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Is the BP oil spill Obama’s Katrina?
Published: 05 June, 2010, 01:19
Edited: 10 June, 2010, 13:12
US President Barack Obama speaks about the oil spill following the BP Deepwater Horizon accident during a briefing with officials at the Tarmac Field House at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Louisiana, June 4, 2010
(24.8Mb) embed videoTAGS: Oil, Ecology, Accident, Obama, USA
A month after a BP oil rig explosion led to crude oil spilling directly into the Gulf of Mexico, many are becoming increasingly angry with the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis.
Criticism of US President Barack Obama and his administration is high. Many believe Obama has not visited the region enough, has not done enough to address public anger over the lack of accountability on the part of BP and some are even calling the spill Obama’s Katrina.
“Where have you [Obama] been? The response of this has been inadequate,” said J.P. Freire, the associate editor of commentary with the Washington Examiner.
The American public is angry both at BP and Obama.
“This man [Obama] is not playing the part of the ‘Feeler-in-chief, he’s not expressing enough of the outrage the American public feels,” said Freire.
Freire said that BP ought to be held accountable and that new reforms are needed to prevent similar crisis in the future. While BP is certainly at fault, Obama is likely to be blamed and suffer politically due to the increasing amount of time it is taking him to get his message out and solve the problem.
“It’s going to last when people say why are you taking so long with this sort of thing. That can be a refrain that comes up throughout the rest of his presidency,” said Freire.
Conservatives in America have been strong critics of Obama’s handling of the issue, yet they continue to oppose further government regulations, reforms and policy changes to solve the problem.
“BP has this oil lease, has a seabed lease from the federal government. So, it’s automatically a federal issue which means that it’s the federal government’s responsibility to deal with this well. So, conservatives being upset about how the federal response is not good is entirely consistent with that view,” said Freire.
However, conservatives have been continually critical of a government decision to halt oil drilling at about 30 other oil rig locations.
Freire argues that there is no need to freeze the drilling at other sites simply because of the PB spill, stating that the other sites are being inspected more diligently now and should be able to continue operations.
“I would not say that the best thing to do would be to halt all oil production entirely. Because, again, this has only happened once in 40 years,” said Freire.
Off-shore drilling should continue, but needs to be more heavily regulated to ensure such disasters do not occur in the future, said Freire.
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Several hundred miles of beach have been covered with oil for weeks now and the federal government has done nothing to clean it up. Under the law (33 U.S.C. 1321(c)), "The President shall, in accordance with the National Contingency Plan and any appropriate Area Contingency Plan, ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge, and mitigation or prevention of a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance - (i) into or on the navigable waters; ... ..." Now how hard is it to clean up oil on a beach? Citizens are already taking matters into their own hands. If Obama would just send half of the flunkies he has strewing rose petals in his path down to the Gulf with some shovels and trash bags, there would be a lot more clean beaches and less dead wildlife. But he would rather milk this crisis to advance his agenda. Its time now for him to man up and execute the duties of his office, or resign.
BP is the main responsible for the cleanup cost of this oil spilling in what may end the worst environmental case in US history now. So far what we could consider as one of the largest distraction in the environment. Currently not many individuals have heard about the Lakeview Gusher of 1910. The oil leak in 1910 released some 378 million gallons of oil, making it the worst ever in history. It is estimated that around 122 million gallons have come from the BP oil leak, even though nobody know for particular that true amount. Interestingly though, they are not the worst oil spill in history, yet; and our government or BP is heading to need a cash advance to finance the cleanup of this project.