No wonder finger-pointing Obama wants oil spill finger-pointing to stop; Update: Interior Dept. official resigns
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You remember that old saying: When you point a finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
Well, here are a few photos that certainly helps explain why the finger pointer-in-chief doesn’t want anymore finger-pointing over the Transocean Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill:
The man on the left in the top picture is one of President Obama’s Department of Interior officials. He’s handing a national safety award to a Transocean official. The men in the second picture, posing with their district U.S. Department of the Interior’s Mineral Management Service (MMS) safety award, work for the Deepwater Horizon rig.
And here’s an image of the Safety Award letter from the Obama administration:
Note: “The SAFE Program, established in 1983, recognizes companies that expend extra effort to enhance safety, conduct their operations in a manner that adheres to all regulatory requirements, and employ trained and motivated personnel.”
I dug up the photos after reading the Associated Press report on the Obama Interior Department/MMS officials’ lack of candor about its federal inspections at Deepwater Horizon:
The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.
In fact, the agency’s inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
…The AP sought to find out how many times government safety inspectors visited the Deepwater Horizon, and what they found. In response, MMS officials offered a changing series of numbers. The MMS has had long-standing issues with its data management.
At first, officials said 83 inspections had been performed since the rig arrived in the Gulf 104 months ago, in September 2001. While being questioned about the once-per-month claim, the officials subsequently revised the total up to 88 inspections. The number of more recent inspections also changed — from 26 to 48 in the 64 months since January 2005.
No explanation was given for the upward revisions. AP granted the officials anonymity because without that condition, communications staff at the Interior Department, which oversees MMS, would not have let them talk.
More non-transparency from the Most Transparent Administration in History Ever:
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by AP, the agency has released copies of only three inspection reports — those conducted in January, February and April. According to the documents, inspectors spent two hours or less each time they visited the massive rig. Some information appeared to be “whited out,” without explanation.
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Update: Chris Oynes, the MMS official in the top photo, has resigned.
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Barry “Copperfield” Soetoro can make anything disappear….aided by the state run media, muslims, and liberals worldwide.
Sounds like a “Lunch Break” to me. And why the f can’t we see what they had for lunch? Could it be that it was not “Heart Healthy”?
Well, who would have thought, a Federal agency rubber stamping safety inspections. The cynic in me wonders if there was money exchanged for that rubber stamp. then again, after watching an elderly, technically blind motorist being coached to coast through the eye test at the DMV a couple years ago, maybe not.
Transparency in O-bow-moa’s regime is like looking at your neighbors through a concrete wall.
And the beat goes on.
I’m sorry…I just can’t stop laughing.
Being green has it’s advantages.
More reports are being “found” after the fact. What a surprise! I’m shocked, shocked to find that non-compliance is going on in here!
I wish we could fire these bureaucrats for incompetence. I would ask that we pass a law making any federal worker criminally liable for not doing their job, but a law is useless if it is not enforced (see immigration debacle).
I hate to say this, but Obama actually did mention that the MMS had too cozy of a relationship with the oil industry often rellying on their assurances that everything was ok. Now the article linked says that Obama mentioned the permitting process specifically, but I would have to believe that part of that would be the inspections too, but I could be wrong.
This is still a serious issue and we all know that if this had happened under Bush’s watch the press would be all over it. I think there needs to be more investigation into this before we decide that Obama is actually trying to hide something this time (though I can understand why we all would think he is hiding something with his track record so far).
dittos happy scrapper!!!
Continuing the Casablanca theme:
[as he goes to hand MMS chief a bribe]
Transocean official: Sir… may I?
MMS: Oh no! Not here please! Come to my office tomorrow morning. We’ll do everything businesslike.
Transocean: We’ll be there at six!
MMS: I’ll be there at ten.
Well no wonder! The administration has spent so much time during the past month lambasting GE for paying/owing no taxes on its sizable amount of overseas profits and working to hold them as equally accountable as Halliburton for paying their “fair-share” of taxes, they just didn’t have time for such minor housekeeping details as maintaining inspection timetables!
SARC/
It’s those darn chickens coming home to roost. Bho should have learned ALL about that from his church of 20 years. There is going to be an avalanche of consequences headed his way as a result of his back alley deals.
Is that racist???
Excuse me, but…huh?? So he said the relationship was “too cozy”. How is that related to the fact that Obama’s administration did an inspection and deemed the rig safe? AND they gave a safety award for that rig. Sorry…the buck stops with Obama and he needs to accept the blame! But will he? Not likely.
To quote a famous person…”More cheese, gromit!”
~Rogue Cheddar~
No. If they would have said, “blacked out”, it would have been racist. LOL
If BHO tries to “blame Bush” can we say “pot calling the kettle black” or is THAT racist?!?
Just trying to keep my PC current!
Anyone else not surprised?We have nearly 3 more years to be shocked by lies.
What you do not see in the first picture is the note taped to the back of the plaque that reads:
I am pleased to see that an organization that contributed so generously to my recent campaign for Hope and Change is receiving this coveted award. Companies that understand our national priorities and direct their assets and energy in support of them deserve to be rewarded both now and in the future.
Respectfully,
Barack H. Obama
I have read that our Dear Leader is going to have a hissy-fit press conference tomorrow (complete with pointing fingers, regal chin up pose, and pursed lips, reading from his teleprompters) ripping into BP to deflect any involvement from his grand poobah adminstration. I hope Jake Tapper and Major Garret are on their toes…even scathing remarks from the Helen Thomas troll will be pure gafftastic.
regal chin up pose?…I thought that was the “suicide by drowning in a rainstorm” pose. I didn’t think anyone had mastered a way to stick their nose higher in the air than a Frenchman, but I was mistaken.
