Gulf Coast marks somber anniversary

On April 20, 2010, at about 10:00 pm CDT, the Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) Deepwater Horizon exploded and caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico. Aboard were a crew of 126. Eleven were killed in the explosion and ensuing firestorm and another 15 were seriously injured. The Deepwater Horizon was in the process of drilling a well known as Macondo, and the wellhead was located more than one mile below the surface.

Two days later, still burning nearly out of control, the rig sank to the bottom of the gulf, dragging the damaged riser pipe with it and beginning the worst oil spill in the history of US maritime oil exploration.

Here is a detailed timeline of events from the night of the explosion until the Macondo well was finally declared dead. That page remains one of the most frequently visited resources on this website and has been used by researchers, bloggers and journalists regularly for the last two years.

The well was finally capped on July 15, ending the continuous flow of crude from the mile-deep wellhead. The well was formally declared dead on September 19, almost five months to the day from the explosion.

The slow motion nightmare that saw 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the gulf included evidence of nonexistent engineering quality control, exploitation of the disaster by the Obama administration, a bungled federal disaster response, the extortion of a $20 billion fraud-ridden slush fund, crippling of major industries in the gulf and a list of comical new terms added to the dictionary, including Top Hat, Top Kill, Static Kill, Capping Stack and “A Whale.”

The spill also gave rise to an equally comical collection of conspiracy theories. Included among these were rumors that the rig was torpedoed or somehow bombed and sunk intentionally; wild theories about BP, Transocean and Halliburton looting the real well located hundreds of miles away; and an Armageddon caused by a massive explosion of methane and cracking of the earth’s crust. Perhaps the most comical of all was the yarn spun about the government and BP intentionally poisoning Gulf Coast residents by spraying them with Corexit, a soap-like chemical used to disperse the oil. In October 2010, this blog did an exposé of one organization that shamelessly sought to exploit such fears—Project Gulf Impact.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis are natural disasters. The Deepwater Horizon Spill was a man made disaster. It was caused by a horrific chain of fateful decisions leading up to the tragic explosion. AND it was exacerbated by an equally horrific series of decisions by an administration seeking to obtain maximum political and ideological advantage from the disaster. Its effects linger, as the maritime oil and gas exploration industry remains crippled, directly contributing to the economic malaise of the last two years.

The tourism and fishing industry are also still feeling the effects. To this day, tarballs created by the decomposition of the spilled crude are still washing ashore along beaches from Galveston, Texas to Apalachicola, Florida. Hundreds of fishermen, crabbers, oystermen and shrimpers have left the industry, unable to survive the closure of the hundreds of square miles of gulf waters to fishing. People are still fearful of swimming in the gulf and contributory bays and estuaries, and misperceptions about the safety of gulf seafood stubbornly persist in the minds of consumers.

Make no mistake about it. The Obama administration negligently allowed the Deepwater Horizon Spill to happen. It did so by allowing an equally negligent management and engineering team at BP and Transocean to ignore basic engineering quality control in an effort to cut costs. It made things worse by first refusing to even acknowledge the scope of the impending disaster and then by using the spill as a crowbar to gain political and ideological leverage over US energy policy.

Leftwing kooks—like the ones who founded PGI—used the spill to rail against “Big Oil” and develop wild conspiracy theories about intentional poisonings, mysterious ailments and massive coverups.

During the 2012 election, the Deepwater Horizon incident should be hung around this administration’s neck like the 300 ton blowout preventer, the device that failed and led to the explosion of the rig. George W. Bush suffered politically for Hurricane Katrina, a disaster he had no control over. Katrina’s scope was unimaginable. But the Deepwater Horizon was a disaster that could have been prevented, and incompetent leadership at the very top failed those 11 men, failed the people living and working on the gulf coast and failed the people who lost jobs throughout the country because of shameless political maneuvering and ideological arrogance.

Energy is the lifeblood of our economy. Oil and gas are plentiful in the Gulf of Mexico and represent a resource that this country can feasibly extract, process and use to drive economic growth and prosperity for the whole country. But the administration and its wacked out leftist supporters want you to believe that another Deepwater Horizon incident is just around the corner if we expand exploration in the gulf.

That is false. Maritime oil and gas exploration in the US was the safest in the world before the Deepwater Horizon incident and is even more so in its aftermath. What’s the likelihood of an incident like this happening in the Gulf of Mexico, vis-a-vis the chances it happening off the coast of Egypt or west Africa?

As we mark the 2nd anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Incident, lets remember why it happened, and lets remember why the guy who played golf eight times between April 20 and July 15 needs to find another job.

Obama owns the Deepwater Horizon Incident and the Gulf Oil Spill. It’s his tarball.

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A Somber Anniversary: The Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Gulf Oil Spill

One year ago, at about 10:00 pm CDT, The Deepwater Horizon suffered a blowout as natural gas erupted through a riser and drill pipe extending one mile to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, just about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The rig exploded, burned and two days later, she sank. The tragic event was the result of a series of bad decisions beginning months earlier and leading right up to the fateful moment. Eleven men were lost in the tragedy, and 17 others were seriously injured. What followed the loss of those men aboard one of the world’s most advanced drill rigs was an environmental disaster like none other the country has ever seen.

An estimated 200 million gallons of oil spewed from the damaged well until it was finally capped on September 19. The world saw images of oiled birds, fouled marshes and stained beaches. But it also witnessed one of the most colossal failures of federal disaster response in the history of federal disaster responses.

As this blog’s Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline shows, the series of bad decisions that cascaded into the explosion and fire was followed by an equally bad series of decisions by the federal government, until the Grown Up—Retired USCG Admiral Thad Allen—took over from the politicos.

The President’s “WTF Moment” didn’t come until nine days after the rig sank and a full week after news that the well was indeed spewing oil into the Gulf. Twelve days after the incident began, he suddenly changed an earlier decision not to visit the area and hauled ass South to give a speech. He returned a month later, where this photo was taken. It’s come to symbolize a cluelessly detached “executive” facing his first real crisis, and going off by himself to pick up a few tarballs.

