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[quote]The Gulf oil spill is indeed a Hurricane Katrina-sized public relations disaster for someone. But that someone may be BP, not President Obama.

mericans are not happy with the way Obama and the federal government have reacted to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, according to polls. A just-out USA Today/Gallup survey, for instance, finds 53 percent of respondents rate Obama’s response to the oil spill as “poorâ€

Hopefully they'll earn even more ire.

ROBERT, La. - BP said Saturday that its "top kill" bid to plug the worst oil spill in U.S. history wasn't working and that it would try another approach next.

"We have not been able to stop the flow," BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told reporters. "We have made the decision to move onto the next option."

"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles added. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."

A live feed of the leak showed preparations Saturday for BP's next step. An underwater robot gripped a saw near the bent and leaking pipe, or riser, atop a failed blowout preventer. BP aims to slice off the pipe and place a cap and seal over the opening. The idea is to connect that to a new riser from the drillship above, with the hopes of capturing oil and natural gas.

That operation is known as the lower marine riser package, and Suttles confirmed that BP had been preparing for that step "all along."

"We haven't done it to this date because we needed the diagnostic data to make sure we didn't make the situation worse," Suttles said. The new capture approach follows two earlier failed attempts to siphon the oil via a large containment chamber and a smaller "top hat" system.

The new attempt would take four to seven days to complete, Suttles said.

"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan.

Suttles added that BP was also preparing to place a working blowout preventer on top of the failed one if the cap option fizzles.

Drilling continues on one of two planned relief wells intended to intercept the leaking well and plug it far beneath the seabed. BP expects the first well to be finished by late July or early August.

BP has said previously the company was "planning in parallel," or getting ready for other options while working on the top kill — the injection of heavy fluid and materials to plug the well.

The disaster entered its 40th day on Saturday.

Word that the top-kill had failed hit hard in the fishing community of Venice, La., near where oil first made landfall in large quanities almost two weeks ago.

"Everybody's starting to realize this summer's lost. And our whole lifestyle might be lost," said Michael Ballay, the 59-year-old manager of the Cypress Cove Marina.

You would think anyone who takes the Presidency would know the value of appearing to take 'decisive action' and 'leading from the front' and so on and within a day of the catastrophe in question. While it's good that Obama isn't suffering too badly in the polls, I don't know why he wouldn't respond quicker to it - even if its just a pointless symbolic 'response'. Because pointless symbolism matters to people who don't understand who they should blame.

Though at least it sounds like BP is getting the majority of the blame for it. It would be nice to see some criminal charges being made from this debacle. (there's a symbol that actually has a point - making an example out of BP, or at least their board of executives)

Stofsk wrote:You would think anyone who takes the Presidency would know the value of appearing to take 'decisive action' and 'leading from the front' and so on and within a day of the catastrophe in question. While it's good that Obama isn't suffering too badly in the polls, I don't know why he wouldn't respond quicker to it - even if its just a pointless symbolic 'response'.

I think this is purely because of the political climate here.

The current crop of Republicans are just about baying into the kennels for our current POTUS' blood, politically speaking - they're already talking about ways to impeach Obama, and waiting for the opportunity. A single mis-step on his part, including "taking decisive action" would be capitalized on so fast it would make your head spin. I'm kind of amazed he's gone on this long already without one.

Essentially, the POTUS is walking a political tightrope with a crowd of jackasses eagerly shaking one of the ends.

A Lousiana Rep put forth a bill to remove the 80~million dollar cap on oil spill liabilities for oil companies.

GOP about went apeshit. Same with one merely bumping it into the billions.

Why? It'd hurt small offshore drilling companies. How many Mom And Pop platforms are there?

Stofsk wrote:You would think anyone who takes the Presidency would know the value of appearing to take 'decisive action' and 'leading from the front' and so on and within a day of the catastrophe in question. While it's good that Obama isn't suffering too badly in the polls, I don't know why he wouldn't respond quicker to it - even if its just a pointless symbolic 'response'. Because pointless symbolism matters to people who don't understand who they should blame.

