BP: Obama's Do-Nothing "Root Causes" Commission
Thursday 27 May 2010
by: Max Ajl, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
Gas from the damaged Deepwater Horizon wellhead is burned by the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise May 16, in a process known as flaring. Gas and oil from the wellhead are being brought to the surface via a tube that was placed inside the damaged pipe. (Photo: Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley / U.S. Coast Guard)
Obama had this frozen, robotic expression on his face when he announced that he'd put his signature on the executive order establishing the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. He looked a bit like he'd been replaced with an animatronic doll, one programmed to speak very eloquently and say precisely nothing. Obama's commission is supposed to carry out a six-month investigation into the reasons underlying the explosion of the Deepwater Horizons offshore drilling rig. Securely informed and enlightened by such knowledge, the United States will be able to "prevent and mitigate the impact of any spills that result from offshore drilling."
Obama has been quite chastened by the tens of thousands of barrels of oil daily billowing into the Gulf of Mexico entailing a multi-billion dollar "clean-up effort." This effort involves burning the oil, removing toxic billows from the water and sending toxic plumes into the air and dispersing toxic dispersants on the even-worse oily gunk coating the waters of the Gulf, even when the government says to use something slightly cleaner. BP didn't listen to the government and the government responded by demanding from BP a good explanation for its refusal to listen to government mandates. This deafness probably has also irritated Obama and contributed to the push for an independent commission to investigate the spill.
Obama's lolly gagging while an ecosystem is slowly being murdered has unnerved some of the commentariat who usually remain silent on his screw-ups. James Carville commented, "I think they actually believe that BP has some kind of a good motivation here ... They're naive! BP is trying to save money, save everything they can ... Somebody has got to, like shake them and say, 'These people don't wish you well! They're going to take you down!'" This is unusually sage advice from Carville, who belongs to the wing of the business party congenitally blind to the logic of corporations.
Obama promised during his address that not only BP but also DC be held responsible. So, the commission will "consider both the root causes of the disaster and offer options on what safety and environmental precautions we need to take to prevent a similar disaster from happening again." Stern stuff. Obama must have liked the sound of it, returning nearly verbatim to the line, asking: "what lessons we can learn from this disaster to make sure it never happens again?"
Someone not steeped in the complexities of American energy production, oil drilling, campaign financing, the grip of various lobbies on our political process, the reality of a country-wide infrastructure wholly reliant on automobiles and a military that burns oil like a crystal meth addict in Kentucky working his way through hits of methamphetamine might offer an answer so obvious that it seems silly: stop offshore drilling. Stop burning oil. Wean ourselves at the fastest possible pace off a fossil-fuel based energy infrastructure. Transition to sustainable energy sources immediately, recognizing that a world in which industrial accidents cause barrels of bilious oil to flood into the ocean are intolerable.
That person is definitely naïve. Perhaps a dreamer. Perhaps just a dunce in need of a swift lecture: "We can only pursue offshore oil drilling if we have ... assurances that a disaster like the BP oil spill will not happen again." The point of the commission "is to consider ... the root causes of the disaster," the only way of making sure that a disaster like this can never happen again. QED? For sure, so long as the commission does not merely identify root causes, but calls on the government to address root causes.
The problem, visible to nearly everyone except the president, is that when you drill, accidents happen, as Alex Cockburn mercilessly pointed out here a couple weeks ago and as a recent report on Solve Climate further confirmed, citing chances of a blowout as 1 in 400. There have been almost 40 blowouts already, but most of them were small, brief and in relatively shallow waters, with minimal ecological impact. That doesn't mean this sort of drilling isn't dangerous. It means that before Deepwater Horizons caught on fire we'd been lucky. We are now experiencing the end of our luck and the oil from the spill is threatening an 150-mile spread of marshland, full of mollusks and other shellfish, along with the native marsh-grasses that tamp down the swells and winds that were part of the reason Hurricane Katrina was as bad as it was: the natural storm-swell protection services offered by wetlands on the New Orleans coast had been replaced by an ingenious and utterly vulnerable-to-breakdown system of concrete levees.
