of the government to conduct intrusive domestic wiretapping programs.

The second enduring legacy of the Bush presidency is the sprawling counterterrorism infrastructure created after Sept. 11, 2001. The Bush administration vastly strengthened the government's ability to fight terrorist networks by collecting information, tracking and closing down financial and nonprofit organizations, and interrogating detainees. Although Obama was a critic of this program on the campaign trail, much of it remains in place -- most notably, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Early in the Obama presidency, Jack Goldsmith, a former lawyer for the Bush administration who had become a vocal critic of its counterterrorism policies, criticized Cheney for exaggerating the differences between the two White Houses. "The new administration," Goldsmith wrote in the New Republic, "has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit."

And in a blistering report on the administration's national security record released last month, the American Civil Liberties Union warned of the "very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is a real danger, in other words, that the Obama administration will preside over the creation of a 'new normal.' "

The report praised Obama's decisions to release the Bush administration's "torture memos" and to outlaw secret CIA prisons overseas, as well as his prohibition of torture, but criticized the administration for, among other things, failing to eliminate military commission trials and targeted killings of terrorism suspects. ACLU Director Anthony Romero declared himself "disgusted" with the president's policies.

Nor, in a practical sense, has the Obama administration distanced itself from the Bush administration's third legacy, its wars for regime change. After the 2001 attacks, Bush defended a vision of foreign policy that sought to remove terrorist-friendly governments from power and rebuild their countries' civilian and security institutions. These principles underpinned the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To the frustration of many liberals, Obama has not changed course. While following through with Bush's withdrawal schedule for Iraq, Obama has expanded Bush's mission in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops into the conflict. He is now relying on Gen. David H. Petraeus, who Bush used to clean up the problems in Iraq, to strengthen the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. And Obama's withdrawal dates remain fuzzy. At the end of this month, 50,000 U.S troops will still be in Iraq, while the July 2011 deadline for leaving Afghanistan remains far from solid (in fact, many administration officials backed off that date almost as soon as it was announced).

The Bush administration also rejected strong regulatory oversight of offshore oil drilling -- a fourth critical legacy. In keeping with their long-held position that oil companies should be free from government restrictions in order to help end American dependence on foreign oil, Bush officials allowed agencies responsible for oversight to be weakened, staffing them with administrators who were skeptical of climate change and other scientific arguments about the environment.

Although many Democrats initially decried Bush's deregulatory policies on offshore drilling after the BP oil spill in the gulf, it soon became clear that blame also rested with the Obama administration. In a series of penetrating articles for Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson revealed how the Obama White House had not done much to repair the broken Minerals Management Service and had been willing to trade support for offshore drilling in exchange for votes on climate-change legislation. Ignoring the advice of scientific experts, the administration authorized an aggressive round of drilling in the gulf without adequate environmental review.

After the spill, the Obama administration did impose a moratorium on drilling and stuck with it despite enormous political fallout; when a federal judge struck down the first ban, Obama imposed another. Yet the moratorium has been far from airtight, with loopholes allowing several kinds of drilling to continue.

Fiscal policy is the final area where Bush's legacy still looms. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 provided substantial tax relief for middle- and upper-income Americans, with the benefits weighted toward the wealthiest citizens. Building on Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics, the Bush administration pushed for big cuts based on the notion that they would propel economic growth. Moreover, during the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008, the administration proposed the Troubled Assets Relief Program -- with Democratic support -- which offered a massive bailout to the nation's financial sector.

These policies remain intact. Obama, as a senator and presidential candidate, helped push the TARP through Congress, and as president he extended and defended the bailout. On the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire this year, the verdict is still out. Here, Obama and the Democrats have made an aggressive push to overturn part of the Bush legacy: They have rallied support to allow the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire -- in order to reduce the deficits they helped create -- while extending the cuts for Americans earning less than $250,000 a year. It's not clear whether they will succeed; after all, many Democrats are nervous about being tagged as members of the party that raises taxes.

Almost since before he took office, Bush was written off by many as an intellectual and policy lightweight, an accidental commander in chief. Nonetheless, it soon became clear that his would be a very serious presidency -- one with long-term consequences for the nation and the world, far beyond his two terms in office.

