Gulf oil spill: President Obama names panel to lead federal investigation

With frustration growing over the unplugged oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama on Friday appointed a bipartisan panel to figure out the root causes of the disaster and recommend ways to prevent something like it in the future.
 
A former Florida governor and senator, Bob Graham, will join former Environmental Protection Agency director William K. Reilly as co-chairman of the commission, charged with studying how better regulation could stop accidents like the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
 
Obama is asking the seven-member commission to study the causes of the spill and issue a report within six months suggesting improvements. The president is expected to officially announce the creation of the commission as early as Saturday, an administration official confirmed late Friday.
 
The move comes a month after BP's drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded, killing eleven people and bursting an underwater pipe. Since then, thousands of barrels of oil have spewed into the gulf daily in an environmental disaster of untold proportions. The company and outside experts are working frantically to try to plug the leak, as government officials grow increasingly agitated about the lack of success and its impact on small businesses and communities in the region.
 
The federal government has deployed more than 1,100 vessels and 24,000 workers, according to administration estimates. But along with its assistance to the oil companies responsible for the cleanup has come increasing criticism of corporate executives.
 
Obama has singled out executives at BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton for harsh criticism, particularly after their recent appearance on Capitol Hill to explain themselves. The president accused the executives of pointing fingers and casting blame instead of accepting responsibility for a disaster he attributes to a breakdown in responsibility on their part.
 
He has also claimed blame for the federal government and ordered changes within federal agencies. Also, administration officials have announced that no permits for drilling new wells will be granted for at least thirty days, and possibly longer.
 
Now, with the newly signed executive order, Obama is calling for a full-scale review of the regulatory process. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling is supposed to make an intensive examination of how the oil and gas industries operate and how the government regulates them.
 
Graham served two terms as governor of Florida and eighteen years in the U.S. Senate. Since his retirement in 2005, he has served as chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which was appointed to further the work of the 9/11 Commission. He also served as a commissioner on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, named by Congress to examine the causes of the recent financial crisis.
 
Formerly president of the World Wildlife Fund, Reilly served from 1989 to 1993 as administrator of the EPA. His tenure at the agency included the Exxon Valdez disaster. He is a founding partner of Aqua International Partners, a private equity fund that invests in companies involved in water and renewable energy.

---Christi Parsons and Richard Simon

Reporting from Washington 
 

Comments

[william rovinsky]

Chritie, Richard:
Please help to get in contact with William K Reilly.
I created a device, that supplies plurality of cement balls INSIDE of the damaged oil pipe from the ship. The rising mount of heavy balls will reduce the inside section of the pipe and will drustically reduce the flow of oil from the pipe...
I have self explanatory sketches and descriptions of this device, but nobody, exept my lowely wife for 51 year, to show it to. Please help. Thank you.
Bill Rovinsky
Mechnical Engineer
New York
E-mail: wrovinsky@optonline.net
Tel. 516 342 1442 or 516 532 3547 cell

[william rovinsky]

SCREAMING FOR HELP !!!!! HAVE AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION TO THIS DISASTER !!!!! LOOKING FOR SOMEONE AT THE TOP TO PRESENT IT TO !!!!! DOES ANYONE HAVE CONTACT INFORMATION ?

Thank you for your efforts to stop oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I am proposing a new approach of stopping the oil leakage by attacking the broken oil pipe from INSIDE. My device will deliver inside of pipe a certain amount of cement balls. The weight of the balls will resist the pressure of the oil flow, and, therefore, will remain inside of pipe (the front wall of the special device, described below) will help to keep balls inside). Plurality of these balls, dropped from the ship via the tubing, the lower end of which is attached to the w device on the bottom of the ocean, will create inside of broken pipe a heavy growing mount, which will fill the section of the pipe and will reduce the oil flow from it. When this process is done, the "Top kill" operation will finish the job.
I am attaching a self explanatory sketch with all the needed details.
Brief description of the sketch.
Device is a U-shaped metal construction, which has a front wall and two side walls. The front wall has an opening in the upper portion of it, to which a 2 - 2,5 ft diameter tubing is attached. The other end of the tubing is on the ship, above the broken part of the oil pipe.
Working steps:
The device is placed on the end of the broken oil pipe, which will now be located between two side walls and the inner surface of the front wall, making contact with pipe's broken edge. The weight of the device will withstand the oil flow pressure and it will remain stationary. At this point, the 1.5 ft. diameter cement balls are beginning to be dropped from the ship into the tubing. Falling inside the oil pipe, balls will be creating a rising mount, which will reduce the section of the pipe by 80% - 90%. When completed, a drastically reduced amount of oil will continue to flow between the pipe and the side walls. Now, the "Top kill" operation will finished the job.
A similar devices, based on the same working principals, can become a standard tool for the future underwater operations in case of emergency.
I will provide any assistance, if needed.
Sincerely yours,
William Rovinsky Mechanical Engineer New York To contact me by phones: 516-342-1442 or 516-532-3547 June 1,2010

[William Rovinsky]

