So be it! Is it a crime to make Obama look bad? And by the way, Obama’s “extreme indifference” is still less “indifferent” than the Bush oil policies and MMS agency management, which he inherited and didn’t clean up quickly enough.

Touche, but I don’t think Bush would have made the same mistake twice by going too far in the other
direction as Obama has. I really do wish he’d call it off, because it’s causing severe harm to south Louisiana for no good reason.

Heh. Then you don’t know Big Oil very well. Every time safety comes up Big Oil argues, collectively, that they are already safe and the record proves self-regulation is the best policy and more stringent regulation will only raise prices and kill jobs. They never said “we’re very safe except for that rogue company BP that causes most of the trouble, but would welcome additional regulations and oversight just to be on the safe side”.

Well, nobody likes to be regulated more, and this is especially true if they believe that they have safe practices to begin with. It might be that my local tavern keeps a reasonably tight ship, but they don’t want the expense and inconvenience of monthly health inspections. If somebody proposed more frequent health inspections, they’d be opposed. They aren’t warranting that there aren’t other taverns that have dirty counters, store ground beef at improper temperatures, and leave the chicken out all night. They don’t want to have to pay the cost of additional regulation to deal with the conduct of other businesses.

I think it’s similar here. BP had especially lousy practices, particularly on this well. I’m sure you’ve heard that BP had a whopping 97% of “egregious, willful” OSHA violations over the past five years. They also violated existing regulations that, if followed, could have prevented this accident from occurring. Why would ExxonMobil, with a far better safety record, turn around and urge more regulations and oversight, thus cutting into its profits, to deal with a problem it doesn’t have? These are separate companies; they’re not responsible for one another.

So be it! Is it a crime to make Obama look bad? And by the way, Obama’s “extreme indifference” is still less “indifferent” than the Bush oil policies and MMS agency management, which he inherited and didn’t clean up quickly enough.

“Obama could have insisted on more stringent safety regulation and enforcement while supporting new drilling. I tend to doubt it would have been a major sticking point.”

Heh. Then you don’t know Big Oil very well. Every time safety comes up Big Oil argues, collectively, that they are already safe and the record proves self-regulation is the best policy and more stringent regulation will only raise prices and kill jobs. They never said “we’re very safe except for that rogue company BP that causes most of the trouble, but would welcome additional regulations and oversight just to be on the safe side”.

Surely, a six-month stoppage of deepwater drilling after the biggest environmental catastrophe in memory is not a wildly unjustified overreaction.

If it causes more harm when lesser methods would work just as well, then yes it is. It’s arbitrary and stupid. You place the decision in context, but that context only shows that Obama was not sufficiently concerned with safety before due to political concerns, and is now going too far in the other direction to save face. If I accept your version of the narrative, it just makes Obama look doubly bad, picking extreme indifference and then extreme overreaction.

Moreover, let’s not get into blaming “Big Oil” in the aggregate for this. It was BP that had the horrendous safety record, far worse than its competitors, and it was BP that had the accident. Also, Obama could have insisted on more stringent safety regulation and enforcement while supporting new drilling. I tend to doubt it would have been a major sticking point, unless Obama was gambling on gaining the maximum political mileage for climate change legislation (which appears to have been the case).

BP has proven that they not only conducted their deep water drilling activities in an irresponsible manner, they also proved that their disaster response plan was irresponsible as well.

The other big oil companies testified before Congress and told the American people that their disaster response plans were just as irresponsible as the one belonging to BP. Many of the companies had carbon copy plans of other companies, including the listing of a dead man as an emergency contact. Finally, the CEO of Exxon even admitted that if this disaster happened on his watch that oil would still be hitting our shores.

The companies who are drilling in deep water have proven to use that they are irresponsible in their lack of a true disaster response plan. Why should the citizens of Louisiana believe that their drilling activities are any more responsible than that?

This is why a moratorium is needed. We need to pause the drilling that takes place in deep water to make sure that all of those operations are safe.

The short term loss of employment because of the reduction of drilling activity should be paid for by those who are drilling irresponsibly (thus requiring a short term reduction in available work). And those other rigs who decide to just flat out leave, well, all they are saying to me is that they do not want to be held to higher standards and that they are still willing to put their workers and our coastline at risk because of their greed in seeking more short term profit over caring about safety. If they leave, good riddance.

The loss of jobs because of any pause in drilling is not the fault of the Obama Administration. It is the fault of the careless oil companies who prove Keynes right about short term vs long term.

Well, explain to me how this works for Democrat Glenn Nye of Virginia, who aligned with much of the VA delegation to SUPPORT oil drilling off the state’s coast. Nye’s district encompasses the coast, he’s FOR drilling, he’s in a tough run for re-election in a swing district in a swing state, Obama announced that VA would be the first state to benefit from expanded drilling in March… BUT, then Obama ordered the the specially timed moratorium in order to help Dems like Glenn Nye. That hardly make sense, and if it doesn’t make sense for Nye, I’m perplexed as to why he would hurt Nye (a shaky 1 term incumbent) in order to rally the vote for a 10 term incumbent like Jim Moran (who opposes drilling).

Seems a rather contorted, bankshot strategem to me.

The Moratorium was announced May 27. If it were exactly six months it would expire on November 27. There is virtually no chance that any meaningful review of regulations or of the BP disaster will be complete before sometime well into 2011.

But November 27 is also 22 days after the Congressional Elections. The coastal oil states of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas are pretty red and are unlikely to do much for the Democrats, but the states where drilling was proposed are in play and starting drilling again will alienate many potential Democratic activists and possibly hurt Democrats in the already tough Congressional elections, especially where seats are competitive.

I think the move is pure politics and the election calendar was the primary focus.