Five months and one day before its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded while exploring the Macondo Prospect off the coast of Louisiana, BP’s top Gulf of Mexico official testified its practices were “both safe and protective of the environment.” In June, the U.S. Minerals Management Service proposed stricter safety and environmental rules, opposed by BP and the rest of the offshore drilling industry as unnecessary. In a Senate hearing on offshore drilling “environmental stewardship policies” on November 19, 2009, BP America’s vice president of Gulf of Mexico exploration, David Rainey, opposed the proposed MMS rules and defended the existing regulatory system. Rainey claimed that drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has been shown to be “both safe and protective of the environment”:

I think we should remember that scientific knowledge is always moving forward. And actually using the best available and the most up-to-date scientific information is part of the current regulatory system. And it supports the OCS leasing, exploration, and development program. And I think we need to remember that OCS has been going on for the last 50 years, and it has been going on in a way that is both safe and protective of the environment.

Watch it:

Rainey’s testimony followed a September 14, 2009, letter from his predecessor Richard Morrison, which said “we are not supportive of the extensive and prescriptive regulations” in the proposed rule, because “[w]e believe industry’s current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs” since the American Petroleum Institute codified those programs in 2004 “have been and continue to be very successful.”

It appears that the MMS was correct when they argued in their proposed rule that existing safety rules were not sufficient. “The MMS believes that if OCS oil and gas operations are better planned and organized, then the likelihood of injury to workers and the risk of environmental pollution will be further reduced,” they wrote in 2009.

After waiting a week to respond to the growing oil apocalypse off the coast of Louisiana, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) exploited the disaster to call for new offshore drilling subsidies. The Deepwater Horizon rig deployed by BP to explore the Macondo Prospect exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and beginning a flood of oil from a mile below the ocean surface that now threatens the entire Gulf Coast. Vitter failed to officially respond for an entire week, until he expressed condolences for the victims but then turned directly to a demand for American taxpayers to push oil subsidies to Louisiana:

As we move forward with the recovery process, I hope that the rest of the country will realize that our state needs to be fairly compensated for this burden through increased revenue sharing from offshore production.

Because of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act passed following the Exxon Valdez spill, BP will have to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the government’s contribution to the response effort. Vitter is simply trying to exploit this tragedy to tie his state even more tightly to the fortunes of the deadly and destructive oil industry. Vitter is a long-time promoter of expanding offshore drilling, which is a central plank of his so-called “No-Cost Stimulus Act.”

Big oil rakes in the cash

I was out driving/just a taking it slow
Looked at my tank/ it was reading low
Pulled in a Exxon station/out on Highway One
Held up without a gun
Held up without a gun

“” Bruce Springsteen

Springsteen’s song could not be more true today. Big Oil is once again riding high oil prices to large profits (see below) while American consumers get stuck with a $2.7 billion gasoline bill in the first quarter of 2010 due to higher oil prices. But the problems with oil go beyond these companies’ profits. Rising oil prices also add more filthy lucre to the coffers of hostile regimes, including Iran. CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss and Susan Lyon have the story in this repost.

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Carbon, Nitrogen Link May Provide New Ways to Mitigate Pollution Problems

A new study exploring the growing worldwide problem of nitrogen pollution from soils to the sea shows that global ratios of nitrogen and carbon in the environment are inexorably linked, a finding that may lead to new strategies to help mitigate regional problems ranging from contaminated waterways to human health.

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I don’t think it’s a big coincidence that we’re seeing all of these fossil fuel accidents after 8 years of lax oversight by Bush-Cheney (see The deadly toll of the ‘safe’ and ‘clean’ coal and oil industries).  The fox was guarding the henhouse.  And in this case, the henhouse itself was not actually run by the hens.

An investment group with ties to labor pension funds called for the resignation of Massey Energy directors who are “ultimately responsible for Massey’s alarming safety compliance record.”  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.

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The catastrophic gusher of oil unleashed by the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last week is on track to quickly exceed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, an independent expert warns. An explosive burst of oil destroyed the exploratory rig 41 miles off the Louisiana coast on the eve of Earth Day, killing 11 workers. After the shattered hulk of the rig sank to the ocean floor a mile down, the pipeline continues to spew oil that has now reached shore, with an end weeks or months away. John Amos, the president and founder of the nonprofit firm SkyTruth, “which specializes in gathering and analyzing satellite and aerial data to promote environmental conservation,” estimated from satellite photos that the calamity is increasing at a rate of 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) a day:

That’s right: more than 6 million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico so far. This, and other radar images that SkyTruth is getting, confirm what we’ve seen on the NASA/MODIS images so far, and support our conservative calculations showing that in the first week of this spill at least 6 million gallons have entered the Gulf. That’s a spill rate of at least 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) per day, 20 times larger than the official Goast Guard estimate of 42,000 gallons per day.

