More stuck on stupid: EPA vs. the Dutch
Radical enviro-nitwittery plus bureaucratic incompetence = devastating delay.
This is just appalling (via the Examiner via Moonbattery, hat tip: Dan Collins). Note the bolded last paragraph:
The U.S. Government has apparently reconsidered a Dutch offer to supply 4 oil skimmers. These are large arms that are attached to oil tankers that pump oil and water from the surface of the ocean into the tanker. Water pumped into the tanker will settle to the bottom of the tanker and is then pumped back into the ocean to make room for more oil. Each system will collect 5,000 tons of oil each day.
One ton of oil is about 7.3 barrels. 5,000 tons per day is 36,500 barrels per day. 4 skimmers have a capacity of 146,000 barrels per day. That is much greater than the high end estimate of the leak. The skimmers work best in calm water, which is the usual condition this time of year in the gulf.
These systems were developed by the Dutch as a safety system in case of oil spills from either wells or tankers. The Dutch have off shore oil development and also import oil in tankers. Their economy, just like ours, runs on oil. They understand that the production and use of oil has dangers and they wanted to be ready to cope with problems like spills. The Dutch system has been used successfully in Europe.
The Dutch offered to fly their skimmer arm systems to the Gulf 3 days after the oil spill started. The offer was apparently turned down because EPA regulations do not allow water with oil to be pumped back into the ocean. If all the oily water was retained in the tanker, the capacity of the system would be greatly diminished because most of what is pumped into the tanker is sea water.
Fact: It took over 50 days to get an EPA waiver to bring Dutch skimmers into action.
***
In other news, the EPA is trying to reassure Americans that the massive cap-and-tax energy hikes won’t hurt them all.
Fat chance.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
Jaczko the Jerk: Harry Reid’s sexist crony gets the boot
May 23, 2012 05:15 AM by Michelle Malkin
31 CommentsWhite House lied, jobs died
May 11, 2012 09:49 AM by Michelle Malkin
102 CommentsDrilling moratorium probe update: Green stonewallers caught red-handed
May 10, 2012 04:37 PM by Michelle Malkin
44 CommentsHillary Clinton convinces China to allow dissident and family to accompany her back to the US join ‘Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’
May 5, 2012 11:17 AM by Doug Powers
34 Comments
Tens of thousands to fly to Rio to discuss how to limit greenhouse gas emissions
May 3, 2012 07:03 PM by Doug Powers
51 Comments
Obama energy solutions: Chicken crap is the new algae
April 30, 2012 01:13 PM by Michelle Malkin
145 Comments
EPA’s “Crucify them” guy throws himself under the bus
April 30, 2012 12:41 PM by Michelle Malkin
60 Comments
Fox Sports baseball analyst does Al Gore a solid during MLB broadcast
April 29, 2012 10:49 AM by Doug Powers
61 Comments
Categories: Enviro-nitwits
JustOneMinute
» Mama Also Said There Be Days Like ThisPundit & Pundette
» Patterico's chilling account of harassment
I am very glad the US government under the able leadership of
Jimmy Carter, Jr., er, Barack Obama, has studied this issue from all sides. I was afraid they would jump into something without properly considering it…Over-educated bureaucratic blue-ribbon idiots rock! …No, I mean hand me a rock, I see some over-educated bureaucratic blue-ribbon idiots… (shamelessly stolen from whoever wrote the other day “Barbara Boxer rocks”)
As I said elsewhere… this administration is so locked into doing what is Perfect, that they don’t do what is workable.
Same with energy policy… same with Healthcare… they look for a philisophical perfection, while doing MORE damage than if they had just left it alone.
How about vinegar? Can we add oil and vinegar to our tossed salad?
Thanks for exposing this, Michelle. I had seen it mentioned a few days ago but never in the media (big surprise) and was amazed that help was offered to the US and denied.
However, I think Dear Leader’s thin skin is about to get raw from his former cheerleaders on MSNBC, and from the LA Times story today that was amazing in criticism of him (link is on Drudge). Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back from his walking on water and the seas receding.
