Expert panel says Obama administration misrepresented their views on drilling moratorium
posted at 3:45 pm on June 9, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
When the Obama administration announced its moratorium on new off-shore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and Gulf crisis, it packaged the announcement with a series of safety recommendations given to the White House by a panel of experts on deep-sea drilling. Now that panel has accused the White House of misleading the public by misrepresenting their report as an endorsement of the moratorium. In fact, they say that the moratorium was the wrong way to go:
Members of a panel of experts brought in to advise the Obama administration on how to address offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon disaster now say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar falsely implied they supported a six-month drilling moratorium they actually oppose.
Salazar’s May 27 report to President Barack Obama said a panel of seven experts “peer reviewed” his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on all ongoing drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. That prohibition took effect a few days later, but the angry panel members and some others who contributed to the Salazar report said they had reviewed only an earlier version of the secretary’s report that suggested a six-month moratorium only on new drilling, and then only in waters deeper than 1,000 feet.
“We broadly agree with the detailed recommendations in the report and compliment the Department of Interior for its efforts,” a joint letter from the panelists to various politicians says. “However, we do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium on floating drilling. A moratorium was added after the final review and was never agreed to by the contributors.” …
“A blanket moratorium is not the answer. It will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation’s economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill,” the letter says. “We do not believe punishing the innocent is the right thing to do.”
The White House backed down from its initial spin, admitting that the panel didn’t get asked about the moratorium, at least not as implemented by the White House. It’s somewhat mysterious why they would have bothered to do that anyway. Politically, a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling had at least significant political support. The panel had a different focus anyway, but the moratorium is less a safety issue than a recognition that the regulators have not been effective in this field at stopping this kind of potential disaster.
Instead of just relying on its own intellectual candlepower for the decision, Barack Obama and Ken Salazar apparently wanted some cover for their decision, and tried pulling a bait-and-switch on their own expert panel. That certainly isn’t going to instill confidence in the leadership of this administration or its competence, both in the crisis at hand and in general. Shooting themselves in the foot in their public-relations efforts and antagonizing the people they need to solve the catastrophe is the last thing they or any of us need at the moment.
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Preach it brother. The Founders were no dummies. They understand that leaving things up to man would ultimately lead to disaster. But we have moved so far from the original meaning of the Constitution that we have allowed man to rule over us with the predictable results.
NotCoach on May 24, 2013 at 6:45 PM
Better watch who you call or text or email now, Erika. And, stay off those adult websites, by all means. Big Brother’s awatchin’. ;-)
TXUS on May 24, 2013 at 6:52 PM
Whether he was involved in these scandals from the beginning or not, one thing that is certain: his subsequent behavior in protecting, lying, stalling, etc makes Barack Obama the direct owner of them.
Rich H on May 24, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Your problem, Erika, is that you are a reasonable person looking at the issue in a reasonable way. Unfortunately, there is a critical mass of people who are not reasonable and believe that the problem is that the government is not big enough and is not spending enough money.
catsandbooks on May 24, 2013 at 6:55 PM
I always wondered how Germany fell for Nazism in the 30s. How could they be so stupid?
Ouch.
faraway on May 24, 2013 at 6:55 PM
Bobby, I love ya man! I voted for you when you first ran for Congress. But you’re wrong here. It isn’t a lack of trust in the American people it is contempt for the American people. An attitude that the American public isn’t intelligent enough to know what is good for them.
Happy Nomad on May 24, 2013 at 7:01 PM
The Big Crime Syndicate of Obama should be the biggest loser.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:11 PM
Good stuff Bobby. Keep honing that message. Hoping for big things from him in 2016.
can_con on May 24, 2013 at 7:11 PM
Bobby must have been listening to Rush this week, because he said much the same thing: trying to pin it on Obama is not working; instead, it all shows the failure of liberalism and big government writ large.
This is it exactly. Contempt. These government types are those who wouldn’t bat an eye to hustle us all off to “reeducation camps.”
PatriotGal2257 on May 24, 2013 at 7:13 PM
Even small government would be bad if run by criminals. Jindal seems to have tunnel vision.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:13 PM
Jindal seems to be implicitly saying that government is so big it got out of Obama’s control. Bull.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:17 PM
I’ll take a small government run by criminals any day over the bloated and corrupt mess we have now.
NotCoach on May 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM
Then they are both simply Obama apologists.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:20 PM
And take being shot with a .22 over being shot with a 30.06. I prefer neither.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:22 PM
Obama is a much bigger target than big government. Only fools can not see this.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:24 PM
I thought Jindal was just saying we needed to stop arguing about big government because it was a loser? Pfft.
echosyst on May 24, 2013 at 7:27 PM
We will always have big government. Even under Reagan we had big government. He didn’t/couldn’t even get rid of the Dept of “Education”. Now is not the time to turn all batteries at big government. At least 5 of 6 guns should be aimed and firing at Obama. If Limbaugh and Jindal are not up to the task, they should get the hell out of the way.
VorDaj on May 24, 2013 at 7:29 PM
…you’re not faraway at all!…you’re right on!
KOOLAID2 on May 24, 2013 at 7:30 PM
VorDaj, saying that Rush n Jindal should “step aside” simply becuase they dont go far enough, INHO, isn’t reason enough. Besides who else out there do you think has the platform or the common sense governance to at least get ‘our’ side of the conversation out there, esepcially to those that we’d like to convince? If you got a candidate in mind, im sure we could find a few holes in *thier* Geopolitical theory also.