Obama, who won the presidency on a platform of change, is now seeking to recycle that anti-Bush magic for the midterm vote. Yet, he is learning the hard way that it is easier to campaign against the Texan's legacy than to actually govern against it. It is Bush who, despite avoiding the post-presidential limelight (at least until his memoir is published in November), has continued setting the terms of the debate, so much so that his successor and opponents must adopt many of his ideas, however reluctantly.

We may live in the age of Obama, as many call it, but it's still Bush's world.

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the editor of the essay collection "The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment," forthcoming this fall, and the author of the forthcoming "Jimmy Carter."

It's Obama's White House, but it's still Bush's world

Share|

________________________

Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response - CSMonitor.com

Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response

Local officials complain about lack of urgency in the federal Gulf oil spill response. Here are five reasons that the government seems to be dragging its heels.

Workers skim a large patch of weathered oil by hand near the boat ramp at Ken Combs Pier in Gulfport, Miss. The Gulf oil spill became the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, based on the highest of the federal government's estimates.
(Amanda McCoy/The Sun Herald/AP)

---

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
posted July 1, 2010 at 7:46 pm EDT

Atlanta —
With each oily wave hitting marshes and beaches from the Gulf oil spill, desperation grows along the already stained Gulf Coast.
In part, the magnitude of the spill has simply overwhelmed the ability of the White House and BP to completely contain it. But it is clear that bureaucratic red tape – echoing the post-Katrina federal response five years ago – has bogged down clean-up efforts as a host of agencies – OSHA, EPA, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and others – weigh in on most decisions.
Meanwhile, as November elections approach, the oil spill has a political dimension as both parties begin to use the massive oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon accident to bolster their prospects. Democrats will point out Republican ties to Big Oil, and Republicans will chide what they'll call a lackadaiscal response by the White House.
IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill's impact on nature
If the Macondo well is capped, oil cleanup is ramped up, and no hurricanes hit the slick, the oil spill crisis is likely to eventually abate. But the impression many Gulf Coast residents have so far is of a Keystone Kops response, where mundane regulations and misplaced priorities stand in the way of protecting local livelihoods and the Gulf's natural environment.
"The cleanup effort is drowning in the proverbial sea of red tape," writes Gulf Coast native Winston Groom, the author of "Forrest Gump," in the Weekly Standard.
Here are the top five bottlenecks impeding the Gulf oil spill cleanup so far:
Enough life vests? The Coast Guard has not eased any of its safety regulations and will likely continue to refuse to do so. A Louisiana effort involving 16 oil-sucking barges was shut down for nearly a day on June 18 by the Coast Guard, which wanted to make sure there were enough life vests and fire extinguishers on board.
"The Coast Guard is not going to compromise safety ... that's our No. 1 priority," Coast Guard spokesman Robert Brassel told The Daily Caller. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called it "frustrating."
The Jones Act. It's unclear to what extent the Jones Act, a 1920 protectionist law that mandates only US vessels and crews operate within the US three-mile maritime border, has really affected the ability to move foreign oil skimmers into the spill theater.
At issue in the law is both availability and proximity of US based skimming vessels. Several nations have said their offers of help have been rebuffed at least in part by US officials citing the Jones Act. This week, Obama sent out a call for more nations to join the clean-up response, but the President has not publicly addressed the legal and practical issues around US law and the foreign fleets ready to help.
"We want all the skimming vessels in the world deployed," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser tells the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.
(Factcheck.org says, "In reality, the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts.... So far, offers from six foreign countries or entities have been accepted and only one offer has been rejected. Fifteen foreign-flag vessels are working on the cleanup, and none required a waiver.")
EPA says no, then yes. Three days after the accident, the Dutch government offered advanced skimming equipment capable of sucking up oiled water, separating out most of the oil, and returning the cleaner water to the Gulf. But citing discharge regulations that demand that 99.9985 percent of the returned water is oil-free, the EPA initially turned down the offer. A month into the crisis, the EPA backed off those regulations, and the Dutch equipment was airlifted to the Gulf.
'Ever hear of Radio Shack?' In a recent fly-over of a spill area near Perdido Bay, BP official Doug Suttles expressed amazement that spotter plane pilots couldn't communicate directly with skimming boats on the surface to direct them to oil patches. "We need to get the skimmers to the oil," Suttles said. Local officials in Escambia County, Fla., have been asking for weeks for plane-to-ship communications, to little avail.
"Haven't they ever heard of Radio Shack?" writes Mr. Groom.
Who's in charge here? President Obama has said "the buck stops" with him. But the actual incident response command structure is a Gordian Knot for local officials requesting help and resources. Frustrated by red tape, some officials have been warned they'll be arrested if they take matters into their own hands. The lack of a clear command structure has hampered the ability to move resources like booms and skimmers quickly, especially in a still-growing spill that's at the whim of the Gulf's ever-changing tides, currents and winds.
While most of the criticism has been heaped on federal agencies and the Obama administration, questions are being raised about the extent to which the four Gulf state governors (all Republicans) are responding too – specifically, on deployment of National Guard troops under their command.
In a recent investigative report, CBS News found that Louisiana's Gov. Jindal had deployed just 1,053 of the 6,000 troops available to him. "Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available," according to CBS. "Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000."
Jindal told CBS that the White House had instructed state officials that "Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks" for National Guard units.
But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the government's response to the spill, disputed that. "There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," Allen told CBS.
"Whether it's simple confusion or the infusion of politics into the spill, the fact remains thousands of helping hands remain waiting to be used," concluded CBS.
IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill's impact on nature
Related:
Gulf oil spill: The story so far
Jones Act: Maritime politics strain Gulf oil spill cleanup
After Gulf swimmers report illness, questions about opening a beach