Responsibility for the tragic explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon lies squarely on the shoulders of senior leadership of the companies drilling the well. They cut corners “down the hole,” something that chills the blood of every experienced oil man. But responsibility for failure to contain the spill and prevent environment disaster lies squarely in the Oval Office. The response was driven by politics and politics alone, and it wasn’t until the burly, gruff Admiral Allen told the White House to go screw themselves; that he was in charge and they could leave a message at the tone.

And if anyone thinks that the pain of the adminstration’s clusterfark was going to be made better by a $20 billion slush fund, administered by a White House appointed czar and funded by a contrite BP, Google “Gulf Coast Claims Facility.”

Go explore the Timeline. Most of the entries are linked to news stories and other online resources. It remains the single-most visited page at IBCR and has been used by journalists, researchers and interested members of the public world-wide.

And tonight, around 10:00 pm, say a small prayer for the men who lost their lives, their families, and the families and businesses along the Gulf Coast who are still struggling to put their lives back together again. We’ve come a long way, but we’ve still got miles ahead of us.

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Companies say BP and subcontractors still owe them millions for work done after the spill

There were similar, loud complaints on the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. Large contractors, working directly for the federal government (or in this case, the “responsible party” acting under the direction of the federal government), withheld millions in payments for legitimate, contracted work.

In this case, it’s a pair of cleanup contractors:

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Several companies hired to help BP respond to the massive oil spill claim the company or 1 of its subcontractors owes them millions of dollars for their work.

Ricky Myers, who owns Rhino Construction in Bay St. Louis, Miss., said Tuesday that BP contractor O'Brien's Response Management owes him $650,000 for his company's work on cleaning up beaches and barrier islands after the spill.

Myers said BP officials have assured him the company has paid what it owes O'Brien's, but other subcontractors say BP deserves some blame. Matthew Creel, who owns a Carriere, Miss.-based excavation company, said he is owed $60,000 and suspects BP is "trying to worm out of paying."

A spokesman for O'Brien's said he is looking into the companies' claims and couldn't immediately comment.

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Last fall, a blog reader and business owner on the Gulf Coast sent me an email with almost identical complaints—that BP and/or its subcontractors were trying to get out of paying him and his colleagues for work they agreed to under contract.

That individual was concerned over making his complaints public and chose not to go any farther with publicizing his story on this site. I understood completely. However, maybe now that others are starting to come forward that gentleman and his colleagues would be interested in telling their stories.

I’d run them here.

Follow me on Twitter, and visit the Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline, one of the only resources of its kind on the internet. It’s visited by interested members of the public, researchers and journalists all over the world.

 

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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.

Halliburton supplied faulty cement, says panel

Already a popular target of left wing activists due to its ties to the equally magnetic target Dick Cheney, Halliburton may now be forced to shoulder some of the blame for the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout and ensuing Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.

The National Oil Spill Commission has determined that the cement supplied by the company was unstable and unfit for use, despite testing showing that it was not the Right Stuff.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday.

It's the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP's well design and operations are responsible for the disaster.

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If this holds up, it should be a huge relief for BP, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in potential fines under the Oil Polution Act of 1990.  BP already faces tens of billions in fines under the statute, but if findings show that the company was grossly negligent, the fines increase and BP is on the hook for billions more.

BP, in its own internal investigation, also found flaws with the Halliburton cement cocktail, and the latter company promptly objected to that study’s findings.  The Commission’s determination could go a long way to giving BP a way to argue against fines for negligence.

I would look for some of the state governments, environmental activist groups and trial lawyers to cry foul over this development. It takes an awful lot of money off of the table and gives less credence to gross negligence as a cause of action.

Well deserved weekend break

Your beloved blogger-in-chief, editor and chief bottle washer is taking the weekend off.

The Shrimp Festival is being held in Gulf Shores this weekend, and since my brood consists of four beautiful walking appetites, we’re mingling, eating and spending money on the Gulf Coast economy.

That’s what it’s going to take for this area to really recover from the oil spill and recent hurricanes.  Get the government and its associated idiots out of the way, and let the business owners and entrepreneurs here do what they do best.

We’ll return to our regular, right-wing flame throwing on Monday morning.

I may (or may not) have some more gorgeous sunrise and sunset photos for you.

Remember:  Keep your enemies close, and your friends… closer.

Project Gulf Impact and passing the “smell test”

Stories in this series:

• From the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, a new Truther movement is born
• EXCLUSIVE: What’s really going on with Project Gulf Impact?
• Continuing the investigation into Project Gulf Impact: Questions, questions, questions

Yesterday, the investigation into Project Gulf Impact continued with the revelation that after being contacted via email and asked to provide information and comment, and after this blog ran its exclusive story investigating the background of the organization’s membership and political connects, PGI altered their website to remove information provided to prospective contributors regarding how their donations would be used.

Today, we continue to “ask questions” and “seek the truth.”  After all, isn’t that what PGI is supposed to be all about?  Seeking truth?

This organization still doesn’t quite pass the smell test.

PGI’s new donation page still maintains that it is operating under California law and is seeking federal 501(c)(3) status.  Continued, in-depth investigation cannot verify that this is the case.

To assist prospective charities in forming their organization and preparing the proper documentation, the Attorney General’s Office for the State of California has published a Guide for Charities (1.46mb PDF). From that document:

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A California nonprofit public benefit corporation is formed by completing the steps summarized here:

1. Choose a corporate name.
2. Draft and file articles of incorporation with the Secretary of State.
3. Draft the bylaws of the corporation.
4. Draft action of incorporator and have it signed by all incorporators.
5. File federal application for employer identification number (EIN) with the IRS.
6. File a statement by domestic nonprofit corporation. The Statement by Domestic Nonprofit Corporation is sent by the Secretary of State within 90 days of filing Articles of Incorporation.  You must complete and return this statement to the Secretary of State.
7. Register with the Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts. Charities must register with the Attorney General’s Office within 30 days after receiving their first assets by filing Articles of Incorporation and bylaws with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts and pay a $25 registration fee. Organizations must renew registration and file financial reports annually thereafter.
8. Hold first meeting of directors.
9. File application for exemption from federal income taxes with the IRS and state income taxes  with the California Franchise Tax Board.
10. Review the corporation's need for state and local permits and licenses and establish procedures  to meet deadlines for required periodic filings with the IRS, FTB, Secretary of State and Attorney General. This procedure is important to keep the organization in good standing and avoid the need to pay delinquency fees.

