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Obama should have declared the entire fiasco a National Emergency and repossessed the entire operation, repossessed all the engineering information and subcontr

Obama should have declared the entire fiasco a National Emergency and repossessed the entire operation, repossessed all the engineering information and subcontracted out the fix to Exxon under the command of the Army Corps of Engineers or better, DARPA. If BP is the first and only operator drilling at 5k feet and royally screwed the pooch than how worse of a job could Exxon do? When the President of the United States thinks that BP is the best we can do, we are all well and truly boned. Not because that is obviously not true, but because the President has more or less abdicated his power.

jswinghammer 16y ago
We didn't want the rule of law anyway I guess...
sp332 16y ago
This is a capitalist country, which means that personal property is sacred and cannot be taken without due process of law. Imagine if the President could just take over whatever property he wanted as long as it was for "national security." The abuses of power would be incredible! Point is, Obama neither has, nor should have the power to repossess the operation.
- siculars 16y ago
  Hey sp332, I'm with you. We are a capitalist country and personal property is sacrosanct. In an era where the Government is looking to takeover virtually everything in sight from how health care works, to how we make cars to how Wall Street operates how can this calamity be off limits? If media reports are to be believed [1][2], which are the best we can go on at the moment, I have no doubt that BP will be shown to have been negligent and hope against hope, criminally at that. I can only hope that BP execs do hard time for this. Will you say that this is not an environmental catastrophe? As an environmental catastrophe is this incident not a national security incident? How can the only answer to this problem be that BP be in charge of fixing it? It would be like saying that Lehman Brothers broke the economy and they are the only ones who can fix it. Obviously that is not the case as evidenced by the Governments extreme, forceful and more than a handfull of people would say illegal intervention. Where is the extreme, forceful intervention the nation is begging for now? How can the POTUS be impotent when we need the "buck" to stop with someone who has the power to do something meaningful? Ya, I'm mashing a whole bunch of things together but, eh, whatever. When virtual numbers flash on a screen in the wrong directions the world basically comes to a halt and there is no limit to the power and absolute authority of the Government. But when an actual real life, physical catastrophe is at hand, the Government is impotent and has no tools or imagination at it's disposal. It's all just sickening and shameful. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html [2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490...
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  I'm guessing you're not familiar with Eminent Domain?
  - anamax 16y ago
    > I'm guessing you're not familiar with Eminent Domain? I'm guessing you're not familiar with how long Eminent Domain takes when the owner has significant resources. In practice, Eminent Domain is only used to take things from poor people.
  - sp332 16y ago
    I did say without due process of law. As shown in the cases discussed here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain#United_States , eminent domain is a function of the courts.
jackfoxy 16y ago
Probably just hasty typing, but in order to "repossess", one must first "possess", either actually or as a point of law. Obama and/or the federal government never possessed either the operation or the engineering information. However under all the various and sundry legislation enacted over many years governing environmental matters and matters on the high seas, you would think somewhere in there the POTUS has power to make some sort of executive action that would have taken more control (and that this is still possible to do).
neurotech1 16y ago
I don't think that delegating to Exxon would be the smartest idea. The big reason this happened was because excessive interference by high level BP executives. The president could demand all engineering information be made available, and let the Coast Guard/ACE/DARPA manage the operation, without "repossessing" any real property.
hugh3 16y ago
Apart from the legal issues, I am extremely unconvinced that having the government suddenly take over all the equipment which is currently being used to fix it would have done any good. Handing over control to someone who has no idea what they're doing rarely fixes problems. It does seem to me that the US government could be doing more with the cleanup, though, instead of just standing on the sidelines and shouting "Hey BP! Fix this faster!" I mean, if I caused an accident on the freeway and crashed into a truck, causing toxic waste to spill out across twelve lanes of the interstate, would the Highway Patrol show up and tell me to clean up the mess I made? Hell no, they'd use government resources to clean the mess up as quickly as possible, and worry about punishing me for my negligence later.
- hga 16y ago
  Could do more as in "let BP and Louisiana dredge sand to build barrier islands in front of vulnerable marshes"? I just can't figure out what's up with Obama's pocket veto of that.... Or as we recently learned, turning the Netherlands down flat when they offered to come over and help. I think I read that offers by 13 nations have been refused.
  - guelo 16y ago
    source?
    - hga 16y ago
      Please, in the era of Google et. al.: gulf oil spill dredge sand barrier islands refusal Dutch gulf oil spill help refused (OK, it did take me two tries to get a good Google first page on the former.)
      - guelo 16y ago
        OK, you made me google it myself because this all sounded very suspicious. When I googled the dredge stuff the first link was from RedState, a hyper-partisan republican blog, so that made me more suspicious. I found some info such as this, http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/coast_guard_approves_building.html http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/co..., where the Corps of Engineers has approved one such project to test the idea. And I found info about BP pushing back on paying for these projects. But I definitely did not find anything about an "Obama pocket veto". Except for Republican propaganda sites. The Dutch refusal stuff, after wading through all the republican propaganda blogs, apparently has to do with some law I didn't understand.
sigstoat 16y ago
would you ever build a bajzillion dollar oil rig in the vicinity of a country which had decided to magically nationalize one, for any reason? not if you could find oil anywhere else. confiscating BP's equipment and whatever the hell else is not the fastest way to get the mess cleaned up. it's the fastest way to guarantee oil companies think twice about engaging in any capital construction projects in the vicinity of the united states.
- gaius 16y ago
  Not to mention it isn't even BP's equipment. The rig was leased from and operated by American company Transocean.

