Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Louisiana Oil Rig Fire / Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

roachboy · 06-17-2010, 06:01 PM

ace....i haven't implied anything of the sort. i said that the regulatory system was far too passive from the state side. far too reactive to industry. that's what i said.
you could i suppose twist that around to be the simple inverse of your position, but that would be what they call making a straw man.

as for your tedious projections about i think....as quaint as the idea is that you'd bother projecting about little old me, the fact is that you are once again just making stuff up.

---------- Post added at 02:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 AM ----------

first i thought a follow-up on the barton escapades

Quote:

GOP rushes to clean up Barton mess
By: Jonathan Allen and Jake Sherman
June 17, 2010 07:46 PM EDT

In the blink of an eye, Texas Rep. Joe Barton handed Democrats just what they wanted: a Republican villain in the oil spill crisis.

“I apologize,” he told BP CEO Tony Hayward — coloring himself “ashamed” that the White House would engage in a “shakedown” to get BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to pay damage claims for Gulf Coast businesses and residents.

It would have been bad enough for the GOP if a backbencher had accidentally strayed wildly off message, but Barton, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is the face of the party on energy policy — and his comments were intentional. So rather than talking about BP’s culpability and the Obama administration’s response, Washington was fixated on a Texas Republican’s seemingly tone-deaf comments.

The damage control was swift and the pushback severe — leaders in Barton’s own party threatened to yank his ranking-member status on the committee. Gulf-state Republicans seethed, and the top three GOP House leaders were compelled to put out a joint statement saying, “Congressman Barton’s statements this morning were wrong.”

The Democratic National Committee sent out at least a dozen e-mails blasting Barton, and the White House put out a statement calling his comments “shameful.”

GOP leaders hauled Barton into a Capitol office shortly after midday and gave him an ultimatum, according to aides: Apologize for the apology to BP or face ouster from the Energy and Commerce post. Barton chose the former.

“I apologize for using the term ‘shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP,” Barton said.

It’s not often that a lawmaker apologizes for pre-written remarks.

But Barton’s still deep in the muck — and no one’s anxious to pull him out, least of all Republican leaders.

“Now that he has apologized, we’ll see what happens going forward,” said a Republican leadership aide, leaving open the possibility that the Republican Steering Committee could still move to oust Barton.

Republican leaders sensed the danger to their party — and the opportunity to rid it of Barton’s leadership — immediately.

Shortly after Barton was told to apologize by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in Boehner’s office, House Republicans’ BlackBerrys began to buzz with an e-mail from Boehner containing a transcript of his response to Barton’s comments.

His staff filled rank-and-file inboxes with their leader’s remarks to reporters on the matter, a unique way of illustrating that he did not agree with — and would not stand with — Barton.

“People are calling for his head,” one GOP member of the Energy and Commerce Committee told POLITICO at midday.

Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, whose Florida Panhandle district borders the Gulf, made that call public shortly thereafter.

“I condemn Mr. Barton’s statement,” Miller said. “Mr. Barton’s remarks are out of touch with this tragedy, and I feel his comments call into question his judgment and ability to serve in ... leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He should step down as ranking member of the committee.”

But Barton remained stolid — if not defiant — as he failed to immediately grasp the gravity of the situation.

He said calls for his ouster were “news to me” as he went to meet with Boehner and Cantor. Asked whether he planned to stay in his job, he replied, “Damn straight.”

It shouldn’t surprise Barton that Boehner failed to break his fall: The two have a long-developed distaste for each other that peaked when Barton ran against Boehner for the post of minority leader in late 2006. And Barton’s hopes of reversing a Boehner-supported GOP term-limit rule that would force him out the post at the end of this Congress appear more remote than ever now.

Democrats seemed almost to revel in Barton’s remarks.

“Who would the GOP put in charge of overseeing the energy industry & Big Oil if they won control of Congress? Yup, u guessed it — JOE BARTON,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted to his 66,066 followers Thursday afternoon.

That’s after Gibbs released an official White House statement saying it is “shameful ... that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small-business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction” and calling on members of both parties to “repudiate his comments.”

Vice President Joe Biden called Barton’s comments “outrageous.”

Democratic candidates tried to pin the remarks on their opponents.