At this point, I doubt any of us would be shocked by lies eminating from this administration. By now, lies are what we expect.
If we suddenly started getting the truth from TEH WON’s admin, that would be shocking and unexpected.
In a related story, the Obummer administration just declared the Titanic to be “Unsinkable”.
Liberals are congenitally incapable of understanding the very “Nature” they profess to love so much.
In actual Nature (as oppossed to Liberal Pipedream Nature), crap happens no matter how many laws you pass or regulations you compose.
Liberals believe that the immutable trade-offs of Nature can be exchanged for their grand view of Utopian Perfection.
But Nature (no matter how deep the crush L’il Libbies have on her) always wins.
Which is why Liberals, in their warped communal view of the world, are nearly always more miserable than Conservatives.
I think that pose belongs to H. Waxman!! Except he doesn’t even have to tilt his head to drown in a rainstorm.
Obama has been rehearsing his “regal” pose for many years and doesn’t realize how stupid it looks. What a dork.
To be fair, that safety award letter is for Jan1-Dec31 of 2008, before Obama took office.
I am not making excuses for the ineptness of this administration. Obama needs to actually take responsibility for the actions of administration, which includes the MMS. What I am saying is that he pointed out that there does seem to be a problem (which is a first for him to actually point out that there is a problem where one actually exists). He is saying that the relationship between the MMS, which does the inspections, and the companies being inspected is too cozy, so he acknowledges that a problem exists. The question is will he actually do anything about it or will he just continue to point to others to blame…I am guessing it will be a more of the typical empty rhetoric.
Which means that Obama was aware that there was a problem, what did he do about it?
In fact, this is one aspect of a problem no one has figured out how to solve except temporarily, either a regulatory agency gets too cosy with the industry it’s supposed to regulate, or it gets too hostile. No one has figured out how to sustain the correct balance.
No big surprise, the Government does not have a clue about these high tech oil rigs or how to run them.
They just go through the motions and continue to collect their fees and kickbacks right on schedule.
The fact of the matter if these agencies were abolished nothing would change for the worst. In fact, maybe the rigs would be safer with the savings from payoffs.
No less of an expert than Ted Turner has graced the world with his opinions about how to produce energy. Ted was being interviewed on his own CNN, and the female “journalist,” who couldn’t have groveled more than (insert your own funny/sexual/sarcastic/twisted fantasy/graphic comment here) was so impressed when TT said that maybe God was fed up with us making a mess of the planet, & these are happening as a warning. According to TT, that’s why the BP explosion happened, as well as a recent mine disaster in China, and the same event in W.Va a few months ago. Of course, TT didn’t mention that in the case of the mine disasters, safety procedures were recklessly ignored. And China leads the world in miner deaths for that very reason. TT offers that we will be okey-dokey if we just get behind wind & solar. Then he went waaaaaay out on a limb & suggested nuclear power. The journalist didn’t know whether to change her Underalls or wind her watch. His opinions are why he is called The Mouth of the South, and not the Brain of the South. Money can make an ugly man attractive, but it will never buy him smarts.
Mine safety – check
Oil drilling rig safety – check
Bees at the White House – stop the presses!
I hate to give credit to AP, but good job digging. I’m sure they were motivated by a hatred of “Big Oil” more than simply fact-finding, but hey…
Kermit: Hey Obowmao, I told you it ain’t easy being green!
Yes, but was she ready to take responsibility for her cleavage-induced earthquake?
This from a man who owns half of the best of New Mexico and a HUGE amount of acreage in Wyoming and Montana. PLUS, 50,000 head of bison, mostly domesticated, for PEOPLE TO EAT (GASP!) BISON BURGERS!.
AlohaGuy: I have it on unimpeachable authority that earthquakes are not caused by female celebs with Mt. Rushmore sized cleaveages, but by the use of our military’s earthquake bomb. I know it’s true ‘cuz I read it on the internet. Of course, today’s thread about the new Miss America contains a comment that an iman in Iran warns pre-marital sex is a cause of earthquakes. That statement leads to all sorts of thoughts that could be construed to be neanderthal, cretinous, juvenile, & just down right crude by some. But I do have to wonder; just what kind of sex Iranians have that cause such disasters? Maybe it’s true that “the earth moves!”
If you were liberal, you would have your PC set for automatic updates with auto delete of old update.
What was PC yesterday may not be PC today.
Interesting. So the nitwit who belittled practicing Christians by asking them if they were Jesus-freaks acknowledges God?
…or just when it suits his raving?
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I’m not sure how inspectors can check out a blowout “preventor” a mile under the ocean surface after it has been installed. And I wonder how much sudden pressure increases might occur and make methane gas leak around the well pipe and come to the surface and cause an explosion.
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There are still a lot of unanswered questions on what went wrong, and what needs to be improved. And there are hundreds of other wells that may have similar problems.
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The saying in the missile business is that quality is not like paint. You can’t put it on after the initial design, construction, and testing are over. Quality has to go in from day one–and after the fact inspections do not improve things much.
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John Bibb
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I’d still like to know the analysis of the order-of-magnitude more massive oil spill off Mexico in the 80s. What happpened with all that oil? Hard to exploit a crisis when it does not cause a real crisis. Dems in total confused mode.
fyi Hoynes was a Bush appointee.