As the oil spill continues and the cleanup lags, we must begin to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. There does not seem to be much that anyone can do to stop the spill except dig a relief well, not due until August. But the cleanup is a different story. The press and Internet are full of straightforward suggestions for easy ways of improving the cleanup, but the federal government is resisting these remedies.
First, the Environmental Protection Agency can relax restrictions on the amount of oil in discharged water, currently limited to 15 parts per million. In normal times, this rule sensibly controls the amount of pollution that can be added to relatively clean ocean water. But this is not a normal time.
Various skimmers and tankers (some of them very large) are available that could eliminate most of the oil from seawater, discharging the mostly clean water while storing the oil onboard. While this would clean vast amounts of water efficiently, the EPA is unwilling to grant a temporary waiver of its regulations.
Next, the Obama administration can waive the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from operating in U.S. coastal waters. Many foreign countries (such as the Netherlands and Belgium) have ships and technologies that would greatly advance the cleanup. So far, the U.S. has refused to waive the restrictions of this law and allow these ships to participate in the effort.
The combination of these two regulations is delaying and may even prevent the world's largest skimmer, the Taiwanese owned "A Whale," from deploying. This 10-story high ship can remove almost as much oil in a day as has been removed in total—roughly 500,000 barrels of oily water per day. The tanker is steaming towards the Gulf, hoping it will receive Coast Guard and EPA approval before it arrives.
In addition, the federal government can free American-based skimmers. Of the 2,000 skimmers in the U.S. (not subject to the Jones Act or other restrictions), only 400 have been sent to the Gulf. Federal barriers have kept the others on stations elsewhere in case of other oil spills, despite the magnitude of the current crisis. The Coast Guard and the EPA issued a joint temporary rule suspending the regulation on June 29—more than 70 days after the spill.
The Obama administration can also permit more state and local initiatives. The media endlessly report stories of county and state officials applying federal permits to perform various actions, such as building sand berms around the Louisiana coast. In some cases, they were forbidden from acting. In others there have been extensive delays in obtaining permission.
As the government fails to implement such simple and straightforward remedies, one must ask why.
One possibility is sheer incompetence. Many critics of the president are fond of pointing out that he had no administrative or executive experience before taking office. But the government is full of competent people, and the military and Coast Guard can accomplish an assigned mission. In any case, several remedies require nothing more than getting out of the way.
Another possibility is that the administration places a higher priority on interests other than the fate of the Gulf, such as placating organized labor, which vigorously defends the Jones Act.
Finally there is the most pessimistic explanation—that the oil spill may be viewed as an opportunity, the way White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said back in February 2009, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Many administration supporters are opposed to offshore oil drilling and are already employing the spill as a tool for achieving other goals. The websites of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, for example, all feature the oil spill as an argument for forbidding any further offshore drilling or for any use of fossil fuels at all. None mention the Jones Act.
The combination of these two regulations is delaying and may even prevent the world's largest skimmer, the Taiwanese owned "A Whale," from deploying. This 10-story high ship can remove almost as much oil in a day as has been removed in total—roughly 500,000 barrels of oily water per day. The tanker is steaming towards the Gulf, hoping it will receive Coast Guard and EPA approval before it arrives.
Let's hope it doesn't arrive before Tuesday, the Fed Govt offices are closed till then.
The Jones Act was established in 1920 as the Merchant Marine Act:
“Section 27, also known as the Jones Act, deals with cabotage (i.e., coastal shipping) and requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. The purpose of the law is to support the U.S. merchant marine industry, but agricultural interests generally oppose it because, they contend, it raises the cost of shipping their goods, making them less competitive with foreign sources. [1]
In addition, amendments to the Jones Act, known as the Cargo Preference Act (P.L. 83-644), provide permanent legislation for the transportation of waterborne cargoes in U.S.-flag vessels.”
This means that foreign owned, built and manned vessels cannot help in the oil spill cleanup unless Obama waives the Jones Act. During Katrina President Bush waived the Jones Act because of the desperate situation, why isn’t Obama doing the same now? The Jones Act is heavily backed by labor unions. could that be Obama’s reasoning? Maybe Obama doesn’t want to make his Union buddies upset? There’s no other reason that one could possibly think of as to why Obama has not waived the Jones Act. There is absolutely no excuse for Obama, our ‘global leader’, not bring in help from around the world.
Your typical rotterdam " reporting " from someone who didnt even know how many gallons are in a barrel of oil-
In reality, the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts Contrary to reports such as this on- international assistance has been accepted. To date, 25 countries and four international organizations have offered support in the form of skimming vessels, containment and fire boom, technical assistance and response solutions, among others-
Since the BP oil spill began, over 500 foreign flagged ships have headed to the Gulf to help us with the clean-up. To date, they’re sitting in the water twiddling their thumbs because the Jone’s Act prevents them from working in US Territorial Waters.
Quoted Text
In the meantime, vessels that could be used to clean up the massive amounts of oil are being blocked by a sea of red tape. There are 850 skimmers in the southeast United States and 1,600 nationwide, but the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which requires regions to maintain levels of equipment such as skimmers, is preventing some resources from coming to the Gulf. The Jones Act, a maritime law designed to promote U.S. shipping interests, is complicating efforts to get foreign boats here.
...
