oil spill

Take that Mother Nature!

Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said.

The break near Billings in south-central Montana fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts Saturday to close intakes.

The river has no dams on its way to its confluence with the Missouri River just across the Montana border in North Dakota. It was unclear how far the plume might travel.

Cleanup crews deployed booms and absorbent material as the plume moved downstream at an estimated 5 to 7 mph.

So how much oil spilled?

ExxonMobil spokeswoman Pam Malek said the pipe leaked an estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil for about a half-hour before it was shut down. Other Exxon officials had estimated up to 42,000 gallons of crude oil escaped.

(side note: I don't know who wrote this article, but one barrel of oil is 42 gallons, so 42,000 gallons would be 1,000 barrels!)

Another environmental disaster in the making and one that could affect some of our most pristine natural treasures.

This is a very interesting find from the Presidential Oil Spill Commission's final report:

"Local resentment became a media theme and then a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even those who privately thought the federal government was doing the best it could under the circumstances could not say so publicly. Coast Guard responders watched Governor Jindal -- and the TV cameras following him -- return to what appeared to be the same spot of oiled marsh day after day to complain about the inadequacy of the federal response, even though only a small amount of marsh was then oiled. When the Coast Guard sought to clean up that piece of affected marsh, Governor Jindal refused to confirm its location. Journalists encouraged state and local officials and residents to display their anger at the federal response, and offered coverage when they did. Anderson Cooper reportedly asked a Parish President to bring an angry, unemployed offshore oil worker on his show. When the Parish President could not promise the worker would be 'angry,' both were disinvited."

(emphasis added)

It’s all about ratings and popularity. Something like this has come to be expected by politicians in our world of divisive politics, but to have a member of the media exploit this disaster in such a way just to increase ratings, well that is inexcusable. Is this how CNN wants to regain their honor as a news source, by manufacturing outrage in the name of ratings? Anderson Cooper should lose his job over this crap.

This really isn't that shocking of a news story:

Leave it to FOX News to manufacturer whatever they want to pass off as facts. Media Matters has done an in-depth report on Fox's continued lies about Obama and the oil spill. This one really sticks out at me:

Kilmeade: There are "problems" with BP giving "$750 million to a campaign like they did to the Obama campaign" and "Emanuel staying there with a consulting firm for BP." During the segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade falsely claimed BP gave $750 million to Obama's presidential campaign:  

KILMEADE: Sure. And when BP gives $750 million to a campaign like they did to the Obama campaign in the '07-'08 period, along with Rahm Emanuel staying there with a consulting firm for BP, you wonder if somehow there might be some problems.  

DOOCY: Well, clearly this is a big story, Brian. So I would imagine the mainstream media is going to have this all over the front pages.  

Contributions came almost entirely from BP employees -- not BP itself -- and totaled about $70,000, not $750 million

$750 Million? How in the hell could someone read that on the air and call themselves a journalist? And who will Fox fire for this? Last year they put out that memo stating that people would lose their jobs for this kind of crap, yet no one has. Welcome to the ethics of Faux News.

A new ABC poll has rated the government response to the oil spill worse than the response to Katrina:

A month and a half after the spill began, 69 percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll rate the federal response negatively. That compares with a 62 negative rating for the response to Katrina two weeks after the August 2005 hurricane.

That's really not a shock given the media's attempt to paint the spill as "Obama's Katrina". But unlike Katrina, there have been other roadblocks in the way of the response that the media hardly mentions.

The first of these roadblocks is a provision in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 that essentially ties the hands of th government when it comes to the response. Instead the oil company is responsible for the response. Here is how Thad Allen described the law to Mike Wallace:

ALLEN: Well, this started out as a search and rescue case. We had the explosion. We had the extraordinary tragic loss of 11 lives. And for 48 hours we were involved in search and rescue when the drill sunk. We mobilized every asset as if it were a catastrophic response.

After the Exxon Valdez, Congress passed legislation called the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and the way we respond by designating B.P. as a responsible party and having them have contractors available to do the response is the structure that was mandated by Congress after the Exxon Valdez.

There has been a lot of talk about President Obama needing to get angry over the oil spill. Finally, when reading this post by Greg Sargent, I got really thinking about it. Here's what Greg said:

Sorry Mr. President, your latest display of anger about the Gulf spill, in a new interview with Larry King, just won't cut it:

"I am furious at this entire situation," he said. "Somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions and it is imperiling not just a handful of people. This is imperiling an entire way of life and an entire region for potentially years."

Has BP felt his anger?

"They have felt the anger," he said.

Nope, it's not good enough for you to say you're furious, Mr. President. Kick something. Smash a camera with your bare hands. Vulcan Death Grip rhetoric just won't do.

One of the big selling points of candidate Obama was what a cool customer he was. He didn't have to go out there and yell and scream. He could control his anger.

I have no doubt that the President is furious over this spill. Who wouldn't be? But what would a visibly angry Obama really accomplish? Will it get BP shaking in their boots and saying; "OK - we really have to stop the leak now. Go ahead and do the real plan we had all along." I highly doubt it.

From Politico:

Alaska’s senior senator blocked legislation Thursday that would have dramatically increased liability caps on oil companies, in the wake of one of the industry’s biggest disasters.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) objected to a voice vote request by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on the bill, which would have spiked the maximum liability for oil companies after an oil spill from $75 million to $10 billion. The legislation has significant support from Democrats, and the White House has indicated it backs an increase in liability caps.

But Murkowski said the legislation is “not where we need to be right now” and would unfairly advantage large oil companies by pricing the small companies out of the market. Murkowski did signal that she would be open to "look at the liability cap and consider raising it.” Just not at this moment.

Murkowski isn’t worried about smaller oil companies, she’s worried about the big ones – the ones that do things like offshore drilling.

First off, these liabilities are never levied in full. The fact that the maximum liability would only amount to two quarters of profits from BP should also say enough. Imagine some company in another industry causing some disaster on such a scale as the oil spill in the Gulf. It would spell a most likely doom to that company. Instead, this oil spill will cost BP, but not to the point that their future is in question.

If anyone wonders why CNN is in such a downward spiral, they only need to look at this article to get an idea of why:

Oil slick awaits New Orleans' 1st white mayor in decades

The first white mayor of New Orleans in more than 30 years steps into his first challenge as soon as he takes office Monday: the massive oil slick that is creeping to his coast.

The fallout from a ruptured undersea well off Louisiana is spewing about 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico. And efforts to corral the rapidly growing oil spill have so far been unsuccessful.

The article is predominately focused on the oil spill, with only the first paragraph and this little bit about New Orleans news mayor:

Into this climate, steps Democrat Mitch Landrieu.

His city is still digging itself out from the wrath of Hurricane Katrina five years ago. And his state is the top producer of seafood -- and so, has a lot at stake from the spill's impact.

Landrieu -- who lost two previous mayoral bids in 1994 and 2006 -- replaces the term-limited Ray Nagin in a city where about two-thirds of the residents are black.

The city's last white mayor was Landrieu's father, Maurice "Moon" Landrieu, who left office in 1978. He is remembered fondly for desegregating the city, appointing African-Americans to positions of city leadership and opening up public facilities to blacks.

Last week, the younger Landrieu took part in a flyover of the spill for a first-hand look.

"As this situation becomes clearer, there are obvious environmental and health concerns, especially as it relates to Lake Pontchartrain, our coast, and our air quality," he said Thursday. "But, there is also an economic component of the utmost importance including the impact on our fisheries