The BP Disaster Is Cheney’s Katrina

[Donnachaidh]

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/04/bp-cheney-katrina/


The Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, achieved many of the goals set out by Cheney’s secret task force in 2001 and ushered in a new era of deregulation, self-regulation, and utter disregard for environmental and safety laws. It also coincided with a culture of deep and widespread corruption at the Interior Department, including the Minerals Management Service. This era unquestionably set the stage for the BP oil catastrophe — Cheney’s Katrina.

With two oilmen in the White House and two more Texans leading an emboldened Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Big Oil had an unprecedented opportunity to set U.S. energy policy. Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Task Force concluded in May 2001:

Advanced, more energy-efficient drilling and production methods: reduce emissions; practically eliminate spills from offshore platforms; and enhance worker safety, lower risk of blowouts, and provide better protection of groundwater resources.

Fortunately, the Democratically controlled Senate prevented final passage of a bill during the 107th Congress from January 2001 to January 2003. After Republicans took the Senate in 2003, oil-funded House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) pushed for an even more sweeping bill that fulfilled the pro-oil blueprint crafted by Cheney’s secret energy task force. After months of intense debate, a bipartisan filibuster in the Senate barely killed the bill.


MORE at the link above ---

[Scuba]

1. Cheney's Chernobyl.... I love alliteration.

[aquart]

2. Cheney? Dick Cheney? Anybody seen him lately? Or his daughter?

Have they been busy making the rounds of Sunday talk shows?

[Donnachaidh]

4. his spawn has let a slime trail on Faux the last few days

Cheney won't come into the light because he's got some "splainin'" to do about his energy meetings. He'll stay in his cave, sucking the life from newborns and wait out the spill...

[NightWatcher]

3. Like I've said before, the spill is a teabagger's paradise

this is what happens when the corporations are given free reign and the government stays on the sidelines. For Piyush Jindal to stand there and complain about the government's response and then say he supports MORE drilling in the next breath is the predicament that the teabaggers and cons fins themselves in when confronted with reality.