The oil disaster in the Gulf may be capped, but the drilling continues. We need to protect our oceans from this happening again. Join us in our effort to put an end to offshore drilling.

On Thursday, Thursday, August 26th, from 6pm to 7pm, we’ll be hosting a meet-up. Come meet other people interested in protecting the world’s oceans and learn about Oceana’s campaign to End Offshore Oil Drilling and Protect Ocean Health for future generations to come.

Share your perspective in thoughtful conversation about Ocean welfare and the legacy we’re leaving our kids. We are going to brainstorm actions that we can take in days ahead and talk about how we can take a strong stand against offshore drilling and support offshore wind.

Join Us For A Meet-Up »
When: 6:00 – 7:00pm on
Thursday, August 26th

Where: Sippin Café
424 Eaton Street, Key West

RSVP to agambill@oceana.org

We will be meeting in the Sippin Café, 424 Eaton Street, Key West, from 6:00 to 7:00. The event is free, but please RSVP to attend this meet-up.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

For the oceans,
Amanda Gambill
Climate and Energy Campaign
Oceana www.oceana.org

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/16/next-major-toxic-hazard-that-can-ruin-you-and-your-childrens-health.aspx

The above link takes you to a video of Susan Shaw, internationally recognized marine toxicologist, author and explorer, who shows evidence that the toxic Gulf of Mexico oil slick is being kept off of beaches at devastating cost to the health of the deep sea.

Please sign the petition to stop the use of dispersants! Go to: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/25/stop-the-use-of-dispersants-in-the-gulf/
Thank you, DeeVon

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Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

The BP oil leak has reportedly been plugged, but the devastation caused by the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that poured into the Gulf, coupled with a reckless use of toxic dispersants to “clean it up,” is just beginning.

And the sad truth is, even highly trained toxicologists can only guess what the full extent of the damage will be. This is, by far, the worst oil spill in human history. The Exxon Valdez disaster spilled “only” 12 million gallons of oil — and even that ended up taking a much more complex environmental toll than toxicologists initially predicted.

There’s no doubt in my mind this disaster will take DECADES to clean up, if it’s at all possible, and the worst-case scenario is pointing to major devastation on all levels of marine life, from coral reefs and plankton to fish and air-breathing mammals.

Where Did the Massive Oil Slicks Go?
Since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, thousands of square miles in the Gulf were covered with immense patches of oil. Media images showing the extent of the destruction have been scarce — draconian measures have been implemented to limit media access and reporting on the disaster, and CNN recently reported on a new rule that prevents anyone, including reporters and photographers, from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms anywhere on the water or on beaches — but the oil was there, coating expansive stretches of ocean, nonetheless.

Now, fast-forward to early August and the New York Times reported that the oil patches are “largely gone,” and “Radar images suggest that the few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.” They went on to report, “The slick appeared to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected.”

Two days earlier, a government report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey similarly implied that the oil in the Gulf was quickly disappearing and that environmental effects were well under control.

Government Report Implies Oil is Mostly Gone!
For starters, the report estimated that only 4.9 million barrels of oil were released from the BP Deepwater Horizon well, when at the height of the spill estimates revealed that 4.2 million gallons of oil were likely still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico daily.

Next the report goes on to explain that:
“It is estimated that burning, skimming and direct recovery from the wellhead removed one quarter (25%) of the oil released from the wellhead. One quarter (25%) of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and just less than one quarter (24%) was dispersed (either naturally or as a result of operations) as microscopic droplets into Gulf waters.
The residual amount — just over one quarter (26%) — is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments.”

The remaining “residual” oil, along with the oil that has been chemically and naturally dispersed are “currently being degraded naturally,” according to the government report.
With a glowing report like this one, it makes you wonder if the U.S. government is in collusion with BP. Already the report is dr

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7166809.html

Aug. 22, 2010, 8:41PM
For the past two decades, the deep waters of the world’s oceans have been the so-called “final frontier” for the oil and gas industry as they raced to drill deeper, faster and farther out for resources and profits.

