7 suggestions to President Obama on the Great Gulf Oil and PR disaster

by Karoli on May 22, 2010 · 12 comments

Dear President Obama,

All the good you’ve done (and all the goodwill many have for you) is about to be undone and forgotten by this mess in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a President’s worst nightmare, no doubt. A combination of the wrecked mess of the Louisiana wetlands and the bogeyman of Big Oil at the helm is a nightmare, especially when the aforementioned Big Oil Company has been cozily sleeping with its guards.

The thing is, you’re not helping things much. Your weekly video message this week was as much an apologetic for the plan to continue risking our coastline as it was a lukewarm reassurance that everything that could be done was being done. It left me, someone frequently referred to as an Obama apologist, fangirl, and blind-eyed supporter, cold. My sense of things was that YOU didn’t even believe the line about making sure this never happens again.

Making a promise like that is akin to saying you’ll make sure the sun doesn’t rise and if it does, it’ll rise in the west. It cannot be done. Mr. President. Yet, this is an opportunity for you. A big one. Avail yourself of it. Here are some suggestions:

Quit putting BP in the front. If ever there was a time for the government to take charge and look like it was taking charge, it’s now. If ever the “fierce urgency of now” applied, it’s now. If this were a melting-down nuclear plant, you’d be right in front of it. At least, I think you would. [UPDATE: Under the law, government cannot "take over". Oversight is the limit of government's reach.]
Select a press pool and give them full access to the area. When the press is turned away (particularly a high-profile network like CBS) and told those are “BP rules”, I promise you the perception of the general public is that a cover-up is underway. I don’t care what your concerns are over security or organization. Transparency is the only hope you have for exposing the danger BP has wrought on our nation. Don’t spare them; let the press have full access to report the good and the bad.
Start talking about what the government IS doing. I don’t want to hear half-hearted apologetics for the future. I want to know about the NOW. I’ve been watching the White House updates, the NOAA updates, the EPA updates, and the Coast Guard updates, so I fully understand that the government has been on it at the start and remains so. Most people don’t, even people who support you.
If there is a consistent issue in your administration, it’s this: Your side of the story rarely gets in front of people until you’re on the defensive. Stories break and then there’s a response. How about being a little more pro-active in crafting the message, getting in front of it just a bit? This is not a time for cool-headed calm in front of the cameras and gentle reassurances. Shake your fists like you did last week. Do it again. And again. Every. single. day. We need to know you’re as pissed about this as we are, and you’re on it.
Rapidly implement creative citizen-led initiatives. I’ve seen several just in the past five or six hours. How about letting the folks with the dog hair and nylons work along the coast and wetlands to grab as much of that oil as they possibly can? How about letting volunteers in Florida work to save their coastline before it’s stuck with the same fate as the wetlands? Waive whatever red tape has to be waived. Let citizens groupsource their energy, talent and dedication and get to work doing whatever can be done. Empower us to contribute something positive to this effort.
Employ the unemployed. There’s no reason why people can’t be employed by the government for the daunting cleanup ahead. Train them, pay them, and let them work. If health hazards are an issue, fully inform them and supply as much protective gear as possible, but get them in there and let them make a difference.
Stop talking about drilling offshore in the future. Just make it a non-starter.
Start talking about what we need to sacrifice to save our coastlines. That high speed rail project? Maybe we should pay some extra taxes to expand it and expedite it. (Yeah, I know the eminent domain issues are a big pain, but it’s worth it) Stand up and start telling us the brutal truth: If we don’t agree to stop depending on oil, we’re getting the Gulf we deserve. That’s what we need to hear; it’s what you need to say. Challenge us to start RIGHT NOW. Today. A national challenge to reduce our oil dependence by the 30% you claim comes from the Gulf. Give us a goal and a hope for the future that isn’t oil.

One of the themes of your campaign was “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” This is a perfect opportunity to let US be the WE. Rather than enabling our national hunger for oil to destroy beautiful and irreplaceable coastlines, challenge us to save them through national sacrifice. Think of the freedom we all can gain from learning ways to end our oil dependence. Our involvement in the Middle East is all about our thirst for oil. That alone is incentive enough for us to make necessary sacrifices.

