Oil Powered Lobby

The Washington Post points out the obvious that with 600 registered lobbyists the oil industry is among the biggest of the bigs. A formidable power able to marshal forces to stall legislation it might deem unfriendly to its interests.

The [Washington] Post analysis found that BP and other companies involved in the gulf disaster employ as lobbyists more than three dozen former lawmakers, congressional staffers and bureaucrats. BP alone has hired at least 31 internal and external lobbyists with government experience, records show.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's leading trade group, employs 48 lobbyists with previous federal experience, the analysis shows. They include former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who helped deregulate the natural gas industry, and former congressmen Jim McCrery (R-La.) and Charlie Stenholm (D-Tex.), both of whom strongly backed oil interests while in Congress.

…All told, more than 430 industry lobbyists once had jobs in the legislative or executive branches, according to the Post analysis, which was based on CRP lobbying data, employment histories and other records. Scores had ties to major committees that shape federal oil policies or to lawmakers who supported industry priorities while in Congress, records show.

Oops,We seem to have broken the Earth!

Here are some lines from from the Guardian by Naomi Klein in the Guardian. Her observations about the continuing Gulf oil leak,the climate crisis in general and the reactions to it are truly disheartening.

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money – not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots.

As climate change negotiations wear on, we should be ready to hear more from Dr Steven Koonin, Obama's undersecretary of energy for science. He is one of the leading proponents of the idea that climate change can be combated with techno tricks like releasing sulphate and aluminium particles into the atmosphere – and of course it's all perfectly safe, just like Disneyland! He also happens to be BP's former chief scientist, the man who just 15 months ago was still overseeing the technology behind BP's supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling.

In other petroleum related news:

Fly away to a clean ocean

Corporate sensitivity and the small people in the year 2010

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

I seem to remember Capt. Joe Hazelwood of Exxon Valdez fame being roundly vilified by the government, press and the public(his ship and his image even had a cameo in the movie Waterworld). Maybe times and attitudes have just changed or Tony Hayward’s ilk don’t consider themselves to be of the small people whose lives can be disrupted by the disaster in the gulf. Fly away to a clean[er] ocean.

"It's a well-known event in the British calendar. He's entitled to private time with his family," said BP spokesman Robert Wine.

Texas Rep.Joe Barton demands Gulf of Mexico Appologize

In congressional hearings today Joseph Linus”Joe” Barton Repubican Congressman from Texas’ 6th district demanded that the Gulf of Mexico apologize to BP CEO Tony Hayward for soaking up all his crude oil.


What really happened is almost that bad :

A Texas Republican apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday for having to set aside $20 billion for Gulf of Mexico damage claims, drawing ridicule from Democrats and embarrassing Republicans.

Representative Joe Barton, a major recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, triggered an uproar with his lengthy apology to Hayward for being the victim of a White House "shakedown."

"I'm speaking totally for myself, I'm not speaking for the Republican party ... but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said.

Obama's Loyalties

Once again New York Times'Frank Rich on Obama:A Sneigwhblog bi-monthly nod to Frank Rich’s observations.

It’s also a great excuse to haul my Obama as admiral image(courtesy of the photoshop elves at Hyper Kitchen).

We still want to believe that Obama is on our side, willing to fight those bad corporate actors who cut corners and gambled recklessly while regulators slept, Congress raked in contributions, and we got stuck with the wreckage and the bills. But his leadership style keeps sowing confusion about his loyalties, puncturing holes in the powerful tale he could tell.

Obama has yet to find a sensible middle course between blind faith in his own Ivy League kind and his predecessor’s go-with-the-gut bravado.

“Beyond Petroleum” or “Swoosh, Boom, Run”

Oil rig veterans say that in the event that pressure forces gas up to the surface “swoosh, boom …run”.

According to one interview transcript, a gas cloud covered the rig, causing giant engines on the drill floor to run too fast and explode. The engines blew off the rig and set "everything on fire," the account said. Another explosion below blew more equipment overboard.
"The swoosh is the gas, boom is the explosion and run is what you better be doing."

Now, after the first attempt at capping the runaway well with a giant dome has failed a BP executive can’t quite come clean. The gases and methane hydrates implicating in the original explosion quickly gathered in the dome causing the effort to be abandoned.

Heckuva comment Suttles

“I wouldn’t say it has failed yet,” said Doug Suttles, the operating officer for exploration and production for BP, the company that was leasing the oil rig when it exploded April 20. “What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.”

I suppose the man has a point, as the Gulf fills up with oil.

BP Find reopens debate about oil supplies

Note :No relationship exists real or implied between the BP of Sneigwh and the corporate BP of Oil.......Just a great headline .

BP's find,peak oil and you

The discovery could be as large as Forties field in North Sea and comes hard on heels of 8.8bn barrel find by Iran.
Apparently a great short term boost BP’s stock price .
However in the long term …..
Jeremy Leggett,chairman of the renewable power company Solarcentury, and a key peak energy specialist. Said that it would take many years for BP to bring any Tiber fields onstream, pointing out that the huge Kashagan find in the Caspian Sea, in which BP has sold its stake, was meant to produce its first oil in 2005 but is now targeting 2013 as a start-up date.

A specialist in oil at consulting firm
said “The question is what is the quality of the reservoir, what is the quality of the oil, whether it will flow and what will be the cost of getting it out,” said Ross, a former BP chemist. “A lot of technology has yet to be developed that will be necessary to exploit this discovery.”