There's a pattern here, one identified by agrarian philosopher Wendell Berry: "If you put the fates of whole communities or cities or regions or ecosystems at risk in single ships or factories or power-plants, then I will furnish the drunk or fool or imbecile who will make the necessary small mistake." That may be a "mistake" in construction, or an engineering mistake, or a steering mistake or any of the sorts of mistakes endemic to the complex technological systems that compose our life-support systems.
The Obama commission could have a mandate to come up with a way to transition to a green economy or any of a number of imaginative, forward-looking, rigorously pragmatic, Utopian schemes that would address the "root causes" of the BP disaster: the fossil-fuel arterial infrastructure upon which American society is based. Economist Robert Pollin calls for a "broader green investment project ... to encompass public transportation, electrical grid upgrades and the creation of a competitive renewable-energy manufacturing sector," as part of a broader effort to create 18 million new jobs in the next three years. A renewable-energy manufacturing sector would create the devices necessary to create a renewable-energy-generating infrastructure.
At a time when, according to the Pew Research Center, only 32 percent of the American public think it "very important" for Congress to prioritize climate change, 67 percent think it "very important" to prioritize addressing the country's energy needs and 81 percent think it's "very important" to "address the job situation," such an infrastructure would simultaneously fulfill not only the goal of rebuilding and reinvigorating the rusted American industrial plant, but would also politically braid together employment, energy and climate.
That would be a good first step for dealing with the explosion's root causes. Americans aren't dumb. They don't know that energy, climate and employment can be addressed, at least on a short-term horizon, simultaneously and no one knows this because it's taken as a tacit assumption that there won't be a centralized, planned, immediate transition to a renewable-energy-based economy. That would be what a dream commission would come up with. Less dreamily, the commission could use market-pressures to force BP to stop drilling oil - initially high-risk deepwater drilling, then all oil since all oil is risky.
See, BP is aware of the world's willingness to supply the "drunk or fool" who will make the mistake that will destroy an ecosystem. Aware of this risk, it long ago opted to socialize it. As economist Frank Ackerman commented, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, adopted after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, finances the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, currently containing billion dollars, through an eight-cents-a-barrel tax on oil. As Ackerman added, in return for this tax liability is limited to clean-up costs plus 75 million dollars, "a pittance for a giant oil company and is far below the economic losses to the communities affected by BP's recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico." Imagine oil companies couldn't socialize their risks from oil spills, or from emitting ecocidal CO2. They'd have to stop emitting it and then we'd be foursquare in front of what looks like a conundrum: hyper-expensive fossil fuel and no jobs.
Except there's a way out - a planned conversion to green energy via an Apollo project. These are root causes, and you can forecast that the commission will not discern them with as much certainty as you can predict the sun's daily rise in the East. And then there will be another Deepwater Horizons poisoning our waters and our atmosphere and another Exxon Valdez spilling black crude all over pristine estuaries and penguin colonies. And maybe, just maybe, that's why Obama looked so much like a mannequin while delivering his speech - because he knows these facts, but is a creature of the fossil fuel companies and can barely contain the jostling contradictions between facts and policy. Rather than resolving the ensuing mental disturbance, it's easier to affect catatonia. Easier for Obama, for the Gulf of Mexico, for the poor of the world whose lives will be shattered by climate change. For our future? Not so nice.
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Comments
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You've just(ly) Got to
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 14:30 — Vic Anderson (not verified)You've just(ly) Got to SPECIFY it (JOBS) means the UNIVERSAL Solar/Electric roof film to power our homes AND the ELECTRIC CARS requisitioned by US SINCE 1995 (Obummer WON'T)!
Personally, I hardly think
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 14:49 — MARK M O'BRIEN (not verified)Personally, I hardly think that there has been much "lollygagging" by the President. It seems to me that once the accident occurred, he acted responsibly and pragmatically. Any evaluation of the manner in which the president exercises power should take into consideration certain practicalities -- such as whether he is enlisting sufficient technical expertise to solve the problem. An emotional reaction like Mr. Carvilles might be understandable, but it does not seem productive.