jswinghammer 16y ago

We didn't want the rule of law anyway I guess...

sp332 16y ago

This is a capitalist country, which means that personal property is sacred and cannot be taken without due process of law. Imagine if the President could just take over whatever property he wanted as long as it was for "national security." The abuses of power would be incredible! Point is, Obama neither has, nor should have the power to repossess the operation.

siculars 16y ago
Hey sp332, I'm with you. We are a capitalist country and personal property is sacrosanct. In an era where the Government is looking to takeover virtually everything in sight from how health care works, to how we make cars to how Wall Street operates how can this calamity be off limits? If media reports are to be believed [1][2], which are the best we can go on at the moment, I have no doubt that BP will be shown to have been negligent and hope against hope, criminally at that. I can only hope that BP execs do hard time for this. Will you say that this is not an environmental catastrophe? As an environmental catastrophe is this incident not a national security incident? How can the only answer to this problem be that BP be in charge of fixing it? It would be like saying that Lehman Brothers broke the economy and they are the only ones who can fix it. Obviously that is not the case as evidenced by the Governments extreme, forceful and more than a handfull of people would say illegal intervention. Where is the extreme, forceful intervention the nation is begging for now? How can the POTUS be impotent when we need the "buck" to stop with someone who has the power to do something meaningful? Ya, I'm mashing a whole bunch of things together but, eh, whatever. When virtual numbers flash on a screen in the wrong directions the world basically comes to a halt and there is no limit to the power and absolute authority of the Government. But when an actual real life, physical catastrophe is at hand, the Government is impotent and has no tools or imagination at it's disposal. It's all just sickening and shameful. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html [2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490...
HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
I'm guessing you're not familiar with Eminent Domain?
- anamax 16y ago
  > I'm guessing you're not familiar with Eminent Domain? I'm guessing you're not familiar with how long Eminent Domain takes when the owner has significant resources. In practice, Eminent Domain is only used to take things from poor people.
- sp332 16y ago
  I did say without due process of law. As shown in the cases discussed here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain#United_States , eminent domain is a function of the courts.

jackfoxy 16y ago

Probably just hasty typing, but in order to "repossess", one must first "possess", either actually or as a point of law. Obama and/or the federal government never possessed either the operation or the engineering information. However under all the various and sundry legislation enacted over many years governing environmental matters and matters on the high seas, you would think somewhere in there the POTUS has power to make some sort of executive action that would have taken more control (and that this is still possible to do).

neurotech1 16y ago

I don't think that delegating to Exxon would be the smartest idea. The big reason this happened was because excessive interference by high level BP executives. The president could demand all engineering information be made available, and let the Coast Guard/ACE/DARPA manage the operation, without "repossessing" any real property.

hugh3 16y ago

Apart from the legal issues, I am extremely unconvinced that having the government suddenly take over all the equipment which is currently being used to fix it would have done any good. Handing over control to someone who has no idea what they're doing rarely fixes problems. It does seem to me that the US government could be doing more with the cleanup, though, instead of just standing on the sidelines and shouting "Hey BP! Fix this faster!" I mean, if I caused an accident on the freeway and crashed into a truck, causing toxic waste to spill out across twelve lanes of the interstate, would the Highway Patrol show up and tell me to clean up the mess I made? Hell no, they'd use government resources to clean the mess up as quickly as possible, and worry about punishing me for my negligence later.

hga 16y ago
Could do more as in "let BP and Louisiana dredge sand to build barrier islands in front of vulnerable marshes"? I just can't figure out what's up with Obama's pocket veto of that.... Or as we recently learned, turning the Netherlands down flat when they offered to come over and help. I think I read that offers by 13 nations have been refused.
- guelo 16y ago
  source?
  - hga 16y ago
    Please, in the era of Google et. al.: gulf oil spill dredge sand barrier islands refusal Dutch gulf oil spill help refused (OK, it did take me two tries to get a good Google first page on the former.)
    - guelo 16y ago
      OK, you made me google it myself because this all sounded very suspicious. When I googled the dredge stuff the first link was from RedState, a hyper-partisan republican blog, so that made me more suspicious. I found some info such as this, http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/coast_guard_approves_building.html http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/co..., where the Corps of Engineers has approved one such project to test the idea. And I found info about BP pushing back on paying for these projects. But I definitely did not find anything about an "Obama pocket veto". Except for Republican propaganda sites. The Dutch refusal stuff, after wading through all the republican propaganda blogs, apparently has to do with some law I didn't understand.

sigstoat 16y ago

would you ever build a bajzillion dollar oil rig in the vicinity of a country which had decided to magically nationalize one, for any reason? not if you could find oil anywhere else. confiscating BP's equipment and whatever the hell else is not the fastest way to get the mess cleaned up. it's the fastest way to guarantee oil companies think twice about engaging in any capital construction projects in the vicinity of the united states.

gaius 16y ago
Not to mention it isn't even BP's equipment. The rig was leased from and operated by American company Transocean.