“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Obama dithers while the beaches are ruined


How has Obama's indecision, incompetence, and hyperpoliticization of the BP oil spill not only allowed, but caused the avoidable environmental devastation across the entire Gulf region? Let me count the ways:

1: On day 2 of the spill, 13 different countries with oil-spill equipment, know-how, and willingness to help, offered their expert assistance but were turned down because of the obscure Jones Act which prevents foreign-flagged vessels from operating in US waters without being union manned.

2: The federal government refused to allow Gov. Jindal to erect sand berms because he hadn't submitted proper environmental impact studies.

3: A fleet of oil skimmers were pulled into port for 24 hours so the bureaucrats could make sure they complied with federal life vests and fire extinguisher rules.

4: The largest oil skimmer in the whole world "A Whale", docked in Virginia, wasn't allowed to start skimming operations because it returned slightly more than 15ppm of oily water to the Gulf, exceeding onerous federal guidelines.

5: Finally, the Obama administration invited the vastly more experienced Dutch crews and skimmers to the Gulf to clean up the mess but, they will be delayed indefinitely because Obama will not allow Dutch crews to operate their own equipment. Inexperienced American union workers must be trained first before they are allowed to fumble around and figure out how to clean up the oil.

If on day 2, when help was offered, we had suspended the Jones Act, and invited everybody to help with the clean up when the oil slick was small and still far off shore, the skimmers and clean-up operators might have been able to prevent the oil from ever reaching land at all. Obama's gross incompetence allowed the oil ashore, causing directly the economic and environmental devastation from which we in the Gulf states will suffer for perhaps decades.

Every day that goes by, it gets more unbelievable that we allowed the Obama-lick spittle media to install in the presidency an inexperienced, do-nothing, community agitator.

2 comments:

Bill Lockhart said...

All of these travesties simply amaze me. In an emergency, you drop needless protocol and save the ocean. Have any of the rescue teams been allowed in yet to do their job without bring hampered by US red-tape? Or is the US still "in charge" and "successful"?

ed said...

Obama reluctantly agreed to let the experts from Royal Dutch Shell come start the clean up but, it's day 70. The oil has already destroyed the beaches for decades. If he was a leader, he would have seen the wisdom, like any thinking person would have, in inviting anybody who had any idea about clean up. I submit that if Shell and others had been allowed to help when it was offered on day 2, the oil may have never reached the beaches at all. They would have skimmed and sucked it up as it surfaced.