Obowmao to Rahm: What if I launched a couple of cruise missiles at some aspirin factories in Iraq, that should draw some attention away from this mess, wouldn’tyou say?
Rahm: Couldn’t hurt! Besides, it’s not like you had sex with an intern!
So this is what a federal cluster-you-know-what looks like. My guess it’s a preview of what government rationed health care will look like.
Never send a Community Organizer to do a REAL leader’s job!
Ya know, there are various levels of stupidity on a bureaucratic hierarchy. This has to be near the top, and that is saying something since we are talking about government bureaucracy here.
If we had allowed those skimmers here right away (to hell with the Jones Act) we would not be in the current mess. Thank you Obama and the wonderful people heading up the EPA.
My God! These people are stupid.
It is turf and Government turf wars at its best – it is also decision making skils at its worst, Civil Service employees will never make a decision, they will hand it off, hand it off hand it off — this is what tax payers are paying for, it is a joke and always was a joke. just think of The Post office on a grand scale.
Federal Government = criminally incompetent entity
We are crazy if we don’t start deconstructing this nightmare, if and when we get the chance. It’s got to be done. The government has to be cut down and rebuilt to Constitutional specifications. And no larger than admin expenses for a business: 15%.
So these idiots thought it would be better to leave 100% of the oil in the water than to skim off a little less than 100% of it. Unbelievable!
These are the same idiots who want to run our healthcare system. I can see it now: “Your request for surgery is denied because there is only a 90% chance of success. Without the surgery, there is a 100% chance of death, but that won’t be our fault.”
I’m telling you; Jackson was at the manicurist.
RedDog ~ Agree 100%
However, w/ 50% + on welfare, cutting those entitlement programs is going to be an ugly nightmare. Just imagine telling a 4th generation welfare mamma w/ 5 kids (from different daddies) that her check isn’t coming.
Cloward/Pivian’s plan is rapidly approaching maturity. There will be rioting in the streets when those entitlements are cut.
Brace yourself!
Yeah, Hannity was talking about this recently. Monday I think. It’s pretty remarkable that Obama would be out there, long with his mouth pieces, saying they are doing everything possible to deal with this…. and then you read and hear about this fiasco.
Obama should be fired for incompetence. Those skimmers should have been here when the Dutch said they could get them here… not a second later…. doing the work they were designed to do.
The Dutch also say if I recall correctly that they could get the surface of the Gulf cleaned up in 1 month. I believe are talking about skimmable oil as sea. Not shoreline.
But the sooner that oil is cleaned up, the less likely it will be for it to wash up on a beach or marsh.
Obama’s estimate, I think it was his, was 9 months for ocean clean up.
Epic Fail.
How “News” Gets Spun in the Obama White House.
Axelrod: Good news Mr. President. A new Wall Street Journal poll indicates that 99.9% of Americans no longer believe Jimmy Carter is the worst president in US history.
Obambi: Well, that is good news. Let’s get another double mocha, peppermint, half-caf, latte and then I go look for some more BP butt to kick. Oh, and I want extra sprinkles on mine this time. Make sure Rahm gets extra sprinkles…
Jimmy Carter must be laughing his butt off…
the Dutch are good at what they do.
That’s why they have a saying there:
“G-d made the world, but the Dutch made Holland!”
Can someone tell me again why democrats believe that Big Oil, Big Wallstreet, and Big Business are always bad but Big Government is always good?
Is this not the most colossally stupid logic you have ever heard??????
EPA doesn’t want oily water to get back into the sea. Where in the HELL do they think it came from in the first place???? And where will ALL the oil float since their decision is to do NOTHING.
Incompetent bureaucracies like EPA need to be defunded and shut down. There are better ways to really protect the environment than have these clowns making decisions like this.
So basically if I scooped up a pail of oily water from the ocean and then threw it all back in – I could be arrested for violating an EPA regulation?
These people at the EPA are OUT OF THEIR MINDS!
50 DAYS???!!!!??? If I headed the EPA I would have ordered a waiver in about, ohhh, 10 seconds, (and FIRED whoever wrote the rule without considering this sensible technique).