“We deserve to know if [Rep.] Charlie Dent [R-Pa.] agrees with Congressman Barton’s apology to BP,” said John Callahan, Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s Allentown- and Bethlehem-area 15th District. “I think BP should be apologizing to American taxpayers instead of having Republican congressmen apologize to them.”

The worst part for Republicans: Barton knew he was going off-message.

A copy of Barton’s now-infamous opening statement showed that he had every intention to say what he said.

“I’m only speaking for myself — I’m not speaking for anybody else — but I apologize,” Barton said in prepared remarks. “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or corporation that does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

That’s two apologies.

And then, amid the firestorm, there was a third apology, retracting the other apology.

But that may not be enough for his GOP colleagues.

“Whether Mr. Barton realizes it or not, he certainly did no favors to every member of our conference, his Republican colleagues in the Senate, candidates out running and a lot of our vulnerables,” a Republican aide said. “What he did certainly did not help anybody.

GOP rushes to clean up Joe Barton mess - Jonathan Allen and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

meanwhile, in another corridor, folk smell a connection to the cheney commission but there's still alot of murk in the way.

Quote:

Dick Cheney's Last Laugh
The oil spill raises new questions about the Bush administration's secret energy task force.

By Kate Sheppard | Thu Jun. 10, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

Dick Cheney hasn't made much time for television appearances lately. But in the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon unleashed a torrent of oil on the Gulf of Mexico [1], his name has been creeping back into the press. "The truth is that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney administration wanted: full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbyists filling the very agencies that are supposed to be overseeing the industry," liberal commentator Arianna Huffington said on ABC's This Week last Sunday. Cheney's daughter, Liz, was on hand to defend her father. "Arianna, I don't know what planet you live on," she shot back. "What you are saying has no relationship to the truth, no relationship to the facts."

The reality is a lot more complicated than that. Many of the policy and regulatory failures that laid the groundwork for the BP catastrophe [1] can be traced back to the Bush-Cheney era. But so far, this question has received relatively little attention—mostly because the task force that developed the former administration's energy policy operated in extreme secrecy. Did the task force's decisions play a role in the BP spill? And could the Gulf disaster finally provoke new scrutiny of the task force's clandestine workings?

The energy task force was created days after onetime oilman George W. Bush took office in 2001, and was headed by Cheney, a former CEO at Halliburton, one of the world's largest providers of oilfield products and services. For months, the task force solicited input on US energy policy. On May 16, 2001, the group issued its final report [2], which was submitted to Congress in June. But the participants and details of the discussions were kept tightly under wraps.

The open-government group Judicial Watch tried to pry details of the task force's deliberations from the administration in June, arguing that the sessions qualified as public information under the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the open-meetings law. The US General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, also sought information on which industry executives and lobbyists had attended the gatherings.

But in the first of many clashes over presidential secrecy, the White House rejected those requests, arguing that it was entitled to conduct the meetings behind closed doors thanks to executive privilege. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club sued, but the Supreme Court [3] ultimately sided with the administration. Though some information has trickled out in the years since, the vast majority of the task force's deliberations remain hidden from the public eye.

Here's what we know about the task force and offshore drilling. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, was able to obtain 13,500 pages of heavily redacted documents [4] that gave a glimpse into the role industry leaders played in shaping the administration's policies (NRDC also got a list of the documents [5] (PDF) that the administration refused to turn over). In July 2007, the Washington Post got a list of the roughly 300 groups and individuals who met with task force staffers and, in some cases, Cheney himself.

BP officials were among [6] those who "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the administration, though when that fact came to light, the company refused to comment on those meetings. We still don't know what specific policy areas BP execs weighed in on. Perhaps it's little surprise that BP recently hired [7] Cheney's former press secretary, a public defender of the secret task force, to help the company with crisis communication after the spill.

But we do have a few more details about other oil industry players in the talks. Chevron's CEO contributed a detailed list [8](PDF) of ways in which the government could "eliminate federal barriers to increased energy supplies"—many of which were incorporated in the task force's final report [9]. This included recommendations to ease federal permitting rules for energy development and a request that the administration support opening up new areas of the eastern Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil and gas development. Doing so, wrote Chevron CEO David O'Reilly, would "demonstrate a commitment to reject unjustified opposition to new energy leasing and development."

