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Key findings of the recent Staff Report of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
• Officials on the ground dispute key White House assertions about the number and timeliness of assets deployed in the Gulf. Local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand;
• The White House’s assurances that there are adequate resources are at odds with the reality on the ground, where those on the frontline of the spill express significant frustration over the lack of assets. Local complaints are supported by the fact that the White House waited until Day 70 of the oil spill to accept critical offers of international assistance. Local workers and boats could have been assisting more with the clean-up if the Federal government had provided them with needed supplies and equipment;
• While the White House has tried to use the delay in finding a visible leak to explain its early silence on the oil spill, Transocean officials and Coast Guard documents from the scene of the oil spill reveal clear and early indications of a substantial oil leak days earlier than White House accounts;
The Report identifies huge gaps between the White House narrative and reports from local officials:
The number of assets claimed...does not appear to match what is actually in the field. Parish officials maintain that the thousands of vessels cited in the [White House] blog are non-existent. One senior official refers to them as “phantom assets.” When asked to elaborate, he explained that when he asks the federal government to provide the location of its assets, it either refuses or cannot do so.4 Daily helicopter search grids performed by the Parish sheriff’s department confirm to him that very few of the assets claimed are deployed.
According to the Report, deployment assets are sitting idle awaiting supplies from the Administration:
A St. Bernard Parish official, who described the situation as the “slowest and most ineffective response,” made an emotional plea to “give us the equipment.” There are approximately 700 fishermen in his Parish trained and ready to deploy boom as quickly as the Coast Guard can supply it. Despite multiple requests, however, the supplies are not flowing into the area. As he describes, “it’s like giving me a [gun] with no bullets; it’s just a paperweight.”
The Report also includes testimony casting serious doubt on the Administration's position that the Administration has been in charge of the clean-up and containment effort 'since day one':
Parish officials maintain that the federal government has not been in control since day one. In four separate interviews, senior-ranking Parish officials described how, until the President’s visit on May 28, 2010, BP was in charge. According to one official, “until two weeks ago [after the President’s May 28, 2010, visit], BP was in charge and the Coast Guard looked to them for direction.” Furthermore, “Coast Guard asks BP,” not vice-versa. When specifically asked to agree or disagree with the assertion that the federal government had been in control since day one, another official firmly disagreed. Mr. Nungesser told staff that “today, I can’t tell you who is in control,” and invited committee investigators to visit the command center to see for themselves.
The full report is HERE.
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user_2 2012-05-12 01:14:12
Via the Associated Press:
NEW ORLEANS — BP and the Obama administration face mounting complaints that they are ignoring foreign offers of equipment and making little use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted. The vast majority are still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.
And in recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around.
A report prepared by investigators with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., detailed one case in which the Dutch government offered April 30 to provide four oil skimmers that collectively could process more than 6 million gallons of oily water a day. It took seven weeks for the U.S. to approve the offer.
Full article HERE.
Via the Huffington Post:
NEW ORLEANS — Media organizations say they are being allowed only limited access to areas impacted by the Gulf oil spill through restrictions on plane and boat traffic that are making it difficult to document the worst spill in U.S. history.
The Associated Press, CBS and others have reported coverage problems because of the restrictions, which officials say are needed to protect wildlife and ensure safe air traffic.
Ted Jackson, a photographer for The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans, said Saturday that access to the spill "is slowly being strangled off."
Full article HERE.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
"As the oil spill continues and the cleanup lags, we must begin to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. There does not seem to be much that anyone can do to stop the spill except dig a relief well, not due until August. But the cleanup is a different story. The press and Internet are full of straightforward suggestions for easy ways of improving the cleanup, but the federal government is resisting these remedies..."
Full article HERE.
das aardvark
anonymous (BFE)Via Heritage.org:
Day after day, blind allegiance to the president causes his supporters on the left to simply say the government is doing all that it can. The national media, prone to attention deficit disorder when a president they support is in the White House, have already moved on to a myriad of other subjects, offering only sporadic updates on the continuing crisis.
When the president answered questions following the G20 conference, not one reporter asked him about the situation in the Gulf. Not one question. When attention is paid, it is focused on BP, which is only half the story — the other half being government incompetence or an ideological rigidity that prevents commonsense solutions....
Without further delay, here are the first ten actions President Obama can take immediately to help solve the crisis in the Gulf.
The list is posted HERE.
Via USA Today:
Hurricane Alex's rough seas have pushed more oil from the massive spill onto Gulf Coast beaches and sidelined dozens of cleanup vessels.
In Louisiana, Alex pushed an oil patch toward Grand Isle and uninhabited Elmer's Island, dumping tar balls as big as apples onto the beach, and in Alabama, normally white sand was streaked with long lines of oil, reports the Associated Press...
Since the spill began April 20, 70.8 million to 137.6 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's broken Macondo well, according to government and BP estimates. The higher estimate is enough oil to fill half of New York's Empire State Building, according to AP.
1. Generate public pressure on the Administration to remove bureaucratic obstacles to the cleanup effort.
2. Generate economic and moral support for the Gulf Coast economies.
3. Oppose the Administration's gulf drilling moratorium.