I would like to remind the pundits this is the worst environmental catastrophe we have seen.

Or grandchildren will read about this in history books.

If the two political parties cannot unite and help fix the problem I think this country is sunk.

But please, keep up the partisan bull.

Speaking as someone who has been involved in many oil leaks....

The talk here of due process is nonsense. This is currently a civil matter and could be settled in court. If anyone here is stupid enough to think that BP wants this to wind up in a real civil trial....

When we had a problem, and one of the bosses wanted to fix it on the cheap, we used to tell our execs, "How hard will it be for the plantifs lawyer to find 12 people that hate oil companies?"

There is also a point here that is very important that everyone has missed. If an oil leak is found it must be 'claimed'. If you claim the leak you truly own it. And don't start in on Obama 'claimed' it since he is not, by law, authorized to do so. Only someone in the oil business, who is registered in the state where the leak takes place, can, and it must be done verbaly and in writing with-in 24 hours of the leaks discovery.

If you wish to be in the oil business you have to have premission to prove to the state you can handle it. Someone's name, someone who must be a resident of the state, has to be the oil companies' agent. If criminal laws are broken they are the one going to jail. You have to account for every barrell of oil you intend to produce or move (so the state can get their taxes from it) and you have to show that you are financialy responsible in case anything goes wrong.

If anything goes wrong you are required to pay for the damages to the extent of your ability. Your performance bond will not cover the cost? Well then, it is goodbye company assets!

The state, or if you are operating on a Fed lease, can require you to put up more money to cover damages if they think you are going to skip. In BP's case it was $20 Billion. Please understand that they agreed to do this in order to receive an operation permit. BP is a big company, they know how to read a contract. Would they put up this money just because they are good people? If they are good people then why do they kill more employees than all the other oil companies?

What some people here are calling a 'shakedown' is what the oil industry calls 'business as usual'. If you create problems you know you will be held responsible. Of course, you can just leave the oil business, but the state will grab everything you have to cover your mistakes and clean-up your messes.

They can do this because you agreed to this when you received your operating permit.

And remember the 'claiming' thing I mentioned? So far BP has not Claimed the leak. They have said they will pay for all clean up costs, but they have not said the leak was their fault. This Claiming is not just something that is done to help get things cleaned up; it is a leagal requirement. If no one Claims a leak then whoever discovered it has to clean it up. After an invesigation determins who is really at fault the guilty have to pay for all the clean up and damages. Avoiding Claiming is where the Criminal penatilies start to kick in.

No where has BP Claimed this leak. When Tony was speaking to the good folks in DC he never said BP was at fault. He said we all would have to wait until it was investigated.

If BP had claimed the leak, and later they were found to be not at fault, they could recover ALL the cost from the company that was and the state would assist them. As it is they are stuck with paying all the bills, and if they can prove some other company caused the leak then recovering their costs is up to them.

I was watching Tony speaking to the Washington bunch with a friend of mine, a very die-hard Republican who has been in the oil biz for about 40 years, and both of us just looked at each other. "How much jail time did that ol' boy just buy himself?", my friend asked. I answered, "All of it."

I remember seeing an exec smirk at a State Regulator like Tony did to the Congressmen. I asked him if he enjoyed it and he said he did. I told him that was good since it was going to cost us a lot. I heard later our fine was several million Dollars and a written warning that our permits to operate would be pulled if we had another infraction with-in six months. The fine was easy to pay, but the fellow with the smirk was tasked with keeping the incident rate to zero. He retired since he knew he was not up to the job.

At least my guy did not lie to the Regulators. I don't know if Tony did or not, but he sure blew town quickly. We used to keep aircraft on the runway with the engines running when operating in some Arab countries. You never know when you might need to leave in a hurry, so his quick departure is not unheard of. And it is much easier to do than explaining your side of a story to a Judge.

You may also be under the impression that all of this 'shakedown' stuff on the Govs part is something new, but you would be wrong. There is enviromental damage here in Oklahoma that was caused 90 years ago that is still being cleaned up, and it is being cleaned up (and paid for) by current day oil people. In the past it was get out the oil and forget about the clean up. No state allows any oil company to operate that way today.

Not even if their name if BP.