© The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy.

Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response - CSMonitor.com

Financial Times: Hayward to leave BP top job in October

July 26 2010 4:55 PM GMT
Hayward to leave BP top job in October
--
By FT reporters
--
Precursor to Bob Dudley, American and Asian head, taking over the helm of the oil group
Read the full article at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ac25bc7c-98d0-11df-9418-00144feab49a.html

Did BP Keep Drilling Even Though It Had Lost Control of the Oil Well Much Earlier?

The evidence keeps mounting against BP in the Macondo well explosion. The
post below is long but thorough!

Compiled by Washington's Blog <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/> from the NY
Times, Bloomberg, LA Times, and the Times of London.

The New York Times noted
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> yesterday:
Even though it was more than a month before the explosion, the [Deepwater
Horizon] rig's safety audit was conducted against the backdrop of what seems
to have been a losing battle to control the well.
On the March visit, Lloyd's investigators reported "a high degree of focus
and activity relating to well control issues," adding that "specialists were
aboard the rig to conduct subsea explosions to help alleviate these well
control issues."
As I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/did-bp-oil-well-blow-out-in-february
.html> last month:
The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20th, and sank a couple of days
later. BP has been criticized for failing to report on the seriousness of
the blow out for several weeks.
However, as a whistleblower previously told
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml> 60
Minutes, there was an accident at the rig a month or more prior to the April
20th explosion:
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] ... says going faster
caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that
drilling fluid called "mud."
"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down
into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.
That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to
the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.
As Bloomberg reports
<http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gu
lf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html> today, problems at the
well actually started in February:
BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as
February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil
into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with
the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional
investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the
drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow
explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
"Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made
were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost," said Peter Galvin of the
Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional
investigators probing the disaster. "It's been a doomed voyage from the
beginning."
***
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling
documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to
determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
***
The company attempted a "cement squeeze," which involves pumping cement to
seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following
week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining
expensive drilling fluid, known as "mud," into the surrounding rocks.
BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the
documents show.
"Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you're done,"
said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas
engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. "It dries within
a few hours."
Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using
the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.
In other words, the well started losing integrity in February, and may have
never been permanently stabilized. If cracks in the well were never properly
sealed, then the well may have been unstable starting in February and
continuing until the April 20 explosion. (There is substantial evidence
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/evidence-points-to-destruction-benea
th.html> that there are cracks in the well now.)
Bloomberg continues:
In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble
maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released
May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating
the spill.
***
While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells
if they determine the risk is too high.
***
On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral
service's drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: "We'
re in the midst of a well control situation."
The incident was a "showstopper," said Robert Bea, an engineering professor
at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the
Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. "They damn near blew up the
rig."
And the wives of oil rig workers killed in the blast testified
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> that their husbands reported that the rig had problems
controlling well pressure weeks before explosion.
In other words, not only is it possible that the well casing was somewhat
unstable for months before the blow out, but BP may have ignored standard
drilling practices by failing to abandon the well when the natural gas began
surging too violently.
Sure, the rig didn't actually catch fire and sink until April, but cracks in
