Slashdot Mirror
Congress' Gulf Oil Spill Response Given a 'D' By Commissioners
ananyo writes "Many of the problems that led to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill have not been addressed, say the members of a commission set up by U.S. President Barack Obama to study the disaster. The group released a report today (PDF) on progress towards its 2011 recommendations for preventing future disasters and improving spill response. The U.S. Congress fares worst in the new report, earning a 'D' rating for its failure to enact any meaningful legislation in response to the disaster. The Restore Act would allocate 80% of any fines that BP pays for the spill under the Clean Water Act to restoring the environment and economies of the states in the Gulf of Mexico, but the act has stalled in the House of Representatives. The Obama administration did better, with a B, thanks in part to new drilling regulations, while the oil industry's efforts to improve safety saw it awarded a C+."
They scored an "A" on fund-raising from oil companies.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
In a related note, BP gave Congress' an A+ on their response to the oil spill.
Obama's administration gave itself a 'B' . . . dude needs to learn how "patting yourself on the back" is supposed to work.
Hmmm...I think Congress should get an "A" if the goal is "progress towards...preventing future disasters" and the Restore Act is basically a slush fund that delivers "80% of any fines that BP pays for the spill under the Clean Water Act to...the states".
The administration ought to get an 'F', given that they've approved Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean. You think it's tough to clean up a spill in the nice temperate Gulf of Mexico? Wait until we have a midwinter blowout up there, with no idea how to clean it up or even stop it.
You'd think they'd at least learn something. Apparently not.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
... for doing nothing. This was, as I understand it, more a problem of lax regulation than lack of regulation.
I don't like the "but we must do SOMEthing" philosophy. Most problems are caused by solutions.
Typically it's way over the top and far more harmful than good.
So I'm going to say it's a good thing they got a D there.
Our government only managed to scrap through with a (averaged) grade of C, and it got to grade its own work.
It's good to see that democracy is working so well.
failure to enact any meaningful legislation in response to the
That's one of the problems when you mix corporations and capitalism. It takes legislation to make companies behave in an appropriate manner. BP should have made sure that a complete disaster would not occur. Taking risks and ignoring social responsibilities is a moral and ethical problem within corporate cultures. BP execs should have been punished way beyond the slap on the wrist. BP should not even exist today.
In other news, the commissioners were given an 'A+' on their use of overly simplified letter grades for summarizing complex issues.
A commission set up by Obama rates the Obama administration highest of all. And this comes as a surprise to...who exactly?
Of course, they couldn't give Obama an A. That would just be gratuitous bootlicking.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
congressional approval is the worst ever. nobody thinks they are doing a job.
Congress gets an F.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A commission set up to evaluate the work done by Barack Obama's commission tasked with evaluating the work of Congress in evaluating the Deepwater Horizon incident has given the commission a rating of 'C', or barely satisfactory, for their evaluation of Congress evaluating the Deepwater Horizon spill.
"God does not play Minecraft with the world." - Albert Einstein
Please tell me there's more to this report than that PDF. It's hopelessly light on details and is full of weasel words, it talks about concerns without an indication of how well founded they were. There are no real figures, no expert opinions, citations or anything. There isn't even much indication of how they arrived at their grades.
If I wrote an essay the way this report is written I'd have got a fail.
...can screw things up and get a passing grade. BP fired people who might be responsible for this mess, and our Government gets a pat on the back for doing nothing to protect our waters. I wish I could cheat on my tests, and give myself a B when I got all the wrong answers.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Kind of hard not to give "not doing shit about it" an F, partisan or not.
So your definition of "free market" boils down to "might makes right", yes? Glad we got that down by now.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
.... it is funny that the accident in the Gulf of Mexico was in part responsible for a very harsh response to a tiny spill just south of the equator:
http://www.economist.com/node/21542179
If anything, other countries have tried to learn from this disaster and the way it was handled.
The free market always works until it stops working.
And when is that, you ask?
It's when the concentration of wealth and power - the end results of any free market let run loose to long - become great enough that real competition no longer exists, and the laws can be purchased by those with said wealth and power.
And we passed that point sometime between Eisenhower and Reagan.
Check your premises.
That's not at all what he said; I am not sure where all of this "free market" crackdown is coming from on Slashdot recently, particularly when it's not mentioned anywhere else. His point is that the actual regulators--the government people--were just as corrupt as the people doing the drilling in this case. What legislation should be passed by the government to prevent government corruption? Anti-corruption laws? Those exist.
Besides, the entire fiasco was not even as serious of a problem for BP as it should have been, beyond PR, thanks to the way that the administration forced them to handle it financially. Practically half of BP's escrow turned into a tax write-off (read: effectively funded by US taxpayers) for them rather than an expense for doing something incredibly stupid, and bad. Me thinks there was a bit of bias in the entire "study" in missing a $10 billion practical-expense that the government incurred as a result of BP's escrow account that was supposed to be entirely their own money (and the ~$20 billion was, but the $10 billion tax write off thanks to their spending sure made that a lot more palatable for a company that actually has that much money sitting around).
It's terribly shocking that a committee setup by the President would give him the best grade while avoiding an A to act like it was not biased.