The American Petroleum Institute offered its own long list [10] of suggestions for energy policy. A March 20, 2001, email from API to an official at the Energy Department included a draft executive order [11] calling for all federal agencies to issue a detailed statement on any regulatory action that "adversely affects energy supply, distribution or use." It was nearly identical to the order Bush issued just two months later [12].

Many of the recommendations from the task force report were adopted in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. That legislation provided $6 billion in subsidies [13] for oil and gas development. Royalty payments for oil and gas development were waived in several regions of the US. Some companies were allowed to pay royalties with oil, rather than money—a less transparent system that was more vulnerable to abuse. The bill also provided $1.5 billion in direct payments to companies to incentivize drilling in deepwater wells, and curtailed the power of states to oversee oil and gas exploration off their coasts under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

In addition, the bill weakened environmental protections for offshore drilling, making it easier to exclude a broad range of exploration and drilling activities from analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act. This has been cited as the reason that the Deepwater Horizon site was not subjected to a thorough environmental analysis [13].

The task force's final report also presented a rosy picture of the offshore drilling industry. Newer oil and gas drilling methods, it said, "practically eliminate spills from offshore platforms" and "enhance worker safety, lower risk of blowouts, and provide better protection of groundwater resources." The report advocated lifting the moratorium on portions of the outer continental shelf, noting that "concerns over the potential impacts of oil spills have been a major factor behind imposition of the OCS moratoria." Bush lifted the executive moratorium in 2008, and the Democratic-controlled Congress allowed its own moratorium [14] to expire.

But there's a lot we still don't know. The task force recommendations included scaling back regulations and oversight of offshore drilling while expanding incentive programs and access to resources, many of which would come to pass in future legislation. But how much the task force may have guided decisions at federal agencies—in particular the notoriously lax Minerals Management Service (MMS)—is unclear. The administration's directives across the agencies actively discouraged any regulations or oversight that might hinder development of resources.

Among the many questions is what role the task force may have played in a 2003 decision by the MMS not to require offshore rigs to install an acoustic shut-off switch, a remote-controlled backup system that seals off an underwater well even if the rig above is destroyed. Countries like Norway and Brazil require this precaution, and MMS considered doing the same. But oil companies complained that the $500,000 devices were too expensive and, they argued, ineffective. Ultimately, MMS made the switches optional. The Deepwater Horizon was not outfitted with such a device, which could have prevented the spill. Other concerns include [15] a failure to implement new cementing policies or act on known concerns about key components on drilling rigs.

The Department of Justice has launched criminal and civil investigations into the disaster, while a presidential commission is looking into both the spill and offshore drilling policy in general. That commission currently lacks subpoena power, though there's an effort underway in Congress [16] to grant the commission that power. Numerous congressional committees have also launched probes of the spill. A congressional aide working for one of those committees indicated that there has been some discussion of revisiting the task force in those investigations, though no concrete steps to do so have been taken.

Open government advocates say this might be the appropriate time to push for more information about his task force. Mandy Smithberger, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, says that it's "definitely a ripe time" to find out more about what went on in the meetings. "I don't think you can understand how we got to where we are without looking back," she says.

"When you have a disaster of this magnitude, it raises the question, if in this whole secretive process, what was discussed, how much did the Bush administration ignore, how much did they allow the oil and gas industry to basically do what they wanted," says AnneWeismann, chief counsel at Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington. "Secrecy is so pernicious that it can continue to damage even when the administration is not in power."

Dick Cheney's Last Laugh | Mother Jones

it feels right but the fit just isn't q u i t e there.

and is this what you meant by lobbyist for bp ace?

Quote:

Judge favored by BP has financial ties to oil industry

More on the investigation into the judge BP wants to oversee lawsuits resulting from the Deepwater Horizon explosion on tonight's AC360 at 10 p.m. ET

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- The judge that BP wants to hear an estimated 200 lawsuits over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to industry conferences, financial disclosure forms show.

Lawyers who practice before U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes say he's tough but fair, and a CNN review of his cases found he ruled in favor of oil companies only slightly more often than he ruled against them. But his connections to the industry have raised eyebrows at a time when BP is under fire for the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Federal financial disclosure forms obtained by CNN show that since 2003, Hughes has consistently been paid annual fees from the oil and gas industry, mostly in the form of lease payments for wells and mineral rights on land he owns. None of the payments comes from BP, but his holdings include mutual funds that draw income from Anadarko Petroleum, a minority owner in the well now pouring up to 2.5 million gallons a day into the Gulf.