Here's a root cause;
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 15:24 — Anonymous (not verified)Here's a root cause; addiction.
We're a nation that drinks salt water and wonders why it is still thirsty.
The thing to do is to admit it's a problem, and then go about changing it.
It's not about incumbents; it's about a sick system that recreates itself every few years in order to keep recreating itself. There's no point to it. It does NOTHING!
Max: "Obama to suspend
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 15:32 — marcywrite (not verified)Max:
"Obama to suspend arctic drilling" from McClatchy newspapers appeared immediately below this post. Another news item today announced that Obama is halting all ocean drilling -- even that already underway -- while his commission develops recommendations for re-regulating the industry and deep-sea drilling. And he just fired the head of the agency that was responsible for what passed as regulatory oversight under Bush.
So how do you POSSIBLY justify your "do-nothing" characterization? Just because the President didn't run around pretending to do something, and instead took his usual calm, careful, deliberate, thoughtful and intelligent approach to the crisis doesn't mean he was doing NOTHING.
Calm down and allow rationality and common sense to guide your thought process and your writing, please!
And while you're busy criticizing, what kind of car do you drive? Prius or some other hybrid or high-mileage vehicle? I drive a Prius? What have you done to cut your use of petro-fuels? We just installed solar panels on our home and will be producing at least 93% of our energy needs from the sun.
Stop ranting and start taking positive personal action to change the energy equation.
What are you saying 20:32?
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 16:10 — Anonymous (not verified)What are you saying 20:32? "If you drive a car you destroyed the Gulf of Mexico" ? Only a fool isn't aware of how Big Oil and associated industry has ruthlessly dictated American consumption of oil. Obama is a capitulating failure on so many levels, his marching orders prior to ecocide essentially came from the 'Murican Petroleum Insitute.
Taking positive personal action involves gutting the entrenched sob's from our Gov'ment, who only a month ago were clamoring for a full on environmental assault for fossil fuels. Obama is a tool, illegal conflicts still rage on, and underneath of all of it is the murderous competition for nature's resources.
Thank you Marcywrite! What,
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 16:34 — Anonymous (not verified)Thank you Marcywrite! What, indeed have each of us done and continue to do to break first our personal addiction, then help convince our neighbors to follow our example? We just installed a low flush toilet and I have never owned anything other than a clothesline for laundry drying. We ride our bikes when weather and distance permit, otherwise, it's our Prius (currently getting 50.0 mpg).
What is called for here is a
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 16:47 — Anonymous (not verified)What is called for here is a pragmatic approach. I share your idealism; I'm ready to change radically what I do each and every day and how I do it. Right now I do what I can which is more than most. An awful lot of people, however, are lagging behind and some have a financial interest in the status-quo. President Obama needs our support, not this kind of criticism. He is trying to do what is do-able and bring everybody along in the correct direction. It can't be done without most of the people and their support. Do too much too fast and there will be a genuine and dangerous revolt.
Pragmatism: The road to hell
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 17:17 — Anonymous (not verified)Pragmatism: The road to hell is paved with the most obvious enabling administration since the last one. Anyone hear of the Financial Crisis Commission and how abhorrently worthless it is?
Obama should be impeached first and foremost for enabling financial terrorism, no one, not one son of a bitch on Wall Street or in an oblivious Federal Agency (the exact same conflict of interest and corruption at the Dept of the Interior that is finally seeing the media's light of day) will ever see jail. Obama's administration is heavily invested in these very same criminal organizations, his marching orders come from the likes of GS and BP.
Pragmatically speaking, it would be absurd to cut off one's nose in spite of one's face. The rest of the Country can go to hell. Not sure what planet some posters have been living on, danger and tragedy are what life in America has become for the unwashed masses.
Yo Max, How about leaving
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 17:35 — Webfoot Doug (not verified)Yo Max,
How about leaving the snide anti-Obama name-calling to the Beck/Limbaugh/O'Reilly/ Will/Colter/Krauthammer/Goldberg/Palin crowd?