As for the Oil Pollution Act, Adm. Allen says that discussions are going on within the administration about how to free up equipment. That's a change from the admiral's initial position, when he said that leaving other areas vulnerable was one of his biggest concerns. Given the scope of this disaster, it's hard to understand why the government hasn't moved more quickly from discussion to action.
When it comes to the Jones Act, even less is happening. Adm. Allen has promised to process waivers to the act quickly, but so far none have been granted. The admiral has downplayed the effect of the law on the cleanup, but the experience of Ecoceane, a French company with a fleet of skimming boats, suggests that it is an impediment. Eric Vial, the company's president, said it sold nine boats to a Florida contractor so that the Jones Act wouldn't be a factor. Those boats could have been in the Gulf much sooner, he said.
... Local officials who have been begging for more skimmers shouldn't have to wait for help because the federal government refused to deal with bureaucratic barriers.
The S. S. A-Whale is not like the mere 4,000-barrel-a-day vessels we’ve been using. Its owners say this ship, a converted oil tanker, can gather 500,000 barrels a day. By comparison, say the owners, the entire fleet our government has authorized for BP has only gathered 600,000 barrels—TOTAL—in the 70 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. (NOTE: 500,000 barrels equals 21-million gallons.)
The A-Whale is the essence of an international ship—built in South Korea, modified in Portugal, owned by Taiwanese and flagged in Liberia. And that is part of the problem. Even if it stays farther offshore than the 3-mile limit of America’s Jones Act, it still requires approval by the U.S. Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency before BP can hire the A-Whale and put it to work.
At one point during the hearing, Democrats were making a more appealing case for waiving the Jones Act than their Republican counterparts. The 1920 law regulates movement on U.S. waters and between ports, restricting where foreign ships are able to dock. With the State Department acknowledging it has received more than 20 aid offers, critics have questioned why the administration simply won’t suspend the law in a time of crisis.
Deputy Maritime Administrator David Matsuda confirmed there has been one Jones Act waiver request for a foreign deck barge to operate within three miles of the U.S. coast. That request was denied because American vessels could perform the same functions. Matsuda defended the administrative waiver process, noting that case-by-case requests are handled within 48 hours.
Of course, the Obama administration could eliminate the bureaucratic delay entirely by simply following the precedent set by the Bush administration, which waived the Jones Act in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 to transport oil and gasoline throughout the Gulf region. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has the legal authority to suspend the law with Matsuda’s approval.
The Jones Act requires goods carried between U.S. ports to be shipped aboard U.S.-flagged vessels built in the U.S. and owned by American citizens. The law doesn’t apply to ships operating far from the U.S. coastline, skimming oil or performing other such chores and not hauling cargo from one American port to another.
In the case of the BP oil spill, the Jones Act hasn’t prevented several foreign-flagged ships from delivering resources and skimming oil. And the administration says it’s prepared to expedite requests for waivers, should any be needed.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I'm glad you and Professor ::Fail:: concurr, but every major media outlet - from MSNBC, CNN, FOX, WSJ, Time, etc - all insist that the Jones act is what's delaying international assistance. Please explain it to them, not to us.
Then, answer these questions:
1. Why are Democrats in Congress pushing for the repeal? (They're wrong too?)
2. Why aren't the ships in clearing the oil and assisting with the spill? (Never let a good crisis go to waste?)
3. Why are hundreds of ships sitting idle in the gulf? (no $ for gas?)
4. Why is it still leaking 70+ days later? (Never let a good crisis go to waste?)
5. The whale offered 60 days ago to come over - why is it STILL not permitted in our waters? (Don't give me some sh*t about it putting oil back into the water in trace amounts (per the EPA) - if it clears 90% of it, it's a step in the right direction)
6. Why is the EPA, in the wake of the biggest disaster to hit our coasts, closed until Tuesday? (Tell the fishermen it's a "holiday")
World News Vine July 5, 2010: Although, a final decision regarding the supertankers(The Whale) efforts have not been reached with, testing still underway, the United States Coast Guard will make the final deployment determination within days.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - An oil spill that was previously a problem for coastal Louisiana was trickling deeper inland Tuesday and toward the shores of New Orleans.
Oil sheen and tar balls from the Deepwater Horizon gusher have been spotted in Lake Pontchartrain, the huge lake forming the northern boundary of the city that was rescued in the 1990s from rampant pollution.
"Our universe is getting very small," said Pete Gerica, the 57-year-old president of the Lake Pontchartrain Fishermen's Association. He has fished in the lake his entire life. "It's shrinking daily."
The oil's spread deeper into Louisiana came the same day that tar balls from the spill were confirmed on a beach in Texas. There's a question of whether five gallons of the stuff came naturally on the currents or was dragged by a passing ship from elsewhere, but crews combed the beach and pledged to collect the damages from BP.
Sorry I don't buy the opposition to offshore drilling using this as a political gain. For the far left maybe, but that is not this president. This is the president that 2 weeks before the oil spill allowed off shore drilling to begin again.
Sorry I don't buy the opposition to offshore drilling using this as a political gain. For the far left maybe, but that is not this president. This is the president that 2 weeks before the oil spill allowed off shore drilling to begin again.
Is that the same one that a couple weeks later banned ALL drilling? And when a federal court lifted that order, he promised to fight to get it shut down again?
Logged
