Oil spills and terrorism
Bensblurb # 546 5/7/10
OH, MY...
Two more big reasons for worry this spring: The oil spill and the Times Square terror.
Regarding that latest terrorist flop, maybe we should make sure those Pakistan area training schools for would-be bombers are encouraged to continue with their instructions for how to blow up things. Recent graduates include the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber and now the van bomber. They all flunked their field tests. Don’t tell anyone.
Remember, after the Christmas bombing failure, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pronounced "the system worked," even though passengers had succeeded where the security system failed. Likewise, all three instances reflected failure of our security forces to prevent the culprits from triggering their home-made duds. Thus, no cause for any Washington bigshot to celebrate.
Now, those bigshots are trying to blame BP for all the oil spill woes. However, note this from the Washington Post (via Instapundit)...“The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental-impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.”
Back to you, Katrina blamers:
House Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence of Indiana...said the “necessary equipment was not immediately available in the region” after the leak began on April 20 and the federal government did not “fully deploy” federal resources until April 28...the American people want answers. They want to know what’s happened, they want to know why the federal response was slow.”--Politico
Wait, there’s more:
Here’s Ben Raines, writing in Mobile Press Register: “If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand...The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms....
[F]ormer National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill response coordinator Ron Gouguet -- who helped craft the 1994 plan -- told the Press-Register that officials had pre-approval for burning. ‘The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away.’ Gouguet speculated that burning could have captured 95 percent of the oil as it spilled from the well.”
Finally, ...“There is a basic difference between this incident and Hurricane Katrina, to which it is being compared. In the case of Katrina, the primary responsibility for disaster response lay with the local and state governments. The local response was very poor; among other things, the governor of Louisiana was slow to call out the National Guard. Here, responsibility lay with the Obama administration from the beginning...Only the federal government can act. It didn't, until, perhaps, it was too late.--Power Line blog.
Too bad the oil explosion hadn't been planned in Pakistan.
--Ben Blankenship
#############
OH, MY...
Two more big reasons for worry this spring: The oil spill and the Times Square terror.
Regarding that latest terrorist flop, maybe we should make sure those Pakistan area training schools for would-be bombers are encouraged to continue with their instructions for how to blow up things. Recent graduates include the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber and now the van bomber. They all flunked their field tests. Don’t tell anyone.
Remember, after the Christmas bombing failure, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pronounced "the system worked," even though passengers had succeeded where the security system failed. Likewise, all three instances reflected failure of our security forces to prevent the culprits from triggering their home-made duds. Thus, no cause for any Washington bigshot to celebrate.
Now, those bigshots are trying to blame BP for all the oil spill woes. However, note this from the Washington Post (via Instapundit)...“The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental-impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.”
Back to you, Katrina blamers:
House Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence of Indiana...said the “necessary equipment was not immediately available in the region” after the leak began on April 20 and the federal government did not “fully deploy” federal resources until April 28...the American people want answers. They want to know what’s happened, they want to know why the federal response was slow.”--Politico
Wait, there’s more:
Here’s Ben Raines, writing in Mobile Press Register: “If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand...The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms....
[F]ormer National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill response coordinator Ron Gouguet -- who helped craft the 1994 plan -- told the Press-Register that officials had pre-approval for burning. ‘The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away.’ Gouguet speculated that burning could have captured 95 percent of the oil as it spilled from the well.”
Finally, ...“There is a basic difference between this incident and Hurricane Katrina, to which it is being compared. In the case of Katrina, the primary responsibility for disaster response lay with the local and state governments. The local response was very poor; among other things, the governor of Louisiana was slow to call out the National Guard. Here, responsibility lay with the Obama administration from the beginning...Only the federal government can act. It didn't, until, perhaps, it was too late.--Power Line blog.
Too bad the oil explosion hadn't been planned in Pakistan.
--Ben Blankenship
#############
posted by Ben Blankenship at
9:37 AM
