Obama administration blocked efforts to stop BP oil drilling before explosion

[yunghustlaz]

In 2009, the Obama administration intervened to support the reversal of a court order that would have halted offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has long had close ties to the industry, specifically cited BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation as one that should be allowed to go forward, according to a

Comments

[gmth]

This study has yet to be completed.

Has it been started? These things usually take quite a bit of time, and if the order came through in July of last year the problem may be that it's just not finished yet.

[awfulbliss]

It would make the condition completely worthless that a study doesn't necessarily have to be completed, but rather just started, before drilling begins or resumes. I mean maybe this is a poor analogy, but it's like putting a bad car out on the road, finding out it has all kinds of flaws and saying, "well, we'll do the study but we should still be able to sell them in the meantime."

[gmth]

...it's like putting a bad car out on the road, finding out it has all kinds of flaws and saying, "well, we'll do the study but we should still be able to sell them in the meantime."

Isn't that pretty much what the court ruling did, though? I agree, I think the ability to drill should have been contingent on completing the study, but the court did say the drilling could continue while the study was going on. I'm not sure how that's the Obama administration's fault.

The bigger problem, IMO, is this: "...the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Services (MMS) has continued to grant 'categorical exclusions' to oil and gas companies, allowing them to bypass environmental studies." Letting them off the hook with no studies at all is problematic. Starting a study and not having had a chance to finish it before a major accident is also problematic but feels like a different kettle of fish to me.

[awfulbliss]

I don't know, is there a link to the court order? It seems completely asburd to me that a study to look at potential risks doesn't have to be completed before the drilling takes place.

Either way, it's highly troubling that on matters of energy, the Obama Administration is agreeing with the API, a group that is made up entirely of complete slimeballs who have thwarted every single attempt -- no matter how small -- to change energy policy in this country.

[gmth]

Either way, it's highly troubling that on matters of energy, the Obama Administration is agreeing with the API...

No argument there.

[awfulbliss]

If I'm not mistaken, this particular Court order specifically refers to a particular company in a particular potential drilling area, does it not? It's a case by case basis, just like the way insider trading is handled...except of course that when you're accused of insider trading, all of your accounts and ability to trade are suspended. The stock market will not, and should not, be completely suspended because of an inside trading scandal. That would be ludicrous. I don't believe that all drilling should be suspended because of BP, I just think drilling in this area should be halted indefinitely until a study is concluded at the very least. If you are accused of insider trading, I'm quite positive you absolutely cannot engage in further trading until an investigation and verdict is complete, so the comparison is not exactly apt. Ivan Boesky did not trade securities while his trial was going on.

[awfulbliss]

The stock market is something I'm quite familiar with so I used that one. I don't understand your other example, either; should the police not be able to do anything because of a few officers engaged in racial profiling? If the court order said "no drilling anywhere for any company can continue until a study is completed," I think your hypothetical example would work, but that's not what happening, so I just don't see how you make the connection. I don't want all drilling suspended, just BP's in this particular area. It seems strange to me to suggest that this is the same as thinking the police should not be able investigate and track down a murderer because of a racial profiling investigation.

[awfulbliss]

And I know it is suspended now, I mean at the time of the court order.

[awfulbliss]

Oh, and shares of a company's stock have been halted before for SEC investigations into insider trading.