The truth is, we all own a piece of this disaster in the Gulf. We can blame BP (and should!), Halliburton and Transocean, but if there were no demand, they wouldn’t be drilling deeper and farther out. The best public response to this disaster is collective, shared sacrifice. Spreading blame is fine, but only if each and every person in this country is willing to accept their piece of it.

It’s not enough to shake our fists at the big, bad Big Oil companies and continue consuming oil and oil-based products at a record pace. This is where you can lead us to the future rather than leaving us stuck in the past. I believe you can do it.

Yes, you can. Will you?

Mother Nature Network’s coverage is outstanding. I highly recommend it.

Tagged as: Politics

jmundstuk

Yup.
http://www.twitter.com/danny6114 danny6114

Karoli, right on point as usual!
http://twitter.com/Darcy_M Darcy Stonesifer

WASHINGTON — Senators from California, Oregon and Washington united Thursday behind a plan to ban new offshore drilling along the Pacific Coast in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Their push, which joins a similar House effort with the backing of 20 Democrats, could gain traction in Congress as public outrage grows about the April 20 explosion on an offshore drilling rig near Louisiana that left 11 workers dead and unleashed an oil spill that threatens the Gulf Coast.

The Pacific Coast senators were unified to “make sure that there will never be offshore oil and gas drilling off the West Coast of our nation,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “We know this can happen again,” Boxer said, while gesturing to a poster-size photo of boats spraying water on the flame-engulfed Deepwater Horizon rig.

Boxer’s bill would bar the federal government from issuing any leases for exploration, development or production of oil or natural gas in any area off the West Coast.

The measure would apply only to new leases in federal waters. It would not bar oil companies from expanding drilling on current leases and it would not apply to drilling decisions within state waters, which typically extend three miles out from the shore.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., linked the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the 1969 blowout of a well near Santa Barbara, which triggered a nationwide backlash against offshore drilling. That was “a seminal moment for us,” Feinstein said. And now, “the BP disaster has shown that . . . there is no guarantee whatsoever that this will not happen again.”

President Barack Obama announced plans in March to expand offshore drilling in new areas of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Although he specifically ruled out new federal drilling leases off the Pacific Coast and in some areas near Alaska, nothing in federal law limits exploration in the region.

That’s because Congress allowed a decades-old statutory moratorium on new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific shores to expire in 2008, amid soaring oil prices. A statutory ban on drilling near the Florida Gulf Coast is set to expire in 2022.

Right now, the only safeguard is Obama’s assurance that new federal drilling will be barred in the Pacific, Boxer said. “There is no permanent protection,” she said.

The West Coast lawmakers — including Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. — said they would try to advance the legislation as part of any energy bill that moves through the Senate. One prime candidate: a climate change and energy measure that was unveiled Wednesday.

But that climate measure would only give states the power to bar drilling 75 miles off their shores — farther than the typical three-mile barrier, but still far less than the unlimited, permanent ban the West Coast senators seek.

Any change to the climate change bill’s offshore drilling proposals threatens to undermine the entire measure, which already faces long odds in the Senate.

Drilling advocates in Congress have warned that any move to shut off offshore production could jeopardize the U.S. economy and heighten the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of oil.

“We do not want to have people have to import more and more foreign oil,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis. “Whether we like it or not, the only real place to find significant additional oil deposits in meaningful quantities is in the outer continental shelf.”

Nationwide, support for offshore drilling still remains strong, despite the Gulf spill. Six in 10 Americans back expanded ocean drilling, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday.

jdlouhy@hearstdc.com
Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/7004396.html
http://twitter.com/Darcy_M Darcy Stonesifer

Karoli, Take a chill pill and get a good nights rest, you'll think clearer in the morning. President Obama didn't create the BP spill, and he is not going to lose my support because BP caused a man made disaster.
BTW don't you read/watch the press ? When could you accuse them of reporting the GOOD with the bad. IF his side of the story doesn't get out then who is to blame? The press, and the blog-sphere.
Like I said, calm down and try to come up with viable solutions instead of useless ranting rhetoric.
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

This wasn't ranting rhetoric. Anyone who knows me knows offshore drilling is my Achilles heel. Every picture you see with these posts is mine, taken with my camera, seen through my eyes. No place I love more than coastline. Any coastline, anywhere, but particularly California coastline.