By today, about 7 million gallons will have been spilled, taking the Deepwater Horizon disaster more than halfway to the 1989 wreck of the Exxon Valdez, which dumped 11 million gallons into Alaska’s Prince William Sound — one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. This catastrophe — which occured as Halliburton was cementing the well — will exceed the scale of the Exxon Valdez within a week.

The sea of oil spewing from the mangled pipeline is already larger than 31 nations. After the Montara oil platform blew up in Australia’s Timor Sea last August, it took 10 weeks to stop the flow of oil. If recent history is any guide, it may be months before the sea of oil stops growing.

On April 22, the U.S. Coast Guard estimated the flow rate to be 336,000 gallons of crude a day, but BP officials claimed on Sunday that the rate was only 42,000 gallons a day. By Thursday, officials admitted that the disaster is increasing at least 210,000 gallons a day, much closer to the Coast Guard’s original estimate. Amos called that estimate a “bare-bones limit.”

At the Council on Foreign Relations, Michael Levi has a thoughtful response to my April 9 post on carbon policy and Iran, “Carbon Cap Would Deny Iran Precious Petrodollars: Over $100 Million A Day.” Levi expressed his concern at the idea that U.S. dependence on imported oil “makes Iran $100 million richer every day.” While recognizing that the methodology used was sound, Levi noted:

The problem is that while the Iranian nuclear problem is unfolding on a relatively short timescale, most of the projected decline in oil revenues comes in the out years. The annual savings, using CAP’s own methodology (which is admirably transparent), reach less than $5 billion annually in 2015, or about $10 million dollars a day. (That roughly doubles by 2020.) That’s about 2-3% of what EIA thinks Iranian oil revenue will be in 2015 (based on the 2009 IEO) – a nontrivial number, but not one that’s of much strategic consequence.

Hopefully it was transparent in my post that this is a long-term strategic shift (after all, there is a pretty chart to that effect), not a short-term crisis response. I will take issue with the idea that a long-term change isn’t “of much strategic consequence.” The generational move to a low-carbon economy will likely determine the arc of history in the coming decades.

It is of course difficult to get into nuance in a single blog post, but it comes in the context of my colleagues’ work — Matt Duss and Max Bergmann have written many thoughtful posts on how the United States and the international community should engage with Iran and the Middle East in the here-and-now.

I would certainly prefer if the Beltway dialogue focused more on nuanced discussions of how, say, an international commitment within the next year or two to a low-carbon economy by 2050 would reshape the geopolitical balance of power, especially vis-a-vis petrostates.

But we literally have our counterparts at the Heritage Foundation arguing that the United States should engage in nuclear-armed “preventative war” with Iran, and that climate scientists are engaged in a global conspiracy to deceive the American public into passing a proto-fascist energy tax.

So there’s a bit of work to be done before serious discourse rules the day.

I’ll be on MSNBC’s Countdown at 8:35 edt

Offshore Oil Safety Awards Luncheon Postponed

And it gets more ironic:  CBS reports that last year BP won an award for “promoting improved medical care and evacuation capabilities for offshore facilities.”

The photo “provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows fire boat response crews battling the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, April 21, 2010.”

I wish I had more time to write a longer post, but I’m doing a couple of interviews on this tonight, including Countdown.

By the way, Halliburton appears to have been involved in the spill.  They have been named in two lawsuits by Louisiana fishermen and shrimpers, Climate Wire (subs. req’d) reports:

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On the bipartisan bill he wrote with Kerry and Lieberman: “I really believe in this product. I think it’s a damn good solution.”

WashPost‘s Ezra Klein has posted an interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about the immigration and climate bills.  Since my Monday post, it’s been hard to tell whether the Senator has been principled or petulant — or perhaps a bit of both.

I’ll excerpt the parts of his interview with Klein about the climate bill and you can decide:

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An investment group with ties to labor pension funds called for the resignation of Massey Energy directors who are “ultimately responsible for Massey’s alarming safety compliance record.” The Change to Win Investment Group “presented today an in-depth analysis to shareholders of Massey Energy Company, making the case to vote against the three directors up for election at the mining company’s May 18 annual meeting, the first meeting of shareholders since the tragic April 5 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners lost their lives.” In a letter to investors, CtW called for the removal of directors responsible for the “preventable mine explosion” that “killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value“:

We urge you to vote “Withhold” on directors Richard M. Gabrys, Dan R. Moore and Baxter F. Phillips, Jr. at the Massey Energy Company annual meeting on May 18. As members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee (SEPPC), these directors are ultimately responsible for serious and systematic non-compliance with mine safety laws over an extended period, a risk oversight failure that likely led to the catastrophic and preventable mine explosion on April 5 that killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value.

The investment group “believes Massey Chair and CEO Donald Blankenship’s ‘production first’ emphasis fostered a management culture that tolerated unacceptable safety and compliance failures.” By supporting Blankenship’s drive for profits over rules, the members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee hold ultimate responsibility for the deaths of Massey’s miners.