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This investigation didn’t get past the second step. Like most states, the California Secretary of State’s office maintains a search facility that allows queries of its database of domestic stock, domestic nonprofit and qualified foreign corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships’ information of record.

On October 6 and October 7, 2010 a set of exhaustive queries of that database were conducted, and there were no results consistent with PGI’s public statements and published web pages.

Searching by corporation name, the following searches provided zero consistent records on each attempt:

• Project Gulf Impact
• Project Gulf
• Gulf Impact
• Project Impact
• Laws of the Ocean
• Law Ocean
• Ocean Law

The search term “project impact” did produce results.  However, none of the corporations listed showed any of PGI’s principals as the incorporator; some had been dissolved and others were incorporated many years before PGI was alleged to have been formed.

UPDATE: A commenter notes a typographical error and provides additional information. The search terms “project impact” and “Laws of the Ocean” did produce results.  However, none of the corporations listed showed any of PGI’s principals as the incorporator; some had been dissolved and others were incorporated several years before PGI was alleged to have been formed.

Searching by Limited Liability Company/Limited Partnership Name, the following searches also provided zero consistent records:

• Project Gulf Impact
• Project Gulf
• Gulf Impact
• Project Impact
• Laws of the Ocean
• Law Ocean
• Ocean Law

These query results strongly suggest Project Gulf Impact is unlikely to be a California charity or charitable trust and in turn, the organization would likely have insufficient documentation to file for federal 501(c)(3) status.

However, as has been documented in the stories published earlier this week, the organization has actively sought contributions under those names and under the guise of operating as a non-profit, charitable organization. And, as has been documented in public interviews, radio broadcasts, public statements and this series, the organization appears to have used those funds for travel, entertainment and other purposes, and despite requests no documentation has been provided for those expenses.

Furthermore, this series shows that the organization changed the language on its website after being made aware that there were questions about its fundraising and activities in Louisiana.  The changes were made after the organization apparently concluded a summer fundraising drive using the website as its primary source of information about how donations would be used.

With this being the case, there is considerable circumstantial evidence that California and/or federal laws may have been violated.  Accordingly, all of the information and documentation collected during this investigation have been turned over to the California Attorney General’s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Since the organization has apparently established an office in Port Sulphur, LA, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office has also been notified.

This blog will monitor developments and post updates as they become available.

UPDATE II: In response to reader email—if PGI’s principals provide documentation showing that they are indeed a legitimate charitable organization and that the use of funds were consistent with the stated goals of the organization, then this blog would acknowledge and print that information.  However, as of this date, the organization has still not responded to a request for it.

Continuing the investigation into Project Gulf Impact: Questions, questions, questions

Interesting.  Soon after this blog post was published, the PGI website made changes to its donation page.  The information shown on the new page is much different from the previous version, snapshot here:

The organization still claims to be working under California law regarding non-profit organizations, and still claims to be pursuing Federal 501(c)(3) status. 

Gone however, are the paragraphs describing how the organization intended to use funds raised through donations.  Is there something to hide, here? This doesn’t look good, folks.  PGI was contacted via email at 8:40 am CDT on October 5, 2010, and asked to provide specifics regarding its charitable status.  As of this post’s publish time of 8:53 pm CDT on October 5, 2010, the organization had not responded.  As of the current post’s publish time of 4:10 pm CDT on October 6, 2010, the organization had still not responded.

Yet, after being contacted via email and after the story ran yesterday, PGI has made significant changes to their primary fundraising solicitation document—the document they used to solicit the charitable contributions documented in the previous post.

PGI should answer the following requests so that donors can determine whether the organization is operating in an honorable way:

1. Please provide the name and/or contact information for the individual responsible for maintaining your organization's charitable trust or charity status.
2. Please provide the name and/or contact information for the individual at the University of Southern California responsible for the University's status as your fiscal sponsor.
3. Please provide the approximate amount of travel and related expenses in connection with members’ most recent trip to the Gulf Coast.
4. Please provide the approximate amount of expenses associated with leasing, purchasing and/or occupying the organization’s headquarters in Port Sulphur, Louisiana.
5. Please provide information on the workshops and “teach-ins” on health-related issues identified in the earlier fundraising solicitation page.
6. Please provide the approximate amount of funds expended to purchase “aid in the way of supplies, gas cards and other necessary materials for Gulf residents,” as mentioned in the earlier fundraising solicitation page.
7. Please provide details regarding and the approximate costs of  “the independent air and water testing” activities mentioned in the earlier fundraising solicitation page.
8. Please provide the names, qualifications and curriculum vitae of the “independent doctors and experts” mentioned in the earlier fundraising solicitation page.
9. Please provide any information regarding the degree of financial support that PGI is receiving from Coffee Party USA.
10. Please provide any information regarding the degree of financial support that PGI is receiving from Netroots Nation.

These are not difficult questions to answer.  If PGI is indeed operating in a lawful and honorable manner, this information will be readily available.  PGI need not contact this blog or its staff.  Posting the information in a public area on the PGI website will suffice.

Report: White House blocked official oil spill estimates UPDATE: Report excerpt added

Via Reuters Breaking Politics feed:

 

 

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(Reuters) - The White House in the spring blocked release of government estimates on the worst-case scenario of the amount of oil that was spewing from BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico, the presidential commission looking into the accident said on Wednesday.

The commission said its staff was told that in late April or early May that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to make public some of its long-term, worst-case spill models for the Deepwater Horizon accident and requested approval from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to make the information public.

"Staff was told that the Office of Management and Budget denied NOAA's request," the commission said in a draft report on the amount of oil spilled and what happened to it.

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This should put an end to the mainstream media meme that BP’s “initial estimates” were horribly underestimated.  In fact, as shown in the Timeline, BP never publicly provided an estimate of flow from the busted well.  The first estimates came from the US Coast Guard, and every other official flow estimate given to the media came from either the Coasties or the Flow Rate Technical Group, headed by a US Geological Survey team.

