Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
With news this morning that once again BP has failed to contain the leak caused by their own greed and massive deregulation of the oil industry by our government one thing is certain. The hypocrites within the party of "Drill baby Drill" are going to do everything they can to keep America from remembering that they were the ones that wanted offshore drilling so bad to begin with. Now, just as with the economy they crashed they will seek to blame a President who was not in office when BP was given a permit to poison our planet.
It has already begun on Fox News. Ignoring their own history of inciting their viewers to believe that drilling, drilling, and more drilling was the only solution to our energy problems they are trying to blame President Obama for the spill and claim that he is not doing anything to try and combat the problem. They will also push the meme that poor Bobby Jindall is a genius that nobody will listen to.
Just listen to this video of Fox and Friends:
As always with Fox News and the modern hypocrisy known as the Republican Party they forget their own culpability and seek to blame others for the disasters their own policies cause. The truth is that significant cleanup efforts have been going on for more than a month:
* Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 20,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
* More than 1,300 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts -- in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
* More than 1.85 million feet of containment boom and 1.25 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill -- and approximately 300,000 feet of containment boom and 1 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
* Approximately 11 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
* Approximately 840,000 gallons of total dispersant have been deployed -- 700,000 on the surface and 140,000 subsea. More than 380,000 gallons are available.
* 17 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines, including: Dauphin Island, Ala., Orange Beach, Ala., Theodore, Ala., Panama City, Fla., Pensacola, Fla., Port St. Joe, Fla., St. Marks, Fla., Amelia, La., Cocodrie, La., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., St. Mary, La.; Venice, La., Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., and Pass Christian, Miss.
And what of the plan called for by Boy Wonder Bobby Jindall?? Far removed from his "Drill baby Drill" days Jindall has been very vocal in his criticism to try and save face for the disgraced policies of a disgraced party. Well, right in keeping with the failed modern Republican Party his plans seem to be a recipe for disaster. The Army Corps of Engineers has determined while parts of the plan may work, it could also make the problem much worse:
AP: Army Corps documents say barriers "could instead funnel oil into more unprotected areas and into neighboring Mississippi." The Associated Press reported on May 26 that the Army Corps of Engineers released documents that day that "signaled support for parts of the state plan, including berms that would be built onto existing barrier islands," but stated that parts of the plan "could inadvertently alter tides and end up driving oil east -- into Mississippi Sound, the Biloxi Marshes and Lake Borgne."
http://mediamatters.org/...
Other experts have serious reservations about the plans:
Adm. Allen: Building barriers of that scope "is going to take a very, very long time" and "significant amount of resources" that "might be applied elsewhere." During a May 24 press conference, Adm. Thad Allen was asked about Jindal's "frustrat[ion] that the federal government was not being responsive to the requests." Allen responded that the Corps was working on a review of "cost and the schedule, the feasibility, the engineering issues associated with" the plan and that "building a set of barrier islands and berms that large is going to take a very, very long time even by the state's own estimate -- six to nine months in some cases -- and a significant amount of resources associated with that that might be applied elsewhere."
Stone: "Foolish to embark on a project of this scale without establishing potential negative impacts." The Christian Science Monitor reported on May 24 that according to Gregory Stone, a professor of oceanography at Louisiana State University, "[s]tate leaders are not ... considering questions about its long-term effects on the coastal environment." Stone reportedly added: "This is a mammoth engineering project, and it can be done, but it's being done willy-nilly. It's foolish to embark on a project of this scale without establishing potential negative impacts on currents, on coastal erosion, on wildlife habitat, on whole range of environmental issues."
In other words, after their fool hearty promotion of "drilling here and drilling now" the Republicans once again fueled by Fox News want to blame everything and everyone for the problems they caused with their own failed ideas. Do any of them really believe that Bobby Jindall knows more about how to solve this crisis that the Army Corps of Engineers??
Instead of placing blame on a President who was not in office when a permit was issued to BP for the Deepwater Horizon rig why do they not realize it is time this country got out of bed with the CEOs of the oil companies and invested in the real solution to our energy problems, researching and developing the fuels of the future?? Until that happens our earth will be devastated and Republicans on Fox News will continue to blame everyone else for their own greedy, failed policies.