Little known BP oil spill facts

Last week, finally, President Obama decided to hold a press conference about the BP oil spill. Contained within his prepared comments was what most expected…an assertion that part of the problem went back almost decade, thus implying that it was Bush’s fault.  Certainly, he must have meant the Minerals Management Service (MMS) which has the authority over offshore drilling operations, so, I assumed that those in charge of MMS were Bush holdovers.

Bad assumption…it turns out that the Director of MMS, Elizabeth Birnbaum, was appointed by none other than President Obama.  Last June, when she got the position, Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar said,

[h]er in-depth knowledge of energy issues, natural resource policy and environmental law as well as her managerial expertise and work in coalition building…will be especially important as we advance President Obama’s new energy frontier…

Gee, maybe it wasn’t Bush’s fault after all.

Then, there is this.  At the same press conference, President Obama placed a moratorium on the granting of all new off shore oil drilling permits.

But, at a recent Senate Environmental Committee hearing, the following words were spoken.

I know that this committee has its eyes on the environment. We in Louisiana . . . not only have our eyes on it, we have our heart invested in it and we are making a living on that delta. But we need the oil that comes from offshore to keep this economy moving. We must examine what went wrong, weigh the risk and rewards, fix what is broken and move on . . . If we could do without this oil, we would. But we simply cannot—not today, not in the near future.

Spoken by Bobby Jindal, the Republican Governor of Louisanna, you ask?  No, they are the words of Senator Mary Landreau (D.La.).

Funny how we never seem to hear “the rest of the story”.

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

2 Comments

  1. Wind on June 1, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    I listened to 2 other people try to label Bush as the culprit today. It is lame and just an example of the lack of responsibility and awareness of this administration.  Listening to Holder come down on BP and to threaten all kinds of charges proves nothing but a "lack" of control and another cog in the wheel of progress in getting this crisis resolved. Wrong doing will come out in the end..at the moment get the problem solved.



  2. Dimsdale on June 2, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    After a year and a half, all the alleged Bush problems should have been corrected by the all seeing and all knowing Øbama, but apparently were not.  The reflexive "he did it!" excuses are just more indications of just how inept, inexperienced and misguided this administration is.

     

    And nobody can be blamed for that but Øbama…



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