http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20110524/NEWS01/110524004/Lawmakers-urged-unify-behind-one-bill-seeking-BP-fine-money

9:08 PM, May. 24, 2011 |

Written by Deborah Barfield Berry

WASHINGTON — Gulf Coast advocates urged lawmakers today, May 24, to support efforts to help the region recover from last year’s oil spill and to back legislation giving their states most of the money BP will pay in fines.

“I don’t want them to dither around and not get forward momentum with the legislation because they can’t agree,’’ said David McLain, coordinator for the Apalachicola Sub-Basin Caucus in Eastpoint, Fla. “They need to get a damn bill passed.’’

Gulf Future, a coalition formed after last year’s spill, is pressing lawmakers to send the region 80 percent of spill-related fines levied against BP to help restore the environment and local economies. Lawmakers agree on that point, but differ on how to split the money among the five Gulf states.

“Everyone gets that we need a united bill,’’ said Casi Callaway, executive director of the Mobile Baykeeper, an Alabama-based environmental group. “What we heard from the Senate is that they are working well together and we expect to see a compromise soon. What we heard from the House is they haven’t met. We’re stuck with three different bills. ‘’

Callaway met earlier this week with staffers from the offices of Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner, an author of one of the bills, and Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, all Republicans. She also met with aides of Mississippi Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran.

Gulf Future, whose members met with congressional aides this week, say Gulf residents still wrestle with health and economic problems related to last year’s spill. They called on lawmakers to set up advisory panels to hear from residents affected by the spill, including fishermen.

“How can you tell a fisherman to stop fishing?’’ said Angel Truong, executive director of Asian Americans for Change, a community group based in Ocean Springs, Miss. “They know what they need.’’

Stephen Bradberry, executive director of the Alliance Institute, a New Orleans-based community group, said Gulf Coast residents have never had good access to community health care clinics.

The oil spill “only exacerbated that need,’’ said Bradberry, adding that it would cost only about $200,000 to set up two clinics in Louisiana.

Special thanks to Michelle Erenberg.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/24/2233019/judge-rules-environmental-group.html

Kudos to our friends at Defenders of Wildlife–this is great! The new permits have response plans written before the BP disaster–how did that pass federal review as to the adequacy of the applications???? DV

Miami Herald: Judge rules environmental group can pursue lawsuit

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge has ruled that an environmental group can continue to pursue a lawsuit claiming the government violated environmental policies in approving oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The environmental group maintains that leases were approved without any environmental review that considered the impact of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the oil spill.

The Southern Environmental Law Center filed the suit on behalf of the group Defenders of Wildlife. The lawsuit claimed several government agencies, including the Department of Interior, violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when it approved 221 oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico following the oil spill.

U.S. District Judge William Steele in Mobile on Monday ruled the environmental group can continue to pursue its claims.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Interior did not have any immediate comment on the judge’s ruling. The government had asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the environmental group did not state a valid claim.

Derb Carter, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the government continued to approve leases after the blowout and oil spill even though circumstances had changed significantly.

“Our view is that all the assumptions … were rendered wrong after the BP blowout,” Carter said.

The lawsuit continues before Steele, who gave attorneys until June 6 to file additional briefs in the case.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://healthygulf.org/201105181663/blog/bps-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/a-sad-day-for-this-marine-mammal

Wednesday, 18 May 2011 12:04

As the pictures below will clearly show, it was a very sad day yesterday on the Louisiana coast. Myself, a coworker, Scott Eustis, and videographer, Randy Perez, were accompanied by Forrest Travirca and Cathy Norman of the Edward Wisner Donation Land Trust to an area of privately owned land adjacent to Fourchon Beach and Elmer’s Island. The purpose of our visit was to learn about what transpired on this remote stretch of beach during the BP disaster. What were the impacts and what is BP is doing, has done, or failed to do to, in BP’s words, “make it right”. We hopped in a UTV, or “Gator” and made our way up and down the beach listening to our guides rehash their experiences during the disaster while pointing out points of interest. Having been out to the coast either by boat or plane over 60 times in the last year to monitor the oil impacts and clean-up operations, including impacts to marine life, I thought that I had seen it all. Still, although I have seen most of the carnage that BP unleashed on the Gulf so far, there’s not much that can prepare one to see something like this:

That poor dolphin washed in while we were traversing the beach. The others obviously had been there for some time. In all, we saw three dead dolphins yesterday and lots of dead fish. While clearly it is too early to declare that BP killed that poor dolphin that washed in, we hope that one day in the near future to prove or disprove BP’s culpability.