And now government is going to run my health care too? NO FRIGGIN WAY!
Where it not for Jim McGreevey, Lisa Jackson might possibly be the MOST incompetent, radical hack every to work for the State of NJ.
How can they blame Bush for this???
#18 – Ah yes, the home of the International Court of Justice.
“The Dutch are scum.” – Skwisgaar Skwigelf
Because THEY ARE big government. It’s what makes them rich and grants them power, yet also makes certain they are considered “exceptions” to any of the really inconvenient regulations imposed on the rest of us.
Easy… preface any statement of a problem with the phrase…
“Because of the last 8 years….”
We need to get this Lisa Jackson FIRED and right now. Obama needs to be SHAMED into it. There’s just no excuse for putting people like her at the helm of any federal agency.
Because they aren’t competent enough to make anywhere but in Big Government.
Gee…do I look like I’m not surprised? Since day one of Obeyme’s swearing in, he has committed himself to the destruction of our country. He purposefully appoints czars who have the same commitment.
Ever wonder how this whole situation would be playing if it hadn’t been BP’s fault? What if the NORKs had hit that well with a torpedo? How would he solve that situation? The blame is obvious and there’d be no chance of them cleaning it up.
What’s needed now is not a Federal Agency or the Community Organizer. We need a Captain Kirk.
This is no time to wait around and get permission. Get it done and ask for forgiveness later.
I knew from the git-go that this was the problem. It is one of the stupidities of our environmental regulatory system. Once the oil is picked up from the water, nothing can be discharged until it has be cleaned cleaner-than-clean. So, instead of removing 99% of the oil, all of the oil is left in the water, because there does not exist a technology that is able to remove the last 1%.
This is true of Kevin Costner’s centrifugal device, as well. That thing will remove a lot of the oil, but it discharges the still-not-quite-perfectly-clean water back into the ocean. That is simply not acceptable, under our rules.
Vulcans never bluff…
Some fools start their defense for Obambi with the statement; “He inherited this mess” as witnessed last night, post-speech, with Frank Luntz’s group on Hannity. Black female, front row said that about this Gulf Oil fiasco. SO, we need to see that it doesn’t happen again by naming it for OBambi. Do we like the name “O’Hole” or maybe “O’Well” for the well itself? Any ideas?
EPA Nazi Bastards!
And if Obama instructed Jackson to not waive the idiotically short sighted EPA rule then that’s grounds for IMPEACHMENT.
If he purposefully turned down the Dutch solution in order to turn the spill into an ecological disaster to suit his political agenda – he shouldn’t just be impeached – it makes him a TERRORIST and he should go to GITMO!
“Man made disaster” and Obama is da man!
What is becoming clear is the failure of the Obama EPA.
Obama has appointed enviromental extremists in and around the EPA. These extremists have been in ‘paralyses by analyses’ from day one. The EPA has failed at every turn. From never bothering to determine the scale of the leak, rejected help both local and foreign, and even to the point of prohibiting others from acting, the EPA has demonstrated incompetance.
Obama needs to remove many, and replace some of these people. Since NONE of the failures of these people are even being mentioned, they will be handed an Obama pass. There will be historians that will explain the utter failures of the Obama EPA, but that will not help us now!
Stupid waiver. I just lost 7 weeks of work designing a water decontamination unit that fits right under Dutch skimmer ships. Who’s gonna pay for my loss???
The sad thing is that by the time that the skimmers get on station and operational, most of the oil will have weathered to the point that it’ll be too thick and gooey to get sucked up by these skimmers. Seriously, my this time next month, most of the oil will have evaporated, sunk, or washed ashore. The amount of oil washing ashore is very small despite the media hoopla. The Houston Chronicle has been posting daily plots of the slick and where it is washing ashore and the washed ashore oil has not been wide spread.
My heart bleeds for you!
These people are despicable. They are arrogant, brainless, nefarious, and flat out stupid. Moreover, just think, these are the “best” of the Socialist Democrat Workers Party!
We are so screwed.
NOTHING about this administration should be trusted.
