What’s next for Bob Riley: A 2012 run at the White House?

Published today in the Mobile Press-Register, a story from George Talbot discussing the buzz about outgoing Alabama Governor Bob Riley’s plans for the future. Five words that accurately describe the former rancher, Alabama business school graduate, US Congressman, and two-term Governor: Folksy.  Intelligent. Capable manager. Staunch conservative. Political opportunist.

There’s one more that friends and political observers like to toss around: Reaganesque.  This one fits primarily because Riley’s political interests were sparked by the charismatic President who served from 1981 through 1988. Riley was first elected to Congress in the 1996 election, served a self-imposed three-term limit and left in 2003.

His 2002 election as Governor was by a 3,000 vote margin, the closest in the history of the state.

Riley’s reputation as a capable manager is impeccable. His handling of the Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina disasters was praised by local and federal emergency management officials, and his management of the Gulf Oil Spill crisis of 2010 was similarly lauded. To this day, Riley remains a fierce antagonist of current Oil Spill Claims Czar Kenneth Feinberg and his handling of compensation payments to affected residents and business owners.

At 66, Riley says he’s still got some “racing” in him:

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A national run for Riley, 66, would in some ways be easy. His children are grown and his schedule is open. Experts are predicting the Republican primary could swell to include a dozen or more candidates. In such a large field, the race essentially becomes a beauty contest.

Early voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina would quickly narrow the contest to three or four candidates. Make the cut, and you could be on the fast track to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

For now, however, the road leads home to Ashland.

“I’m tired. I’m ready for a break,” Riley said between meetings in New York. “Patsy told me I need to do something, or else I’ll get bored. And I told her I’d like to try doing nothing awhile and just see.”

He is tinkering with the idea of a cross-country motorcycle trip -- perhaps to Alaska -- in springtime. The long ride would allow him to clear his mind and make a decision about his future. But for now there’s still work to be done.

“I had an old track coach who taught me to run through the tape, not to it,” he said. “I’ve still got a little race left to run.”

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Wait. What? A road trip to Alaska?  What could he possibly hope to achieve by visiting Alaska?

Should Riley decide to enter the race, he’ll almost certainly be up against a formidable opponent in the form of neighboring Southern Governor, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, whose potential 2012 run was analyzed here, back in June 2010. Or perhaps Barbour would be content to team up with Riley and use his considerable political network to give the Reaganesque Riley a leg up in the 2012 beauty contest.

 

 

Alabama Governor Bob Riley calls oil spill claims process 'extortion'

Bob Riley is a lame duck Governor who leaves office in January and really doesn’t have to go after the feds with guns a-blazin’. But that’s not stopping the boots-wearing Republican, who has been critical of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility almost since day one:

Bob Riley calls oil spill claims process 'extortion'

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Riley said he is concerned that underpayments by Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility will force businesses to prematurely sign away the right to sue BP PLC.

Area businesses have complained loudly about the size of payments, compared to claims, plus the lack of information about how those amounts were determined.

“If you have the capacity to turn them down with no explanation and make them sign away their right to sue, that’s extortion,” Riley said.

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Riley is absolutely correct—Feinberg’s process unfairly penalizes businesses, arbitrarily denies legitimate claims filed by businesses, and forces businesses to either sign away their rights to litigation or walk away with nothing.

This comes on the heels of clear evidence that the Obama regime is also playing politics with oil spill study funds under NRDA, and in the wake of indications that Feinberg’s claims facility is nothing more than a White House sanctioned engine for redistributing wealth.

Businesses are getting fractions of well documented claims, while the employees of those businesses are getting multiples of what they’ve filed for. What’s up with that?

Most of the businesses affected are small, mom-and-pop shops that clean cottages and condos, sell sundries and souvenirs, conduct boat tours and rent beach equipment. They’re not fat cats by any stretch of the imagination, and they were devastated by the spill’s impact on tourism. Even with a full reimbursement claim, a lot of these businesses aren’t going to make to the 2011 summer season.

Bob Riley gets major props for taking Feinberg and Obama to task, and the louder he shouts the more light is shed on a politically motivated claims settlement process.

Obama playing politics with Oil Spill money?

Alabama Governor Bob Riley is seeing red over the Obama regime’s plan to restrict use of Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) funds and exert near complete federal control over the types of damage assessments that will be conducted. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 authorizes NRDA assessments to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to determine the damage to natural resources and the human uses of those resources.

Months ago, during the height of the spill, federal officials told Riley and other states’ Governors that NRDA funds would be allocated for studies of both ecological resources and the economic activities that depend on them, and that the states would take the lead in identifying the projects and studies that go forward. 

Now however, Riley says that the Obama regime has broken both of those promises:

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Gov. Bob Riley slammed President Barack Obama and other federal officials last week, saying they are breaking promises on how states can spend money expected as a result of the oil spill and who must approve the spending.

“For the federal government to come up and say that all of this NRDA (Natural Resource Damage Assessment) money has to go out for ecological restoration, and not for economic, is typical for a federal bureaucracy, telling the people what their needs are,” Riley said in a telephone interview.

“We never need to get to the point that any state has to have permission from the federal government to spend money that is rightfully ours,” he continued.

A White House official, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the matter, gave the following statement to the Press-Register:

“Statutes define what responsible parties must pay and how those monies can be spent, and we have to follow the law,” the official said.

The administration declined further comment.

Riley’s concerns center on the NRDA environmental review and Clean Water Act fines, which could together bring billions of dollars to Gulf Coast states.

Federal officials told Riley months ago that NRDA money could be used for either economic or environmental restoration, the governor said. Now, they’re saying that the money should be limited to environmental use, according to Riley.

He also expressed concern that the federal government wants to approve recovery projects selected by the state, from both the NRDA and Clean Water Act funds, rather than letting the states decide on projects for themselves.

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Are we shocked that the regime would break its promises? Not in the least.

Every one of the affected states—Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida—either have Republican Governors or will inaugurate new Republicans, and each state has leveled harsh criticism on the regime for its handling of the spill response, the deepwater drilling moratorium and the spill claims process. In short, the Obama regime has done absolutely nothing right, from the “day one” through the administration of the NRDA program.

Nothing documents the regime’s failure better than this site’s Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline, a comprehensive chronology of events from the explosion of the rig through the final “bottom kill” of the leaking well.

At every turn, at every key decision point, whenever this regime has faced a choice between doing what’s right for the affected areas of the Gulf Coast or using the crisis for political gain, the regime has chosen politics. The NRDA issue is no different.

Instead of allowing the states to determine what resources need to be evaluated to determine the degree of damage, and in turn the amount of money to be collected and applied via the fines authorized by OPA 1990, the federal government intends to limit the NRDA studies to ecological resources. To make matters worse, the federal government intends to be the sole and final arbiter of what resources are included in the studies.

This is political bureaucracy run amok.

Who is better suited to determine what resources have been damaged—the states, with significant portions of their economies affected by the damage, or the Obama regime, which has never missed an opportunity to expand and consolidate the power of the central government?

The five governors of the Gulf Coast states should band together, develop a united front, and press its new allies in Congress to force the regime into allowing the states to identify NRDA priorities.  Furthermore, the federal government should not be allowed to restrict NRDA studies to ecological resources and ignore the important economic, cultural and recreational activities that depend so heavily on the Gulf of Mexico.

If last Tuesday night’s election said one thing loud and clear, it was that the people have had enough of the heavy handed approach of the Obama regime. It must stop, and it must stop NOW.