Richard Gabrys

On Massey’s board since 2007, Gabrys is “the retired vice chairman of Deloitte.” He also serves on the board of the Michigan-based companies La-Z-Boy Inc., coal-dependent utility CMS Energy, and engineering firm TriMas Corporation. Gabrys has given $6000 to Republicans, including $1000 to George W. Bush, and $500 to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).

Dan R. Moore

On Massey’s board since 2002, Moore is “the Chairman of Moore Group, Inc., which owns multiple automobile dealerships in West Virginia and Kentucky.” He previously ran West Virginia’s Matewan Bank. Moore also serves on the board of the West Virginia University Foundation, the Branch Bank and Trust Company, and the West Virginia Housing Fund. Moore has contributed $8100 to Republicans since 2000.

Baxter F. Phillips

Massey’s president since 2008 and a top executive since 2000, Phillips joined Massey in 1981. Phillips has contributed $8900 to Republicans and $5950 to the Massey PAC.

On April 19, Massey director Lady Barbara Thomas Judge resigned amid shareholder unrest.

“During times like these, a change in senior management is not appropriate or in the best interest of our members and shareholders,” said Admiral Bobby R. Inman, Massey Energy’s lead independent director on April 22. “Therefore, we want to emphasize that Don Blankenship has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors.”

If a climate bill doesn’t become law this year, the inclination among many progressives will be to blame President Obama for his lack of leadership.  And frankly progressives should be critical of Obama:   In a bunch of pretty speeches he has repeatedly said the climate and clean energy jobs bill was a signature issue that would determine whether America achieves “lasting prosperity” or “decline” (see “Success or failure for Obama Presidency hangs in the balance” with climate bill).

But two recent stories remind us of who really is to blame for two decades of inaction.  The first is “House Republicans Organize to Thwart Climate Legislation” in Roll Call (subs. req’d), which opens, “House Republicans have launched a new ‘real-time’ e-mail, Internet and media offensive aimed at fueling public opposition to Democrats’ climate proposals.”

The second is an article in UK’s Telegraph, “Britain’s silent, green revolution:  “All the major parties are signed up to transforming Britain into a green, low-carbon economy to boost growth, as well as to combat climate change.”

Together they underscore a central point that I make in my new book, Straight Up (click here to purchase):

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33 generals, admirals: “Climate change is making the world a more dangerous place” and “threatening America’s security”

The Pentagon affirmed earlier this year that “Climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked.”

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Concentrated Solar Set to Shine

A California-based startup, Amonix, has received $129 million in venture-capital investments to further its commercialization of concentrated photovoltaic technology. The company’s product combines powerful lenses, a tracking system, and solar cells for large, highly efficient solar-power installations. The funding could give the company, and the emerging field of concentrated photovoltaics, the boost it needs for widespread utility-scale deployments.

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President Barack Obama toured and met workers at a POET refining ethanol plant in Macon, Missouri Wednesday as part of his trip to Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. POET is the largest ethanol producer in the United States, and has recently announced plans to produce 3.5 billion gallons of advanced cellulosic biofuels by 2022.  CAP’s Jake Caldwell has the story in this repost.

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I had started writing my post to debunk the utter canard that the IPCC’s and media’s treatment of uncertainty have left the public with an overestimation of projected climate impacts on our current emissions path.

But then came her latest jaw dropper:

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The Obama administration has leapt into action to respond to the growing crisis of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, which killed 11 workers and left a West-Virginia-sized oil spill in the Gulf Coast. But in the weeks before the calamity, President Barack Obama promoted his initiative to expand offshore drilling as “not risky” and repeated the conservative myth that Hurricane Katrina did not cause any oil rig spills. At a town hall meeting in South Carolina on April 2, the president was challenged that his “decision to allow offshore drilling could have the effect of chilling investment into alternate sources of energy.” While recognizing that “energy efficiency and renewable, clean energy” is his “biggest priority,” Obama also defended offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

Watch it:

This is incorrect.

Eighteen days later, the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP America 41 miles of the Louisiana coast exploded. The giant spill has not yet reached the beaches of the Gulf Coast, and there is a chance the damage can be limited by setting some of the oil ablaze.

Obama’s claim that oil rigs did not cause any spills during Hurricane Katrina is simply false, as the Wonk Room reported in June, 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other conservatives made the same false claim:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs. [MMS, 1/22/07]

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.” [MMS, 5/1/06]

On April 23, three days after the rig caught fire, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama’s support for offshore drilling was unchanged.

The great debate over the scheduling of comprehensive immigration reform versus clean energy and climate legislation has engulfed Washington. Lost in that frenzy is the need for Congress to do both.  John D. Podesta, CAPAF President and CEO explains why in this repost.

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As the Senate dithers on clean energy reform, every branch of the government “” Congress, the Obama administration, and the courts “” is investigating the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana that has killed 11 workers and left three in critical condition.  Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room repost.

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At a press conference today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he expected this would be the “first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast.” He said America was leading “a clean energy revolution that is reshaping our future” and that “Cape Wind is the opening of a new chapter in that future.”

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I am moving this to the top for use during my presentation.

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