BP would have been crazy to stand behind an official estimate of oil flow, for legal and technical reasons.

But don’t hold your breath.  The media bent over backwards to make the Obama White House appear on top of things “from day one.”  The White House didn’t realize it had a serious problem until nine days after the rig exploded and sank.  Obama didn’t appoint an incident commander until 12 days afterwards.  By that time, they were in full damage control mode.

But it wasn’t spill damage they were worried about.  It was political damage.

Had the White House not played politics with the numbers, perhaps private, local and state responders could have been more prepared for the onslaught of crude.  How do you fight a fire without knowing how much of the structure is engaged?  Similarly, how do you fight an oil spill without knowing how much of the stuff is coming at you?

Instead of letting the Coasties and NOAA responders be open and honest with the public, the White House instead moved to create even more economic damage by fabricating a justification for the Deepwater Drilling Moratorium.

UPDATE: via the New York Times:

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“By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem.”

…

And from the Commission Website:

Commission Issues Four New Staff Draft Working Papers

The National Oil Spill Commission today is releasing four new draft working papers prepared by its staff.  Commission staff prepares draft working papers to inform the Commissioners’ on-going examination of the root causes of the Gulf spill and options to guard against and mitigate the impacts of future spills.  The Commissioners’ decisions regarding these matters will be contained in the Commission’s final report, expected to be issued on Jan. 11, 2011.

Topics of the attached staff draft working papers are: 

• Decision-Making within the Unified Command
• The Amount and Fate of the Oil
• The Use of Surface and Subsea Dispersants during the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
• The Challenges of Oil Spill Response in the Arctic

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The report on the use of dispersants ought to be interesting.

EXCLUSIVE: What’s really going on with Project Gulf Impact?

UPDATE: Story continues here.
Last week, this blog introduced you to Project Gulf Impact, an organization putatively set up to raise money for providing information about the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and humanitarian assistance to the spill’s victims.  The group’s videos and interviews have become favorites of conspiracy theorists and they are exemplified by the story linked in my original post. The conspiracy nuts love PGI’s dispatches because they routinely suggest a massive coverup of environmental and health effects related to the spill.  New evidence suggests that PGI may not be the humanitarian foundation its principals claim it to be.  Instead, the evidence shows that the organization has strong left-wing and environmentalist ties and may not be a legitimate non-profit organization at all.

The principal director of the group was a featured speaker at Netroots Nation 2010 convention, is connected with a NOAA-funded climate change videographer, and is directly tied with a former Barack Obama political operative.

In last week’s post, I identified one of the organization’s founders as Gavin Garrison, a graduate student and filmmaker at the University of Southern California.  Mr. Garrison was the individual who registered the organization’s domain name and established its website.

Mr. Garrison’s work includes a NOAA-sponsored film on the climate change debate, called Proof or Propaganda.  Climate change skeptics should probably avoid watching it.

Additional research has revealed that the organization’s co-founders are Matt Smith, a 22-year old aspiring actor; and Richard Virgen, a self-described “freelance celebrity” (warning: obscene gesture imagery at the link).  Virgen has also been listed as the “Producer” on a number of the organizations videos hosted on its site and at YouTube.

UPDATE: Independent investigation and subsequent corroboration have determined that Mr. Virgen is no longer associated with PGI.

Reading Mr. Smith’s blog indicates that his motives for beginning the organization were purely driven by concern over what he perceived as a human tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. It gives the distinct impression that Project Gulf Impact was formed as a noble and worthy humanitarian cause.

However, judging from the content and tone of his interviews with Intel Hub and the videos posted on his organization’s site, combined with his organization’s intense drive for contributions, it looks doubtful that humanitarian goodwill is the only motivation.  Further, we could substantiate no information that confirms Project Gulf Impact is a legitimate non-profit organization, and the organization itself did not respond to a request for information regarding its status.  Further still, we did substantiate the organization’s leftist ties. 

The radio interviews, some conducted as late as September 20, make unsubstantiated claims that massive amounts of oil are still floating around in the Gulf of Mexico; that dispersant chemicals—including conspiracy theorist boogeyman Corexit 9500—are still being sprayed by BP and/or the United States Government; and that there are scores of people suffering from mysterious ailments.

These allegations are difficult to corroborate.

Spokesmen for the Unified Command Center in Mobile, AL and BP North America in Houston, TX both stated that for weeks they have received no reports of significant quantities of oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and that both aerial and subsurface applications of dispersant were halted weeks ago.  The USCG official noted that the government was no longer publishing oil spill slick trajectory maps because no significant surface oil could be found just weeks after the successful July 15 capping of the well. Neither spokesman had heard reports of large-scale illnesses among Gulf Coast residents. Without prompting, both spokesmen provided hotline numbers for anyone to call and report such problems.  For oil at sea or on land, people are encouraged to call 1-866-448-5816.  For medical emergencies related to oil-related sickness or poison control, people are encouraged to call (800) 222-1222.

So why would Project Gulf Impact’s principals still be reporting that things are getting worse rather than better, and that people are still getting sick? Despite every credible and reasonable source stating unequivocally that the oil is virtually gone and that the Gulf’s healing is occurring more rapidly than expected, these people are still claiming that the disaster is getting worse.  Why?

Could there be a financial motivation?

The organization’s website has a donation page, snapshot here:

The text from the page (emphasis mine):

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Your contributions to Project Gulf Impact will help get back down to the Gulf to report the truth and get people out of the area to avoid the growing health risks.

Project Gulf Impact is currently working under the CA non-profit organization status of “Law of the Oceans” as it files for its own non-profit corporation and for 501(c)(3) status. Currently, we are seeking a fiscal sponsor for the organization to ensure that donations are properly tax-exempt. This is a common situation for start up non-profits, especially one that’s genesis was under a month and a half ago.

The funds will be going to two [sic] places:

1) To get Project Gulf Impact back down to the Gulf in order to continue filming and updating the world on what is happening in the Gulf. The team has already received over 250,000 YouTube views and is focused on telling the truth and exposing the human health hazards in the area.

