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Today's Top News
Obama's Offshore Oil Plan a Disaster for Wildlife, Climate
Statement from Center for Biological Diversity
WASHINGTON— The Obama administration announced plans today to expand offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and offer additional lease sales in the sensitive waters off Alaska. Ramping up offshore drilling raises the risk of disastrous spills, puts wildlife in harm’s way and deepens U.S. dependence on the fossil fuels driving the global climate crisis.
“Last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was supposed to be a wake-up call about the dangers of offshore drilling, but it looks like President Obama hit the snooze button and slept right through it,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We just can’t keep expanding offshore drilling and not expect to have more disastrous spills.”
The five-year plan announced today will set the stage for 15 lease sales in six offshore areas, including the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas and portions of the Gulf of Mexico near areas where development has so far been off-limits.
The plan to lease more parts of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling follows a March 2011 report by the Department of the Interior that found most existing leases are inactive. The report showed that 70 percent of existing federal oil and gas offshore lease acres are inactive, with no production, exploration or development.
“Gulf of Mexico communities are still reeling from the impacts of last year’s oil spill, and now the president wants to put those same communities at risk again,” said Sakashita. “The administration’s claiming significant steps have been taken to make drilling safer, but in fact there’s been no fundamental reform that can keep the Gulf of Mexico or the Arctic safe from the next spill catastrophe.”
The plan proposes to sell leases in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to all of America’s polar bears. A U.S. Geological Survey report concluded that key scientific information is lacking for the development of oil and gas in Arctic offshore waters; effective spill cleanup in this remote area is nonexistent. The Coast Guard’s top official, Commandant Robert Papp, told Congress that the federal government currently has “zero” spill response capability in the Arctic.
“Polar bears are already teetering at the brink of extinction. Policies that worsen climate change and raise the risk of disastrous oil spills in their habitat will push them over the edge,” said Sakashita.
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26 Comments so far
Show AllIconic animation: Capitalistic Pig uses Uncle Sam for a hitman and destroys the planet:
http://earthens.net
And that sums up the US's role in the world quite nicely. Add in the cannon fodder people who join up to help rape and plunder the Earth and the people who happen to live over resources some corporation wants.
I never thought I could despise a pwrson more then I did Bush.
All those smirks Obama showed after saying Yes We Can, I now see in a different light.
Will DRILL BARRY, DRILL replace hope and change in Obama's 2012 campaign ?
The mass murderer in chief, IS a disaster for the Planet ! His deadly lies and deceptions seem to have no bounds !
BP sortof sortof has figured out what went wrong with the first Gulf oil disaster? No, not really.
I read a few months ago that researchers were still pulling up fresh oil from the leak, that the oil perhaps had found a new way, or multiple new ways, to the surface around the plug.
High roller gamblers yes, environment no, climate no way.
"Through rigorous 'fingerprint' testing, LSU chemist Ed Overton confirmed that slicks sweeping across the Macondo Prospect since mid-August are made up of BP oil. 'It is a dead-ringer match,' Professor Overton said. 'I was amazed that the ratios matched as good as they did.'"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-bps-macondo-reservoir-leaking-more-oil-2011-11-06?mid=5226
yes, and once again, NOAA -- headed by Jane Lubrichenko (I know there's no "ri") -- is claiming "the oil might not be from the BP well."
Note the way they put it. "Might not be". It gives them plausible deniability.
Lubrichenko was also pooh poohing the reality of the deep water oil plumes that independent scientists (eg, Mandy Joye) had found in the gulf.
Following is from
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/noaa-oil-analyst-oil-bubbling-dead-ringer-match-bps-macondo-noaa-spokesman-claims-be-related-blowout
"Ed Overton, LSU chemist who did most of NOAA’s oil analysis during the spill:
“They [NOAA] were suggesting I had jumped the gun when I said it matched (BP’s well).”
“They are incorrect. I have double-checked, and I am even more convinced after using the suggestions that BP made that this was the Macondo oil. I think it is 99.9 percent confirmed that it came from that reservoir.”
Ed Overton is hardly a bleeding heart turtle-lover, by the way.
And suffice it to say that 99.9% is pretty high confidence in science.
But only if you're not Jane Lubcrichenko (who should be removed from the National Academy of Sciences in my humble opinion).
hi, tsa~la~gi, are you familiar with the houma nation?. i only learned of these original pelicans, last evening when i ran across this request:
The United Houma Nation is Louisiana's largest Indian tribe. The Houma reside along Louisiana's Gulf Coast; accordingly, Louisiana's wetlands are vital to the tribe's culture.
