House Oversight Committee outs Obama Gulf Response Falsehoods
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From: Polarhound on 2 Jul 2010 18:20 http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/7-1-10_OGR_Report_-_How_the_White_House_Public_Relations_Campaign_on_the_Oil_Spill_is_Harming_the_Actual_Clean-up.pdf Findings Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities: � Officials on the ground dispute key White House assertions about the number and timeliness of assets deployed in the Gulf. Local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand; � The White House�s assurances that there are adequate resources are at odds with the reality on the ground, where those on the frontline of the spill express significant frustration over the lack of assets. Local complaints are supported by the fact that the White House waited until Day 70 of the oil spill to accept critical offers of international assistance. Local workers and boats could have been assisting more with the clean-up if the Federal government had provided them with needed supplies and equipment; � While the White House has tried to use the delay in finding a visible leak to explain its early silence on the oil spill, Transocean officials and Coast Guard documents from the scene of the oil spill reveal clear and early indications of a substantial oil leak days earlier than White House accounts; � The failure of Administration officials to quickly waive laws preventing necessary foreign assets from reaching the Gulf and other regulations are hampering efforts to clean-up and limit damage from the oil spill. Local officials feel the federal government is making the perfect the enemy of the good in cleanup efforts; � Local officials strongly dispute President Obama�s insistence that the federal government � and not BP � has been in control since day one. One Coast Guard Admiral told congressional investigators that decisions on the ground are made through a �consensus-based� process with BP. In practice, the Federal Government is not in charge of oil spill response efforts through a command-and-control approach; Local officials strongly believe the President�s call for a drilling moratorium will significantly compound the economic damage caused by the oil spill and will actually increase risk associated with future offshore drilling projects. ... The White House blog details a number of assets deployed in the region to combat the spill. This includes vessels, boom, and dispersant. The number of assets claimed, however, does not appear to match what is actually in the field. Parish officials maintain that the thousands of vessels cited in the blog are non-existent. One senior official refers to them as �phantom assets.� When asked to elaborate, he explained that when he asks the federal government to provide the location of its assets, it either refuses or cannot do so.4 Daily helicopter search grids performed by the Parish sheriff�s department confirm to him that very few of the assets claimed are deployed. This is corroborated by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who shared a similar story with investigators. BP and Coast Guard provided Mr. Nungesser with a map of the Gulf allegedly pinpointing the exact locations of 140 skimmers cleaning up oil. Sensing that the chart may have been somewhat inaccurate, Mr. Nungesser requested a flyover of the assets for verification. After three cancelled trips, officials admitted to Mr. Nungesser that only 31 of the 140 skimmers were ever deployed. The rest were sitting at the docks. According to Mr. Nungesser, the chart appeared to have been fabricated. ... According to local officials, the decision to not waive the Jones Act has impaired Gulf Coast clean-up efforts. The most likely application of a broad-based Jones Act waiver would be for the operation of boats equipped with skimmers, which is one of the most effective tools to clean up the oil. Rear Admiral Jim Watson conceded in a briefing to Chairman Towns and Ranking Member Issa that the Coast Guard does not currently have access to a sufficient numbers of skimmers. The importance of skimmers is articulated by Deano Bonano, Homeland Security Director of Jefferson Parish: �The enemy is the oil. Lets put a fleet out there and every skimmer we can find and skim off as much as we can before it gets ashore, because here in Louisiana, our marshes are so fragile, once the oil gets there, the battle is over.�20 Accordingly, the President should be taking swift action to facilitate the delivery of every available skimmer into the Gulf, regardless of the flag flown. While Administration officials have maintained that the Jones Act is not an obstacle and going so far as to claim that �nobody has come forward with a Jones Act Waiver [request],�21 the Deputy Administrator of the Maritime Administration confirmed that one foreign flagged skimmer has made a Jones Act request, which was denied ostensibly because American vessels could perform the same functions.22 Moreover, local officials reported that to their great disappointment, Norwegian skimmers en route to the Gulf were turned around. A St. Bernard official bluntly stated that he and other local responders were �salivating over the prospect of getting this equipment.�23 These anecdotes call into question the claim made by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that �if somebody down there needed a ship from the Netherlands or somewhere else the President and Admiral Allen would waive the Jones Act in 10 seconds.�24
From: Ray OHara on 2 Jul 2010 19:20 "Polarhound" <polarhound(a)comcast.net> wrote in message news:vCtXn.6736$RC5.986(a)newsfe08.iad... > http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/7-1-10_OGR_Report_-_How_the_White_House_Public_Relations_Campaign_on_the_Oil_Spill_is_Harming_the_Actual_Clean-up.pdf > > > Findings > > Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness interviews > and documents provided by federal and state entities: a republican committee, yeah they wouldn't lie.
