Bush-Era Interior Secys - "No One Anticipated" Gulf Oil Disaster On Scale Of BP Blowout - NYT

[hatrack]

House Democrats sought Tuesday to use a hearing on the Interior Department’s role in the Gulf Coast oil spill to blame the Bush administration for regulatory failures that may have contributed to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee traced the roots of the disaster back to Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force.

The Interior Department, led by Gale Norton until 2006 and then by Dirk Kempthorne until 2009, “was off-duty for nearly a decade,” Senator Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the energy panel, said. “And this gave rise to a dangerous culture of permissiveness.” He said that Ms. Norton “failed to act on safety warnings about blowout preventers” and “rejected proposals to strengthen standards for cementing wells.” “Those decisions sent a clear message: the priority was more drilling first, safety second,” he said.

EDIT

Mr. Kempthorne, a rumored 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said no one anticipated a disaster on the scale of the gulf oil spill, including Congress. He said lawmakers passed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 with no language addressing the need for preventing oil spills. He said he couldn’t recall safety concerns about a large spill being raised in his confirmation hearing or at any time during his tenure. Both former officials said they opposed President Obama’s drilling moratorium and urged lawmakers to enact safety regulations that did not make America more reliant on foreign energy sources. “The important thing is to address the issues, not send the drilling rigs overseas where they may not return for several years,” Ms. Norton said.

EDIT

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/finger-pointing-shifts-to-bushs-oil-regulation/

[rocktivity]

1. "No one could have anticipated..."

They say that a lot, don't they?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[dtexdem]

4. Yeah, a new one for the Bushistas, right?

Now, we'll have to wait to hear about a presidential daily briefing that warned Dubya that a murderous blowout could occur, resulting in a gusher that would devastate an entire region of the U.S.

[MountainLaurel]

5. You mean like

No one could have anticipated a 20-ft storm surge coming up MR-GO and the Industrial Canal in a hurricane, causing the levees to breach and 80% of New Orleans to flood. No one, except, the scientists who studied just a scenario, the journalists who wrote a 5-part series about it, the officials and public who read that series, and pretty much anyone who knew anything about the development of New Orleans?

[rocktivity]

7. Not to mention a freaking puppet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UjVBQChwxM

:headbang:
rocktivity

[mike_c]

2. then what, exactly, do we pay them to do...?

:shrug:

[glitch]

8. We paid them to enrich themselves by stealing from us and the world.

Apparently we aren't as bright as we are loud.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I do think we ought to make sure future generations know the motto of the Bush administration,

2001-2008, was 'No One Could Have Anticipated'.

[tom_paine]

6. Dragging out that old lie again, are they?

That might be the most worrisome part of trying to assess where along the transition to Whatever The Hell We Are Becoming is the tremendous ease with which the Republics can tell lie after lie with no fear of consequences.

It's just damned creepy, damned indicative, and damned far along.

A National Dialog as untethered to reality as ours is, is most certainly a precursor taht has preceded many of the worst societies known to human history. We may yet still avoid it, but the trends have been unmoving for quite some time now.