Though at least it sounds like BP is getting the majority of the blame for it. It would be nice to see some criminal charges being made from this debacle. (there's a symbol that actually has a point - making an example out of BP, or at least their board of executives)

Because there are a fuck-ton huge number of people in this country who are extremely uneasy about how big our government is getting. Hell, I'm uneasy about it, but I see it as a necessary evil. If Obama went in with "decisive action" and "leading from the front" on a matter like this that isn't directly and completely mandated to the government (like Katrina was) people would have been screaming that government is too big.

A second reason is that Obama knew that this was going to be bad, really really bad, and that chances of anything working to stop it for several months was going to be very small. So he did the politically smart thing, he didn't attach his name directly to it. He gave it some time so BP's name would get the public's attention and draw all their ire so that the worst that could be said about him was "he should have acted a little faster"

Honestly, the mess WAS BP's issue, BP's fault, and their name HAS to be attached to it, like the Exxon Valdiz spill will ALWAYS be Exxon's burden to bear.

Obama did the smart move on that end.

The only concrete things I've heard for the president to do are:

1) DEPLOY THE MILITARY! Why? Then it dissolves into 'Well, they have the best command and control around.'. What they would do with this to solve the problem is never explored.

2) INSUFFICIENTLY ENRAGED. Apparently, if you don't hulk out, you're Spock.

SirNitram wrote:2) INSUFFICIENTLY ENRAGED. Apparently, if you don't hulk out, you're Spock.

Shit, I'd rather have Spock. At least he'd have Uhura to check his ass.

Personally I wish the president would use this crisis to push hard for alternative energy, conservation, and climate change legislation - make it clear that these events are avoidable. I'm getting used to disappointment with this administration though, so I'm not expecting anything.

2) INSUFFICIENTLY ENRAGED. Apparently, if you don't hulk out, you're Spock.

I slightly disagree in that a visibly angry president might validate the anger felt by people affected, thus making real change slightly more likely.

Derek Thunder wrote:Personally I wish the president would use this crisis to push hard for alternative energy, conservation, and climate change legislation - make it clear that these events are avoidable. I'm getting used to disappointment with this administration though, so I'm not expecting anything.

Here are my thoughts on the matter - and mind you, there are unfounded suppositions here.

I think Obama purposefully made his energy policy include offshore oil drilling and the like due to the political calculus; the fact that the oil industry hasn't been properly regulated in about 8 years just set the stage properly to take advantage of something like this, should it have the misfortune to occur.

What this means is that because of what happened, Obama can appear to be above the fray as before, eventually "bowing" to public opinion to take a harsher stance on oil drilling.

I'll wait for the next few months to see if I'm right, but it could be an interesting glimpse into how he thinks if I am.

I'll be rather frank and honest, as a person who has spent the past 8 years or so in this industry.

What happened on Deepwater Horizon is NOT the standard of how the drilling industry is run. On land and inland barge rigs we have to deal with so much in the way of regulations, safety procedures, government surprise inspections (both state AND federal), plus stringent rules on how we have to leave the site after drilling and production operations occur, that we can't let anything slip.

when you get into the deep water of the GoM? That falls strictly on the MMS a Federal Government agency that is in the pockets of several of the larger companies, including BP. BP is well known to Cowboy out everything they can out int he Gulf, they have a horrible track record for safety out there, and this is the end result of a horribly mismanaged Federal Agency allowing one of their pet companies go off and do what they want in flaunting safety regulations.

I've been on rigs in the GoM for most large oil companies, and alot of the smaller ones (EXCEPT for BP - I've told my office I refuse to work on any job they are involved in), and most of the operational rigs still take every single step and precaution they can to avoid a accident happening.

The Deepwater Horizon was a series of dominoes set up along time ago, that finally came to rest.

Should we be looking for alternative energy? Yes, we definitely should, it should be apart of any energy policy of every government in the globe - but we can't do that while cutting off Oil in the meantime.

Dark Silver wrote:Should we be looking for alternative energy? Yes, we definitely should, it should be apart of any energy policy of every government in the globe - but we can't do that while cutting off Oil in the meantime.

And that's the rest of the problem - too many products and parts of our daily life are based on oil or petroleum products - plastic being a big one that comes to mind.

We need to wean ourselves off of or find alternatives for all of the things oil has brought about, not just oil as fuel by itself.