In some cases, the amounts are significant. In others, the payments are relatively small.

Oil giant ConocoPhillips paid him between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2008, the last year in which records are publicly available. In a note attached to the 2008 form, Hughes said he expected the amounts to be relatively similar for 2009. He gets smaller amounts from smaller producers such as Sun Oil, Everest Oil and Wagner Oil, which pay for the right to drill oil and gas from lands he owns.

The federal disclosure form does not require exact amounts, only estimates and approximate figures.

A legal expert on ethics, Indiana University professor Charles Geyh, told CNN that judges with financial ties to the oil industry should make their connections crystal clear.

"When you take it together, is there a concern that a reasonable person might say, 'Look-it, he's not a judge that happens to be dabbling -- he's in effect a participant in the industry he's trying to judge,' " Geyh said.

Hughes has been sitting on the federal bench in Houston since the mid-1980s, and BP has asked that he supervise all of the estimated 200 cases filed against it since the April sinking of the offshore drill rig Deepwater Horizon. The sinking left 11 workers dead and uncorked a gusher that has been fouling the Gulf for more than eight weeks.

In court filings in early May, BP requested Hughes be assigned to preside over the spill lawsuits because he already was assigned to one of the first cases, a lawsuit filed on behalf of Vietnamese-American fishermen from Louisiana. According to an e-mail sent to CNN, BP said the judge "is an appropriate choice to provide oversight of these cases."

The Department of Justice has asked that the suits be consolidated in New Orleans, Louisiana, the closest federal court to the spill. The sinking took place in the waters off southeastern Louisiana, about 40 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River.

BP would not comment on Hughes' financial disclosures. But the judge has held two recent meetings in Houston to discuss possible ethics concerns, a lawyer who attended those meetings told CNN.

"In both of those hearings, the questions have been raised about whether or not he should preside over these cases or whether there will be a conflict," Mark Lanier, a prominent Houston plaintiff attorney, told CNN. "In the second one, the judge explained he had listed online all of his financial disclosure information, so people would be able to look at and probe."

One particular case over which Hughes presided in 2009 is raising questions.

In 2008, Hughes listed royalty payments from about 10 wells leased to Devon Energy, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company. The amounts were relatively small -- under $15,000, according to his disclosure form -- and a source told CNN the payments were for a collection of nine or 10 wells scattered in land across two or three states.

In May of 2009, Hughes issued a favorable decision for Devon Energy in a dispute with its insurance company. According to an attorney for the insurance firm, the total amount was $3.9 million. Court records show that Hughes did not disclose his royalty payments from Devon at any point during the proceedings.

No one claims the judge has violated the federal code of judicial ethics, but Geyh says appearances matter.

"I think the best practice that is out there, and I think what judges across the country are encouraged to do, is that if there is any doubt, put some sunshine on the problem," he said. "Turn your cards face up, to mix metaphors, and make it clear to the parties what your potential interests are."

Hughes also travels widely and speaks to meetings held by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, including one held in early June in the Canadian city of Calgary and an earlier conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

He's the association's distinguished lecturer on ethics, having delivered 10 speeches to the trade group in the past three years.

The association doesn't pay him a fee but does supply his travel, accommodation and expenses, said Larry Nation, a spokesman for the trade group.

Federal judges rarely respond to requests for comment from journalists. But Hughes told CNN in an e-mail that while he couldn't speak to past or present cases, he did quote Thomas Jefferson: "Let facts be submitted to a candid world," he wrote.

Lawyers who know him call Hughes a tough but fair judge and say the reference is to a desire for transparency on his part. But attorneys for environmental advocacy groups say that for BP to request Hughes be assigned to the spill lawsuits is "outrageous and unseemly."

CNN examined three years of Hughes' rulings on oil and gas cases, finding he ruled in favor of oil companies only slightly more often than ruling against them. As for other federal judges, a recent survey showed more than 20 federal judges across the Gulf states have a financial interest in oil and gas companies.

Several of them have recused themselves from presiding over cases related to the Gulf spill.