Gulf oil spill: Anger mounts on Capitol Hill [Updated]

  

Gulf officials vented their frustration on Capitol Hill Thursday, reflecting the mounting anger of their constituents. "Please, please send us some help," Mayor David Camardelle of Louisiana’s Grand Isle said in emotional testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee.

More than six weeks have passed since the April 20 blowout of the BP well 50 miles off the shore of Louisiana, and oil is expected to continue flowing until August at the earliest, when relief wells will be finished.

Late Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill lifting the $100-million cap on money available from a liability pool to cover the response to the spill. As a result, any amount can be used from the fund, which currently contains about $1.6 billion.

But the move did not placate local officials. "I still don’t know who’s in charge," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told the Senate subcommittee. "I  have spent more time fighting the officials of BP and the Coast Guard than fighting the oil … We’ve got people in charge who don’t know what they’re doing."

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), furious over reports of oil reaching his state, called for putting the Pentagon in charge of the response -- an idea that has baffled some observers who say the federal government has far less expertise than the industry in the mechanics of well blowouts. "The present system is not working," Nelson said. "The information is not flowing. The decisions are not timely. The resources are not produced. And as a result, you have a big mess, with no command and control."

With another delegation of senators preparing to fly to the Gulf Coast, Nungesser pleaded, "Please don't take flyovers of Plaquemines Parish.  It's an insult to the local people.  You can't see it from the air.  You've got to go down there and touch it.  You've got to pull  into that marsh and see there is absolutely no life.  Everything is dead."       

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, a veteran crisis manager, is coordinating federal response. But Nungesser said that in some cases, it’s taken President Obama’s intervention to get things done.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of Atlantic Coast senators asked federal officials for the "statistical probabilities" of the spill hitting their coasts and recommendations on how their states should prepare for a "worst-case scenario." "If there is any real risk to these communities from a spill that right now remains thousands of miles away, we need to know as soon as possible," the senators wrote.

Camardelle, who represents a hard-hit barrier island about 60 miles southeast of New Orleans, testified: "Nobody is visiting our island except for BP’s subcontractors in hazardous material suits and the news media taking pictures of oil-soaked wildlife." 

"Every day, I have a mom that comes in front of me and asks me, 'Mr. David, how am I going to get food to my kids?'" he added. "I can tell you one thing," Camardelle told senators, "we're not going to give up."   

Nungesser told Nelson: "Please don't rely on the boom in Florida, unless they get ocean boom, which we said from Day One was the only thing that was going to keep it out.  It's a joke.  It washes up on the shore with the oil, and then we have oil in the marsh, and we have an oily boom.  So we have two problems. ‘’

Ray Dempsey, a BP vice president, told the committee that the company has paid about 19,000 claims totaling more than $53 million. More than 39,000 claims have been filed.

[Updated 12:25: Congress on Thursday sent to President Obama legislation lifting a $100-million cap on a dwindling emergency oil spill response fund. The money is expected to be repaid by BP, but lawmakers said they needed to act to prevent any delays in the response to the gulf spill. The measure won House approval Thursday after passing the Senate Wednesday night.
 
The bill would give federal authorities greater ability to dip into the total $1.6 billion fund that receives money from an 8-cent per barrel oil tax. Congress is considering raising the tax in the wake of the gulf spill. The action comes a week after the government sent BP a $69-million bill.
         
Rep. John Mica of Florida, top Republican on the House Transportation Committee, said lawmakers have been told that BP will pay its past-due account by the end of next week.  "Taxpayers can be assured that BP and other responsible parties will be billed for all spill containment and cleanup costs," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) added.]

-- Richard Simon and Margot Roosevelt

Photo: President Barack Obama walks toward a group of Grand Isle residents after holding a meeting at the Camardelle bait shop on Grand Isle. Credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times

                                                        

Comments

[Deanna z]

This e-mail contains blogs and comments from several sites. We have all e-mailed Reps and the media and are ignored. We do not think this was an accident. When something smells bad it is usually rotten and this smells very bad! Most of us have not been fooled. The people are not stupid, we can connect the dots and know when we are being conned
The Obama regime gave George Soros 250 billion dollars to drill offshore in Brazil and he is the largest stock holder but why would he need two stock numbers ( shown Below)?
The Obama regime needed this disaster to grow as large as possible for two reasons:
1- To push Cap and Trade
2- Bring in more oil from Brazil
That is why Obama was so slow in reacting and why he refused then and is still refusing outside help. It is also the reason for the moratorium
on drilling. All the blame is being put on BP to cover for the fact that the government and the fact they forced BP to drill that deep.

The fact that not one mention of the possibility of foreign/domestic terrorism/sabotage being the cause of even one of " accidents " happening within on month just screams cover-up!

