'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[stickdog99]

"It was the biggest mass murder in British history, and business interests let the patsy out of prison for profit, and incidentally to serve as a distraction from real news and another reenforcement of the laughable our-liberal-court-system-is-far-too-lenient-on-scary-'islamofascist'-boogeymen meme," Cameron said.

He said that he and Obama were in "violent agreement" on that.

[Nordic]

Just saw a brief blip on the TV as my wife was changing channels that Tony Hayward is resigning.

[mentalgongfu2]

Wow. Have to comment on the Guardian story on Obama and Cameron,

David Cameron yesterday warned US legislators not to pass laws designed to make BP uniquely responsible for the Gulf oil spill, so pushing compensation demands and fines up to levels that the oil giant could not absorb.

Insisting he did not want "a war of words" with America over BP, he said there had been speculation that compensation and fines could rise to as much as $40bn (£26bn).

Speaking on ABC television, he said: "We need to be clear about what BP's responsibility is: cap the well, yes, clear up the mess, yes, make compensation, yes absolutely – but would it be right to have legislation that independently targets BP rather than other companies? I don't think that would be right.

"Would it be right to say that BP has to pay compensation for damages that were nothing to do directly with the spill? I don't think that would be right."

Translation: More damage control for BP, the oil industry as a whole, and its owners. 'It's not all our fault. We'll do some PR bullshit to make things look back to normal. But don't regulate us. That's hating.'

Cameron believes he largely has Barack Obama's support on this issue, and that the White House wants to persuade congressmen to temper their demands, even though they are under pressure due to the midterm elections.

Some congressmen have been calling for changes to the law, rather than having compensation claims against BP settled in the courts under existing law.

British officials stressed that while the issue of BP did come up in the 75-minute private talks yesterday between Obama and Cameron, and again at lunch, the bulk of the discussion had been on Afghanistan, and the latest plan to sideline the Taliban by refocusing aid, rooting out corruption, training the Afghan security forces and reaching a comprehensive political settlement that excluded hardline Taliban.

Cameron also continued to scale back what victory will look like when British troops leave Afghanistan by 2015.

20-bleeping-15? 14 years after 9/11/01, and we're still publicly saying we're gonna be occupying and drone bombing civilians in Afghanistan? Jesus H. Christmas!

He said: "We are not in Afghanistan to create the perfect democracy or the perfect society." But he insisted it will no longer be a safe haven for terrorists.

The prime minister and the president also found time to discuss sanctions against Iran, the need to restart face-to-face Middle East peace talks between Palestinians and Israel, and even the fate of Gary McKinnon, accused of hacking into the Pentagon computers.

By the end of the day there seemed a genuine warmth between the two men, who share a similarly direct and analytical approach.

Barf. Really? Genuine warmth? Similarly direct analytical approach? Anytime this kind of emotion driven crap is a news story, CYA and be aware of propaganda.

British officials had resigned themselves to BP overshadowing some of Cameron's efforts to forge a strong personal relationship with Obama and start making a political mark in Washington as a much needed new substantial centrist figure from Europe.

The oil spill, and more recently the revival of interest in BP's murky role in lobbying for oil exploration rights by pressing the case for a Libya-UK prisoner transfer scheme, meant BP was going to dominate the public side of his first visit as prime minister.

The interest frustrated some of the Cameron team as they were two events over which Cameron has had absolutely no direct influence.

BP has admitted that the lobbying on the prisoner transfer agreement in 2007 was designed to get Libyan backing for an exploration agreement.

....

[Elvis]

saw a brief blip on the TV as my wife was changing channels that Tony Hayward is resigning

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38334420/ns/business-oil_and_energy/

BP's embattled and gaffe-prone CEO will step down from the position within the next ten weeks, the Times of London is reporting.

The newspaper cited sources close to BP that there is a growing expectation Tony Hayward, 53, would make the announcement in August or September. The company is trying to restore its damaged reputation....

[Nordic]

If this doesn't piss you off .....

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/07 ... california

BP's Secret Ticket Request Line

Want free passes to NBA games and concerts? Just call the world's most hated oil company. (If you're a California politician.)

For more than a decade, BP has operated a hush-hush phone line that California lawmakers can call to request box seats to NBA games and concerts at the Sacramento stadium named after its West Coast subsidiary.

In the past five years, BP has given state officials more than 1,200 complimentary tickets to the Arco Arena, hosting them in its corporate suite to see Sacramento Kings games, World Extreme Cagefighting matches, and Britney Spears and Lil Wayne concerts. Getting the tickets is as easy as calling the BP ticket request line, an exclusive, unpublished phone number that appears to exist for the sole purpose of granting freebies to lawmakers, regulators, and their staffs.

