It’s The Greens That Sowed The Seeds Of The Gulf Oil Disaster
June 9, 2010 by John Myers
To the Greens I have six words regarding the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico: Your President, your policies, your fault.
After all Barack Obama was the progressive Green candidate, a thinker who could steer the course in the 21st Century. Oprah anointed then-Senator Obama as "The Chosen One". To Oprah and a great majority of Liberals, Obama was the anti-Dubya; a larger than life leader with savior qualities that would lead us to peace and overcome all obstacles.
So far, so bad. America’s endgame for Iraq is in question because of increasing levels of Shiite-Sunni violence. Afghanistan looks more untenable all the time. The recovery is sluggish and healthcare has been rammed down the throats of the American people. Now we face an enormous crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been almost two months since an explosion sent crude pumping into the Gulf and the Obama administration has shown an astonishing lack of leadership.
David Gergen, a centrist political commentator and advisor to four Presidents, has pointed out a basic lack of leadership from the Obama administration: “Ultimately it is not the responsibility of BP or any other company to protect American interests but the responsibility of the Federal government.”
While on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN, Gergen added: “If our government had fought World War II like the way we’re fighting the oil spill, there’s a good chance many of us would be speaking German today.”
Gergen is hardly alone in the criticism. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the general who endorsed Obama in 2008, says the President has been far too slow in asserting leadership over the Gulf spill and the time has come for a "comprehensive and total attack" on the problem.
So here it is, a news flash to Oprah and the Liberals: When it comes to leadership, Barack Obama is a lot more Herbert Hoover than he is Harry Truman, regardless of how many “the buck stops here” speeches Obama chooses to give. Little wonder that a recent USA Today/Gallup survey showed that six out of 10 Americans believe the Federal government is doing a “poor” or “very poor” job handling the spill.
The President bristles at criticism that the Gulf crisis is his Katrina. Even in the face of the failure of BP to stem the spill with its top-kill option, Obama was defending the Federal government’s record and promised aggressive action to ensure future drilling is done safely. He has extended a moratorium on new exploration drilling in the Gulf and announced that 33 current projects in the deep water will be suspended along with two permits for exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska.
“As we continue our response effort, we’re also moving quickly on steps to ensure that a catastrophe like this never happens again,” he said. “I’ve said before that producing oil here in America is an essential part of our overall energy strategy. But all drilling must be safe.”
Respectfully Mr. President, can we not worry about future leaks until we fix this one? After all, the BP gusher has well surpassed the 1989 Exxon spill in Alaska as the largest ever in the United States. Crude has continued to spew for 52 days after it began with a rig explosion that killed 11 people. Every effort to stop the spill has so far proved unsuccessful.
When I was a boy on the farm we didn’t worry about the horses that might get out; we scurried about to catch the horse that had gotten out. And right now there is a big and nasty animal rolling about the Gulf presenting a clear and present danger to the United States. Meanwhile we are getting the Green lecture—how to stop future oil spills. Which brings me to my second news flash—it is Green policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
The Greens Made Us Drill So Deep
Last January I wrote about the problems and costs of drilling for oil at such extraordinary depths as those being worked off the coast of Louisiana. It was called The Deep Truth About Oil and the Gulf of Mexico.
In that column I said: “Chevron has spent 10 years and a whopping $2.7 billion for this project. This is the cost of running a drill and casing more than 30,000 feet through earth and ocean, the same distance that an airliner flies above the earth. Chevron will spend billions more and in the end, even with all the high-tech in the world, there are no guarantees that its deep-water experiment will hit pay-dirt. In fact there is less than a 50/50 chance that Chevron’s latest deep-sea adventure will yield anything. Still Chevron and their brethren don’t have a choice.
“The Wall Street Journal sums up the situation: ‘Big easily tapped oil fields close to shore have become off-limits.’”
Fast forward a few months and we saw the real danger in not drilling in shallow waters and places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). We see what happens when Big Oil is forced to drill in 5,000 feet or more of seawater; depths at which accidents can’t be easily repaired.
I’ve been talking to my friends in the Alberta oil patch about this for weeks. But the problem didn’t see the light of day until the May 29 episode of Meet the Press. There Host David Gregory asked White House Energy Adviser Carol Browner if in response to the Gulf Coast oil spill, America should start drilling in ANWR.
Gregory asked: "Is the problem that we’re drilling in water that’s just too deep?"
Gregory continued: "Should you (the White House) even rethink your own approach to the environment to say… maybe in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve; we ought to be drilling there… we ought to be going into shallower waters so that this can be done more safely?"
Incredibly Gregory wasn’t given an answer. But even I know this simple truth—that we need to be drilling in shallow water and places like ANWR. Places where accidents can be corrected.
Don’t expect any leadership on this from the President even though his decision to suspend deepwater drilling off the U.S. coast will have consequences.
“An extended moratorium on safely producing our oil and natural gas resources from the Gulf of Mexico would create a moratorium on economic growth and job creation,” said Jack Gerard, chief executive of the American petroleum Institute.
It’s worth noting that the Gulf of Mexico currently produces about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day—an amount larger than the output of Canada’s oil sands. It was expected to grow to 1.9 million barrels by 2025. But the jury is out on this until Obama—"The Chosen One"—chooses leadership over politics and stops this catastrophe.
Yours for real wealth and good health,
John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report
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