2) The funding will also be used in relief efforts in the Gulf. The group is specifically focused on the human health hazards in the Gulf. They will be setting up a campaign headquarters to provide teach-ins and workshops on health-related issues, to act as a clearinghouse for information and resources in the Gulf (a huge missing piece of the relief efforts currently going on in the Gulf) and to provide aid in the way of supplies, gas cards and other necessary materials for Gulf residents. Health hazards and prevention will be the primary focus as many residents are currently breathing and being poisoned by toxic elements with no means of protecting themselves.

3) The funding will also be used towards independent air and water testing.

The team is connected with doctors and experts who are ready to chip in and start getting this going as soon as the team gets back down to the Gulf.

Project Gulf Impact’s video page contains a variety of videos filmed by the team that are heartbreaking testaments to the health and financial troubles being faced by Gulf residents.

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On its website, PGI lists Coffee Party USA as one if its partners.  The Coffee Party is a cheap, astroturfed response to the Tea Party movement, a real grassroots organization that is still growing in influence and political punch. The Coffee Party founder, Annabel Park, is a former Barack Obama political operative with a specialty in documentary filmmaking.
 
And, fundraising.

Using social media such as Facebook and Twitter, Project Gulf Impact conducted an intense and coordinated fundraising effort through much of July and August. 

Principals and activist volunteers furiously hammered out tweets and facebook messages requesting small donations.  The organization’s website, twitterfeeds and facebook posts specifically mention plans for the organization to return to Louisiana.

That fundraising effort appears to have culminated with Smith’s speech to the Netroots Nation 2010 Convention.  In his address, Smith lays the schmooze on hard and thick.  In it, he says “people are dying.”  That’s violin music to netroots’ ears. 

There are no documents describing how much money was raised, but Mr. Garrison is a filmmaker and grad student at USC and Mr. Smith’s primary residence is in Hollywood’s backyard.  Mr. Garrison has already made one left-leaning documentary, and Mr. Smith has already made two single-episode appearances in a pair of popular TV series. It’s fair to speculate that the pair’s Hollywood connections, the speech before the Netroots Nation Convention and the “partnership” with Coffee Party astroturfers makes for an attractive fundraising base.

But what would they do with the money?

Shortly after the netroots speech, the urgent requests for funding stopped and at some point in early September, the crew reassembled in Plaquemines Parish, ostensibly traveling using the charitable donations solicited by the group and raised during the June-August push.

However, research conducted in preparation for this story was unable to locate a non-profit or charitable organization registered in either the state of California or with the IRS.  Initial research consisted of searches of the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts using various search terms, including Law of the Oceans; starts-with Law; starts-with Project; and includes Project Impact.  The searches, conducted October 3 and 4, 2010, produced no filings consistent with Project Impact’s alleged founder in 2010 or putative status.

Additional research conducted on October 4 and 5, 2010 consisted of queries to the IRS’ Search for Charities database.  Queries included search terms identical to the ones used on the California Attorney General’s website.  The queries again produced no results consistent with the organization’s founders or putative status.

Similar queries were used on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website, also with zero results.

Project Gulf Impact did not respond to an email request sent to the website’s contact address regarding the organization’s status.

Without access to these filings, and in the absence of financial reports detailing the organization’s sources and uses of funds, it is nearly impossible to determine whether Project Gulf Impact is honorably and legally conducting a charitable, humanitarian effort on the Gulf Coast.  How does a donor know where their money is being spent?  Is it on charitable, humanitarian efforts?

Do these efforts include a party and BBQ in Port Sulphur, LA?  The snapshot on the right shows a public invitation on Facebook for an event that was held on September 10.  The invitation page shows that as many as 43 people were in attendance.  While a “potluck” party in Port Sulphur is certainly no gala extravagance, an event like that is still not free.  One wonders if fresh Gulf Seafood was part of the menu. One also wonders whether well-meaning donors in faraway places like Ohio and Nevada would approve of their charitable donations being used to entertain a few dozen young adults on a Friday night.

During my online investigations and interviews with residents, officials and knowledgeable sources in the Gulf of Mexico area, including local government, law enforcement and military contacts in Port Sulphur, New Orleans, and Jesuit Bend in Louisiana; Mobile in Alabama and Pensacola/Gulf Breeze in Florida, two other names popped up in connection with Project Gulf Impact:  Casey Nunez of New Orleans and Gregg Hall of Pensacola Beach.  I can find no principal or financial connection between PGI and these two individuals.  Though the two gentlemen were described to me as “colorful” and might be considered unconventional, they appear to be bit players or volunteers whose interests and circle of friends intersected coincidentally with those of PGI. 

In fact, it appears that a lot of people have been caught up in a new truther conspiracy, cooked up by the usual conspiracy hawking suspects and perpetuated by a group of very slick, polished actors through the well-meaning largesse of charitable contributions from the public.  PGI has strong left-leaning connections, including the Coffee Party and the Netroots organization.

It is very difficult to conclude that PGI is a non-partisan, non-political organization with purely humanitarian goals.  Indeed, it appears to be another astroturfing effort organized by the environmental left, with questionable credentials as a non-profit organization.

Again, Project Gulf Impact was contacted prior to publication, and did not respond to a request for information regarding their charitable status.

Page linked by Doug Ross @ Journal.  Thanks!
Page linked by Dan Riehl @ Carnivorous Conservative. Thanks!
The story continues here…

From the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, a new Truther movement is born UPDATE: Troll detected in the comments!

NOTE: Please see the latest post regarding PGI, located here.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Project Gulf Impact.  It’s meme: “From the Gulf Stream to the bloodstream and why what you’re about to read is the alarm bell of the pending Gulf disaster.”

Project Gulf Impact (we’ll shorten that to PGI) is the newest, latest and greatest incarnation of the truther movement.  You know.  “Ask questions.  Seek the truth.”  Then ignore the truth when given, and ask even more asinine questions.  If it sounds familiar, it should.  If PGI sounds a lot like “Loose Change,” it should.