BlaxPac on May 24, 2013 at 7:46 PM
I won’t go into details about my 44 years Military and Civilian experience with Viet Nam and Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American Society. I do agree that the Democrats, who were responsible for getting into that war and after killing a few million S E Asians and including non combat deaths over 100,000 Americans, betrayed our Vietnamese and Cambodian allies and sabotaged the South Vietnamese War effort insuring the defeat of South Viet Nam in 1974 and 1975. Yes, I was there at that time.
That said, over the last 30 years the current Vietnamese has been struggling to dismantle what was a very authoritarian Communist Government. From my first post War visit in 1995 till now(I’ve retired here), Viet Nam has made astonishing progress in dismantling the old regime. Except for Reagan, we Americans have mostly gone the other way.
Think about it.
Linh_My on May 24, 2013 at 7:53 PM
False equivalency. A better one is a million .22s vs. 1 30.06. I’ll take my chances with the single 30.06. Not only that we can better respond to and destroy the single 30.06.
NotCoach on May 24, 2013 at 7:54 PM
and that was before it really got entrenched—5-6 years into it.
arnold ziffel on May 24, 2013 at 7:55 PM
test
RickB on May 24, 2013 at 8:43 PM
F. Hayak wrote in his book “The Road To Serfdom” that Hitler was voted into power by large numbers of “docile and gullible” people who believed the lies (propaganda)told by Hitler and his elites.
Sound familiar? History repeats.
nofreelunch on May 24, 2013 at 11:02 PM
Lord have mercy, here I am defending or explaining Germans.
Adolph Hitler never got a clear majority in an election. He sorta grabbed power by exploiting deals, tricks, vacuums and technicalities. That aspect may now in replay before us.
Howover, I never heard of any elite behind him.
He was a thug, soldier and street fighter.
Unless OFA takes to the streets and Obama starts looking to build a vengeful, word dominating America, the two have little in common except a love of government power.
IlikedAUH2O on May 25, 2013 at 12:03 AM
Well that in itself, and there are other things, is an awful lot.
VorDaj on May 25, 2013 at 1:33 AM
You know. My maid understands this may be one of the most dangerous, egregious, undermining of The Constitution since the Japanese internment. But neither Congress, The Senate, nor Obama seem to get it. This can destroy the nation.
pat on May 25, 2013 at 2:16 AM
Well, they did vote for Øbama – twice. Maybe there’s something to that. :)
The last I checked, Øbama is not up for reelection. We certainly need to pound him but also those who think like him (you know, big govt types).
Odysseus on May 25, 2013 at 7:46 AM
Lots of blah, blah, blah…because in the back of the Republican’s mind is that some day they will be back in the White House and they will do everything Obama is doing. Any criticism will be met with “Obama did the same thing and no one cared, so we can do it, too.”
albill on May 25, 2013 at 8:58 AM
Beyond that, Obama has benefited from a lot of unethical behavior by liberals in general (and in government specifically). He is more post turtle than mastermind. His culpability is probably mostly in implicitly endorsing this kind of behavior in his speeches. He has a history of turning a blind eye to what others do to win his elections for him.
Count to 10 on May 25, 2013 at 9:07 AM
Bobby “BJ” Jindal: blah, blah, blah, big government is bad, blah, blah, blah, American flag, blah, blah, blah, Obama sucks, blah, blah, blah, the people, blah, blah, blah. This guy NEVER says anything new. Suck it, BJ.
HiJack on May 25, 2013 at 9:43 AM
Absolutely, positively. We can bank on it.
HiJack on May 25, 2013 at 9:45 AM
You’re missing the point Erika Johnsen: Takers gotta take. They don’t need no ‘compelling reason’ – as long as they’re on the receiving end. It’s why they vote democrat.
locomotivebreath1901 on May 25, 2013 at 9:51 AM
People are so afraid of calling Obama Cheat, liar, crook or whatever name that’s appropriate. If people had been this kind to Richard Nixon his face would be on Mt. Rushmore by now.
Herb on May 25, 2013 at 9:53 AM
Calling this government paternalistic is cowardly. This government is authoritarian and moving toward tyrannical.
The media are not in bed with the left; they are the left. They are the same people.
InterestedObserver on May 25, 2013 at 10:15 AM
We’ve killed 55,000,000 of our children.
We’re not much better than the Nazis.
itsnotaboutme on May 25, 2013 at 3:59 PM
Jazz, the problem is that anything she says can be used by prosecutors as an admission. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, any unprivileged statement that she makes is admissible in a subsequent criminal trial. The traditional hearsay rule does not apply for testimony made by a party in litigation. Essentially, she will be in the middle of a criminal trial testifying against herself for the rest of her life, absent congressional conferral of immunity.
[I do believe that she waived her Fifth Amendment rights though by talking.]
blammm on May 26, 2013 at 12:44 PM
Our claim to civilization is hanging on by a thread.
We don’t ‘marry’ (sell) off our daughters for cows or goats and no longer for cash bribes. But we let underage children get abortions without parental consent and encourage rampant promiscuity from which women are hurt the most.
We’ve put aside petty tribal squabbles settled with spears and arrows…except in the areas where such things are now settled with Uzis and knives.
We have gadgets galore but haven’t even revisited the moon in an age where the $90 graphing calculator your kid gets for his algebra class has more power than the entire Mission Control at NASA did in the 60′s.
We don’t rely on medicine men, but ‘civilized’ parents are trusting tinfoil-hat fruitloops they don’t know over qualified doctors.
We used to laugh at the tribal who worshiped rocks and trees…now a good portion of America does the same and then some.
MelonCollie on May 26, 2013 at 1:58 PM