Pooka has a better handle on this than anyone else so far on this post. My concerns are that the Government needs to shut up and work towards HELPING to get this thing plugged and shut down...offer assistance instead of saying "...there's some serious ass-kicking about to go down..." That's the type of retoric that's not needed.

As for the A-hole talking-head at BP that did get his arse handed to himself on a silver platter...isn't anyone minding the kitchen while these guys are going out in front of the press and opening their mouths? Vet the speech before giving it.

"O" needs to tone it down, any and all Congressmen need to get off their high horse and soap box and STFU. My own Congressdweeb "claims" he's kicking BP's arse and is looking for others to sign on. This guy couldn't find the Mississippi River unless he had a pending River-Rat Darwin Award candidate leading him and he's saying he's in charge of deciding the color of BP's underwear.

As for checking facts...who knows what the facts are...no one has a clear handle on HOW MUCH OIL IS PUKING OUT OF THAT HOLE so the whole "They're going to pay this or that..." argument is purely academic...and it will remain so until REAL people start doing REAL work on the REAL problem. So far, we have a few cameras looking at A PIPE. Is that the only leaking component or are there others?

And as for the taxpayers paying for this cleanup...

Anyone from the government walking around and pontificating about this problem is getting a paycheck from the government...which is you and me (at least the one's WORKING in the private sector). We've got LOCAL Department of the Interior workers (part of the upper Mississippi River Conservancy) being ORDERED by their superiors in D.C. to be ready to report to the Gulf in the next few days. My neighbors...heading to the Gulf. This was on our local news last night...

Yep, taxpayers are paying for this right now. And they will continue to pay.

Those are the FACTS...whether BP pays it back now or later.

And who has the books on this RIGHT NOW? What's the current tab? No one knows and I highly suspect we'll never know.

But, we don't need the Prez running down the Gulf every other week and giving a "Rah! Rah!" speech to the faithful (or is it the fateful?). He can do the same thing from the Oval Office.

Besides, why should he embarrass himself like Bush did? The left screamed at the idiocy of him being in NOLA following Katrina, right? Is "O" working off the same FEMA playbook that was left laying around after Bush left office? Is that another thing that "was forgotten" like the left-over staff at the MMS?

Pooka needs to keep us informed of the real workings of the oil industry and we need to get the Feds out of the picture and back behind the scenes where they belong and won't make a bad situation worse.

No where has the phrase "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you" been so full of hot air.

Except the upcoming campaign season's trails... :rolleyes:

Thanks for the kind words, and I agree with you. This is not the time to be making points with the voters. It is a time for action.

The Gov of LA, Jindle, has finally reached this point. By getting behind the plan of putting vac trucks on barges something is getting done. It is a small something, but everything is a small something when the problem is this big.

The US Coast Guard shut down the vac truck/barge program for a day but they somewhat had to. The barges being used are not sea worthy, and by that I mean they are for inland use and not ocean going use, and no one was wearing life-jackets. With approval from above the Coast Guard allowed the barges to operate, but they had to be secure in the thought that the Cajuns running the vac barges understood the risks and were up to the task. I have met and worked with enough of these types of people that I was not worried for a minute, but then I am not responsible for their lives.

I have seen many instances of this sort of 'field improvision' put together by smart folks (and by that I mean experienced oil field/pipeline types) that are on the site since no two spills are alike. Sometimes the ones that think up a new solution are not familair with the safety requirements and need another to point it out to them. I have never seen anyone get upset over too much safety. I mean, who wants to be injured or dead?

One size will not fit all on this spill as it is just too diverse. It is going to take a lot of what Gov. Jindle called 'Cajun Ingenuity' to solve this problem.

I do feel bad for BP stockholders, but then, on the other hand, the stockholders never companined when BP was causing more industrial accidents than all the other oil companies combined.

Cutting corners will do two things: Increase profits and cause accidents.

Sometimes those accidents are too much for a company to bear. I hope this is not the case in this instance.

Pooka,

Thanks for your informative and rational post.

I do try to keep my emotions out of this discussion. It is something you have to do when you are dealing with what is a problem concerning physics and not morals.

Politics will creep into any big disaster. What the people on the ground need to do is not let it keep them from their tasks of dealing with the situation. Sometimes this is not easy and I am sure Jindle finally reached the 'If not me, then who?' point.

It is nice to see a politician really dealing with a problem and not caring what anyone thinks, though. I think that is called Leadership.