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NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco displays a chart Wednesday showing that three-quarters of the oil spilled from BP's Deepwater Horizon leak has... View Enlarged Image
Energy: Now that the nation's newspaper of record has told us there is "little additional risk" from the Gulf oil spill, maybe the government can give us our offshore oil industry back. We could sure use it.
Heeding White House aide Rahm Emanuel's now-famous dictum — "never let a good crisis go to waste" — Democrats wasted little time in moving on major legislation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the process, they created a government-made disaster the impact of which may be felt far longer than the oil spill itself.
In Congress, they used the disaster to push for a tax-raising, job-killing "energy bill." And in the White House, they imposed a six-month moratorium on oil production in the Gulf. Congress' energy bill is dead — for now. But the moratorium remains in place.
Now, according to the New York Times, comes the revelation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which led a group of agencies in studying the BP oil spill, that "three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm."
In other words, after the nonstop televising of the Deepwater Horizon well gushing oil and gas 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface for weeks on end, our top government experts can find maybe 1 million barrels of oil — or roughly 42 million gallons.
To put that in perspective, that's less than the amount of oil — about 47 million gallons — that naturally seeps each year from the ocean floor off the coast of North America, according to the National Research Council. This is great news. Yes, the BP leak is still a problem, but not the "worst environmental disaster ever," as some claimed. Not even close.
Even so, Democrats in Congress and President Obama didn't wait for more information before punishing the oil industry — guilty and innocent participants alike — after the spill.
It's not hard to see why. Shifting into crisis mode gave Democrats cover to indulge their preoccupation with killing off our oil industry while trying to force Americans to use highly expensive and wasteful "alternative" energy sources — wind, solar, biomass — which aren't even viable yet as substitutes for fossil fuels. Will they now undo the damage?
Power: Show Me State voters overwhelmingly rejected the federal mandate to buy health insurance. Those who ignored the consent of the governed to pass ObamaCare take heed: The governed no longer consent. It is fitting that Missouri was the first state to hold a public referendum on ...
Iran: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has much in common with Adolf Hitler — hatred of Jews, warmongering, delusions of divine inspiration. Now add this: His own people have tried to blow him to smithereens. After surviving the July 20, 1944, plot on his life at his field headquarters ...
Central Planning: A bill that would provide billions for "livable" neighborhoods and enact an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities is moving in Congress. Is this the proper role of the federal government? Has anyone in Washington bothered to read the Constitution? We don't want to ...
High unemployment, record debt and 18 straight months of anti-business policies demonstrate that this president and Democratic congressional majority have mismanaged an already troubled economy and made matters worse for American families and employers. Despite already raising taxes by $670 ...
There's something oddly funny about the cluelessness of liberal media companies when their ratings fall or their subscriptions collapse. They just refuse to admit, even consider that the business problem could be (at least in part) their own incessant liberal agitating. Instead, they seem to double ...
Posted By: OBSERVER U.K(880) on 8/5/2010 | 2:44 AM ET
At last! Tony Hayward words have proven true, now that small ignorant minds in the U.S.goverment and America have cost him his job at which he was SUPURB.Are we now to hear of the many U.S. goverment personell working with B.P. who took bribes and went to parties given by the rig and supplying hookers for thier entertainment, so that they did NOT do the job they were employed to do, are they still working for the OBAMANATION? and when do they appear in front of federal judges?. "GOD HELP AMERICA
Posted By: Jetrip0(130) on 8/5/2010 | 2:15 AM ET
I don't think the problems with the oil companies are being addressed. They are our source on oil quantities...they play their game and suck the American people dry. Conservatives are against regulation. Should they be allowed to charge whatever they want? Additionally, how is it they have all of this money and all these tax breaks...why aren't they investing in cleanup research? Why aren't they investing in technology to back up existing preventive measures?
Posted By: dwdrury(2120) on 8/5/2010 | 1:38 AM ET
Do you not get the concept, Caroline21, that the world is awash with fossil fuels, enough to last hundreds of years? Every year we hear that tired old peak oil theory, then proven reserves go up, not down, even though usage increases, as new techniques are invented to find and extract? Do you not grasp that water vapor, as expelled by many of the favored alt energy schemes, is a greater "greenhouse gas" than the plant food CO2 will ever be? You want green? Increase CO2. Geology proves it.
Posted By: cnptnow(540) on 8/5/2010 | 12:26 AM ET
Caroline, I thank you your comment on sensibility. It is soooo nice to know that there are other readers of this paper that have an environmental consciousness beside myself.
Posted By: Caroline21(10) on 8/5/2010 | 12:21 AM ET
Do you get the concept that fossil fuels, by definition, are going to run out one day? The solution is not to "find more oil". There will be no more oil to find one day. And yes no business can promise a perfect safety record and that is why offshore drilling should be banned. Our coasts are too precious to squander for economic gain. We only have this one planet, you know.
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