Gulf Coast Oil Disaster: Obama’s Very Real Culpability
Now with fixed link
The New York Times asks if this is Obama’s Oil Disaster, and every contributor either dodges the issue or says “No.”
With all due respect, that is a load of BULLSHIT. While BP certainly bears the lion’s share of the culpability, Obama is by no means blameless.
You may have noticed a slew of recent articles about the Minerals Management Service, the office of the Department of the Interior that hands out oil leases. Most of these articles express shock and horror at the corruption, which begs the questions “does anyone in the news media actually READ THE FUCKING NEWS” and “Does anyone in the government read their own reports?”
I ask because in September 2008, nearly two years ago, the New York Times reported extensively on the scandal-ridden Minerals Management Service, :
The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.
The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing…
In one of the new reports, investigators concluded that Ms. Denett worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules.
Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties…
The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.
The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”
The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.
The corruption has been well-known for years. And what did Obama do about it? NOTHING. In fact, he appointed Ken Salazar to the head the Department of the Interior. Please note that Salazar, who’s been widely criticized for his close ties to the mining, gas, and oil industries, knew there were problems at MMS:
As he deals with climate change, land and water issues, protection of endangered species and relations with American Indian tribes, Mr. Salazar will also have to try to manage an agency demoralized by years of scandal, political interference and mismanagement.
Salazar’s appointment was slammed by environmentalists, who said things like “It’s no surprise oil and gas, mining, agribusiness and other polluting industries that have dominated Interior are supporting rancher Salazar — he’s their friend.” In contrast, here’s what the extraction industries had to say at the time:
Oil and mining interests praised Mr. Salazar’s record as a state official and as a senator, saying that he was not doctrinaire about the use of public lands for resource exploitation. “Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue.”
Mr. Popovich noted approvingly that Mr. Salazar had tried to engineer a deal in the Senate under which mining companies and others could reclaim abandoned mines without fear of lawsuits. (The legislation is pending.) He also backed a compromise under which oil companies could drill for natural gas in limited parts of the Roan Plateau in northwestern Colorado, a plan that most environmental advocates opposed.
You can’t say Salazar didn’t know either, because during his very-friendly confirmation hearing:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., tried to break the mood, saying the hearing was “on its way to becoming a full-fledged bouquet-tossing contest.”
Wyden pressed Salazar on his commitment to reversing “politically-tainted judgments” made in the name of science during the Bush administration, and he pressed Salazar to “drain the swamp” and fix the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service.
Several other industry executives and lobbyists weigh in on the accomodating Mr. Salazar. Would you like to know what Mr. Salazar did about the corruption at MMS? NOTHING. In fact, last year Mr. Salazar appointed an eight-year BP executive to be the deputy administrator for land and minerals management, which makes Salazar’s promise, delivered yesterday, of a crackdown nothing more than a bad joke. Salazar should be fired immediately.
Obama has had nearly two years to clean up the MMS, and he did NOTHING. Worse, given the opportunity to appoint someone like Raul Grijalva, the choice of environmentalists and a man with a long record of conservation, Obama chose a guy who’s so in bed with the industry his breath smells like Tony Hayward’s jism.
If Obama had cleaned house at MMS and/or appointed a conservationist (NYT reported at the time that Grijalva was the conservationists’ choice) the oil leasing might have been more stringent.
Deepwater Horizon moved into the Tiber oil field in September 2009, and Obama’s BP-staffed MMS exempted Deepwater horizon from an environmental impact study. Would that have happened under someone like Grijalva or an MMS purged of the scandal ridden staff everyone’s known about since at least 2008 (and maybe even as far back as 2005, 2006, 2007, as Ken Salazar admitted yesterday, in a defense that sounded more like an indictment of himself)?
I can’t answer that: what I can tell you is that no one can say “I didn’t know” because it’s a matter of record that MMS was mired in corruption. Allowing the same rotted people to run the agency amounts to negligence IMO.
So don’t tell me that Obama doesn’t share some of the blame.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
The important link to MMS’s activity w/r/t deepwater is broken. Those interested can read an fdl post on that here: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/46008
May 27th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
link is fixed, thanks for pointing it out!
May 27th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Excellent job compiling these sources. I’m here from Salon, congrats on the mention.