BP: Little Good News; Lots of Bad

Lets start with the good news.  BP has placed a cap on the GOP Gusher.

The well has been capped, more or less. BP engineers Thursday night guided a containment dome onto the hydrocarbon geyser shooting from the Gulf of Mexico oil well — a desperate and iffy attempt to capture the leaking oil and funnel it to a ship on the surface.

It was not an elegant operation. Furious clouds of oil escaped the "top hat." Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the spill, called the development a positive step but said, "It will be sometime before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

Here’s video:

 

Of course, when they attach a tube to the cap to collect the oil with tankers, the pressure might blow the cap right off the pipe.

Now for the bad news, and it could not be much worse.

Oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico is likely to extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and into the open ocean as early as this summer, according to a detailed computer modeling study released today by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. The results were reviewed by scientists at NCAR and elsewhere, although not yet submitted for peer-review publication.

"I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?’" says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the study. "Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood."

The computer simulations indicate that, once the oil in the uppermost ocean has become entrained in the Gulf of Mexico’s fast-moving Loop Current, it is likely to reach Florida’s Atlantic coast within weeks.

It can then move north as far as about Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with the Gulf Stream, before turning east to the open ocean.

Whether the oil will be a thin film on the surface or mostly subsurface due to mixing in the upper ocean is not known. The flow in the model represents the best estimate of how ocean currents are likely to respond under typical wind conditions.

More model studies are underway that will indicate what might happen to the oil in the Atlantic Ocean… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

Day by day, watching the magnitude of this thing grow, my anger increases at BP.  They are investing in the wrong damage control.

The foreign oil giant BP has launched a new series of advertisements to contain the damage to its reputation and stock price from its uncontrolled disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. In a television advertisement that aired nationally this morning, BP CEO Tony Hayward promotes how his corporation is running the response to the environmental calamity it caused.

Unlike the attitude expressed in interviews when he dismissed the scope of the disaster and complained that he wanted his life back, Hayward tells the camera he is “deeply sorry” for this “tragedy that never should have happened.” With the cries of seabirds in the background, he expresses an air of authority, lumping “volunteers” and “the government” together in his thanks for their help:

The gulf is home for thousands of BP employees and we all feel the impact. To all the volunteers and for the strong support of the government, thank you. We know it is our responsibility to keep you informed and do everything we can so this never happens again. We will get this done. We will make this right.

Watch it:

 

While BP is on the hook for the billion-dollar costs of the cleanup, it still has money to conduct a broad greenwashing campaign with the support of an army of lobbying and public relations firms and former Dick Cheney press secretary Anne Womack-Kolton. Full-page ads in major newspapers promote the slogan: “We will get this done. We will make this right.”

Hayward’s recognition of BP’s “responsibility to keep you informed” flies in the face of reality, with its demonstrated willingness to misinform the public, lie to Congress, and restrict media access to the scene of its crime… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

If that lying corporate bastard were truly repentant, he would be investing the £millions spent on this PR campaign into cleaning up the mess.

But as outrageous as BP’s actions are, they don’t hold a candle to the GOP’s insanity.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote President Obama a letter on Wednesday criticizing his decision to implement a temporary moratorium of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Arguing that his state had already suffered crippling economic consequences, the Louisiana Republican urged Obama to rethink his decision to suspend activity at 33 previously permitted deepwater drilling rigs — including 22 "currently in operation off the Louisiana coast."

Joining Jindal in his call to lift the moratorium is Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) who accused the Obama administration of pursuing a policy that "could kill thousands of Louisiana jobs."

In his letter, Gov. Jindal said his state was facing "one of the most challenging economic periods in decades."

"The last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more," he added… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Jindal is not alone in this.  Diaper Dave and other leading Republicans are also on board.

The GOP has also complaining that the Obama administration has not done a fascist-socialist takeover of the disaster.  Ironically, they share the view with Robert Reich, a progressive of note.  What Reich doesn’t get, but the GOP clearly does is that this disaster is not going to be fixed anytime soon.  Were the Obama administration to take over, that would leave the GOP in a perfect position to say. “See?  Big government doesn’t work!”  Reich, albeit with the best of intentions, is playing right into their hands.

One think Obama could and should do is take a page from FDR’s playbook.  Remember the CCC?  I don’t.  Even I’m not that old.  Instead of a Civilian Conservation Corps, Obama could institute a Cleanup Constitution Corps.  Given our high rate of unemployment and the need for a massive cleanup that will take years, why not mobilize thousands of unemployed workers to clean up the mess?  Of course, BP must be required to pay every penny for it.