by Casey Flynn
While soaking in a bathtub in the White House and languidly reading a book containing some of his favorite French poems, Obama decided to put some more hot water into the cooling bathtub. As he did, he witnessed an oily viscous substance coming through the bathtub faucet. It was soon determined that the oil was part of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, President Obama called a press conference and declared a national emergency and stated that his administration was taking charge of the situation by establishing a Commission to look into the BP Oil Spill. A Commission? That’s the answer! We don’t need a stinkin’ commission unless that commission can be jammed into the broken pipe spilling oil at a rate of BP’s current estimate of over 5,000 barrels to as high as 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day since April 20, 2010 – the last 34 days!
Daniel Plainview, head of BP, made the following statement to the press, "I'm an oilman."
The Blame Game: The BP Oil Spill happened because the following people did not do their jobs: (1) Red/Mauve State Congressman from Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana from both political parties, (2) George W. Bush, (3) Dick Cheney and his Oil commission, (4) President Obama, and (5) federal regulators from the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the United States Department of the Interior, from the present and past administrations. Indeed, these Gulf State Congressmen and women, a President from a Gulf State, and the present occupant who would like to win Louisiana and Florida in 2012 should have been taking action (regulatory or legislative) to protect the multibillion-dollar beach tourism and fishing industry of the Gulf from the financial interests of BP, British Petroleum. That’s right, British petroleum, not even American petroleum. Foreign oil companies showing up and drilling for oil and leaving in their wake an environmental disaster is what we think happens when foreign oil companies drill in Third World countries without any environmental regulation. When did we become that Third World country?
Let’s say for the sake of argument that the federal government did their due diligence and only gave BP a permit to do the drilling at the Deepwater Horizon site after representations from BP that they had contingency plans for a blowout such as a blowout preventer and other such precautions. As I understand it, in February 2009, BP filed a 52-page exploration and environmental impact plan for the Macondo well with the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the United States Department of the Interior, that oversees offshore drilling that stated it was “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities” [Have they not screened ‘There will be Blood’ at BP headquarters] and the BP wellhead had been fitted with a blowout preventer.
We are now learning that the blowout preventer: (1) was not correctly built; (2) perhaps was broken because of previous accident(s); and (3) was not the cure-all safety feature that BP represented to the federal government notably because BP was drilling in 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level.
So why aren’t people in handcuffs? This is a fraud on the federal government. I stole DirecTV for three months, so I could have HBO and keep current on the Sopranos as well for the thrill of it – get satellite TV for free, and the prosecutor of the city I live in threatened to bring criminal charges against me if I didn’t settle civilly with DirecTV. Congress impeached Bill Clinton for lying under oath in a civil case against him regarding sexual harassment about one of his many bizarre sexual trysts involving an overweight intern and a Cuban (if the intern looked like Gisele Bundchen, there’s no impeachment). More currently, Lindsey Lohan might be going to jail for missing one alcohol counseling session she was required to take as result of her DWI. Is our criminal law system only concerned with prosecuting and deterring trivial and weird conduct? Should the LA Sheriff’s Department be in charge of enforcing federal regulations on oil companies? They apparently do a more thorough job.
I have no doubt that there will be bipartisan fingerprints on this environmental disaster in the Gulf. The question at hand has nothing to do with political affiliation, it is this: How do we stop the spill. How do we stop the gusher? Two words: James Cameron.
James Cameron caught in a reflective moment
What most people don’t realize about famed Hollywood director James Cameron is that he’s a very experienced and world-renowned deep sea diver and explorer. BP has stated repeatedly that it’s difficult to stop the gusher because the Deepwater oil drilling site is located 5000 feet below sea level. Well, James Cameron shot the movie, ‘The Abyss,’ about deep-sea exploration at 7000 feet, and he only lost three people in the deep sea shooting (BP has already lost 11).
James Cameron could close off the gusher and make a movie about it that would gross $100 billion dollars that would pay for a good part of the environmental clean-up of the BP oil spill, though only a small part of his monthly alimony statements.
