Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Citing Katrina Myth, Obama Claimed ‘Oil Rigs Today Don’t Generally Cause Spills’
The Obama administration has leapt into action to respond to the growing crisis of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, which killed 11 workers and left a West-Virginia-sized oil spill in the Gulf Coast. But in the weeks before the calamity, President Barack Obama promoted his initiative to expand offshore drilling as "not risky" and repeated the conservative myth that Hurricane Katrina did not cause any oil rig spills. At a town hall meeting in South Carolina on April 2, the president was challenged that his "decision to allow offshore drilling could have the effect of chilling investment into alternate sources of energy." While recognizing that "energy efficiency and renewable, clean energy" is his "biggest priority," Obama also defended offshore drilling:
I don't agree with the notion that we shouldn't do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn't come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
Watch it:
This is incorrect.
Eighteen days later, the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP America 41 miles of the Louisiana coast exploded. The giant spill has not yet reached the beaches of the Gulf Coast, and there is a chance the damage can be limited by setting some of the oil ablaze.
Obama's claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs. [MMS, 1/22/07]
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a "major spill." [MMS, 5/1/06]
On April 23, three days after the rig caught fire, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama's support for offshore drilling was unchanged.
37 Comments so far
Show AllI suppose it depends on what the meaning of "generally" is. How many does it take?
50% +1.
And nuclear power plants don't "generally" leak radioactive contaminants, and coal mining is "generally" safe, and I, Barack, don't "generally" lie through my teeth.
Man, this Bush character is something else. Such a liar! We MUST get rid of him the next election and replace him with a Democrat!
Oh. Yeah. Right. N E V E R M I N D !!!!!!!
Yes, his wife plants an organic garden and then he hires a Monsantobot as Secretary of Agriculture. As Molly Ivins used to say in regard to such shellgames, keep your eye on the pea.
Man, the falsehood in this guy's rhetoric just crisses and crosses.
The style is interesting:
Rigs are "technologically very advanced." OK, compared to what? Previous oil rigs, one assumes, or the comparison is not apples to apples. So of course they must be more modern than previous rigs, regardless of what "modern" means.
The assumption that more modern rigs cause less damage, however, is passed over as though it were obvious.
"Even during Katrina, the spills didn't come from the oil rigs, . . . "
This is doubly false. First, as the article above points out, it is factually inaccurate. But it is false beyond that in the manner of its construction. "Even" during Katrina?
Of course, if there were ever a time that the leaks would be most likely to come from land, that would be when water is tearing across that land in a torrent.
Are we to believe this did not occur to the president? We're all capable of a slip, but this seems awfully convenient and awfully consistent. Unless there's a retraction somewhere, this has to be suspicious at best.
And then, of course, the lack of a statement after such a catastrophe is in itself a form of damage control: out of sight, out of mind. The last thing anyone will want to do is to put a signature on this one.
Once upon a time, in pushing for expanded drilling along our coastlines, McCain was touting how safe drilling is. Does M$M go back and question him now?
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/07/23/mccain_and_the_safety_of_offsh.html
Pompous ass.
Joe
Mr. Obu$ha, apparently you were too young to remember the Pemex rig Ixtoc II when it blew out. Why, you were a mere 13 years old...and who at 13 gives a rat's ass about an oil spill?
Of couse, this time frame is when Reagan was spewing his sewage promising to be a true and powerful leader. Of course he proved that his six guns can blaze when he made the deal to get the Iraninan hostages released, right? Wholly shit Batman, if there ever was a hero, Ronald Regan was it. Well Robin, my lad, appearances can be deceiving. Gosh!!! Really Batman? Yes Robin, and that goes for you too Wally and Beve.
The above conversation seems to be the only way to discuss catchphrases such as "drill, baby, drill", and "nuke Iran before they nuke us or Isreal."
It pains me to have to discuss topics that are most serious with friends and neighbors, in order for them to understand what is being discussed. Bu$h meant it when he said "No child left behind." Unfortunately, even though they have't been left behind, they are still children.
I guess now that we have a black president he is gonna make sure we have black beaches too--as his colleague Sarah Pee has said many times and as he has echoed, drill baby drill--same energy platform, same endless war platform.
People do not vote for either of these two despicable anti people's parties ever again---PLEASE!
How's that 'Change You Can Believe In (tm)' from Brand Obama working out for you guys?
Obama is a Lie; GWBush was a Lie; Clinton was a Lie; GHW bush was a Lie; and Reagann was a LIE. Carter waa the last president not to be 100% lie, but he was still quite devastating. Congress throughoput the past 30+ years is also a LIE. Somehow, the Tea Party cannot see this. But then a lot of people behave as if they're blind too. If Obama is willing to distort something so easilly checked, how badly is he distorting those things that cannot be easilly verified. He just keeps on proving he's Public Enemy #1.
The only way to prevent ultra-deepwater oil mining is by drastically curtailing the use of oil.
"Carter waa the last president not to be 100% lie, but he was still quite devastating."
Jimmy Carter was, in my opinion instrumental in the founding and operation of Trilateral Commission. The following is extracted from the article found here:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Trilateralism/JimmyCarter_Trilat.html
For what it's worth.