Now, with 11 men killed and an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled, it’s clear that some operators were taking too many gambles in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Those days of big risks are over.

In the four months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, the Obama administration has launched the most aggressive, advanced and swift offshore drilling reforms ever implemented.

The goal is simple: to raise the bar on safety and environmental protections so that deepwater drilling can safely resume.

To achieve this objective, we must eliminate the gap between the technology that allows oil and gas companies to tap reserves beneath 5,000 feet of water and the laws, regulations and tools needed to ensure that energy companies are operating safely and responsibly on the outer continental shelf.

We are aggressively pursuing reform in four fundamental areas.

First, we are raising the bar on industry’s safety practices and equipment.

The Department of the Interior has implemented tough new requirements for inspecting and testing blowout preventers, casing and cementing wells, and drilling plans. The CEOs of drilling companies must now – for the first time ever – put their signature on the line to certify that their rigs comply with the law.

Second, we are requiring companies that want to drill to prove they are prepared to deal with catastrophic blowouts and oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon.

BP’s failed attempts to contain its blowout – from the “containment dome” to the “top hat” – exposed its lack of preparedness for a disaster. The previous administration exempted operators from addressing worst-case scenarios in their exploration plans, but we have closed that loophole. The oil and gas industry’s inadequate preparedness is also one of the reasons the current deepwater drilling pause is so important: We need to put effective strategies in place for containing blowouts and responding to major spills.

Third, we are continuing our campaign to put science back in its rightful place in decisions about offshore oil and gas development. In March – before the BP oil spill – I canceled the previous administration’s plans to hold four oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic Ocean because we need to develop more information about the risks and impacts of drilling in that sensitive landscape.

In the Gulf of Mexico, we must proceed with similar caution. We have launched a new environmental analysis of the Gulf that will help guide future development decisions and Interior’s agencies will be required to complete more robust environmental review of proposed deepwater drilling projects.

Finally, it is essential that we build a strong and independent agency with the resources, tools and authority it needs to hold offshore operators accountable to the law.

We are dividing the conflicting missions of the agency once known as the Minerals Management Service because the people who are leasing offshore areas for development should be separate from those responsible for policing offshore energy operations.

The former Inspector General for the Department of Justice, Michael Bromwich, is spearheading these reforms and has already implemented a new internal investigations and review unit that will root out problems within the regulatory agency and target companies that aim to game the system.

In addition, under Bromwich, we are substantially increasing the number of inspectors for offshore oil and gas drilling rigs and platforms. For too long, the agency that regulates offshore drilling has been short on resources.

Together, the reforms we are implementing are strong, fair and risk-based. In shallow waters – where the risks are different than deep waters – drillers can continue drilling if they meet the new standards and play by the rules. Production throughout the Gulf of Mexico has also safely continued throughout the BP oil spill.

However, in the deep-water areas, where the Deepwater Horizon blowout occurred, it is necessary and appropriate to require operators to demonstrate improved safety, blowout containment and spill response practices before allowing drilling to continue.

To be sure, both the deep-water drilling moratorium and the reforms we are implementing have drawn fire from the same powerful interests who have, over the last two decades, systematically fought regulation and oversight of offshore drilling operations.

But make no mistake: Our country needs these reforms and we will deliver them. We will raise the bar for deep-water drilling. We will hold the industry accountable. And we will build the strongest and safest offshore energy development program in the world. Salazar is secretary of the Interior.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38800962

What happened to government by the people? This is a perfect example of inordinate corporate influence–actually, control– of important government regulatory roles that should –of course–be independent of those regulated. DV

With crisis shifting from response to recovery, focus will be on who’s to blame

BP employees and members of the U.S. Coast Guard in the command center at the Houma Joint Information Center listen to BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles speak about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Houma, La., in June.\

By HARRY R. WEBER

* –
NEW ORLEANS – For months, the U.S. government talked with a boot-on-the-neck toughness about BP, with the president wondering aloud about whose butt to kick.