Fill in the blanks: Congress' __________ Response Given a 'D' By ___________
mod me funny
If you absorb the externalities into the market, then you don't have externalities.
"I...I...I...I...My...I...My...I....I...I..." etc.
Pay attention now. Obama uses personal pronouns less than any modern president. Yes, there has been empirical analysis on the topic. In particular, I refer you to the work of James W. Pennebaker, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, who specialises in the use of pronouns.
None of this matters, of course, because political discourse continues to devolve to "four-legs-good, obama-bad" for the right. One might reasonably think that the left is just as bad, and they are pretty bad; however, this is simply not true. And for that, I refer you to the obama hate machine, which chronicles just how bizarre republican vitriol has become in the last 4 years.
And your comment is a perfect case in point. In the absence of any real criticism, we have nonsensical and factually inaccurate ad-hominems. There is plenty to criticise Obama about without making stuff up.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"You know, a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy."
That's what many environmental laws are for. Companies are forced to clean up (or prevent) their environmental damage and pass that cost onto their product consumers. If companies weren't forced to do this, rivers would be on fire.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
...or not.
"any fines that BP pays"
I remain sceptical as to the paying part.
Be that as it may, if they had just let the fire burn, the rig may not have sank, which busted the pipe and caused the massive spill. They could have worked the unit on the sea floor while most of the oil was burned off topside.
I do remember some newsbabe saying that the EPA insisted they try to douse the flames due to the "pollution" it was causing.
Ironic.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
My first thought on reading the summary was "Obama's commission said that Obama did good, and his political enemies did bad - big surprise there, eh?"
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So you mean private individuals whose position comes on them creating some reason to justify their employment?
How exactly is the problem with government as a whole, as opposed to the privatization of government into the hands of those who benefit not by doing their job properly, but who have corrupted the process for their own benefit?
What does that tell you? Which party is the one who continually claims that outside individuals are somehow going to be better? Whose ideology is that?
Oil spills are illegal. How about that?
Honestly, not everything can be fixed by Congress. Sometimes, the administration has to step up, enforce the laws and regulations they've got and kick some ass when they see violations.
The Restore Act would allocate 80% of any fines that BP pays for the spill under the Clean Water Act to restoring the environment and economies of the states in the Gulf of Mexico,
I see the law of unintended consequences coming into play here, big time. So now, gov't revenues in support of various economic recovery programs will be linked to oil spills?
Have gnu, will travel.
I dunno... maybe these people:
http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/page/commission-members
are all supporters of Obama... but after reading their bios, I find no reason to believe they're more or less supportive of Obama than your average businessmen or scientists, other than they were selected while Obama was in office. If fact, there's 2 co-chairmen; one's a democrat and the other's a republican. All members seem to be experts in their various fields, specifically marine ecosystems, engineering and oil extraction/spill cleanup (a couple of Exxon Valdez veterans on that list; sounds very useful and logical to me).
Briefly perusing the meeting minutes, it seems they've been up to a lot more than grading Congress and Obama's administration, anyway. If you have a problem with what they're doing, this site's where to go to learn more, and it's surprisingly full of info.
Many of the problems that led to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill have not been addressed, say the members of a commission set up by U.S. President Barack Obama to study the disaster.
If you look at who released the report you'll see that the commission set up by the President completed its work and was disbanded. This report was issued by an environmental action group which claims some previous commission members among its founders.
I assume these people are pushing their own agenda, maybe because its an election year, maybe because they really care. But I note that they are all Obama appointees.
Yes. He made the decision. Not Bush, not some general, Obama did it. Deal with it.
His point is that the actual regulators--the government people--were just as corrupt as the people doing the drilling in this case. What legislation should be passed by the government to prevent government corruption? Anti-corruption laws? Those exist.
Oversight.
Fund the goddamn auditors instead of assuming everything will be hunky dory.
Yes, this costs money. No, it does not cost more than the accidents it will prevent.
Fuck you* for trying to defund them because if they've done their job, reduced accidents, and now they seem to be a waste of money.
*you know who you are. if you have to ask, then it's probably you.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Of course this is just another rant against the big machine covering everything up, but making small efforts here and there to make it look like they actually care to their people....but all in all, there should have been way more activity then there was on this issue, but as we saw, a lot of media was redirected to other things instead of reading about the spill non stop years later, being it was the biggest disaster man made or other wise ever to hit this planet since man
came into power.....when you consider the impact to all people, sea life, and even land life.....it is sad that it was able to be swept under the carpet.
I think there should be a global recognition of power for mining at sea and also set such high fines, that a company doing it once would be crippled, and twice would be gone....when they make trillions per year in profits, it is tough to make them cringe when you tell them they have to pay 65 billion...chump change for them really!
Thank you for not just making a kneejerk comment and for actually providing information.
God is imaginary
I agree. Those externalities should be priced or be subject to civil lawsuits. This is part of the free market idea. Property rights and contracts must be enforced to maintain a free market. After all, it isn't an anarchist market.
Truly free markets don't have copyrights and trademarks. They don't even actually have money. They are free and have to be navigated the same way Arab caravan traders worked,thru barter with no hope or reliance on any sort of government or cultural agents in common.