"You make a request, leave it on the voicemail, and at some date the tickets either magically appear or they don't," says a legislative consultant who gave me the ticket line's number and spoke on condition of anonymity. "They don't talk to you; you just see 'em or you don't." The ticket line's message was taken down sometime in the past week, shortly after I began my reporting. You can still listen to the original recording below.


BP has given away roughly $300,000 worth of tickets over the past 10 years, handing them out to everyone from lowly assembly clerks to top lawmakers. In March 2002, when the Sacramento Kings were locked in a playoff battle with the Los Angeles Lakers, 9 state senators and 12 state assembly members, including the speaker, pumped BP for the coveted seats. While serving as assembly speaker in 2006, Los Angeles Democrat Fabian Núñez and his family watched the Kings beat the Chicago Bulls on BP's dime. During Democrat Karen Bass' tenure as speaker between 2008 and 2010, 13 members of her staff tapped BP for tickets to see Disney on Ice, Tina Turner, and Madea's Big Happy Family. Núñez and Bass did not accept requests for interviews.


Shows and sporting events California pols and officials attended on BP's dime in 2009 and 2010:

Sacramento Kings
World Extreme Cagefighting
Britney Spears

Lil Wayne

Disney on Ice

Beyoncé

Valentine's Super Love Jam 

Kiss

Metallica

Star Wars in Concert
Jamie Foxx

So You Think You Can Dance
Keith Urban
Bon Jovi
Zac Brown Band
Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family

Ringling Brothers Circus

The Killers

The only official I contacted who would speak on the record about the ticket line was Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, a Republican from the Central Valley, who confirms that he asked for four passes to see Britney Spears last April. Her music is "tough to listen to," he concedes, but the show "was all about the kids, man. It was for my daughters." Berryhill says that he didn't realize that his secretary had gotten the tickets from BP. Even so, Berryhill's chief of staff, Evan Oneto, said his boss wouldn't rule out taking tickets from the company in the future. Whether BP's money is spent on free concert tickets or cleaning up the Gulf, he says, "is BP's decision to make, not Bill's."

"There is only one reason why BP is giving legislative officials or administrative officials free tickets, and that is trying to create goodwill," explains Bob Stern, the president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a political watchdog group in Los Angeles. "They are not giving them to the average Joe. It's an absolute business decision." In 2004, BP spokesman Dan Cummings told the Los Angeles Times that its Arco Arena suite seats 18, and that one-half to one-third of those seats are usually taken by company employees or guests. The rest are made available to state employees. "It's for them to come out and for them to enjoy themselves," he said. "We don't tend to talk business with them." BP did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

BP has handed out far more tickets to California lawmakers than have other oil companies or other companies with stadium-naming rights. Although Arco began the ticket giveaways before it merged with BP in 2000, the tickets remain a convenient political tool for BP, which uses them to curry favor with politicians while still technically complying with a proclamation in its corporate code that it "will make no political contributions, whether in cash or in-kind, anywhere in the world." (Free tickets aside, that claim is pretty shaky, as The Washington Post recently pointed out.)

In 2006, BP gave away 321 Arco Arena tickets, more than in any year since. That same year, California lawmakers were debating and voting on AB32, the sweeping climate law that will go into effect later this year. BP has dedicated a significant chunk of its $600,000 California lobbying budget over the past year to weighing in on the implementation of the law, which includes a cap-and-trade system. BP's California lobbyist, Ralph Moran, did not respond to requests for comment.

Some recipients of BP tickets are playing key roles in crafting the climate law's landmark environmental policies. In 2008 and 2009, BP gave NBA tickets to Virgil Welch, a top policy advisor to the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state air-quality agency. It also gave Kings tickets to Dan Pellissier, then the deputy secretary for energy policy at the state environmental protection agency; Pellissier is now a deputy cabinet secretary advising Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on energy and environmental policy.

This March, Schwarzenegger sent a letter to CARB urging it to embrace carbon offsets and to give polluting industries free emissions permits under AB32's cap-and-trade system—approaches opposed by environmental groups but backed by BP's lobbyists. Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for the governor, would not say whether Pellissier had helped the governor draft the letter. She responded to a question about his basketball tickets in a short email. "The Governor has a very strict no gift policy that he expects his staff to follow," she wrote. "Before Mr. Pellissier joined the governor's office, he attended a Kings game in February 2009 paid for by BP. He followed all [state ethics] rules regarding the gift."

BP has also given tickets to a consultant for the California Senate's Transportation and Housing Committee, which is currently holding hearings on the state's low-carbon fuel standard. Tickets also went to staffers for state Sen. Roderick Wright, a Democrat from Los Angeles, who sits on the Senate's Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee.