Don't mistake my anger at the situation with a lack of support for the President. I have deep support and regard for him. I also think it would be wrong to watch that weekly address and simply accept it. Saying we'll make offshore drilling safer is baloney. There are NO guarantees. The truth will prove that IF there had been adequate oversight and safety compliance, this would not be the disaster that it is. Now we can hang that on the Bush administration all day long, but it is also the reason no one can state with certainty that this will not happen again.

All it would take is another Republican being elected President, and whizz, bang, we're back in bed with the regulators and the whole “this won't happen again” thing is nothing more than smoke.

Why not use this moment to challenge us all to move past oil dependency? He has a true opportunity here. He should take it.
http://twitter.com/Darcy_M Darcy Stonesifer

Sorry Korli but the tone of the letter, particularly, the threat that all the goodwill was about to be undone and forgotten by this mess in the Gulf of Mexico, immediately ruffled my feathers. This is bad, but it in no way will it undo the goodwill or good he has done, unless of course, we allow it to.
I didn't hear his video message this week but if it was apologetic and a lukewarm reassurance that everything that could be done was being done and you don't believe him then am I to believe he is lying?
AS a solution you suggested he give the press full access to the area. Do you honestly think President Obama is keeping the press away?
You say start talking about what the government is doing and in the same breath say you don't want to hear… what you heard in his weekly address.
You expect the President to get mad and shake his fists, lose control, get red in the face to prove he cares about what is happening to the coast? It is not going to happen, that is not the president we elected.
Re: implement creative citizen solutions, great, get the group with the dog hair and nets together and start skimming so long as its your property your protecting. Who would object.
Employ the unemployed, sure, do it… Start a business and ask for gov help to get it going. File a business plan. Nobody will stop you.
Re:(6.) One of the first things President Obama said concerning the drilling was that there would be no more new drilling started until after they knew what caused this and how to make sure it didn't happen again.
I believe President Obama laid out the plans for a hi-speed railway before the oil spill occurred and I have no reason to think the oil spill will slow down that progress at all.

Yes we can, IF we work together, and support each others causes.
I understand you are angry, but being angry at the president is anger misplaced.
http://lindagoin.com/ Linda

Karoli, unlike some other commenters here, I don’t think you’re angry enough. Yesterday, Keith Olbermann ran a piece where he interviewed a scientist, the latter who explained that BP was policing even the people who were collecting oiled birds and turtles, telling them to leave them alone (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/keith-olbermann-accuses-bp-of-covering-up-worsening-the-oil-spill-to-avoid-fines/). BP wants accountability for the oiled animals, they don’t want to allow the full extent of the gusher(s) to be viewed and measured (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/oil-spilling-gulf-mexico-bp-basic-calculations/story?id=10705575&page=1), they don’t want to use proper boom technology (and haven’t), and they also are not willing to pay for any more OSHA training on the oil spill operations (http://www.keysnet.com/2010/05/22/221860/want-to-help-with-oil-spill-efforts.html).

To volunteer, a person must pay at least $100 for OSHA training, and even then the proper equipment must be garnered to wear during cleanup operations. The oil is toxic, the dispersant even more so. The men you see working along the beaches in the upcoming link are not properly equipped for the work that they are doing (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-causes-20100523,0,5868457.story). They need to be in hazmat uniforms. These men are breathing in toxic fumes and touching toxic materials without protection. Not only that, but the work that they are doing is futile, considering that the oil has not stopped hemorrhaging.