Having reported it to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, we are hoping that we can track it though the chain of custody and necropsy and ultimately find out who or what killed that amazing, innocent creature. While there were no signs of visible oil on that particular one, the other two that were decomposing had visible signs of oiling, according to our guides. Regardless, everywhere we looked upon the beach were tar balls and tar mats. Clearly, as the pictures show, BP failed to make it right.

Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for GRN.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2011
3:36 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/05/18-12

CONTACT: Environmental Groups

Sarah Burt, Earthjustice, (510) 550-6755, sburt@earthjustice.org
Kelly Trout, Friends of the Earth, (202) 222-0722, ktrout@foe.org
Kenny Bruno, Corporate Ethics International, (718) 788-4402, kbruno@corpethics.org
Steve Porter, Center for International Environmental Law, (814) 323-4623, sporter@ciel.org

Groups question what impact the relationship will have on controversial pipeline decision

SAN FRANCISCO – May 18 – Environmental and ethics groups sued the State Department today to gain access to possible communications between a lobbyist for a Canadian oil pipeline company and the State Department, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The lobbyist, Paul Elliott, formerly worked as the national deputy director for Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Elliott was then hired by TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would run through America’s Great Plains to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Elliott registered as a lobbyist only after news organizations reported on his lobbying activities on behalf of TransCanada in December 2010. TransCanada needs a permit from Secretary Clinton to build the Keystone XL pipeline.

The suit follows a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Friends of the Earth, Corporate Ethics International, and the Center for International Environmental Law late last year seeking to uncover any communications between Elliott and the State Department that would reveal whether Elliott’s former position as campaign director for Secretary Clinton resulted in bias in the permitting process. The State Department initially denied the request for those records on January 5, 2011. A few weeks later, the department reversed its decision to deny the request but has delayed processing the request, and has not indicated whether or when it will release the information.

“Why is the State Department refusing to release these communications?,” asked Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. “This calls into question the agency’s decision to rush the review of the Keystone XL pipeline, despite its massive environmental risks and bipartisan opposition to it.”

Before deciding whether to grant a permit, the State Department must analyze the pipeline’s risks and finalize an Environmental Impact Statement. After the EPA told the State Department its draft environmental impact statement was inadequate, Secretary Clinton nonetheless said, last October, that the State Department was “inclined to approve” the permit. Secretary Clinton’s agency has been criticized by farmers and ranchers in the pipeline’s path for rushing the review process and not holding hearings on the department’s latest draft analysis. The State Department plans to make a final decision about the Presidential Permit before the end of 2011.

“Clearly, TransCanada hired Mr. Elliott to take advantage of his previous service to Hillary Clinton,” said Kenny Bruno with Corporate Ethics International. “We think the public has a right to know in what ways TransCanada and Mr. Elliott have attempted to influence Secretary Clinton’s view of this controversial project.”

Tar sands mining operations destroy forests and wetlands, with vast drilling infrastructure, open pit mines, and toxic wastewater ponds up to three miles wide, permanently damaging the environment. The extraction process involves strip mining and drilling that injects steam into the ground to melt the tar-like crude oil from the sand and requires massive amounts of energy and water. In fact, tar sands oil production emits about three times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as extraction of conventional oil and uses from two and a half to four times the amount of water. The construction and operation of the Keystone XL pipeline itself poses additional environmental risks, including potential contamination of major freshwater aquifers.