the well and dangerous natural gas surges may mean that BP never fully had
control of the well.
I'm not the only one asking such questions. It is worth re-reading the
following passage from the Bloomberg article quoted above:
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well ... drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are
still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the
disaster.
Damaged Blowout Preventer
Whether or not BP had lost control of the well earlier, it was confirmed
yesterday that BP had damaged its key piece of safety equipment - the
blowout preventer - earlier, yet kept drilling.
The Los Angeles Times reported
<http://www.localwireless.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=16652134&cid=166
77&ith=4&title=Top+Stories%22> Monday:
BP officials knew about a problem on a crucial well safety device at least
three months before the catastrophic April 20 explosion in the Gulf of
Mexico but failed to repair it, according to testimony Tuesday from the
company's well manager.
Ronald Sepulvado testified that he was aware of a leak on a control pod atop
the well's blowout preventer and notified his supervisor in Houston about
the problem, which Sepulvado didn't consider crucial. The 450-ton hydraulic
device, designed to prevent gas or oil from blasting out of the drill hole,
failed during the disaster, which killed 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon rig
and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Investigators said BP did not disclose the matter to the appropriate federal
agency and failed to suspend drilling operations until the problem was
resolved, as required by law.
The New York Times adds
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> the following details:
Federal investigators said Tuesday at a panel that continuing to drill
despite problems related to the blowout preventer might have been a
violation of federal regulations that require a work stoppage if the
equipment is found not to work properly.
While the equipment report says the device's control panels were in fair
condition, it also cites a range of problems, including a leaking door seal,
a diaphragm on the purge air pump needing replacement and several
error-response messages.
The device's annulars, which are large valves used to control wellbore
fluids, also encountered "extraordinary difficulties" surrounding their
maintenance, the report said.
And as I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/despite-knowing-it-had-damaged-blowo
ut.html> in May:
Several weeks before the Gulf oil explosion, a key piece of safety equipment
- the blowout preventer - was damaged.
As the Times of London reports
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7128842.
ece> :
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] claimed that the
blowout preventer was then damaged when a crewman accidentally moved a
joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force. Pieces of
rubber were found in the drilling fluid, which he said implied damage to a
crucial seal. But a supervisor declared the find to be "not a big deal", Mr
Williams alleged.
UC Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea told 60 Minutes that a damaged
blowout preventer not only may lead to a catastrophic accident like the Gulf
oil spill, but leads to inaccurate pressure readings, so that the well
operator doesn't know the real situation, and cannot keep the rig safe.
There are many other examples of criminal negligence by BP, Halliburton and
Transocean as well. See
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR201007200
2038.html> this,
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/bp-could-have-easily-contained-gulf-
oil.html> this,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/business/19nocera.html?ref=business>
this,
<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/bp-executives-could-face-15-y
ears-jail/story-e6frg90f-1225879591963> this,
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9ElwiTMH4Tg> this,
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/bp-smoking-gun-oil-giant_n_583590.
html> this,
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7136969.ece> this,
<http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/report-bp-had-3-indications-of-trouble
-in-hour-before-blast/> this,
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64Q0SG20100527> this,
<http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-h
appen> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=awDwwghB5ZXg&?huffbloom
berg> this, <http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/49604> this,
<http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/9-Important-Points-about-the-BP-
Blowout-%E2%80%93-Part-1.html> this,
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268302434395796.h
tml?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news> this,
<http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/26/oil.spill.investigation/index.html?hpt=T1>
this,
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/26/94884/bp-could-be-held-criminally-lia
ble.html> this,
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill;_ylt=ArN0
sQOh44H9NooB0_6.k62s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNobWswNzlsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNTI2L3VzX2
d1bGZfb2lsX3NwaWxsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2
UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYnBiZWdpbnNub3Zl> this and
<http://www.businessinsider.com/deepwater-survivor-bp-transocean-haliburton-
were-gambling-with-our-lives-2010-5> this.
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~4/r4XzCeXljVE>