They do it so much better.
Hey, Anonymous (Pragmatism:
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 17:48 — marcywrite (not verified)Hey, Anonymous (Pragmatism: The road to hell) -- Did you ever call out the prior administration and demand Bush's impeachment? (He actually violated Constitutional principles, our civil rights, our privacy rights and the Geneva Conventions...to name just a FEW of the justifications for HIS impeachment). On what grounds exactly would you call for President Obama's impeachment? Just because you don't like him? That doesn't cut it.'
Did you criticize the corruption at Interior under Bush? If not...you're just a phony protestor, hiding your anti-Obama attitude behind self-righteousness.
Oil industry is entrenched
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 18:11 — Anonymous (not verified)Oil industry is entrenched in every business, political, social, and news sector of the economy. Together, it is much more powerful than any US president, small country, or columnist. It will not allow a transition to a sustainable energy plan to occur. How? If we tried without it's blessings, it would stop the production of oil. Completely. If you want to know what Armageddon looks like, that would be pretty close. The oil companies surely can survive without us-selling to China or India, but we certainly cannot survive without the oil companies. That's how the BP CEO can be so smug-he knows this. This basic fact is overlooked by everyone.
Obama has done nothing to
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 18:49 — Anonymous (not verified)Obama has done nothing to reverse what came before, only strengthened abridgements to our rights, refused to close Git Bay, refused to end illegal conflicts and pumps Billions into the war profiteers and the financial sector, passes a bullsh$t healthcare bill, will probably enable the destruction of social security., advocates passing weakly ineffective financial reforms (and many more kids!) The president is largely an irrelevant tool anyway, likewise fuc$ war criminal Bush. Noboby claims that recall 500+ bought and sold cranks bwerer recently defeated in any so-called election.
President Obama's "frozen"
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 19:31 — farmertx (not verified)President Obama's "frozen" expression could have been due to his political adviser telling him to say/do something else.
Yes, Obama took money from BP and Sachs and a lot of other special interest groups. That is the system that the American voter is comfortable with having in place. A few of us find that system to be bad. But evidently, most don't, as nothing is done to change the system.
Had the President rushed in and started ordering this and that action, the Right and BP would have been all over him for interfering with private businesses.
Naturally, if action would have been wrong, inaction would have to be just as wrong.
BP has the worst OSHA 'rating' of any oil producer "88 very serious violations" vs 8 for its closest 'rival'. That alone should be enough to have it barred from any US operations.
But BP knows that between the bribes they pay out and the fines they pay, they still make more money than they honestly know what to do with. That's why the head guy was paid 4.5 billion (not million) last year.
Seize BP!
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 19:52 — Eli Stephens (not verified)Seize BP! http://www.seizebp.org
People who do wrong are
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 20:18 — Anonymous (not verified)People who do wrong are either malicious and greedy or dupes and foolish, or some combination of these. Giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, I'd like to think that he is duped and acting from bad information and on bad advice. However, he has also revealed a disappointing lack of ethical charecter in standing up for the public against the interests of corporations and Big Money. The financial bailout of Wall street, Afganistan, the move away from a single-payer system-- his presidency is riddled with disappointments that border on criminal behavior. Bottom line: he is protecting a system of corporate and elite privilege that should be abolished. We need economic democracy, not a plutocratic form of state capitalism.
Obama is the chosen symbol
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 21:41 — Anonymous (not verified)Obama is the chosen symbol of the US trainwreck.
Coming soon to a theater near you, the violence of militarism, formerly reserved for the rest of the world, order and strong men, in the decline of empire.