Dear people,
Thank you for your efforts to stop oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I am proposing a new approach of stopping the oil leakage by attacking the broken oil pipe from INSIDE.
My device will deliver inside of pipe a certain amount of cement balls. The weight of the balls will resist the pressure of the oil flow, and, therefore, will remain inside of pipe (the front wall of the special device, described below) will help to keep balls inside). Plurality of these balls, dropped from the ship via the tubing, the lower end of which is attached to the w device on the bottom of the ocean, will create inside of broken pipe a heavy growing mount, which will fill the section of the pipe and will reduce the oil flow from it. When this process is done, the "Top kill" operation will finish the job.
Unfortunatly, I can not attach a self explanatory sketcham attaching a self explanatory sketch with all the needed details.
Brief description of the sketch.
Device is a U-shaped metal construction, which has a front wall and two side walls. The front wall has an opening in the upper portion of it, to which a 2 - 2,5 ft diameter tubing is attached. The other end of the tubing is on the ship, above the broken part of the oil pipe.
Working steps:
The device is placed on the end of the broken oil pipe, which will now be located between two side walls and the inner surface of the front wall, making contact with pipe's broken edge. The weight of the device will withstand the oil flow pressure and it will remain stationary. At this point, the 1.5 ft. diameter cement balls are beginning to be dropped from the ship into the tubing. Falling inside the oil pipe, balls will be creating a rising mount, which will reduce the section of the pipe by 80% - 90%. When completed, a drastically reduced amount of oil will continue to flow between the pipe and the side walls. Now, the "Top kill" operation will finished the job.
A similar devices, based on the same working principals, can become a standard tool for the future underwater operations in case of emergency.
I will provide any assistance, if needed.
Sincerely yours,

William Rovinsky Mechanical Engineer New York To contact me by phones: 516-342-1442
June 1,2010

[Paul Taylor Examiner]

BP’s offshore oil platform accident is what statisticians refer to as a “black swan” event – low probability, high impact event. The Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout in the Gulf of Mexico has three impacts: 1) the human tragedy for friends and families of the eleven killed workers, 2) the real regional, but temporary, negative ecological and commercial fisheries impacts, and, 3) the enduring damage to the image and political influence of corporate petroleum interests. Predictably, militant eco-groups agitate to stop all drilling. And, the BP rig blowout may prove to be the worst offshore pollution incident in history. But, after 50 years and over 30,000 wells providing billions of barrels of critical American energy from the Gulf of Mexico, offshore oil pollution events are indeed rare.

The Economist has recently provided some sobering data on the history and scale of the offshore oil industry. Bad as it is, the BP blowout is no justification for the Obama Administration to suspend expansion of offshore oil explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Seaboard, Arctic and Pacific Coasts. Oil and gas products supply about 60% of America’s energy needs. And, they represent 7% of our gross domestic product (GDP). About one-third of Americans oil is produced from Gulf of Mexico wells.

For perspective, here are some of the facts about America’s offshore oil exploration and production spills:

· Prior to BP, there had been no significant offshore oil releases in 40 years;
· Annual spills from offshore oil pipelines declined from 2.5 million gallons in 1980-84 to 12,000 gallons in 2000-04 says the Congressional Research Council;
· The National Research Council reports that offshore drilling accounts for 1% of the oil in our coastal waters;
· Oil tankers and pipelines account for 4% of oil in coastal waters;
· General commercial shipping operations account for 33% of oil in coastal waters;
· Natural oceanographic seepage accounts for 62% of oil in our coastal waters, where natural biodegraders mitigate the impacts.

[GordonSantaMonica]

It is abou time .... should have been done when the Corporations wanted to start drilling all those many years ago ...
Why the Oil Spills could have been prevented. Any idiot could have projected the effects on the States touching the Gulf. They would have said "oh .... yes ... any spills could destroy the Gulf Coast lines of the States residing on the Gulf. The politicians turned their heads and their eyes saw huge amounts of dollars. The people saw huge amounts of dollars ... jobs. Greed wins out again.
Congratulations America. By the way I am an environmentalist. I believe that whatever we take from Mother Earth we must do so respectfully. In the Gulf we were Greedy and Mother Earth slapped us.

Don’t worry citizens of the United States ... The Republicans will fight against the EPA, FDA, and any other regulatory agency that protects "We The People of the United States of America".

In fact if the Republicans and the Neo-Cons put their heads any further into the sand they will come up somewhere around China. :LOL LOL LOL.

By the way have you checked out Fox and the spinners? They are beginning to pull their heads out of the sand. They finally admit this is a “Disaster”. They do have some disclaimers however ... if the government regulates the oil industry the costs of gasoline and other oil related products will go “WAY” up. Fox and the Neo-Cons are also blaming the PRESIDENT and his administration for not reacting fast enough … you know they were sitting on their hands.

According to a news article there was a closed door meeting where most of the handful of congressional Democrats and Republicans who met with representatives from BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill walked away unimpressed. A source who attended the meeting said that the companies' representatives had a "deer in headlights" look and that the tenor of the conversation was that the firms "are attempting to solve a problem which they have never had to solve before at this depth…at this scope of disaster. They essentially said as much."

Give me a break Fox. Give me a break BP Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton. The Ocean environment is being destroyed. Ocean related industries are being destroyed. That is ok for Fox spinner and the rest of these fools. They are still working and making enough money to go hide from environmental destruction ... so they hope.

******“ gaptidbits@yahoo.com”*************