The BP spill has completely devastated the Houma Indians. However, BP denied the Houma's claim because the tribe is not federally recognized. The NAACP concluded:
"The oil industry lobby is blocking their request because they want access to lands that would be protected under the federal designation. In order for Houma to be a sovereign nation with access to the rights under this designation-enabling them to provide for their community members-this federal recognition is critically needed."
Accordingly, the United Houma Nation is participating in President Obama's petition program. If the tribe can collect 25,000 signatures in 30 days, the petition will be passed through the proper legislative channels. The deadline for signature collection is December 1.
The petition is posted at this link: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition...ation/zNKxrMzb
Please sign and help spreading the link.
Despite all this, I am hearing the SOS about Obama just waiting til after the election to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline!
Delusions just don't quit, do they, when you've got a really good supply of the really good shit? Maybe it's time to combine forces with the birthers and start to agitate for impeachment... get that other guy in there, the vice president, you know, what's his name?...oh yeah. Never mind.
Taking out a good assassination insurance policy sure works, doesn't it?
Geez I guess its Ron Paul then
The 99% needs to truly organize and get out the vote for their own candidate. FAST!!!
Are these those mysterious long abandoned "Green Jobs" that he kept talking about during that magical 2008 campaign? The ones that never showed up? Someone should point out to Mr. Harvard that these are not green jobs, he may be confused by all the lofty high ideals he holds in his head to tell the difference.
Amereichan "leaders" don't even bother to lie and say that all this drilling will help "make the U.S. energy-independent." They flat-out admit that the majority of it is destined for foreign markets! So while we watch as peak oil nears, and the U.S. continues to import over 65% of its energy needs, here we are EXPORTING oil that is actually produced here at home. Destroying the environment, destorying our own economy, ensuring we will continue to have to import the majority of our dwindling energy from foreign countries at rising costs....and for what? PROFIT for the Amereichan oil corporations. LOL My God, you can't make this shit up.....
I appreciate that you work alone, and it's perilous at best to volunteer to punch up your writing.
But I can't resist offering a tweak: "And there was Jesus sitting at the End of the World Bar and Grill wrapped in a cloth that said, I visited Planet Earth, and all I got was Crucified, and this lousy shroud.
D'oh!
We need green energy and green jobs. Leave mother earth alive so she can nurture us as she has since life began. That's all I can say.
Obama is the waterboy for the 1%. Get over him.
Obama is deep in bed with the oil companies - wonderbwhy BP was basically given a free pass for it's Gulf of Mx crimes?
Obama receives Large donations from BP, their executives and especially the corporations that own BP - all are large democratic party donors - as well as republican donors -
The point is None of this should surprise anyone considering our government is CAPTURED!
And the oilybomber is just another bought and paid for corrupt politician.
If the rule of law applied and words had actual meaning in todays world a very apt word would be TRAITOR.
OILYbomber overturned the ban against drilling in the area that the BP well exploded. Supporting Oilybomber is supporting Fascism and Death to all.
Meanwhile, either this year or next, China is set to surpass the US as a solar power market. The US still has its head stuck in the sand on renewables.
OMG! This is not about beating China .This is about saving this planet! Obama has retracted everything he ever said about a green U S .From the start, he found out, that our presidents are owned by Big business. MONEY TALKS AND BS WALKS. He is so owned by wall street and the oil companys!
Guess who is remarkably absent from this equasion? 'Mrs Obama', GOT what she wanted, the presidentcy, and ALL THAT MONEY. She has effectivly been silenced.(we don't want to upset the applecart now do we? WE, the American People, have all the talents to turn Green. We have millions of people out of work, more than enough to 'GIT 'ER DONE', We just have to have an enormous amount of people stand up. We need to all be 99ers....Q
An afterthought. Did anyone hear that the U S congress over 30 years have garnered appx. 2 and 1/2 billions in personal wealth? I'm sure that isn't the full tally, we have no idea what's been squirreled away in the caymens. Oh, and has anyone ever noticed how many times various members of our congress have made and bragged about how many times they've been over to Iraq or afganistan? some have been there !6 times! How many times do you have to look at the same sand pile to know what's happening........or maybe they are just collecting the money from the people they have done favors for. I mean, Ya know if they are using a military transport, they don't go thru customs, mmmmm
just think about how much they could bring back in CASH! Gottcha' wondering .....Q
Why is it the case that our so called liberal media, who are at least as conservative as they've ever been. don't make these Obama votes, against the environment, clear to the voters? If media were as liberal as they themselves pretend they are, they'd be hollering these anti-environment votes to the high heavens. Instead, what we hear, is that the most moronic republicans don't think Obama was born in the USA. I say, "demand" that media bring this anti-environmental attitude so prevalent in the administration, clear to the people.