All this points out why a competent President would have set up a war room at the gulf where decision are made and coordinated on the spot. You bring in the best and brightest and over-rule the bureaucracy. But Obama never considered such a solution because he thinks like an ambulance chaser. “Who do I sue.” Who do I blame.” Who has the deep pockets.” How can I spin this in my favor.” Never would he think. “How can WE solve this problem.
Saw this. Even Luntz started defending Obama when another gentleman said that Obama should have been cleaning up the gulf. Too many people had bought the idea that Obama couldn’t have done anything to solve this problem. As this proves, much could have been done.
I can only assume these are the same “Dutch” that Sarah Palin mentioned on O’Reilly last night that had Greg Sargent at WaPo’s Plum Line blog employing sneer quotes.
When you see a car speeding down the street toward a child standing in that street, what do you do?
Do you say: “That driver is going too fast.”?
Do you run in the street, scoop up the child, and carry him to safety?
Obama seems to be doing the first. Solve imminent crisis first, then affix blame.
Meanwhile, over at PMSNBC, Olby, Tingles and Einstein/Feinman were ripping Dear Leader a new one.
Olbermann: “It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.”
Howard Fineman: “Obama should be acting like a “commander-in-chief.”
Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying Chu has a Nobel prize. “I’ll barf if he does it one more time.”
It’s just too sweet! Canabalism in Loony Land.
To be fair, I think they said “Let’s put a finger in that dike” and certain members of the administration had a cow.
This is great news. Get that skimmer there and clean up the mess now. Sounds like the leak won’t matter if they can skim it up afterwards.
Its great news for the gulf states but still buffoon news for the Buffoon in chief.
On June 16th, 2010 at 6:49 pm, AlohaGuy said:
To be fair, I think they said “Let’s put a finger in that dike” and certain members of the administration
had a cow.said “please?”Sorry, had to do it…
Actually he says, I am on top of this situation and will do everything in my power to make sure that children are safe. The people here caused this because they did not lower the speed limit to stop this kind of thing from happening. I had nothing to do with this and only inherited this problem from George Bush but I am going to fix it. I am going to ban all vehicular traffic on this street from now on.
Now lets have a beer and I am late for my free concert with whats left of the Beatles!
It’s time to get rid of the EPA. This is just another shining example of their incompetence.
If it was up to a Tea Party/Conservative government like Obama said would fail those Duch ships and other needed resources would be in place, local gov’t would be able to make decisions on their own and well, the POTUS would be actively involve in cutting thru the red tape. Almost forgot, we would be able to drill in easier places to access and clean up up should a spill occur.
And the next thing you hear is a squeal of tires and a thud as Obama got run over (a good Samaritan pulled the child to safety in the nick of time).
I do not think there is enough room in Obama’s world for shame….His narcissism is taking up too much room.
what minds?
It sort of brings a whole new meaning to “I’ll get right on that.”
Your government working for you.
The EPA is filled with radical Marxist lunatics and simply needs to be shut down.
How about the Swedish dude telling the press that he cares about “the small people.” It probably got messed up in translation. He probably used the either “peasants” or “peons” but his Euro-snob translator didn’t care enough to get it “just right” since it was only for the American press and we can’t read anyway…
We swedes are very concerned about midgets and dwarfs. It is apparently people like you who look down at them.
BTW – Isn’t a Dutch Skimmer something you use to make chocolate? Hey, if it works.
Reminds me of a song the frat guys used to sing at ye ol’ ivory towers…
God mad the Irish, He didn’t make much
But their a heluva lot better than the G** D*** Dutch!
Glorious, glorious
One keg a beer for the four uf us…etc etc.
I never sang it of course. Just listened and studied for my Calculus exams & such..
And leprechauns.
Never forget the leprechauns.
The EPA is a political organization.
Get rid of it and start over with common sense being the main theme.
America’s longest friendship has been with the Netherlands. Our own government could educate POTUS on this here if he’s capable of learning anything not totalitarian in nature. The American spirit is arguably more Dutch than British.
