BP Criminals In The Gulf
As a direct and proximate result of the reckless, wanton, willful, and grossly negligent conduct of BP, eleven men are dead and the biggest environmental disaster in history has been unleashed on the fragile and critical Gulf of Mexico, threatening the lives and livelihoods of untold numbers of American families. The Obama Administration and its DOJ should be prosecuting the obvious crimes and using criminal investigatory powers to secure evidence; there is no excuse for them not doing so to date.
The Official Flow Rate: 12,000-19,000 BBL/Day
The head of the USGS just did a press conference to announce the government's official estimate of how much oil is flowing into the Gulf. The official estimate is that the flow rate is 12,000-19,000 BBL/day.
To get the estimate, the team used…
BP's Own Internal Documents Prove It Knew Its Oil Leak Estimates Were Bogus
In today's Natural Resources Hearing on the BP Disaster, Ed Markey brought out proof that BP knew it was lying about the flow of oil from its disaster. He brought two BP documents showing that even when their Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles…
Breaking! Obama Cabinet Official Looks Backward!
Doug Lamborn (R-CO Whiner) complained to Ken Salazar that there had been too much focus on the sex and drug scandal of MMS under the Bush Administration. Salazar let him have it.
Lamborn: We all want to get to the bottom of this tragedy.…
Top Kill Discussion Thread
Okay, for any Firedogs and Wheelheads following the big Top Kill moonshot (link is to a great Oil Drum explanation) going on, this is an open discussion thread. If you need a link, CNN has a live feed linked on their front page, here is the…
"I cannot see that any other form of organisation would stand a better chance"
I've been thinking a lot during the last month about the fact that 50-some years ago, the United States overthrew the democratically-elected government in Iran because the country nationalized BP's assets in the country. Take this FT interview…
BP Fixed a Negative Pressure Test before the Well Blew
Back when the House Commerce Committee had its first hearing on the BP Disaster, Henry Waxman revealed some inconsistencies about the negative pressure test BP did on the well before it moved to close off the well.
The next bullet says: “After…
Petraeus' Challenge to Obama
As I noted in this post, the front page NYT story putting Petraeus in charge of the paramilitary groups I will call "JUnc-WTF," which are deployed in allied countries, reminded me of Eric Massa's allegations that Dick Cheney and Petraeus were…
Squabble in Administration over Rule of War, Khadr, Drones
Steven Edwards, one of the four journalists banned from Gitmo for reporting publicly available information, has an important story on squabbles within the Obama Administration about what should be in the recently updated Gitmo military tribunal…
The Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order (AKA the JUnc WTF?)
On September 30, 2009--according to a big new story from Mark Mazzetti--David Petraeus signed a directive approving the deployment of small special operations teams to go into friendly (Saudi Arabia and Yemen) and unfriendly (Iran and Somalia)…
BP: We Have to Use Corexit Because No One Tests for Endocrine Disruptors
As Scarecrow reported on Saturday, BP told EPA it would not switch from Corexit to another less toxic dispersant. BP admits that five approved dispersants are less toxic than Corexit; it dismisses four of those because the manufacturers cannot…
How Much Does BP Pay Us for Privilege of Soiling Our Shores?
The Mineral Management Service claims that revenues from oil production once became the country's second largest source of revenue after income tax.
As the industry continued to evolve through the 1950s, oil production became the second-largest…
Dr. Sludgelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Junk Shotting And Love Teh Bomb
The solution ideas to date by BP to shut off their Gulf killing oil gusher have been straight out of the Wile E. Coyote Acme School School of idiocy. There is only one real solution: Bomb the sucker!
The EPA's History of William Reilly
I was going to go clean the house and forget about the BP disaster for a few hours. But then I saw the EPA files on William Reilly, the Republican Obama appointed to co-chair his BP Disaster "Looking Forward" Commission.
From the EPA's institutional…
Obama's BP Disaster Commission: Looking Forward with No Subpoenas
As promised Obama signed an executive order forming a presidential commission to study the BP disaster today. I thought it'd be instructive to compare what he just formed with what Edward Markey and Lois Capps proposed. Starting with this…
Greenhouse Eats Offal for Breakfast
I was at a loss for words about Arlen "Never Know Whether He's Haggis or Scrapple" Specter's loss on Tuesday. In the Village, our tragic figures never have the glory of Shakespeare or the Greeks, but rather only the tawdriness of Hollywood,…
DC Circuit Helps Obama Turn Bagram into Black Hole
The DC Circuit just overturned a District Court opinion that granted three Bagram detainees who were captured outside of Afghanistan (though the government contests this claim for one of the detainees) the right to a habeas proceeding.
It based…
Congress' 30-Day Deadline for Rubber-Stamping Exploration Plans
The other day, when Sheldon Whitehouse asked Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar why BP had gotten an exemption from the full-blown NEPA process from which it presumably should have been categorically excluded, Salazar referenced a 30-day deadline…
The Inexplicable Timing of Dennis Blair's Ouster
I'm thoroughly unsurprised by the news of Dennis Blair's ouster. After all, it's an impossible job that appears to serve one purpose: to provide a deck chair you can rearrange every two years as a scapegoat for our continuing inability to detect…
How the Government Explains Uninterrupted Access to Faisal Shahzad
Close to midnight on May 3, authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad for attempting to bomb Times Square.
Over the following two weeks, the authorities questioned Shahzad, even as Pakistani intelligence detained Shahzad's family members. The government…