The Hollywood Liberal

BP pipe tilting more than Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The broken wellhead gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is tilting over, potentially threatening further disaster. The Deepwater Horizon riser package that sits on the seabed a mile below the ocean surface weighs over 450 tons, including the 48-foot-tall failed blowout preventer. In a press teleconference Monday, National […]

The broken wellhead gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is tilting over, potentially threatening further disaster. The Deepwater Horizon riser package that sits on the seabed a mile below the ocean surface weighs over 450 tons, including the 48-foot-tall failed blowout preventer. In a press teleconference Monday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen announced that the riser package is tilting “10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular,” twice the 5.5 degree tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa:

The entire arrangement is kind of listed a little bit. I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up.

The “integrity of the well casing is a major concern,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil, told the Houston Chronicle last week. Engineers and geologists fear the stack atop the well could tip over if the well integrity further degrades, leading to the “unlikely, but not implausible” scenario of “oil gushing through the sea floor.”

Oil And Gas Industry-Funded GOP Rep Can?t Give Safety Assurances For Lifting Drilling Moratorium
Today, a federal district court judge with financial investments in the oil industry ruled against the Obama administration’s 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, which the President issued in the wake BP’s Gulf oil spill to ensure that future drilling is safe and environmentally sound. The White House has said it will appeal the decision. […]

Today, a federal district court judge with financial investments in the oil industry ruled against the Obama administration’s 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, which the President issued in the wake BP’s Gulf oil spill to ensure that future drilling is safe and environmentally sound. The White House has said it will appeal the decision.

Last week, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) decided to take the legislative route, introducing a bill in the House to lift the moratorium, saying it “is turning a tragedy into a nightmare.” He called it a “job-killing policy” because it will cause, he said, “other oil rich nations to move their rig operations overseas.” But last night on Fox News, when host Greta Van Susteren asked Olson if he could guarantee that the rigs effected by the moratorium have been “inspected” and are “safe,” Olson dodged, citing the “history of drilling” and the economy:

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you have any way of knowing that, for instance, the blow-out preventers work on these other 33 rigs, any way to guarantee that they have been, you know, inspected, that they’ve got all the sort of redundancy that’s necessary to make — to make sure they’re safe?

OLSON: Yes, ma’am. I would tell people look at the history of drilling in the gulf. We’ve been drilling there for over 50 years, 20 years in the deep water, and this is the first major accident we’ve had. […]

VAN SUSTEREN: I think — it’s not history I’m looking for, it’s more assurances. […]

OLSON: Yes, ma’am. And the administration, our government, clearly had no plan to do this. But again, this moratorium extends — again, it turns an economic challenge into an economic disaster.

Watch it:

But offshore oil drilling isn’t exactly 100 percent “safe,” nor will it ever be. And Olson is wrong about drilling “history.” Failures of blowout preventers and actual blowouts are fairly common. The largest oil spill in history (before BP’s) also occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, on an exploratory rig blowout.

It’s unclear why Olson ignores or seems to be unaware of these facts. Perhaps it could be because the Texas Republican’s biggest contributor is the oil and gas industry. In the two years he has been in Congress, Olson has collected $216,000 from oil and gas companies and in the current election cycle, polluter companies have given the most to Olson, nearly doubling the next highest industry contributor.

White House releases ‘patient bill of rights’
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama unveiled a package of consumer benefits Tuesday to build support for his health care overhaul within a divided nation and warned Republicans about trying to repeal his landmark law. “We’re not going back,” said a defiant president.


White House – United States – President – Government – Executive Branch

Administration broadens effort to fight homelessness
The Obama administration released a strategy Tuesday to end homelessness by expanding programs to secure housing for veterans and families with young children and by building on efforts to help chronically homeless people.


Homelessness – Poverty – Regional Coalitions – United States – United States Department of Housing and Urban Development

U.S. indirectly paying Afghan warlords as part of security contract
The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.


Afghanistan – United States – Taliban – Asia – United States armed forces

Featured Advertiser

Making the Health Care Reform Law Work
Kathleen Sebelius, Roll Call
When Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act this March, it took a health insurance system that was locked in a decades-long spiral of rising costs and shrinking security and set it on a new course. The new law contains a series of long-overdue reforms that will put consumers — not insurance companies — in charge of their health care.At the Department of Health and Human Services, we’re charged with leading the implementation of these reforms. That’s why our department has been working around the clock since March with partners in…

Obama Gives Insurers a Stern Warning
Sack & Stolberg, New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama, whose vilification of insurers helped push a landmark health care overhaul through Congress, plans to sternly warn industry executives at a White House meeting on Tuesday against imposing hefty rate increases in anticipation of tightening regulation under the new law, administration officials said Monday.The White House is concerned that health insurers will blame the new law for increases in premiums that are intended to maximize profits rather than covering claims. The administration is also closely watching investigations by a number of states into…

Democrats Won’t Pass Budget in 2010

If You Can’t Budget, You Can’t Govern
Debra Saunders, SF Chronicle
“If you can't budget, you can't govern,” Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., proclaimed in 2006 when the House GOP leadership chose to dispense with passing a budget resolution.Now that the Dems run the House, Spratt is chairman of its Budget Committee and the April 15 deadline for passing a budget resolution is a niggling detail, easily ignored. House Democrats have decided to not even try to pass a budget resolution before this fiscal year expires on Sept. 30 — and may well delay passage until after the November elections.