Check out the one month timeline.
On March 31,2010 Obama announces he will OK off shore exploration and expanding coal mining. Same day it is reported Sachs Goldman Sachs Asset Management (US) sells off 4,680,822 shares? Coincidence? We would like to know if any of the money went to buy shares in .Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.Petrobras.

April 3, 2010 An explosion and fire at a Washington State oil refinery has claimed a fifth life.
April 5, 2010 W Virginia coal mine explosion kills 25 April 20, 2010 Oil Rig explosion
April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig, 11 killed
April 30, 2010 2 men killed in KY mine collapse
May 5, 2010 The AGE Refinery truck explosion and fire happened shortly before 11.30am local time on San Antonio’s south east side.

These are the top 5 holdings of George Soros

1.Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.Petrobras (PBR) – 9,818,323 shares, 15.42% of the total portfolio
2.Hess Corp. (HES) – 5,123,198 shares, 10.56% of the total portfolio
3.Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.Petrobras (PBR-A) – 5,884,700 shares, 7.53% of the total portfolio
4.Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (POT) – 1,978,053 shares, 7.06% of the total portfolio
5.Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) – 6,526,400 shares, 6.84% of the total portfolio

Note that there are two Petrobas stock numbers (PBR and PBR-A, numbers 1
& 3 listed above).
This looks interesting to me considering the Soros-Obama connections.

The media and government are silent now about the first so called " whistler blower ". Why? Because this is what he said they don't want you to hear again.
Former CEO of Shell Oil was on Hannity talking about the oil rig explosion and stated that something was very wrong, very bad happened out there because that explosion should never have happened, I E a worker " accidentally " shoved another rod down the pipe where that seal was damaged"but that has been conveniently ignored by the media and we haven't heard from or seen this man in weeks since the people picked up on that part of what he said. The fact is that the pipe had been sealed off for four weeks and the seal was working until that "employee" shoved that rod down the pipe. Since the whistle blower made that statement on one has seem him and no attempt by the media has been made to find the man who shoved the rod down that pipe.
Haven't you noticed that all the environmentalists have been very quiet about this. No protest marches,nothing.

[Dan H]

The Tea Party Movement's Deafening Silence - why is their no outrage from them?? http://wp.me/pNmlT-f7

[Mike Flynn]

“Ray Dempsey, a BP vice president, told the committee that the company has paid about 19,000 claims totaling more than $53 million. More than 39,000 claims have been file.”

While $53 million in claims and a stock price slashed in half in just six weeks is significant, I wonder what the numbers are looking like in terms of their perceived image. Its interesting to see an oil company such as Bp present themselves as green...especially after this lack in risk management.

Mike
www.gbb.org/doubleyourleads

[Paul Taylor Examiner]

Environmental groups take tax deductible donations from you and industry to operate global fear-mongering campaigns about the problems of pollution, species extinction and climate change. These eco-groups also lobby intensely for costly government regulations to fix environmental problems. Elite green groups have traded their green “seals of approval” for donations as marketing tools to industry – including to corporate oil companies. The green lobbies have grown to some $1.5 billion in annual tax-exempt assets with the advent of selling “green cred” to industry.

The Washington Post and The Economist have recently reported on the cozy relationships between eco-groups and corporate interests such as BP (British Petroleum). BP is responsible for one of the largest and most ecologically-destructive pollution incidents in history. Oil soaked ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico will be disrupted or dead for years to come. Some of the most politically-influential and wealthy eco-groups have taken tens of millions of dollars from BP, and formed “donor alliances” with other big oil operators to assure continuing corporate cash donations. At some point, these sales of green group endorsements to corporations become a clear conflict of environmental interests.

As a matter of good faith dealing and integrity, green groups should return the millions of dollars in donations from BP. And, BP should apply those millions to the cleanup and recovery in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are a few of the reported BP money and other corporate entanglements that directly benefitted big eco-groups:

· The Nature Conservancy has taken about $10 million in cash and land from BP;
· Conservation International took over $2 million from BP;
· The Environmental Defense Fund (Environmental Defense) campaigned with BP for government carbon cap-and-trade regulations through the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), an alliance of eco-groups and corporate carbon trading ventures;
· USCAP involvements include the Nature Conservancy, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute;
· BP had energy business relationships with the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.

In addition, President Obama was the top recipient of BP campaign money during the 2008 presidential election. Obama collected $71,000, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The Obama campaign should return all of its BP money.

[gloria vogt]

i think all the oil spills that are happening is so bad because they are killing so many animals and putting way more pollution into out water! my only questions are when is this going to stop??? & Whats going to happen to our earth if we still just sit around doing nothing???

[tarwater]

"We’ve got people in charge who don’t know what they’re doing."

That resonates with reality on a whole lot of levels.