“This raises important questions of transparency and fairness,” said Sarah Burt, an Earthjustice attorney. “If a decision to approve a transcontinental pipeline is made based on relationships and access to Clinton, while completely overlooking the significant environmental and public health dangers posed by the pipeline, the public needs to be aware of it.”

The public interest law firm Earthjustice represents Friends of the Earth, Center for International Environmental Law, and Corporate Ethics International in Friends of the Earth v. State Department.

The complaint filed against the State Department today is available at: http://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/FriendsoftheEarthvStateDepartment-11-05-18-Complaint.pdf

More information and documents detailing the history of the Freedom of Information Act request at the center of the lawsuit are available at: http://www.foe.org/groups-question-role-oil-lobbyist-state-departments-review-tar-sands-oil-pipeline

More information on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is available at: http://www.foe.org/keystone-xl-pipeline

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110518/us_nm/us_cuba_usa_rig_1

It will be interesting to see if they actually deploy the rig in the fast moving Gulfstream–a real technological challenge–beyond the obvious problem that this is where all the hurricanes volley through going north all summer. Then there’s the history of no serious oil reserves in this area. This whole deal sounds fishy to me…..dv

By Daniel Wallis – Tue May 17, 11:54 pm ET

LA JOLLA, Calif. , May 17 (Reuters) – The arrival of a unique oil rig off communist Cuba is set to cause waves in Washington, raising questions about U.S. drilling permits and the response to any disaster, a conference heard on Tuesday.

Spanish giant Repsol YPF is due to bring the Chinese-built Scarabeo 9 rig to the Caribbean island later this year to drill at least one well in partnership with Norway’s Statoil and a unit of India’s ONGC.

“I think it’s going to have a much bigger impact on U.S. domestic policy than it is on Cuba,” said Jorge Pinon, visiting research fellow with Florida International University Latin American and Caribbean Center’s Cuban Research Institute.

The main reason is that Repsol plans to use the high-tech semi-submersible Scarabeo 9 for a deepwater drilling bid in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico zone, parts of which are within 50 miles of the Florida coast.

That puts the planned drill site close to areas where the Obama administration blocked U.S. drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico after BP’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year.

“A lot of people are going to be knocking on doors in Washington, saying ‘How come the Cubans are drilling and we’re not allowed to drill in the eastern Gulf?’,” Pinon told a Latin American energy conference in La Jolla, California.

U.S. EMBARGO

The Scarabeo 9 is unique because Repsol had to find an oil rig that met the terms of the 49-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, which limits the amount of U.S. technology that can be used in equipment used there. The embargo also prevents U.S. companies from operating on the island.

Pinon said the $750 million rig, which can drill in 12,000 feet of water, was due to leave Singapore next month and should arrive in Cuba in September or October.

He said the only U.S.-made part on the Scarabeo 9 was the blow out preventer — one of the pieces of equipment that failed during the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

And that raises the other issue likely to make waves when the rig, owned by Italian service company Saipem and being prepared in Singapore, arrives off Cuba: what happens if there is a similar accident to the one off Louisiana?

“The U.S. embargo means Repsol can’t pick up the phone to Washington,” Pinon said. “Any equipment to help in a problem would have to come from the UK or Norway or somewhere else.”

He said the U.S. government should formulate a “One Gulf” strategy with the international oil companies working in Cuba, as it is trying to do with Mexico, so that in the case of any emergency they could turn to the United States for help.

The U.S. government has said it would let U.S. companies that handle accidental oil spills operate in Cuban waters if the need arose. Pinon said that should be formalised.

Repsol drilled an offshore well in Cuba in 2004 and said it found oil, but described it as “non-commercial.”

After drilling at least one well, Repsol is due to pass the Scarabeo 9 to Malaysia’s state oil firm Petronas. Venezuela’s PDVSA may also be in line to get the rig for its Cuban blocks.

The oil industry is watching the Repsol project very closely and if it finds significant reserves, more companies are likely to want to explore in Cuban waters.

Cuba has said it may have 20 billion barrels of oil offshore, although the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated 5 billion barrels.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)
Special thanks to Richard Charter