Holland’s techno heroes lending us a Deepwater Horizon hand is as natural as a first cousin arriving with food, warm clothes and a ride to the nearest motel moments after a tornado yanked your home off the foundations. But this affinity is lost on the historically clueless idiots who graduate from some of our pathetic universities of fraudulent learning. So I hereby declare a 100-year moratorium on the appointment, employment or election of any Harvard graduates (and other associated “Ivy League” spew who cannot publicly demonstrate a lick of common sense) for federal jobs, offices or elected positions.
Our historically clueless affirmative action POTUS with the mental faculties of a 14-year-old socialist débutante is the poster boy for this NO MORE IVY LEAGUE moratorium… save us, O-Be-Gone Hand-Waver!
In Norse mythology I don’t think the “little people” are called Leprechauns. Of course, I don’t think they are called Cajuns either…
So let me see if I have this right. The Dutch were initially turned down because if, for example, they remove 100 gallons of oil from the water the discharge back contains a much, much smaller amount of oil, thus violating half-assed govt. regulations? Geeeez. That sounds even worse than when I though the delay was all due to the Jones Act. If this is our leadership in action, we are freakin’ doomed. I am also amazed that long before now the dutch did not simply say “Screw it, you’re on your own.”
There was a good line from Apollo 13 “I want to talk to the guy that screwed on the bolt”. Setting up a ‘Blue Ribbon’ panel consisting of people that are 1) Global Warming advocates and 2) theorists/educators is well and good if you want to talk about a textbook classroom situation, not the real world. Where are the petroleum engineers, the roughnecks, the people who actually work in the oil patch? We have plenty of regulation and regulators now, the problem was that none were doing their job, period. That problem stretched back to the Clinton Administration and one can blame Clinton and Bush, but the fact remains, Obama pointed out the problem in his campaign speeches, so he wasn’t unaware, and the top officials were Obama appointees. To this day it is still unclear whether the head of the MMC resigned or was fired.
As we all know, the EPA is the most dangerous agency on earth, under Obama’s direction they have more power than the old KGB, and mortal peril to those who cross. Carol Browner is a person who to put it gently, has socialist connections, and is a die hard global warming advocate. To say that her agency is purposely delaying the clean up to advance their cap and trade agenda maybe unfair, but from my stand point it is either that or gross incompetence – either one in this scenario is criminal and should be prosecuted. We should have a leader in charge, not a consensus in chief. Perhaps all that was missing from the BP meeting yesterday was the beer? The $20B escrow fund was announced and the Anointed One was applauding himself for ‘the solution’, but it is just now coming out that this is $5B/Year over four years, and is it a commitment from BP or BP North America? As the Anointed One continues to attack and demonize BP (remember the Solinsky playbook, demonize others and be an angel yourself), their stock and corporate value is plummeting, soon to be classed as ‘junk’, but definitely a stock one may not consider investing in – where do they raise the investment capital to drill? If BP North America files bankruptcy next week, does BP pick up the tab? I bet BP has more and better lawyers then Eric Holder has and has already figured this out in the 57 days.
Those geniuses at EPA hard at work:
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is classifying milk as oil because it contains a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil.”
Joking?
OK, I looked it up… it’s real.
Holy cow!
(Sorry, wouldn’t resist!)
Big government just can’t stop becoming stupider.
IMHO, The EPA is not that stupid. It appears as though this administration has blocked all efforts to use resources that could have stopped the oil from reaching the shoreline.
“Never let a good crisis from going to waste” comes to mind. I believe the Obama administration has, by its inaction and its actions to block available resources, willfully manipulated this disaster for maximum damage in order to further its energy agenda. This is sedition.
Obama has no interest in any Dutch skimmers.
Now Double Dutch Rudders, on the other hand….
Considering the Average Human Body is 18% Carbon I always figure that sooner or later the EPA will define Human Life as a pollutant, any bets when that comes next?
Soylent Green is People!!
According to John Holden (Obama’s Science Czar) You have ceased to be useful, please die.
Sea_Dog said:
I think the clowns that voted for the Health Care catastrophe pretty much did that – ” You are over 60?, zen you are no longer economically viable so please, take a couple of aspirin and go a vay”
EPA has been going down the tubes for years. Jackson has just made a bad agency worse.