View article...
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/r4XzCeXljVE/did-bp-keep-dr
illing-even-though-it-had-lost-control-oil-well-much-earlier-0>

China Oil Spill PHOTOS: Official Warns Of 'Severe Threat'

China Oil Spill PHOTOS: Official Warns Of 'Severe Threat'

First Posted: 07-21-10 08:37 AM | Updated: 07-21-10 04:21 PM

(AP) BEIJING -- China's largest reported oil spill had more than doubled by Wednesday, closing beaches on the Yellow Sea and prompting an environmental official to warn the sticky black crude posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality.

Some workers trying to clean up the inky beaches wore little more than rubber gloves, complicating efforts, one official said. But 40 oil-control boats and hundreds of fishing boats were also deployed in the area.

"I've been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil," said Zhong Yu, a worker with the environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent Wednesday on a boat inspecting the spill.

"The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt," she told The Associated Press.

The oil was spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded. State media says no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the amount of oil spilled was not clear Wednesday. Based on the known figures, the spill is significantly dwarfed by the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast.

See photos of the spill and the explosion:




Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of straw mats of about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the inky sea, meant to absorb the oil.

Zhong said it was still difficult for Greenpeace China to estimate the spill's real size and the damage it is causing.

But one maritime official with the city of Dalian, where the port is located, was already warning of environmental dangers.

"The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds," Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for the China Maritime Safety Administration in Dalian, told Dragon TV.

At least one person died in cleanup efforts. A 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, drowned Tuesday when a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China's most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Officials at all levels were turning out on the beaches for cleanup, using sometimes makeshift equipment.

"We don't have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks," an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper in apparent exasperation. "This kind of inefficiency means the oil will keep coming to shore. ... This stretch of oil is really difficult to clean up in the short term."

China Central Television earlier reported an estimate of 1,500 tons of oil has spilled. That would amount roughly to 400,000 gallons (1,500,000 liters) - as compared with 94 million to 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast.

State Oceanic Administration released the latest size of the contaminated area in a statement Tuesday.

Though the slick has continued to expand - it covered a 70-square-mile (180-square-kilometer) stretch earlier this week - state media has said no more oil was leaking into the Yellow Sea.

The cause of the explosion that started the spill was still not clear. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Images of 100-foot-high (30-meter-high) flames shooting up near part of China's strategic oil reserves late Friday drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy brown plume.

"Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters," Dalian's vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time.

The Dalian port is China's second largest for crude oil imports, and last week's spill appears to be the country's largest in recent memory.

Some locals said the area's economy was already hurting from the spill.

"Let's wait and see how well they deal with the oil until Sept. 1, if the oil can't be cleaned up by then, the seafood products will all be ruined," an unnamed fisherman told Dragon TV. "No one will buy them in the market because of the smell of the oil."








China Oil Spill PHOTOS: Official Warns Of 'Severe Threat'




________________________

The MasterBlog

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well - Disaster in the Gulf - msnbc.com

Seems BP ain't alone....

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well

'We've found nothing that would be consequential,' Allen says

WASHINGTON — The federal government's oil spill chief said Tuesday that seepage detected two miles from BP's oil cap is coming from another well.

There are two wells within two miles of BP's blowout, one that has been abandoned and another that is not in production.

There are around 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf, and an Associated Press investigation showed this month that they're not checked for leaks.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said at a Tuesday afternoon briefing that five leaks in and around the broken well are more like 'drips' and don't mean the well is unstable. He's extended testing of the experimental cap by another day, which means the oil will remain shut in.

"We've found nothing that would be consequential," retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said in a news conference, The Times-Picayune reported on its website.

The mechanical cap has stopped the oil since Thursday. But several leaks had caused mounting concern that the cap was displacing pressure and causing leaks deep underground.