Such freebies are illegal at the national level; the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 prohibits federal lawmakers and their staffers from accepting tickets and other gifts from lobbyists or companies that hire lobbyists. But they're completely legal in many states, including California. The BP ticket line's three-minute recorded message included detailed instructions on how to accept tickets without violating limits on political gifts. "Before making your request," it says, "please be aware that…all tickets provided to a reportable individual and their families or friends...will count towards a reportable individual's annual gift limit." California caps the value of a donor's gifts to an individual government official and their relatives at $420 annually.

Stern says the ticket giveaways illustrate why California's ethics rules need to be tightened. "These tickets, in a sense, are worth more than their face value," Stern says. The third-smallest stadium in the NBA, the Arco Arena has some of the basketball league's highest ticket prices and sells out nearly every game. It's also unclear whether the face value of the free tickets, which BP has reported as being as much as $170 for Kings games, reflect their actual cost to the company. Arco Arena would not disclose the price of a corporate suite.

Now that the BP ticket request line isn't picking up, lawmakers may have to find a new way to score free tix from the world's most-hated oil company. But the persistent can always give it a try: (916) 444-7968.

[82_28]

China oil spill doubles in size, is deemed 'severe threat'

BEIJING — China's largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 square miles by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China's most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua reported.

"The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds," Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for Dalian, China Maritime Safety Administration, told Dragon TV.

Crude oil started pouring into the Yellow Sea off a busy northeastern port after a pipeline exploded late last week, sparking a massive 15-hour fire.

The cause of the blast was still not clear Wednesday. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Images of 100-foot-high flames shooting up near part of China's strategic oil reserves drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy brown plume floating off the shores of Dalian.

The environmental group, Greenpeace China, shot several photographs at the scene Tuesday before their team was forced to leave. They showed oil-slicked rocky beaches, a man covered in thick black sludge up to his cheekbones, and workers carrying a colleague covered in oil away from the scene.

Activists said it was too early to tell what impact the pollution might have on marine life.

Largest spill in recent memory
Officials told Xinhua they did not yet know how much oil had leaked, but China Central Television reported no more pollution, including oil and firefighting chemicals, had entered the sea Tuesday. It was not clear how far the spill was from China's closest neighbor in the region, North Korea.

Dalian's vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua 40 specialized oil-control boats would be on the scene along with hundreds of fishing boats. Oil-eating bacteria were also being used in the cleanup.

"Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters," he said.

But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time.

The Dalian port is China's second largest for crude oil imports, and last week's spill appears to be the country's largest in recent memory.

"In terms of what is known to the public, this is definitely the biggest," said Yang Ailun, spokeswoman for Greenpeace China.

"Government and business leaders have been telling the media that there's no environmental impact. From Greenpeace's perspective, that's very irresponsible," she added. "It's too early to tell. Oil is still floating around."

While the Chinese public has not seized on the accident as its own version of the massive BP spill in the United States, warnings over the country's increasing dependence on oil were clear.

The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that China has overtaken the United States as the world's largest energy consumer, using the equivalent of 2.252 billion tons of oil last year. China immediately questioned the calculation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38337393/ns ... vironment/

[Nordic]

Wow, China is indeed turning into New America.

[ninakat]

Matt Simmons Says Gulf Clean Up Will Cost Over $1 Trillion, Sees BP At $1, Says "We Have Now Killed The GoM"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/matt-s ... killed-gom

Matt Simmons shares some startling revelations in his latest Bloomberg TV interview, in which he says none of the propaganda matters on TV 24/7 (photoshopped or not) as the ultimate clean up cost will likely be well over $1 trillion, and a result he is unconcerned about his BP short. He ultimately see the stock going down to $1. What Simmons alleges however is far more startling and audacious: that this is a joint cover up effort between the administration and BP, in which both entities keep throwing sand in the eyes of observers while distracting everyone from the matter at hand: "What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the hole…and 120,000/day minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser, would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over." On blaming the catastrophe on Transocean: "For two days they kept saying it’s a rig fire. When the rig sank they could no longer call it a rig fire. It’s a riser leak…Because if they said the truth they would all go to jail." The conclusion: "Unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico."

On whether the well pressure should be a concern:

“No, it’s a total diversion - that’s the gas condensation that was trapped in the drilling riser which blew off the wellhead at 10:01 PM CT on April 20th, it's a mile-long compressed natural gas."

"What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the hole…and 120,000 minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser, would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over. And unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Some 5-10 miles away is what the NOIA research vessels have now proved is a deep oil lake that is growing by the day and it’s very toxic oil and its gases are very lethal. Basically if we have a hurricane now, we would have to evacuate the Gulf Coast.”