According to this whois.net report, Project Gulf Impact is a website established by Gavin Garrison, a Santa Barbara, California graduate student at USC.  Hmm.  California graduate students sound like natural experts on oil spill impacts in the Gulf of Mexico, don’t they?
If Gavin Garrison sounds a lot like Dylan Avery, he should.  After all, if film school rejects can speak truth to power about collapsing skyscrapers, then film school students in California can speak truth to power about oil spills 1,900 miles away, right?  Right.

Garrison’s filmograghy includes the NOAA-sponsored “Proof or Propaganda.” Want to guess which side the film falls on?

As is usual with new, exciting and scary conspiracy theories, Garrison, PGI and their mentally challenged ilk have developed a rather devoted following.  It’s the usual collection of Black Helicopter watchers, including several Examiner.com nodes and blog websites like Prison Planet and Godlike Productions.  Their latest:  A story alleging that a group of [ahem] California filmmakers were sickened by mysterious poisons while investigating “the truth” about the oil spill in [gag] “Nazi America.”  The film crew was allegedly working for…  guess who?  PGI, of course!

These people take themselves very seriously but apparently don’t investigate their allies very closely.  Upon reaching the Pelican State, the allegedly sickened PGI crew hooked up with one of New Orleans biggest moonbats: Casey Nunez.

Never heard of Casey?  Really?  Maybe you’ve heard him referred to as Casey Kaine, The Psycho Hurricane.  Or Crackhead Frankenstein.  In his own words:

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I'm 6"6 245 latent homosexual and come from New Orleans Louisiana USA. My friends call me "Beefy Tits". My grand father was A pitcher with the N.Y. Yankees that's how I came to have the Name Casey and more than likely where I Got the explosive knock out Bone crushing power of my right punches and kicks. My Power high Kick is 96.6 Inches or 8ft. At Age 16 I ran away with The Royal Hanneford circus and have done dates in every State in America over a 20 year period with my personal favorites being Michigan adventure in Muskegon. The ice palace in Tampa Florida, the mid Hudson civic center in Poughkeepsie New York and also the Yonkers raceway during the New York State Fair. My All time Favorite Date however by far would have to be The Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee Wisconsin since Its held during Summer fest so I always got to get in free to see all of the shows with my circus pass. I was a tour Guide here in new orleans on a mule drawn carriage at Jackson square and I also Worked as bouncer at the Tricou House 711 Bourbon Street where I lived in the Haunted 3rd floor attic suite which over looked bourbon street. In 1984 I became friends with Tommy Lee of the Heavy Metal Band Motley crue and Jake e. Lee Lead Guitarist for Ozzy after coming to their aid during a fight at the Dungeon in new Orleans.

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Beefy tits?

I swear on a barrel of Corexit, I’m not making this up.

Nunez has a long, sordid history as a YouTube troll.   This is apparently what attracted the PGI crew to Nunez.  He’s also the guy behind this notorious “raining oil” hoax:




Hey, if a troll like Nunez can make a video that fools The Drudge Report and Russia Today, he’s GOT to be the guy PGI hooks up with, right?

What a fine, honest, upstanding bunch of wackos we’ve got here.  Asking questions.  Seeking truth.
I have an honest question—who is the worse group of idiots:  Gavin, Nunez, Dupre, et al, or the fools who believe their garbage?

Admiral Thad Allen officially steps down as Oil Spill National Incident Commander

Admiral Thad Allen, the man Obama tapped as the Gulf Oil Spill National Incident Commander, officially steps aside tomorrow, October 1. 

Allen was chosen as the NIC 11 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, caught fire and sank, and the Macondo well it was drilling began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  Allen  was chosen because he was the veteran of Katrina and Rita recovery operations.

Allen took a lot of heat from local and state politicians (it’s an election year, after all).

I know some people may disagree with this assessment, but overall, Admiral Thad Allen did an excellent job, given the task, the resources and the political environment he had to work in.  His (almost) daily briefings were informative.  He always sounds like he knows what he's talking about, regardless of the subject's technical difficulty.  Whether its booming, skimming and beach cleaning activities or complex engineering and physical characteristics of a runaway oil well and malfunctioning mechanical devices, Allen communicated exactly what was going on and why. 

That shows a penchant for listening to the people working for him, and making decisions based on the best information he has available.  He had no agenda and since he was already officially retired, job security was not an issue.

While Allen’s leadership was completely apolitical, the biggest challenge he faced was making decisions in an environment completely controlled by a White House for which every decision was run through the political sieve. He got things done anyway.  Maybe not always at the speed the locals liked, maybe not always choosing the path the White House wanted.  But he got stuff done.

Admiral Allen should go into retirement knowing that his was a job (mostly) well done.

The End of the Deepwater Horizon Incident Oil Spill Timeline

On September 19, 2010 the Macondo well was officially proclaimed "dead." The Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline, which ran from the April 20 explosion, fire and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon through the “bottom kill” procedure of the relief well, contains just over 600 entries.  Most of the entries are linked and sourced, and the timeline describes the slow motion disaster of the Gulf Oil Spill in about as much detail as you’ll find anywhere on the web.

A large percentage of the news story links are from the Mobile Press-Register (via al.com) and the New Orleans Times-Picayune (via nola.com), two regional newspapers that provided outstanding, round-the-clock coverage of the event.  Those two papers deserve all the awards they’ll win for their coverage, and then some.

While it won’t be updated anymore, the timeline will stay online as a resource for news hounds, researchers, and others interested in chronicling the disaster.  It is inevitable that some of the links will “die” as sites update their archives.  If you happen upon a broken link, please identify it and if a suitable alternative exists, it’ll be corrected.

To all of the visitors who used the document to stay up to date, to all the bloggers who linked to the page and to all of the folks who commented and sent tips and suggestions via email, a heartfelt thank you!

Redistributing wealth with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility

President Barack Hussein Obama famously said, “I do think at a certain point, you’ve made enough money.”  This man, this regime is hell bent on making sure the rich suffer the consequences of rapaciously accumulating all of that wealth.  So much so, that they are apparently attempting to redistribute it even with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility.  The GCCF is the apparatus that distributes the $20 billion slush fund that the regime arm-twisted out of BP.  The GCCF is administered by none other than the former “Pay Czar,” Kenneth Feinberg.  You know, the guy who said he’d be “uncompensated” for that position but got a six-figure salary, anyway.