For all intents and purposes, BP has taken control over the Gulf of Mexico, and they are — for all intents and purposes — turning that Gulf into a toxic soup. The enemy is here, and – thanks to corporate law – there is nothing Obama can do but send out the troops for oversight. When a drilling advocate states that BP doesn’t know what it’s doing and doesn’t know how to stop the oil, then we all should be frightened (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127057393). Topkill to stop the gusher? Be very afraid. Usually topkill doesn’t work unless the “leak” has been sealed already. This gusher is a far cry from a “leak” or even a “spill.”
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

I'm sorry if you feel my tone is unduly harsh. From everything I've read of our President, he welcomes dissent when accompanied with constructive suggestions.

My overriding message remains thus: this is an opportunity to shake us out of the stranglehold of oil, but not if we keep playing the “we have to drill offshore card”.

BTW, nowhere did I say I was angry at the President. What I said was that he wasn't helping by recording a lukewarm weekly address suggesting that it would all be just fine and we could go back to drilling offshore. We cannot. We need to accept this fact and learn to live with it.
http://twitter.com/fpaynter frank

Salazar and Napolitano have emerged with something to say and do. Can anyone tell me why the Attorney General hasn't frozen BP assets and put them in receivership until all the public liability issues are sorted out? BP management is good-old-boying their way thru with hand-wringing and promises not to rely on the $75 million per incident statutory cap on liability. The management can, of course, be replaced in a heartbeat. We need some assurance that the resources of BP will be put to work restoring habitat and cleaning up.
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

As I understand it, there are some really sticky issues around the law in this case. I don't fully understand all of them, so leaving those aside, there are also some legal issues. I don't think the US government can freeze assets of a foreign company without a court order allowing them to, and a court order would require some evidence of bad faith, which they're not doing. The liability cap does not apply to the cleanup, either, as I understand it. (Plus, I think Congress will ultimately lift that cap, retroactively).

I'm more interested in freezing Halliburton's assets, frankly, alongside Transocean. I think they're as culpable as BP.
Barry Grimes

President Obama should reenact the Civilian Conservation Corps. He can do something about unemployment while cleaning up the oil spill. All he has to do is enact the legislation. He does not have to pay for the workers. BP will have to pay for the training, equipment and the salaries of many thousands of workers. This spill will take years to clean up. He should start now and could solve some of the unemployed's problems for 5-10 years. These workers could be used in other contexts to clean up the environment and work in many other venues to do whatever is necessary to assist in environmental cleanup efforts. He can start by employing the unemployed fishermen and other affected workers locally. He has to keep that economy going at least! Wake up Obama… do something!
http://lindagoin.com/ Linda Goin

Why should Obama gather workers when companies like 3R Inc in SC are willing to take it on? Cleanup jobs in the Gulf are not allowed, unless they're beach cleanup pre-oil. Workers need OSHA training, and boom workers and boat runners need other training. 3R is stating that their training is worth $500, but they're bypassing that cost to train people in SC to go to the Gulf. Read the PR. It says, “They may need thousands of people and some of the workers will stay until the job is finished. Rhodes also said the work could be made even more temporary, as some workers will only have to work a month and go home.”

Reading between the lines, this means that cleanup will take months, if not years (see: http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/may/28/10/sparta…). If you go to the new BP site for Florida at http://www.floridagulfresponse.com/go/site/3059/, and you'll learn what you can do as a volunteer — basically nothing. BP quit paying for equipment and training, and they may face lawsuits as they send workers out w/o respirators, so they're not allowing people to work for them or volunteer. This is not Katrina — this is a toxic dump that requires training that takes 10 days to a month (outside special skills, like knowing how to run a boat), and special equipment.

Things have changed since the WPA — this is a corporate environment, and businesses (or churches) will take over where the govt. can't. Or, as in the case of the Ninth Ward, Brad Pitt. I'm beginning to believe James Carville…no one really cares about this environment along the coast nor about the unique culture that resides there…they're just concerned when something like this might affect them. I'm even willing to bet that nothing will change as a result of this spill. Nothing.

Tell me otherwise. Please.