>>
Jimmy Carter was a wealthy landowner and agribusiness-man when he launched his political career in the early 1960s. By the time of his 1970 campaign for governor, Carter was personally close to, and supported by, central figures of the Atlanta Establishment-the upper class leadership group which runs that city and which has great influence throughout Georgia and the entire southeastern United States...
These and similar connections led, by 1971, to meetings between Carter and both David Rockefeller and Hedley Donovan, then editor-in-chief of Time magazine and now Carter's senior adviser on domestic affairs and media relations. Carter was consequently no stranger to these national leaders when they decided to form the Trilateral Commission in the Spring of 1973. At that time, David Rockefeller, with George S. Franklin Jr., a Rockefeller in-law, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Owen, Robert Bowie, and Gerard C. Smith-the last four, now members of the Carter Administration- selected members for the Commission. To advise them on the best Southerners to include they consulted contacts in that part of the United States. Franklin, Brzezinski, Owen, Bowie, and Smith were all leading members of a premier organization of the Eastern Establishment: the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council has a number of affiliated organizations, called the Committees on Foreign Relations, made up of local leaders in thirty-seven cities around the nation. Franklin called upon one of the leaders of the Council's Atlanta Committee-a group reflecting that city's power structure-to set up an advisory group to recommend possible members for the Commission. This was done and, on 13 April 1973, this body of prominent Atlantans recommended Carter for membership.
Jimmy Carter was a very active member of the Trilateral Commission, attending all the regional sessions and the first plenary meeting in Japan in May 1976. For this last session, Carter paid his air fare and other expenses from campaign funds and then was reimbursed by the Commission. In other words, Carter saw his journey to Japan as a campaign trip and the Commission's reimbursement represented a campaign contribution of $1,323.44.7 For a period of several years Carter personally phoned the Commission's headquarters to keep up with the latest reports, and even passed out trilateral pamphlets when he worked with the Democratic National Committee in 1974.
<<
Generally speaking....the government has never been one to waste a disaster such as this. While the news is telling us how devistating this will be for the ecology of the gulf (and indeed it is and will continue to be for years), they quite probably will be neglecting to tell us about political deals concerning Afghanistan or Iran/Iraq/Israel....or others....
Now the British Government doesn't own BP...but it does own alot of our bonds. You know, those thingies our government will never be able to pay off.
"There Will Be Blood"
Come on guys, are you gong to get outraged every time Obama lies or comes out spouting propaganda for the Overlords. You should be used to it by now. That's what Obama is all about. Next time, don't waste your time and energy by voting for either political party. I don't believe voting for an independent will do any good. Someone in the White House who actually tried to effect change would be assassinated or in some way made ineffectual (remember Clinton's zipper, which the neo conserves became obsessed with?). Most people don't have the measure of those really in power. They are creatures who will do what's necessary to keep their wealth and power. ANYTHING! There is only one way to deal with such a creature: lop off his head. The Greeks found this out over two thousand years ago. The French found it out more recently. Even the Russians and Chinese, blinded as they were by Communist drivel, knew who or what they were dealing with. But putting an independent in the White House is worth a try--it's never been done before.
"Come on guys, are you gong to get outraged every time Obama lies or comes out spouting propaganda for the Overlords. You should be used to it by now. That's what Obama is all about... They are creatures who will do what's necessary to keep their wealth and power. ANYTHING!"
Great post!
Really, by now all of us should have wised up. Don't expect anything good from this man.
So, Obama proves for the umteenth time that he's a corporate hack and an idiot. Even after getting the famous Moe Howard (The Three Stooges for those of you who have led sheltered lives) two finger eye poke from Murphy's Law and Mother Nature, he will proclaim that we need energy from all possible sources (Just like the TV commercial) to be free of our freinds in the middle east. Either way, we the taxpayers pay for his and BP's clusterfuck.
Mr One Term is sure "living up to his true calling," to be a one term president and make things worse than they already are.
AD
Holy technology, the idol that keeps on being worshipped!
And Obomber is one of its grand priests.
How many more disasters will it take before the idol gets knocked down for good and tossed into the trash bin of human illusions, along with all other golden cows that have come and gone?
***********
A Short Calendar of Selected Disasters:
Minamata, Japan, 1950s-60s: severe mercury poisoning first discovered in 1956.
Denver area, Colorado, 1957: fire in a nuclear weapons factory, leading to a plutonium leak.
Flixborough, England, 1974: gigantic gas explosion.
Seveso, Italy, 1976: dioxine leak.
Bhopal, India, 1984: release of methyl isocyanate gas and other toxins, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people.
Cubatao, Brazil, 1984: oil spill that set an entire shantytown on fire; in the 1980s, Cubatao was one of the most polluted places in the world, which earned it the name of Valley of Death.
Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986: meltdown of a nuclear reactor; to this day, the estimate is that this catastrophe caused about one million deaths.
Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1989: the Exxon Valdez oil spill, one of the worst ecological disasters.
Et cetera...