In fact, James Cameron has announced to the press that he could pencil the United States in on Thursday and make an appointment to stop the BP gusher and he would only need (1) his mini-sub and (2) a pair of 3-D glasses. His price for stopping the gusher: ‘The Heart of the Ocean (Le Cœur de la Mer),’ the blue diamond featured in the 1997 film ‘Titanic’ and that the US grants Pandora Most Favored Planet trade status.
Nevertheless, BP and certain pundits make the argument that there is not a simple solution (Hollywood’s own James Cameron), but rather it is a very complex engineering undertaking to stop the gusher from a deepwater oil well located 5,000 feet below the ocean surface. To which I respond, if it’s so freakin’ complicated, why are we even drilling that deep in the ocean in the first place? To go back to BP’s February of 2009 52-page exploration and environmental impact plan, BP fails to indicate that: (1) their contingency plans if a blowout occurs are greatly flawed or (2) to stop a gusher at these depths of the ocean is a near impossible engineering feat. Hello handcuffs? When the FBI knocks on the door at BP, Halliburton, and Transocean Ltd. to arrest everyone, if they’re gentleman, their response should only be: “What took you so long?”
BP seemed to have no problem setting up a 24-hour web cam down there to provide a live feed. Why couldn't they have capped the gusher then? They say the pressure at that depth is crushing, hasn't effected the web cam, right?
Try something, anything, WTF! Certain of my friends have made the argument to me as follows: You don’t understand, BP and other oil companies are in the best position to stop this spill and not the United States government. Reaction #1: I refuse to believe that one private oil company has access to more resources to fix this problem than the United States government. Reaction #2: Let BP try to stop it, fine, but why isn’t the United States government there with all of its agencies and resources with 34 other fixes if the one fix the BP tries every week or so – with the urgency of a high school sophomore cleaning up the mess in his bedroom after a parental scolding – doesn’t work?
Simply put, what’s the harm in trying? I’ve got a great idea, send Jack Ryan and the Red October submarine to fire a torpedo at the Deepwater Horizon site and blow the thing up and hopefully that will stop the gusher. Discuss. Check out copy of Guinness Book of World Records from Library of Congress (the federal government has the resources, we need to use them!), look under World’s largest plunger, World’s largest hydraulic arm, and World’s longest metal crane, retrieve them and snap them together by welding on locking parts designed by Lego, and then go and stop gusher. Discuss. (I’m not saying it will work, I was trying to get the discussion started for everyone to throw in an idea or two).
The Education of Rand Paul #1: First of all, everyone is for smaller and more efficient government. Rand Paul was critical of Obama for beating up on BP and noting that BP has already agreed to pay any legitimate claims, let the free market work it out. To BP, what does ‘any legitimate claim’ mean? Maybe eight of the eleven people who died during the initial explosion, two had heart problems and would have died shortly anyway, and one was a drug addict who beat his wife, so we want to litigate that one. As to the economic claims: what receipts do you have to document your loss of business or damage to property? There was oil on your beach? I just took a picture of your beach (two years later), I don’t see any oil so how can you say that you were damaged. Our (BP’s) experts showed there is no negative environmental or economic impact on your property, do you even have an expert? I thought so. Or I and my client BP are very sorry, but we were victims too, the real culprit was: Transocean Ltd. Yes, I know they’re bankrupt.
The Education of Rand Paul #2: Not following government regulation or not having proper government regulation can equal more government: Louisiana’s governor Bobby Jindal wants his state and potentially the federal government to build barrier islands to prevent the oil spill from spreading into fisheries and wetlands. That’s more government. The state and federal cleanup efforts will take a long time and again involve taxpayer’s monies and again more government. BP will file numerous motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims with federal district courts which are organs of the federal government, and the litigation involving the BP oil spill will go on for years. More Government.
Bill, baby, bill! Final thought, so much for drilling our way out of this energy crisis. Prediction: Who will be mostly billed for the environmental cleanup of this ecological disaster? Not British Petroleum, but the American taxpayer (including Rand Paul and the Tea Partiers).
