Obama Administration Flip-Flops on Drilling

So, I'm not sure if the Dept of the Interior counts as a "dark place", but here's the 30-day report:

http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/l ... geID=33646

Rockdoc....there have been several studies done on the safety of drilling in the Gulf, one concluded in April and slowly more drilling has been allowed:

Workers slowly return to the Gulf as federal regulators struggle to remake the rules. April 20, 2011: 7:19 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Oil drilling is returning to the Gulf of Mexico, but slowly. One year after BP's Macondo well blew out -- claiming 11 lives and sparking a ban on deepwater drilling -- 11 new deepwater and 49 shallow water drilling permits have been issued, according to the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling. Quick Vote How would you assess BP's response to last year's Gulf oil spill? or View results That's far less than usual. But given that most of these new permits have come in the last few months,

http://article.wn.com/view/2011/04/20/O ... _after_BP/

Another study concluded quite recently:

In the 88-page portion of the report [pdf] -- one of the most in-depth analyses to date of the breakdowns that led to the April 20 disaster -- the Commission concludes that while "a number of separate risk factors, oversights, and outright mistakes" led to the tragedy, the overarching failures were systemic breakdowns in management and oversight:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/ ... lling.html

a simple google search shows many more. I believe that as the administration has gained more knowledge on what led to the BP disaster, and learned more on safety in drilling in the Gulf and on government oversight they have decided to slowly open more areas to drilling. It's a measured approach and I am all for that.

A review of this report basically asks the oil industry to develop or implement procedures that oil industry already has in place. For example:
Well-Control Guidelines and Fluid Displacement Procedures:
Establish new fluid displacement procedures (immediately)
Establish new deepwater well-control procedure requirements

These are not studies that result in safer drilling practices, but accountability steps through paper trails, and requests to the oil industry to find new ways of doing their work. The study you refer to offers nothing significant. It does order, for example, re-certification of subsea BOP stacks and compatibility verification, in other words an additional paper trail. I'm unimpressed. Let's face it, our government has no expertise in oil exploration and experience shows that presidential commissions fail to include anyone who has any experience. So all the language written is a smoke screen that asks the oil industry to police itself better because our government has nothing to offer. Perhaps you think that something like:
Establish new casing and cementing design requirements – two independent tested barriers (immediately) represents increased safety measures that oil companies now must make, but the reality is those measures are already in place and every well has a casing and cement design that is designed for that well i.e. unique and new.

Yes, I can see if you know nothing about the oil industry, how such a report may seem like a big club being wielded by the administration when in reality it is shallow political diatribe justifying a position change.

But you got to use "flip-flopping" in a sentence! Oh Joy!!!!

You asked for reports to back up what I said... I gave you reports. Whether or not they meet with your biased approval is irrelevant to me.

LadyJazzer wrote: But you got to use "flip-flopping" in a sentence! Oh Joy!!!!

You asked for reports to back up what I said... I gave you reports. Whether or not they meet with your biased approval is irrelevant to me.

It's the new game being played in politics today LJ......ask a question.....when you get an answer, move the goalposts so it can be claimed not to be the right answer, ask the same question again. The Republicans have been doing that to the Democrats in congress for 2 years, no surprise that those tactics should show up here on our little message board.

LadyJazzer wrote: Since when is authorizing something after studies have been completed that will ensure safer drilling practices "flip-flopping"? (I guess since conservatives found the need to use "flip-flopping" in a sentence.)

You provided documentation on studies that ensure safer drilling. Since I do have a little expertise after 30 plus years in the oil industry) it is possible for me to evaluate whether the studies you presented actually "ensure safer drilling".

I could care less about your biased political posturing, shifting goal posts and all that crap. None of that accomplishes anything. Nor does defending BS no matter which party presents it.

What I give you is not a biased but an educated position. The fact you can not distinguish between the two is a significant problem toward meaningful and critical discourse. Apparently the only thing that matters is that you produce a report. Its content is insignificant to you. If so, you have it ass backwards. The existence of a report itself has little value, what it contains is significant. If it has no substance, than it might as well not exist at all. After all your whole argument is that the current administration has accomplished something significant that forms the basis for their current position on oil exploration and production. So you ought to care about the report itself beyond its cover.

And you have wandered away from the original post.....which claimed that Obama was flip flopping on oil drilling.....the contention was they he halted drilling earlier and now has flip flopped to allow some drilling. I don't know about LJ, she's her own woman after all, but I don't see stopping drilling while certain studies were done on what safety measures failed in the BP disaster and what can be done to prevent future failures in safety, then slowly allowing more drilling after some studies were completed and others are on-going to be flip flopping. It appears we know more now than we did when the BP well failed, and we know better what oversight is needed. I think most everyone agrees that drilling in deep water can never be 100% safe.

Encouraging oil companies to explore on existing leases also is not 'flip-flopping".....that has been Obama's opinion all along as far as I know....he was reluctant to give new leases when the current leases have not been fully explored.

archer wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: But you got to use "flip-flopping" in a sentence! Oh Joy!!!!

You asked for reports to back up what I said... I gave you reports. Whether or not they meet with your biased approval is irrelevant to me.

It's the new game being played in politics today LJ......ask a question.....when you get an answer, move the goalposts so it can be claimed not to be the right answer, ask the same question again. The Republicans have been doing that to the Democrats in congress for 2 years, no surprise that those tactics should show up here on our little message board.

Very good Archer. Now do you have a insightful contribution about oil industry safety regulations?

If you had studies that actually accomplished anything to improve safety it would be one thing. The report linked by LJ outlines a wish list it wants the oil industry to address. It does not offer anything concrete to insure, much less improve future safety. If this report summarize the results of a month-long or more study, then they got nothing accomplished. The measures address could have been written by anyone in one day given an outline of the man points that are involved with exploration drilling. Read the report itself, then tell e how much oversight is addressed that is new. If you really want to know, it might be good to begin with getting information about how an exploration program is designed and executed so you can elucidate what is a new oversight. Postmortems are 20/20 hindsight and even with that, you are right, exploration drilling, regardless of whether onshore or offshore is never 100 percent safe. Why? Because it is in frontier areas, meaning the actual geologic and hydrologic conditions are more unknown than known. It's always those unexpected processes combined with slack execution of well design elements that lead to a BP.

A change in the administration has taken place. You do not need a moratorium on all drilling and most production while you conduct a postmortem on an accident. It was one exploration well out of the thousands that have been drilled without incident. Certainly, also imposing restrictions on existing production is not consistent with a policy that promotes independence from foreign oil. Now suddenly we hear about ramping up production and exploration efforts. I'd call that a significant change from a previous position.

Rush Limbaugh has been chatting about this flip-flop today. It seems the President has done a flip-flop-flip according to Rush. The big difference is that Rush has sound bites that allow you to hear the President's words before and after. Fascinating.

Rush is as "fascinating" as a beer-fart... Except the beer-fart has more class.