Liquid Natural Gas, or LNG
"October 1944, Cleveland, Ohio - At the Cleveland peak-shaving plant a tank failed and spilled its contents into the street and storm sewer system. The resulting explosion and fire killed 128 people. The tank was built with a steel alloy that had low-nickel content, which made the alloy brittle when exposed to the extreme cold of LNG."
See complete article at:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/lng/safety.html
There have been many accidents and relatively small fires resulting from the handling of LNG. It is transported transoceanically in huge tankers, and the world's largest is either under construction in Qatar or has been completed. A tanker explosion in a harbor, or an explosion of a holding tank at an LNG terminal would be beyond devastating. It might detonate with the force of a tactical nuke.
So, then, Mr. Murphy ... how much time do we have before you enforce that Law of yours?
He took his sweet time to do anything, didn't he? If his adminstration had moved quicker, perhaps they could have prevented this.
I voted for McKinney; she supports clean green energy. Plus, she is not black in name only like you know who.
The next time Obushma is interviewed by the likes of Matt Lauer, Brian Williams, Katie Couric etc. can we expect hard hitting questions & most importantly, follow up questions?
I know, meaningless question on my part.
You will never get anywhere through the system.
a bit of PR advice: next time there's a catastrophic environmental disaster resulting from the ordinary practices of the "resource extraction" anti-nature crusaders that hold the reins in this industrial hell of a world that is their handiwork - dont have just been seen on television telling their lies for them.
over 9 million gallons spilled during katrina. nearly one million of those gallons came from rigs and platforms. source for this info - the uscg. and CBS news.
not exactly a bunch of tree hugging dirt worshippers
http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/docs/PDFs/Reports/osltf_report_hurricanes.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/19/opinion/main4275167.shtml
people use energy... not politicians and corporate ceos...
there's no edsels on the road... why?... "people" didn't buy them... they stopped making them... period.
when "people" become energy savers... versus energy users... there won't be this incredible stress to "produce more" energy.
first of all... all the energy that's in existence has already been "produced"... we just reformulate it for our own ends... from fossil fuels to solar rays... it's always been there... and no "more" can be produced...
the ONLY choice is... how fast are we going to convert it to other uses... and how much residual impact will occur from it's conversion... use... and disposal of byproducts and waste...
it's the choice between bicycling to work or driving a car... or posting on this blog on my computer... connected to a worldwide network... made possible by clusters of servers and networks running 24/7/365... some google server sites use as much electricity as the city of honolulu...
naieve... probably... but physics is physics... and as long as humans clamor to consume and own things that run on batteries... plug in... or take a charge... the "creature comforts" since the first electric volt was transmitted from here to there...
while "enjoying" the creature comforts we (myself included)... we so covet everyday... like refrigeration... we at the same time will decide how much negative impact we'll tolerate throughout the rest of our existence...
You're not being realistic, people living in the suburbs can't bicycle 40 miles to work in downtown Manhattan and then back home, it would take them all day just to commute and would be physically impossible.
Politicians ARE the problem. They've been blocking clean energy for decades. Wind and solar energies exist and ARE the solution.
people living in the suburbs...
...made a CHOICE... where to LIVE... and WHERE to work... if they are 40 miles apart... that is not some elected politician's fault...
or... are you saying... some congressional representative passed legislation REQUIRING people to live 40 miles from where they work?
That's a moronic answer. Are you saying that people should only work in the same town they live in just so they could bike back and forth from their jobs?
People should have the freedom to live in the suburbs and work in the cities if they choose to, and their commute would use clean energy if whorish POLITICIANS stopped blocking it in congress.
"Are you saying that people should only work in the same town they live in just so they could bike back and forth from their jobs?"
i'm not laying down any rules here... its a CHOICE... live 40 miles from work... pay the fuel costs... that TOO is a CHOICE... live closer to work... pay less fuel costs... pretty simple to me...
"politicians" are not the only ones using energy... people use energy... to paraphrase a line from pulp fiction... "you're not gonna [legislate] yourself outta this one... boy..."
No, surviving is not a choice. If a paying job you went to college for is only available 40 miles away, with nothing closer, you must take the job, there's absolutely nothing to consider. You're being absurd.
You're also being absurd by letting politicians who have blocked legislation for clean energy for decades get away with murder.
“The infrastructure of suburbia can be described as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.”
—JH Kunstler
This is too much!
One cant fail to ask the question "how much money did the oil companies have to put up to get Obama to make that little speech?" And we know where the money went. Into his campaign fund. It would not amaze nor shock me to find out just how much. With corruption running rampant in government any one of our "representatives" will gladly take any amount to push for any legislation that will benefit corporate america, our true government.
And that includes the right for big oil to continue to drill offshore. This oil disaster in the gulf will just stall drilling but will not prevent it. The right to drill has cost big oil just too much money in bribes..........and the beat goes on.
obummer's lies only get worse....if he was a wooden puppet, instead of a human puppet, his nose would be growing with every deadly lie !
OBAMA the gutless has been stabbed by the oil industry, BP in particular. Just to save money they did not play it safe, killed 10 or 11 people and let an oil spill create havoc for millions and also probably destroy most of the countryside. BP and all like it should be destroyed they have no regard for anything but money! Let the survivors sue them and be awarded all the assets of the company internationally.