May 09 2010

More Offshore Drilling Exempted From Regulations

“Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf,” says the headline from McClatchy.

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama’s vow that his administration would launch a “relentless response effort” to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday – the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

About the Mineral Management Service, which granted the waivers for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico…

Three separate inspector general reports released last September revealed instances of wrongdoing among current and former MMS staffers who accepted gifts including tickets to sporting events and concerts from oil and gas industry representatives; allegedly had sexual relationships with subordinates; bought cocaine from fellow staffers; and arranged for hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting work upon retirement.

And now for the good news, from a “lesson plan” provided to schools by the Smithsonian.

When tankers running aground spill oil, that’s news, and currently these accidents deposit about 37 million gallons of oil into the ocean every year.

But these disasters only add about 10% to the total amount of petroleum and petroleum by-products which enter the ocean every year!

The largest amount of oil entering the ocean through human activity is the 363 million gallons that come from industrial waste and automobiles.

1 comment

  1. This story actually gets worse!

    A Washington DC Appeals Court ruled in April 2009 that the Bush administration’s five-year plan for offshore oil and gas drilling (covering 2007 to 2012) was not based on a proper review of the environmental impact of the drilling.

    Only days before the ruling, the Obama administration had granted BP a “categorical exclusion,” exempting it from an environmental impact study for the Deepwater Horizon project.

    Kierán Suckling, executive director and founder the Center for Biological Diversity, which was involved in the original lawsuit, told the World Socialist Web Site that Salazar “filed a special motion asking the court to lift the injunction, and he cited the BP drilling several times by name in the request.”

    Thank you very much, President Obama!

    Thank you very much, Secretary Salazar!

    Thanks for “giving BP a “categorical exclusion,” exempting it from an environmental impact study for the Deepwater Horizon project!”

    And what the heck!

    Now we don’t need an environmental impact study to understand the possible impact of Deepwater Horizon on the Gulf of Mexico!

    You can see it from a thousand miles away!

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