From: OceanView on 2 Jul 2010 20:12 "Ray OHara" <raymond-ohara(a)hotmail.com> wrote in news:i0lsat$jbr$1(a)news.eternal-september.org: > > "Polarhound" <polarhound(a)comcast.net> wrote in message > news:vCtXn.6736$RC5.986(a)newsfe08.iad... >> http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/7-1-10_O >> GR_Report_-_How_the_White_House_Public_Relations_Campaign_on_the_Oil_S >> pill_is_Harming_the_Actual_Clean-up.pdf >> >> >> Findings >> >> Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness >> interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities: > > > a republican committee, yeah they wouldn't lie. > > > They'd be awful quiet if they wouldn't. -- ------- A difference of tastes in jokes is a great strain on the affections. - George Eliot
From: mario in victoria on 2 Jul 2010 22:06 OceanView wrote: > "Ray OHara" <raymond-ohara(a)hotmail.com> wrote in > news:i0lsat$jbr$1(a)news.eternal-september.org: > >> "Polarhound" <polarhound(a)comcast.net> wrote in message >> news:vCtXn.6736$RC5.986(a)newsfe08.iad... >>> http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/7-1-10_O >>> GR_Report_-_How_the_White_House_Public_Relations_Campaign_on_the_Oil_S >>> pill_is_Harming_the_Actual_Clean-up.pdf >>> >>> >>> Findings >>> >>> Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness >>> interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities: >> >> a republican committee, yeah they wouldn't lie. >> >> >> > > They'd be awful quiet if they wouldn't. > Can you make sense of this sentence? "Local officials feel the federal government is making the perfect the enemy of the good in cleanup efforts;" mario in victoria -- must be a committee
From: OceanView on 2 Jul 2010 23:20
mario in victoria <mario5491(a)hotmail.com> wrote in news:pWwXn.4270 $Zi.3216(a)newsfe14.iad: > OceanView wrote: >> "Ray OHara" <raymond-ohara(a)hotmail.com> wrote in >> news:i0lsat$jbr$1(a)news.eternal-september.org: >> >>> "Polarhound" <polarhound(a)comcast.net> wrote in message >>> news:vCtXn.6736$RC5.986(a)newsfe08.iad... >>>> http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/7-1-10 _O >>>> GR_Report_- _How_the_White_House_Public_Relations_Campaign_on_the_Oil_S >>>> pill_is_Harming_the_Actual_Clean-up.pdf >>>> >>>> >>>> Findings >>>> >>>> Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness >>>> interviews and documents provided by federal and state entities: >>> >>> a republican committee, yeah they wouldn't lie. >>> >>> >>> >> >> They'd be awful quiet if they wouldn't. >> > > Can you make sense of this sentence? > > "Local officials feel the federal government is making the perfect the > enemy of the good in cleanup efforts;" > > > mario in victoria I know it's late and I've had a long day, but I read it three times, and no, I can't. -- ------- A difference of tastes in jokes is a great strain on the affections. - George Eliot |