In a story from yesterday’s Mobile Press-Register:

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Business owners and public officials in Baldwin County say they are alarmed by reports of employees receiving more money for oil spill claims than owners of the businesses they work for.

It is just another aspect of their biggest problem with Ken Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility — that business owners near Baldwin County’s once-lucrative beaches get checks that cover only a fraction of losses suffered after the oil spill began keeping tourists at bay.

David Wright is an extreme example. The owner of an Elberta company that builds high-end homes for people who plan to either retire or vacation on the coast, Wright had to lay off his 15 workers when his customers canceled contracts after the April 20 spill.

Rob Manney, a supervisor on Wright’s crew, said he got checks totaling 80 percent of his personal claim with Feinberg’s operation.

Wright’s business claim was denied.

“How do you pay an employee and not the business?” Wright asked. “It’s anti-business.”

Feinberg did not respond to requests for comment made to his media representative.

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Feinberg says that the GCCF is not under the direction of BP or the regime.  That, obviously, is a bunch of shit. There is only one reason why Wright’s employees are getting claims checks and business owners like Wright are not—it’s class discrimination.  “Bourgeoisie” business owners like Wright are the people who create the jobs that drive this economy.  But to the Obama regime, men like Wright are guilty of building wealth on the sweat and blood of their employees.  So, when the opportunity arises to “make it right,” they do so.  They deny legitimate claims submitted by business owners while approving the claims of the businesses’ employees.

I am no fan of the $20 billion slush fund.  It’s just another way for the regime to pick winners and losers.  Or, in this case, to pick those who suffer a little and those who suffer a lot. 

The regime’s complete ineptitude in responding to the disaster—as documented in the Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline on this blog—shows that it is incapable of managing any significant enterprise or effort.  It inevitably allows politics to color its decision-making process, and shamefully allows ideology to pollute what should be a straightforward process of settling claims.

Ding Dong, the Well is Dead. Gulf Oil Spill comes to anticlimactic end

In a statement released this morning, Admiral Thad Allen (RET) confirms the results of last night’s final pressure test and proclaims the Macondo Well dead; the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill over:

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"After months of extensive operations planning and execution under the direction and authority of the U.S. government science and engineering teams, BP has successfully completed the relief well by intersecting and cementing the well nearly 18,000 feet below the surface.  With this development, which has been confirmed by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, we can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead.   Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico.  From the beginning, this response has been driven by the best science and engineering available.  We insisted that BP develop robust redundancy measures to ensure that each step was part of a deliberate plan, driven by science, minimizing risk to ensure we did not inflict additional harm in our efforts to kill the well.  I commend the response personnel, both from the government and private sectors, for seeing this vital procedure through to the end.  And although the well is now dead, we remain committed to continue aggressive efforts to clean up any additional oil we may see going forward."

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It’s something of an anticlimactic end, as the well was successfully capped on July 15 and no oil has flowed from the well since then.  There’s been quite a bit of speculation as to whether the relief well completion was even needed, as the “top kill” procedure that followed the successful cap stanched the flow of oil and could have been the permanent fix.

Nonetheless, a slow motion disaster has come to a quiet end, nearly five months to the day since April 20, when a methane gas bubble erupted and blew out the well.  The ensuing explosions and fire killed 11 men, sank one of the world’s most advanced drilling rigs and started the worst marine oil spill in US history.

Now comes the continuing recovery, which the Obama regime can hasten by dropping the arbitrary, capricious and economically devastating drilling moratorium.  Let the Gulf Coast get back to work, and it will recover all by itself.

Moratorium only cost 12,000 jobs. “Let them eat cake.”

“Let them eat cake.”

This regime has many aspects about it that rub people the wrong way.  The cavalier attitude towards those affected by its misguided policy decisions might be the most acute.  Late Thursday, the regime released its analysis (PDF) of the economic effects of the deepwater drilling moratorium.  The report estimated that between 8,000 and 12,000 jobs would be impacted by the moratorium, and up to $1.8 billion in spending by the oil and gas exploration sector would be lost.  The report categorizes the effects as “not large.”  “Not significant.”

“Let them eat cake.”

In an editorial yesterday, the New Orleans Times Picayune takes the administration to task for its indifference:

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Louisiana officials and industry observers disputed some of the premises in the government's analysis, and their observations have merit. But even if the administration's figures are correct, 12,000 jobs lost is a major hit for the economy of a recovering region – and the administration shouldn't be cavalier about that.

LSU economics professor Joseph Mason, who has studied the moratorium's impact, said the government's estimate of job losses doesn't differ much from his own. The distinction, he said, is in how federal officials are framing their conclusions. In particular, Mr. Mason noted that many Gulf Coast communities are small, meaning the loss of even a few hundred jobs can be devastating.

"The administration says 'only' 12,000 jobs will be lost," Mr. Mason said. "This is almost as if they are telling a region that has been hit by disaster – both natural and manmade – time and time again that we'll 'only' wipe out a handful of their communities."

He's right, and that goes against President Obama's promise that his administration would help our region recover from this disaster.

The problem is not just that government officials were, and apparently still are, oblivious to the economic pain caused by the deepwater moratorium. The administration has not even acknowledged the damage from what local officials have characterized as a de-facto moratorium on shallow-water drilling.

Federal officials have said there's no official ban on shallow-water drilling. But 15 of 46 shallow-water rigs active when the Deepwater Horizon exploded are now idle, and four other have left the country. In addition, the federal government has granted only four permits for new drilling operations in the past four months. That many shallow-water permits were granted on any given week before the moratorium.

Industry officials said the shallow-water slowdown also is costing jobs. Shallow-water operator Hercules Offshore, for example, said it's laid off a few hundred employees. Seahawk Drilling Inc. has idled four rigs and put 150 workers on unpaid leave.

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The regime’s unwillingness (or apathy toward) admitting that its capricious policy of halting drilling in the gulf is having a significant economic impact, combined with the cavalier attitude towards the impacts that it does acknowledge, gives lie to the promise Obama made “heal the Gulf.”  He either doesn’t care, or he doesn’t care to care.