But privately, it worked hand-in-hand with the oil giant to cap the runaway Gulf well and chose to effectively be the company’s banker – allowing future drilling revenues to potentially be used as collateral for a victim compensation fund.

Now, with a new round of investigative hearings set to begin Monday on BP’s home turf and the disaster largely off the front pages, there’s worry BP PLC could get a slap on the wrist from its behind-the-scenes partner. That could trickle down to states hurt by the spill and hoping for large fines because they may share in the pie.

“I don’t think they’ve been as tough as they should have been from Day 1,” said Billy Nungesser, president of Lousiana’s hard-hit Plaquemines Parish. “We were at war. You don’t go to war and hope people respond.”

In the past few weeks, public messages from BP and the government have been almost in lockstep. The government even released a report – criticized by academic researchers and some lawmakers as too rosy – asserting that much of the oil released into the Gulf is gone, playing into BP’s message that its unprecedented response effort is working. A recent AP poll shows that BP’s image, which took a beating after the oil spill, is recovering.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Thursday that White House support for the oil report shows the administration’s “pre-occupation with the public relations of the oil spill has superseded the realities on the ground.”

That differs from the atmosphere early on, when BP was the recipient of some very tough talk from the government. A little more than a week after President Barack Obama’s on-air comment about “whose ass to kick” in early June, BP executives encouraged White House officials at a meeting in Washington to back off on the rhetoric. They reminded the government that a bankrupt company pays no bills, according to a person who was briefed on the details of the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

In mid-July, BP finally capped its runaway well and is now very close to sealing it from the bottom once and for all.

‘Trying to hide the football’
With the crisis shifting from response to recovery, the focus will be on who’s to blame and how much they should pay. The BP-government partnership raises questions about the government’s ability to be impartial in meting out punishment for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Many of those investigating the spill are not independent.

“Whether the public accepts that remains to be seen,” said Wayne R. Andersen, a retired federal judge and the only nongovernment member of a key spill investigative panel.

The Deepwater Horizon joint investigation team that Andersen is on will hold its fourth set of hearings beginning Monday in Houston, where BP’s U.S. offices are located. The panel is charged with reaching conclusions about what happened.

Congress and the Justice Department also are investigating, and various government agencies will be determining how much BP and others should pay in fines for the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and spilled 206 million gallons of oil.

The amount of spilled oil alone could mean a fine of up to $21 billion if BP were found to have committed gross negligence, and criminal charges could be in order if negligence is found. The figure is important to the Gulf because Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is pushing legislation that would require that at least 80 percent of the civil and criminal penalties charged to BP under the Clean Water Act be returned to the Gulf Coast for long-term economic and environmental recovery.

So if the government reaches a settlement with BP on fines that are significantly lower or, on the criminal side, lets them off easy, that could rub a lot of Americans the wrong way. By the same token, if the government comes down too hard on BP, that might hurt the government’s interests, because BP’s financial health and its ability to meet its spill obligations are tied together.

BP executives declined repeated requests for interviews for this story.

There are also other companies’ interests to consider: Transocean, the owner of the rig that exploded, and Anadarko Petroleum, a minority owner of the undersea well, will be looking to protect themselves by shifting blame to BP, while BP also will be looking to shift blame.
“They’re all trying to hide the football,” said Daniel Becnel, a Louisiana lawyer suing BP and others over the oil spill.

The ties that bind
The entire oil and gas industry will be watching closely to see if BP’s ace in the hole – its relationship with the federal government – pays off.

The ties that bind BP and the government together started forming soon after the rig explosion.
BP and U.S. Coast Guard employees sat side-by-side in a command center in Robert, La., coordinating the spill response and fielding calls together from media from around the world. That setup later moved to a high-rise office building in downtown New Orleans.