Yes, the ecological damage being done is what Obama and his band of thugs actually desire in order to grab power over the oil industry. There’s no doubt in my mind that this story is evidence that could ultimately reveal that he was behind the obstruction of this proven skimming procedure early on that would have greatly mitigated damage to the coastline and preserved the fishing industry – perhaps prevented it altogether.
However, all we actually have right now is EPA’s DIRECT complicity in blocking that procedure and that is Lisa Jackson who could have waived her magic wand in the last week of April and just said ‘GO!’. So we have to at least get Obama to throw her under the bus. That would be a great start but it might lead to much more because there is likely to be somebody at the EPA who understood that the EPA rule against discharge did not apply and that person(s) will be a LOT more likely to come forward with Lisa Jackson GONE. We already know that the Coast Guard and the people at the US Naval Academy looked at the Dutch method and were in favor of implementing it but were blocked by the EPA.
The Dutch offered the equipment on April 23 and ..The US Coast Guard made a formal request for the systems May 18
From “DAY ONE” the Obama administration has been at work figuring out how to be certain the spill causes as much damage as possible in order to grab as much power as possible. Early intervention would have taken away their opportunity to capitalize on the potential damage the disaster could bring – (which it is now).
‘Sedition’, ‘treason’.. whatever, it’s something like that. The whole truth ought to get Obama impeached …and cause many green heads to explode as well.
Bho never considered what the job of POTUS involved. He figured that he would just get congress to pass ll the socialist things on his to do list while he used the White House as party central. Natural disasters were never factored in. When has he mentioned any of the victims of the recent flooding or tornado? If he could only get control of Mother Nature through cap and tax, we would all live happily ever after under his vision for us.
More and more, the EPA and enviro-socialists remind me of Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers.
Finally! The derision that Sarah Palin got for telling Bill O’Reilly to accept the offer from the Netherlands (THAT’s the DUTCH, to the deriders) ought to abate with this. Hah! Will it ever? The Palin abusers are never going to admit she knows what she was talking about with regards “consulting and accepting help from the Netherlands.”
Since our gutless congress has essentially turned over all power (except honoring distinguished artists like Michael Jackson) to the executive branch, wouldn’t it be fine if we elected a president who actually went into his office and cut his administration by 2/3rds. Dept of energy, who needs you we don’t build anythingand all you do is scan porn. Dept of education, you failed! Dept of justice, there is none, the small peaople go to jail, the illegals get welfare, and the rich simply pay a fine for murdering people. Dept of Homeland security, how many police forces does one nation need? It’s obvious the U.S. has exceeded that number because instead of needing and hence wanting help from whatever source, they do nothing but fight for tirf and budgets.
Then there is the entire “one world order” debacle of the UN, IMF, WHO, NATO, and those pesky elitist Bilderberks meeting to decide which gubmint pays for what FUBAR they created. BEFORE WE THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER, LET’S PRIORITIZE OUR EXPENSES BASED UPON BANG FOR THE BUCK OUTCOMES. IS SOCIAL SECURITY MORE IMPORTANT THAT THE UN TO AMERICANS? IS SEALING THE MEXICAN BORDER MORE IMPORTANT TO AMERICANS THAN SEALING THE GERMAN BORDER FROM RUSSIA? OR THE S. KOREAN BORDER FROM THE NO. KOREANS? IS CLEANING THE OIL OUT OF THE GULF MORE IMPORTANT TO AMERICANS THAN SENDING CONDOMS AND AIDS MEDICINE TO AFRICA? OR “GLOBAL WARMING TAXES” TO DEVELOPING NATIONS? Just a thought.
I can’t get an answer to a simple question; Is the Dutch equipment currently on site and in use? I suspect that the Dutch offer has yet to be accepted and still not in use.
Oookee doekey…
If the EPA has delayed clean up for so 45 out of 50 days, wouldn’t that make the about 90% of the mess in the Gulf caused by the EPA and not BP?
In the interest of fairness, shouldn’t the EPA be putting 20 billion of it’s budget in escrow?