It’s this attitude—along with a long list of other dilettantish traits—that irks and angers so many Americans, not the least of which are the people of the Gulf Coast. They are “only” losing 12,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in economic impacts from the moratorium.

“Let them eat cake.”

Obama spent $18 large to monitor Oil Spill coverage

From the Deepwater Horizon Incident Timeline to the dozens of posts pointing out the flailingly bad management of the spill response, this site hasn’t been exactly kind to the Obama regime, Secretariat Salazaravich or the transformation of the US Coast Guard from rescue heroes to trudging bureaucracy.  Hmmm.

I wonder how much of that was spent monitoring this blog?  Not much, I’m sure—I’m small time.  But it still makes for an awesome story:

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush’s much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

The government also spent $10,000 for just over three minutes of video showing a routine offshore rig inspection for news organizations but couldn’t say whether any ran the footage. And it awarded a $216,625 no-bid contract for a survey of seabirds to an environmental group that has criticized what it calls the “extreme anti-conservation record” of Sarah Palin, a possible 2012 rival to President Barack Obama.

The contracts were among hundreds reviewed by The Associated Press as the government begins to provide an early glimpse at federal spending since the Gulf disaster in April. While most of the contracts don’t raise alarms, some could provide ammunition for critics of government waste.

…

Among all the contracts, perhaps none is more striking than the Coast Guard’s decision to pay $9,000 per month for two months to John Brooks Rice of New Orleans, an on-call worker for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under a no-bid contract to monitor media coverage from late May through July.

Rice told the AP that he compiled print and video news stories and offered his subjective appraisal of the tone of the coverage. “From reading and watching the media I would create reports,” he said. “I reported either positive coverage, negative coverage, misinformation coverage.”

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Check out the link for some really good stuff.  My personal favorite:

Yet the government’s new contracting data includes errors and vague entries that make it difficult to identify wasteful spending. It spent $52,000 on a boat charter described merely as “marine charter for things,” with no further explanation.

I have access to this database, and I’ll probably spend some time tomorrow going through it to see what else looks like fun.

It’s good blog and radio talker fodder, but it’s not unusual for government contracts awarded during emergencies to be less than specific on what’s being procured.  I’ve had a number of so-called “no bid” contracts awarded to my company—with absolutely no description provided in the contract documents—after Hurricanes and  flood events.  It’s not usually a big deal. The contracts are awarded in a legitimate hurry, usually after a phone call from contracting officers who know me, trust me and have a legitimate emergency need for our services.  We discuss the scope, negotiate the fee and the contract is awarded in short order. The contracts are later modified to provide more details, including the specific services provided, contract schedule, and any equipment or materials required. 

And no, even though I have been a frequent and vocal critic of the Obama regime’s response to this disaster, business isn’t going to suffer.  The CO’s who call me and are willing to award me a negotiated contract on an emergency basis are conservatives or retired military.

"We have a situation," the assistant driller said. "The well is blown out.”

The Associated Press has a riveting account of the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig’s last hours.  Three days before the fateful blowout, explosions and fire that killed 11 men, sunk the rig and set off the nation’s worst marine oil spill, senior Halliburton technical adviser Jesse Gagliano warned colleagues that “we have a potential problem here:”

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"We have a potential problem here," the Halliburton employee told 3 colleagues he met in the hallway in BP PLC's Houston headquarters. He said his computer model was predicting a "serious gas flow problem" with BP's well abandonment plan.

His idea for addressing the issue would never be carried out. BP decided it wasn't necessary. Five days later, on April 20, the well blew out, causing the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

In an internal report released Wednesday, BP stood by its decision, saying Gagliano's plan would not have stopped the explosion.

The disagreement was just one of several that emerged in the days and hours before the blast, according to BP's report and e-mails, documents and testimony gathered by federal investigators. Confusion surrounded crucial tasks and frustration rose among people involved.

…

BP operated the well, Transocean owned the rig and Halliburton carried out the cement job. They had to work together.  Yet key plans kept changing. Critical tests meant to ensure the well would be safely cemented were not going smoothly.

…

Gagliano's computer model exposed yet another possible problem. The longtime technical adviser concluded that the cementing operation needed more centralizers, devices designed to ensure that the casing — or drilling pipe — runs down the center of the wellbore to increase the chance for a perfect seal and prevent leaks. BP had planned to run six centralizers and had them onboard.

After a corridor chat with BP's senior drilling engineer, Gagliano worked up more models. By the evening of April 15, Gagliano had a model with 21 centralizers that resolved the gas flow problem. The 15 additional centralizers were acquired and scheduled for delivery the next morning, in time for the Halliburton cementers to do the job.

BP drilling engineer Brett Cocales learned the next afternoon, April 16, that his company's engineers had decided against using the additional centralizers because of questions about their mechanical integrity. Members of a BP investigation panel said Wednesday that those concerns were unfounded because engineers were mistaken about which centralizers had been shipped.

In an e-mail to fellow drilling engineer Brian Morel, Cocales explained the extra centralizers could help meet the goal of inserting the casing properly. Then he continued:

"But who cares? It's done. We'll probably get a good cement job," he wrote, frustrated it had taken so long to make a decision.

---

Obviously, they didn’t get a good cement job at all, because four days after Cocales’ and Morel’s email exchange, a methane gas bubble erupted through the well, displacing mud and seawater on its way through the crown of the Deepwater Horizon.  A series of mistakes aboard the well then let the gas escape and reach an ignition source.

By all means, go read AP correspondent Ramit Plushnick-Masti’s account of the events, conversations and people involved.

But as I pointed out here yesterday, this is an account of a chain of events in which had someone made the right choice at any point in the process, the disaster would have likely been averted or the blowout brought under control. Instead, the rig was doomed by a cascading series of missteps, from failing to insure that a “fool proof blowout preventer” was indeed foolproof during testing; failing to heed Gagliano’s advice on centralizers; Vidrine’s decision to displace the mud with seawater; the crew’s failure to implement emergency procedures once they realized that the well was gonna go.

A tragic series of events indeed, but a series of events that is exceedingly rare in today’s oil and gas exploration industry.