According to a person who has worked in the command center, the response team in New Orleans occupies two floors. Coast Guard and BP leaders each have a set of offices and work areas. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, formerly known as the Minerals Management Service, also has its own office, the person said. At the height of the spill, more than 400 people were on the two floors. Now, about 200 folks sit in those offices on any given day.

Often, the people from the BP leadership team would go into the Coast Guard offices with issues and vice versa, the person said.

BP and the government also worked together to control media access.

The Coast Guard and BP coordinated access for The Associated Press aboard the Helix Q4000 vessel in early August on the day of the so-called static kill operation, in which mud and later cement was pumped into the runaway well from the top. Accompanying the AP reporter and photographer on a BP-chartered helicopter to the vessel were six BP employees and a Coast Guard liaison. A photographer working for the White House also was aboard.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the spill response, told the AP that the complexity of the response and technical know-how required made BP the natural partner.

“That may seem a little bit at odds and maybe not well understood by the American public or even some leaders, but it is in fact how we have been managing oil spills in this country for 20 years,” Allen said.

And, he said, the law dictated that the responsible party clean up the mess.

“You have to be able to tell them what you want, and they have to write a check,” Allen said. “It would be inadvisable to do that anywhere but sitting next to each other.”

‘Replace them with who?’

When asked if independent industry experts could have been brought in to work on the response instead of BP – knowing that the government would be investigating the oil giant – Allen quipped, “Replace them with who?”

Allen said the government doesn’t have the competence or capacity to deal with drilling a relief well and the type of technology it takes.

“Would you suggest I bring in a competitor?” Allen said. “One of the conundrums of this response is, and one of the things that I think is causing everybody some problems, is the federal government does not own the means of production to solve this problem at the wellhead.”
On the flip side, could independent investigators have been brought in to render judgment?

Andersen, the retired judge recently appointed to the joint Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement investigative panel, said that when you are dealing with a highly technical and narrow area of expertise, there is going to be overlap of the knowledge of the regulators and those they are regulating.

“Naturally, that needs to be out on the table,” Andersen said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010100817023

Oh great, just what we need; Rubio leading the charge for drilling in Florida waters; watch out for this guy–he’s dangerous. DV

KRIS WERNOWSKY * KWERNOWSKY@PNJ.COM * AUGUST 17, 2010

Senate hopeful Marco Rubio believes the option of offshore drilling isn’t a dead issue for Florida.

He said the issue has to be framed as one of energy independence and national security.

Rubio brought his stump speech to a group of 50 supporters at McGuire’s Irish Pub in Pensacola on Tuesday, touching on issues ranging from the oil spill and health care to religious freedom and immigration.

With the region still stinging from a ruined tourism season, with hotels still empty and a question mark over the safety of fish in the bountiful waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Rubio said a measured and safer approach to drilling will help the nation ween itself off foreign oil.

Rubio’s solution to the spoiled tourism season includes a business incubation program similar to one subsidized by the federal government after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

“Unfortunately, this has wiped out the tourism season, the hundred days a year where northwest Florida really benefits from visitors,” he said. “There’s no way to recover from that other than concentrate on creating initiatives here locally”

Judy DeCrescenzo, 59, of Pensacola asked Rubio to weigh in on a controversial plan to build an Islamic community center near the former site of the World Trade Center.

With Meek as the Democratic nominee, the poll shows Rubio, a Republican, leading a three-way race against Meek and Crist by a statistically significant margin — Rubio 38 percent, Crist 33 percent, Meek 18 percent and 11 percent undecided.

With Greene as the Democratic nominee, Crist remains in first place, but by a margin so narrow it’s a statistical tie — Crist 39 percent, Rubio 38 percent, Greene 12 percent and 11 percent undecided.

In the Democratic primary, Meek leads Greene by 40 percent to 26 percent, with 6 percent choosing other candidates and 28 percent still undecided.

Special thanks to Richard Charter