Gulf oil: new explosion boosts support for moratorium

The new explosion on a gulf oil production platform Thursday revved up support for the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling, just as oil companies were mounting an offensive against the measure.

“Today’s news comes as no surprise,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. “Offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is like playing Russian roulette. Its not a matter of if something will go wrong, it’s a matter of when.”

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has led a congressional investigation into the BP spill, called on the administration “to immediately redouble safety reviews of all offshore drilling and platform operations in the gulf.”

The Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling did not affect the platform owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy Inc. where Thursday’s explosion occurred, spreading a mile-long sheen of oil across the Gulf.

That platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Vermilion Bay on the central Louisiana coast. Its location is considered shallow water, much less than the roughly 5,000 feet where BP's well spewed oil and gas for three months after an April rig explosion

Oil companies have been battling the Obama administration in federal court to lift the moratorium, which idled several thousand Gulf Coast workers. Workers from Mariner were among 5,000 oil company employees that were bused to the Houston convention center on Wednesday to protest the moratorium.

Environmental groups have advocated a moratorium on shallow-water drilling as well as deepwater drilling until new safety procedures can be put in place. Thursday’s explosion “underscores the need for the U.S. to maintain its moratorium,” said Jacqueline Savitz, senior campaign director for Oceana, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group. “We cannot tolerate further damage to the gulf and its irreplaceable ocean ecosystems.”

The administration has said it plans to keep the current moratorium in place until the end of November, but has been under pressure to lift it sooner.

Thursday’s accident builds pressure against an early reversal. “It’s time the government put all offshore oil and gas operations — whether they’re exploratory wells or production operations — on hold until we know they’re safe,” Suckling said. “The price we’ve already paid for BP’s Deepwater Horizon is too high. We cannot risk any more disasters.”

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Tempers have been running high at oil-industry sponsored rallies against the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf. At a July rally in New Orleans, T-shirts were given to the first 3,000 attendees. Credit: Rong-Gong Lin II

Comments

[chrade]

It was a kitchen grease fire, you liars.

[Care4all]

Oil companies give money to legislators to buy “weak environmental regulations, giant subsidies for their companies and a national energy policy that keeps us dependent on dirty energy.”

We must fight corporate and political greed and corruption head-on to preserve our future for future generations and ourselves. Here are several good resources:

1. OpenSecrets.org
Congress is directed by Corporate interests, not by the people. . .You can find how much your Senators and Representatives have received from corporate interests here: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/index.php

2. MAPlight.org - http://maplight.org/ makes connections between money and politics transparent, to help citizens hold their legislators accountable. It tracks money and influence in the U.S. Congress and the California legislature, with more states to come.

3. DIRTY ENERGY MONEY:
http://dirtyenergymoney.com/
“Dirty Energy Money is an interactive website that tracks the flow of oil, gas, and coal money in U.S. Congress. Find out which energy companies are pumping their dirty money into politics and which politicians are receiving it.”

4. Get a “CLEAN UP DIRTY MONEY TOOL KIT” from Greenpeace here: http://gpeace.convio.net/site/DocServer/DirtyMoneyToolkit.pdf?docID=601
This terrific kit provides a step-by-step plan and everything you need to fight the $15,000,000 donated in the last Congress alone from Dirty Energy Polluters like BP.

5. Use the OpenSecrets , MapLight, and Dirty Energy Money websites and the Clean up Dirty Money Tool Kit to find out about how much money your Senators and Representatives have received from the oil industry. Share what you have found out with the media, on blogs, facebook, Twitter, etc.

6. MOST IMPORTANT -- CALL AND WRITE TO YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES. Confront those who are corrupt. HOLD YOUR LEGISLATORS ACCOUNTABLE. You can find your legislators’ contact information here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

7. See also: http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com and
Oil Change International - http://priceofoil.org/
The Stuart Smith Blog - http://oilspillaction.com/

Please spread the word!

[Paul Sage]

Follow the exposure of oil as the root cause of cancer on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/doctorlee445/status/22820554491

RePost and reTweet this. Ask your friends to forward it.

The biggest cover-up in history. New genome map data ties the final link. The proof is impossible to argue.

[Katie]

Mann and Maragos got it right.

[Randy]

OK, now that we've had 1 more accident, I hope people stop looking for another BP scapegoat, and look deep in the mirror now! The next time you fire up your Viper, Escalade, V12 S-Class, etc. it's time to think of where all that crude is coming from! Shame on you when you could have easily spent all those dollars on diesels, hybrids, electrics or more fuel efficient smaller engines. But your ego just wouldn't let you do that would it?

[Greg Maragos]

"...revved up support for the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling..."

Okay, how about we lift the ban on drilling in shallow water, which is what forces oil companies to build convoluted deep water platforms in the first place?

[Tony Mann]

Nuts those who want to stop drilling want to pay $6.00 a gallon for gas and $500 a month for heating oil. Then they will want the government to pay the bill for them.

[Ray Bilcliff]

This kind of accident will go on until all drilling for oil is stopped. The world needs a massive effort to find a replacement for oil. Oil companies are dinosaurs and they have gone well past their time.