If Obama were in any way a
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 21:50 — David Brookbank (not verified)If Obama were in any way a threat to the corporate/military establishment, he would never had gotten anywhere near the US presidency. Every 4 years people in the US use their 10 minutes of democracy in the voting booth to vote for a ruling class Democrat or Republican. Playing the game of the better of two bad options, the US population elects one and then proceeds to complain about what they get. Over a century, those 10 minutes in the voting booth during those 25 presidential elections every 4 years represent a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes of democracy for the people while the corporations and their elected ruling class presidents (be they so-called "left" or "right") get the remaining 99 years 19 yours and 5o minutes to plunder, pillage, lie, manipulate, invade, and occupy. There may not be a solution by means of the voting booth, but as long as you are going to vote for these corporate financed (to the tune of $100s of millions) candidates, you will get what the last writer described as a "a system of corporate and elite privilege that should be abolished". The two-party ruling class political system we have is intended to PREVENT the election, even the nomination, of a candidate how would potentially challenge the corporate/military subjugation of our lives, country and world.
David B. a- freaking- men!!
Thu, 05/27/2010 - 22:46 — farmertx (not verified)David B.
a- freaking- men!!
hey gang check out
Fri, 05/28/2010 - 06:47 — Anonymousman (not verified)hey gang check out http://www.thepartisandialogues.com this sweet political news website
To answer the one commenter
Fri, 05/28/2010 - 07:07 — morgan1 (not verified)To answer the one commenter about how to impeach Obama and for what reason--It's simple. He is an accessory to an criminal conspiracy (Bush/Cheney) for a very long list of crimes committed here in the States and overseas. Obama is indeed a traitor to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He is expanding wars without Congress approval and ignoring sovereignty. He is covering up torture and rendition as well as ignoring Habeus Corpus. As for the oil spill, it is too little and too late. BP has gotten away with this sort of criminal conduct for decades and they will do it once more. All you Obama fans still giving him the benefit of the doubt, and "give him more time) are fools. He is halfway through his run, is going to have to start campaigning and nothing has been accomplished except the destruction of the Gulf, more wars, more unemployment and a housing crisis never addressed correctly. There is money for wars, but none for here. We are so screwed.
Lets take the 1200 National
Fri, 05/28/2010 - 09:43 — Anonymous (not verified)Lets take the 1200 National guards from the boarder and put them to better use cleaning up the oil spill and back charge BP for the clean-up.
Like we would for a forest fire.
If Obama had intervened
Fri, 05/28/2010 - 10:52 — Roc1 (not verified)If Obama had intervened immediately to control BP's operation in the Gulf, the very same people who choose to criticize him no matter what he does (many who actually live in the South) would say "see...there's Obama the Socialist, again, taking over another private corporation. Why can't he just let BP fix its own mess rather than spend all our tax dollars..." right? Obama is not at fault here, the MMS is, Big Oil is, and most of all WE are at fault for not forcing a rapid changeover to alternative energy systems for our buildings and high-efficiency vehicles. Architects have been saying this for decades (since the 1970's energy 'crisis'), but no one still seems to really listen. Doesn't anyone realize that no matter how much coal, petroleum and natural gas is extracted, assuming that it can be done safely and cleanly (which it can't), once it is burned, it contributes to climate change. Burned in our cars, our trucks. Burned in our planes, our ships. Burned in our furnaces, our factories, our power production facilities. Fossil fuel extraction needs to quickly come to an end - period. But Obama can't force this to occur overnight, and he sure can't (and won't) turn America into some third-world country in the process. We the people need to insist that this changeover start, and then we need to change the way we live. Then, Obama's policies can have real impact. Let the Sarah Palins of the world spout that message rather than their typical BS. The bigoted right-wing psycho-Christians in this country are annoyingly stupid, this is true - but all of us need to make a commitment to change. I think nothing would cause that change to occur more quickly than $7/gallon gasoline, and $1500/month average home heating bills.
It seems as if a huge number
Fri, 05/28/2010 - 13:45 — radline9 (not verified)It seems as if a huge number of people would like to take an oil covered albatross and hang it around Obama's neck, but he is on the side of more regulation for industry. It's the republicants starting with Ronald Reagan through the last Bush that have been doing everything in their power to deregulate industry.
Try to understand that the
Sat, 05/29/2010 - 09:54 — Anonymous (not verified)Try to understand that the Oil Industry owns, and has paid for it's regulator. This phenomenan is testament to the power of obfuscation through propaganda, corporate media and Big Money:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/29-0
Radline9, did you forget Robert Rubin and Larry Summers; you know, that particular Administration?