On the financial implications for BP:

“When people find out the magnitude of the story, I don’t know if we can technically clean up the Gulf but it would cost at least a trillion dollars.”

Simmons on his reaction to the rig explosion:

“First of all when I woke up, when my wife turned on the television at 7:00 AM on the 21st and I saw this shocking news, that one of the greatest deepwater rigs ever built by one of the great companies in the industry, Transocean, was in the middle of this terrible fire, and then they said this was a rig fire, this is fuel on the rig, I know that there was 700 gallons of diesel on the rig, I said ‘This is a lie, the Gulf of Mexico is on fire. Why are they saying this?’ For two days they kept saying it’s a rig fire. When the rig sank they could no longer call it a rig fire. It’s a riser leak…Because if they said the truth they would all go to jail.”

On whether the blame lies squarely with BP:

"I think Transocean need Congressional Medals of Hero for this…I am really disgusted. Other than John Hofmeister, the retired president of Shell America, he's the only other person in the industry who I've seen to speak out."

Simmons on why he is shorting BP stock:

“You bet I did. Because I thought BP was going to go under. I’ve been saying that for months and months and when I read that 20 of the 24 Wall Street analysts had a ‘buys,’ I said ‘ That’s ridiculous, I’m going to short them.’ I’ve never shorted a stock in my life before.

"I have patience. The stock will go to one."

“They promised to clean up the Gulf, is that right? Do you know how much it will cost if they can technically do it? Well over a trillion dollars.”

On whether there is hope for a permanent solution now that the oil has stopped leaking:

“No, because that’s not the gusher. That was a little bit of condensation that would have ended anyways. There’s no way to fix the gusher because there’s no casing left in the hole other than doing a small diameter nuclear bomb…It's the only way. With no casing left in the hole, the odds of the relief well working are zero. What the relief wells do-- if they can find the casing, they then cut a 4 inch hole--and then they have something to capture the mud with. With no casing there, it's like pouring oatmeal down a fire hydrant…The casing is not there. It's scattered over the ocean floor. The government now has gamma ray images of the actual blow-out preventer, which is five stories high, weighs 325 tons and it has two sections of casing that pierced through five stories of metal."

[justdrew]

I don't see how the entire well casing could have been ejected from the well, through the BOP without taking the BOP with it. hmm, unless the casing broke part way down and was ejected at an angle and drilled it's way out through earth? Or are we seeing pictures from another BOP on one of the nearby 'abandoned wells'? In this video he makes the point that past on-shore blowouts have ejected the casing and taken the bop with it. this is getting weird. Have all the video we've seen of the 'faulty' bop been basically a lie? wtf?

[Hugo Farnsworth]

Hmm. Not sure if Simmons has gone wacko or what, but what he says (engineering wise) just doesn't make any sense. None at all. The money part sounds about right, though, when you consider the total cost. There are a lot of pension funds in the UK that have large chunks of BP stock. This is depressing.

[ninakat]

justdrew, maybe the particulars don't matter that much, because this could all just be public-relations noise from TPTB. Or not. It's very confusing, not just the technical what-ifs, but the disparate reports from the mainstream media. Which brings me to ask:

Why is Matt Simmons being taken somewhat seriously on low-audience mainstream media (Bloomberg, MSNBC Dylan Ratigan, NPR) and being ignored on high-audience mainstream media (CNN, etc.)? It just doesn't make sense that everything, from low-audience to high-audience, wouldn't be completely managed in this day and age.

Could there be a grey area between the two opposing stories? But even if Simmons is only 10% right, it would still be multiple Katrinas in loss of life and damages. And he's not even talking about Corexit and the other hazardous waste potentially raining down inland. Shit.

[82_28]

this is getting weird. Have all the video we've seen of the 'faulty' bop been basically a lie? wtf?

DOOD. I was just wondering this exact same thing this morning. Have you ever seen the making of The Abyss? That's exactly what I flashed on.



James Cameron has also chimed in on this as well as the Waterworld connection via Kevin Costner. WTF happened to his "machines"? I haven't hear jack shit about these amazing machines recently.

[ninakat]

Scientists from St. Petersburg find high methane readings near oil disaster site
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environmen ... er/1110095

[norton ash]

And then along comes Bonnie. Fuuuuck.

Tropical Depression 3 has formed off the southeast tip of Florida and may become Bonnie, the second named storm of the 2010 season, later today. The current storm track threatens the entire US gulf including the region of BP's Deep Horizon spill.

[smoking since 1879]

http://www.stormpulse.com/