BP, Obama and the Oil Crisis

President Barack Hussein Obama was late in his response to the oil leak crisis in the Gulf. He was either incompetent and did not know what to do or he was lax in the response to push forward his agenda. (Remember; never let a good crisis go to waste). Either way it shows what a poor leader he is, but then again what did you expect when a Community Organizer is put in charge to run the country. A LEADER leads, but a Community Organizer agitates.

Some people are calling the Obama Administration a Regime because his administration uses bribes and intimidation to push through their agenda. Barack Obama bribed two Representatives from California with the promise of turning on 25% of the water to the farmlands, which had been turned off due to EPA regulations in return for their vote on Obamacare. His administration bribed Representative Joe Sestak with a job if he would drop out of the Senate race against Senator Arlen Spector. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stated, “We’re going to keep our boot on the throat of BP.”

People like Bill O’Reilley want to give President Obama a pass on the oil spill stating, “What more could he have done?” What more could he have done? He could have been a LEADER. The Presidents prime responsibility is to protect and defend the citizens of the United States. The governments responsibility would be to contain and cleanup the spill to minimize the damage. Wasn’t he supposed to be a lawyer? Apparently not a very good one because the first thing people are supposed to do is mitigate their damages. Obama’s response was not to worry; BP was going to pay for everything.

Now, some of Obama’s Hollywood buddies want him to get tough and show emotion. So he goes on the Matt Lauer show and says he went to the Gulf and had to stand in the rain to meet with the people and stated, “He’s looking for someone’s ass to kick.” (I wonder when he said that if he had a gun tucked under his shirt, like Bill Maher suggested.)That statement is just as classless and asinine as the statement made by the BP CEO Tony Hayward, “I want my life back.” If he is looking for someone’s ass to kick maybe he should begin by looking in the mirror. Some people say Obama is getting angry over the oil spill, but I say he is getting angry because some people are pointing the finger of blame at him for this catastrophe and he does not like to be criticized.

In times of crisis a Community Agitator does the following:

• Takes no action for nine days and later tells the people he was on it from day one.

• Sends in the lawyers.

• Forms commissions to study and make recommendations to solve the problem.

• Use the crisis to push forward an agenda. (Cap and Trade)

• Points blame at everyone else.

• Shuts down the industry.

• Complains about having to go to the Gulf, stand in the rain and meet the people.

• Makes no mention of the men that were killed on the rig until told to do so for his image.

• Have people fill out forms instead of using their products that would clean up the spill.

A leader on the other hand does the following:

• Assesses the situation and takes immediate action to minimize the damage.

• Meet with all principals involved and organize a strategy to solve the crisis.

• Does not shut down the industry.

• Empathizes with the people and assures them the crisis will be solved.

• Implements pre-approved emergency plans consisting of the following:

o Use of booms to encircle the spill.

o Controlled burns.

o Build sand berms.

o Bring in empty tankers with vacuum hoses to suck up the oil.

o Use any and all technology to minimize the damage.

Some of the survivors of the Deep Horizon rig that caught fire and sunk were on the Anderson Cooper show. They stated a representative from BP came onto the rig and ordered the Transocean representative to change the way they were drilling to speed up the process because BP was loosing money. Instead of using specialized mud as a lubricant in the drilling process, the BP representative ordered Transocean to use sea water to speed up the process, even though the practice was not safe. The Transocean representative succumbed to the wishes of BP and stopped using the mud and replaced it with seawater. The workers then replaced the mud with seawater as they were instructed to do even though it was unsafe.

People are now asking, who’s to blame for the explosion and fire of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig and subsequent oil leak and environmental crisis in the Gulf? Is BP, Transocean, the workers, or President Barack Obama responsible? I say they all are responsible and here’s why. It was about money, greed and incompetence. The BP representative only cared about the money it was costing the company by not speeding up the process. The process was slowed down by using the mud, but it was the safe way to do it. The driller (Transocean) should have not bent to the wishes of the BP representative because he knew, like the BP representative knew that it was not safe to use sea water instead of the mud. The workers themselves were at fault, because they could have refused to do the unsafe method and reported them. However, for fear of being fired they did drill unsafely, which apparently caused the explosion and fire. Obama and his administration were inept and incompetent in their reaction to the spill.

The Obama administration was slow to react to contain and cleanup the spill to minimize the damage caused by the leak. He has yet to meet with any of the BP Executives. According to the Houston Chronicle the Dutch Government offered to help with sand barriers and skimmers to control the oil spill. The skimmers would have been able to remove 20,000 tons of oil and sludge a day. However, the Obama administration refused the help. There are booms sitting in a warehouse in Maine not being used. There are other means of controlling the spill that are not being used.

The main sources of revenue from the Gulf Coast are tourism, fishing and oil, but by the slow response of this administration to contain and cleanup the spill the fishing and tourism industries have now been affected. On top of that, Obama now wants to cripple the oil industry by placing a moratorium on drilling until he can be sure an accident like this can never happen again. Does Obama know what shutting down the oil industry will do to our fragile economy? Using that logic, the airline industry should be shut down; because on May 23, 2010 an Air India plane crashed in Mangalore, India killing 159 people. It was a tragic accident and people died. So should we ban or stop flying? The answer is no. The airlines should not be shut down until the government figures out a way to not have anymore accidents. By the same token we should not stop drilling for oil.

Today, Obama is saying, “Even though I am President of the United States, my power is not limitless. I can not dive down there and plug the hole; I can not suck it up with a straw.” Yet, Obama said during the summer of his presidential run, " … this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth…We are the ones we have been waiting for." So why doesn’t he just lower the Gulf waters and “plug the damn hole?”

Furthermore, I am not an engineer, but I have experience in plumbing and have seen pictures from the leak and it seems like it is similar to a union that is bolted down. They should have the schematics of that union and could put one together with a riser pipe and a shut off valve attached. In doing so, they could cut off the bolts of the old one and replace it with the new one containing the shut off valve. The shut off valve would remain open until the piece is attached and then close the valve.Like I said, I am not an engineer, but maybe they are thinking too hard on it and this simple solution may work.

Some people are now calling for an end to using oil because of this spill.These people may not be aware of all of the different products made from oil, but some of them are tires, shoes, curtains, plastic, PVC pipe, shingles, rope, clothing, ink, along with fuels and lubricants typically associated with oil. President Obama stated, “The fact that oil companies now have to go a mile underwater and then drill another three miles below that in order to hit oil tells us something about the direction of the oil industry. Extraction is more expensive, and it is going to be inherently more risky. And so that’s part of the reason you never heard me say, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ because we can’t drill our way out of the problem.” He fails to mention that they are drilling there because of EPA regulations; wherein the environmentalists, through the courts are blocking the drilling for oil inland, where it would be cheaper and less risky. Obama will be using this catastrophe to push for the Cap and Trade legislation, even though climate change is a hoax.

Oil is the lifeblood of our economy and our way of life. The United States needs to become energy independent as a matter of National Security. To rein in costs to help the American people, the United States needs an energy policy that works, which includes drilling where the oil is, nuclear power, clean coal, wind, solar and other alternative fuel sources as long as it is not from the food chain.

If there is a bright spot to the oil crisis it is it shows the ingenuity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people. Ken Starrett, of American Excelsior Company, has a product that would help with the cleanup and is willing to donate a substantial amount of the product for the cleanup, but the government requires them to send in forms and after doing so have received no response. There are others who have come up with products and solutions to the oil catastrophe. Unfortunately, BP and the Obama administration are refusing to use them. Talk about incompetence.

Greg Zotta
Republican Candidate for MO Senate 22