How about the late 70s?
Sat, 05/29/2010 - 10:01 — Anonymous (not verified)How about the late 70s? During that administration, Al Qeada was founded along with the deregulation of formerly regulated US industries. 'Murica has been killing for oil, and correspondinly killing the environment for the better part of the last century. (Keeps getting more spectacular, deadly and destructive as the years go by) Obitch doesn't seem to be particularly aggressive in getting us off of oil.
Yes, we're all outraged at
Sat, 05/29/2010 - 23:11 — LynninStL (not verified)Yes, we're all outraged at this euphemistcally termed "spill". BP is arrogant, cut corners on safety and probably is causing the submerged oil plumes with their unprecedented use of dispersants at the leak.
But what do you expect Obama, or any President, to do? The federal government isn't in the business of drilling for oil below the waves and has no equipment for dealing with mile-deep blow-out. How do you propose he fix it?
He's stuck depending upon BP, or other major oil companies, that do have the equipment.
About all a President can do is coordinate BP's efforts and fix MMS (and other regulatory agencies) and evaluate if the fix(es) are adequate. Beyond that, the government is as helpless as the rest of us.
BTW, "root cause analysis"
Sat, 05/29/2010 - 23:14 — LynninStL (not verified)BTW, "root cause analysis" is the standard method of dealing with technical problems in preventing future occurrences.
I certainly wouldn't expect his predecessor to even mouth the words.
OK, Morgan: If you and all
Tue, 06/01/2010 - 14:29 — Frances in California (not verified)OK, Morgan:
If you and all your crypto-fascist Republican friends want Obama to go away, just keep it up - pretending you really care about the environment and the war economy (which is as old as the nation itself). Someone who would love to drill the Arctic no matter what; love to start another war (Iran); love to favor insurance companies over Americans who need healthcare . . . such a sock-puppet you will help gain the White House in 2012 and screwed doesn't begin to describe it!
To me the issue is that the
Wed, 06/02/2010 - 01:45 — Anonymous (not verified)To me the issue is that the Prez and Co claim that they were on it from day one with BP. I agree 100% that the gov't is unable to stop the spill---they do not have the knowledge, tools, etc to stop.
However, from day 1 they should have been preparing for the worse case scenario in regards to the eco system and the beaches and had something in place--even as a precaution.
To me it seem that everyone sat around like stoned frat boys going "wow, look at the oil" and then realized about a month to late that it is on ruining the marshlands.
That is my expectation to how the gov't should have reacted and instead they were all concerned about getting BP to agree to pay for it and starting investigations and special commissions. How about focusing that energy, money and resources toward protecting the land.
As for the rest of the politcal stuff written in the comments--Yes, Bush started a ton of crap that was pretty unconstitutional but Obama voted for most of it as a senator and has kept it going as President (ie: he renewed patriot act). So, while he did not start it--he is just as guilty for continuing it and furthering the cause.
The first thing BP did in FL
Sun, 06/06/2010 - 12:30 — FL Mad Woman (not verified)The first thing BP did in FL is to send us $$ to promote tourism. What's that about? They are using it to give the tourists who already booked in FL vouchers to come after they clean the mess up. IF? When? Whatever!
They sent the Pelicans and other wildlife to santuaries in FL after the spill hit them, should've been before, since they saw it coming.
So many crazy, unforgivable responses to this.
The incompetence, the screwy priorities. This is unforgivable. How about a class action lawsuit with all citizens of Louisiana, AL, GA, FL, like the tobacco lawsuit a few years ago??
Halliburton - who did the
Sat, 06/12/2010 - 11:32 — opit (not verified)Halliburton - who did the cementing and has had quite a run of 'cementing failures'- bought a cleanup company of late.
And anyone who doesn't realize that Cheney had resource depletion taxes killed for deepwater rigs still hasn't twigged to financial incentives to drill where they don't know how to fill the holes they make.
Investigate for 'root causes' ? That sounds like an opportunity to shaft the competition.