IxToc I Oil Spill 1979

A disturbing story about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill published on June 8, 2010 emerged but you don't see it touted in the mainstream press.

Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.

U.S. ships are being outfitted this week with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.

At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?

A reader reminded me of a story about a similar oil spill that happened in 1979 in the Gulf of Mexico but on the Mexican side, not the U.S.

Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135-F in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (160 ft) deep. On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting in the third largest oil spill and the second largest accidental spill in history.

Despite over 3.3 million barrels of oil ending up in the environment after the cleanup, the beach fauna or beach populations were back to where they were before the spill within two to three years. After 6 years, it was difficult to find any evidence of oil. Today, after more than 30 years, there is little sign of the oil spill.

So why did it take so long for Alaska to get cleaned up? Better yet why aren't Congressmen Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney asking for an investigation why our government turned down help for the worst oil spill in the history of the planet.

Kanjorski Amendment- Much About Nothing

Paul Kanjorski has been making headlines lately over his amendment to the Wall Street Reform Bill. Click here to read its provisions.

The particular section that is the red herring in this piece of legislation is Section 1105 (h)

(h) JUDICIAL REVIEW.—For any plan required under this section, a financial company subject to stricter prudential standards may, not later than 30 days after receipt of the Council’s notice under subsection (e)(5), bring an action in the United States district court for the judicial district in which the home office of such company is located, or in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, for an order requiring that the requirement for a mitigatory action be rescinded. Judicial review under this section shall be limited to the imposition of a mitigatory action. In reviewing the Council’s imposition of a mitigatory action, the court shall rescind or dismiss only those mitigatory actions it finds to be imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

Forget all the hubbub. It means they can haul the government into court. Did you ever hear this joke?

My wife walked into the den & asked "Whats on the tv?" I replied "Dust". And that's how the fight started.....

Well item (h) .....And that's how the fight started.

To sum up the Kanjorski amendment it does talk about breaking up companies but there would have to be substantial time before that happens due to the considerations that must be met in Section 1105 Items (a) through (d). Item (e) defines the due process owed to the companies and what steps including items (f) and (g) that would be taken including a review by the Treasury Secretary. However, as I stated item (h) allows the companies to haul the government into court to prevent the government from implementing the plan. When was the last time you saw an expedited process in court involving $100 billion companies?

Define this verbage/garbage in Section 1105(a)-poses a grave threat to the financial stability or economy of the United States, the Council shall require the company to undertake 1 or more mitigatory actions described in subsection (d). Who determines the grave threat? When is that threshold crossed? The Council...I thought BP was a grave threat to the Gulf...how is the government doing so far managing that mess.

Didn't Kanjorski talk about a money market run on the banks that happened within hours??? Didn't he say the world economy would collapse?

On Thursday at about 11 o'clock in the morning the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of, uh, money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550-billion was being drawn out in in a matter of an hour or two...We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close down the operation, to close down the money accounts. ... If they had not done that, in their estimation, by 2 PM that afternoon $5.5-trillion would have been withdrawn and would have collapsed the U.S. economy and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed

How in the world is this amendment ever going to stop that from happening?
Why is it so easy to pick apart his veiled actions? Is it because they were never meant to address a complicated problem?