If oil is leaking through bedrock and mud, it could cause instability in the sea floor and make the environmental disaster even worse and harder to fix.

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well - Disaster in the Gulf - msnbc.com

________________________

OPEC's Crude Reserves Rose 4% Last Year as Venezuela Increased Resources - Bloomberg

OPEC's Crude Reserves Rose 4% Last Year as Venezuela Increased Resources
By Grant Smith - Jul 6, 2010

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said its proven crude oil reserves rose 4 percent last year, led by gains in Venezuela.

The total amount of crude under OPEC territory advanced to 1.064 trillion barrels in 2009, the group said in its Annual Statistical Bulletintoday. This follows an increase of 7.9 percent in 2008, the biggest in 20 years. Venezuela’s share surged 23 percent to 211.2 billion barrels.

BP Plc said in its Statistical Review of World Energy on June 9 that OPEC’s reserves grew 0.1 percent last year to 1.029 trillion barrels.

State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, known as PDVSA, has tapped tar-like crude in the Orinoco Belt to swell supplies as output in other parts of the country dwindle. The Orinoco Belt is one of the world’s biggest oil deposits, with 513 billion barrels that may be recovered using current technology, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Reserves declined in Iran by 0.4 percent to 137 billion barrels, and in Qatar by 0.1 percent to 25.38 billion barrels, according to the report. Reserves in Saudi Arabia, which holds the world’s largest, grew 0.2 percent to 264.59 billion barrels.

OPEC said that its share of global reserves advanced 0.6 percent to 79.6 percent.

To contact the reporters on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

®2010 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

OPEC's Crude Reserves Rose 4% Last Year as Venezuela Increased Resources - Bloomberg




________________________

The MasterBlog

BP's Leaky Value - Forbes.com

Intelligent Investing
BP's Leaky Value
Alexandra Zendrian, 05.21.10, 7:00 PM ET
It's been a month since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began and the region's water quality isn't the only thing that's taken a nosedive. British Petroleum's stock price is down 26.79% in the last month. Until the company stops the spill, BP's stock could continue to slide.
British Petroleum launched a live webcam of the oil flowing from under the ocean on May 21. While this webcam helps with the perception of accountability after the spill, it won't ease the public's outrage over the spill now that they can watch it live.
BP said on May 20 that it is still working on collecting oil from what it calls a "riser insertion tube tool containment system."
"The volume of oil and gas being collected … at the end of the leaking riser is estimated to be about 3,000 barrels a day of oil and 14 million standard cubic feet a day of gas," said BP in a press release. BP also noted that the use of this tube, "remains a new technology and both its continued operation and its effectiveness in capturing the oil and gas remain uncertain."
Down 27% since the spill began, BP stock owners could be in for more of a downfall. "There's still plenty of room to go down," says Raymond James research associate Alex Morris. Morris says BP's tumble is mostly related to the Gulf of Mexico spill, but he also points to the energy sector being down in the last few weeks. The iShares Dow Jones U.S. Energy Sector exchange-traded fund is down 13.21% in the last month.
Prior to the Gulf spill, Raymond James had an outperform rating on the stock. Since the spill, BP was given a market perform rating based on the "legal overhang that will remain for the foreseeable future with lots of lawsuits being lobbed at BP," Morris says.
TraderPlanet.com senior analyst Darrell Jobman says BP has a sizable public relations problem. "It's not just the current Gulf situation but a refinery explosion in Texas a few years ago that seems to indicate some poor management judgment. Put that together with the current economic scenario with the euro and European economy and you have plenty of reasons for more pressure on oil prices and oil companies."
Jobman forecasts that BP could be pushed down to $35, a level that it dropped to in 1998, 2003 and 2009. It's currently trading at $43.95. "Eventually, though, I see the strong pressure now leading to a good buying opportunity in BP if it sinks to $35, although I like the Exxon-Mobil and ConocoPhillips stories better," he says.
The other companies involved in this spill, Halliburton Company, Cameron International Corp. and Transocean, have also plunged since the spill with Transocean falling the most in the past month.


http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/21/transocean-halliburton-spill-intelligent-investing-bp_print.html

_______________________________________
Check it out on The Master
MBlog