It’s rare when we Fiscal Conservatives have as clear a teachable moment as you gave us with your decision to berth the Isabel (pronounced “luxury yacht”) in Newport, RI, instead of Nantucket, MA, where you and Teresa maintain a “cottage”. Again, we thank you. And, while we’re at it, we’ll point out that you are a hypocrite of the first rank.
In Deepwater Well Construction 101, we covered some of the basics of drilling oil wells in 5,000 feet of water. Now, you have a chance to hear from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. Shell drilling engineer Joe Leimkuhler recently presented “How We Drill for Oil and Gas” at the Aspen Ideas Festival of the Aspen Institute. It’s 50 minutes long, but packed | Read More »
Behold the passion of the inimitable Billy Nungesser, speaking against the Obama drilling moratorium at yesterday’s Rally for Economic Survival in Lafayette, LA.
On Wednesday, July 21, a crowd of 11,000 (joined by 4,000 online) packed the Cajundome in Lafayette, LA for the Rally for Economic Survival. The message was clear and bipartisan (not in the post-modern, ironic sense common in Washington these days): the President’s deepwater drilling moratorium is an economic disaster for Louisiana. Please excuse my shortcomings as a videographer.
Last week, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, proposed an amendment to the CLEAR Act to require an end to the President’s moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling. Twenty-two of the committee’s congressmen, including the committee chairman and two other Democrats, voted in favor of Rep. Cassidy’s amendment. Twenty-one congressmen, all Dems, voted no. But the recorded vote | Read More »
According to a new Bloomberg poll, American public opinion on the BP oil spill reflects common sense and a rejection of the Obama Administration’s legalistic overreaction. While public objections to a drilling ban echo the views of Republican leaders such as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the sentiment is strong regardless of political leaning: 85 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of independents and 65 percent | Read More »
A “new and improved” version of Secretary Salazar’s Deepwater offshore drilling ban was unveiled today. There seems to be little practical difference between this ban and the one that has been stayed by the courts as “arbitrary and capricious”. That hasn’t deterred Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) from opening his yap and exposing his utter lack of a grasp on the issue, quite a gaffe for | Read More »
Environmentalists and the Obama Administration consider all offshore wells to be equally risky, but it’s important to recognize the relative risk of grossly dissimilar types of wells. Congress is considering a proposal to remove liability limits for all offshore well operators. That provision would effectively limit offshore operations to those companies big enough to self-insure: BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, maybe ConocoPhillips, and the foreign national | Read More »
For context in understanding the oil spill, and to help answer the question “How could it possibly be this bad?”, I recommend a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The BP spill is a textbook example of what Taleb calls a Black Swan Event. The event is a surprise (to the observer). The event has a major | Read More »
The 2008 elections saw the Democrat Party’s advantage in the State House of Representatives shrink from 16 seats to 2. Now, with the announcement of Rep. Simone Champagne (D R – New Iberia) of her intention to switch parties, the balance is now 51 D, 51 R, 3 I. Party politics don’t dominate Louisiana’s state government. For example, the governor has a say in the | Read More »
When President Obama named the members of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, he left little to chance. Although the Executive Order which created the Commission allowed that its membership … shall be drawn from among distinguished individuals, and may include those with experience in or representing the scientific, engineering, and environmental communities, the oil and gas industry, | Read More »
The New Orleans Superdome is pretty big. According to an article this week in the Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), the amount of oil spilled from the BP Macondo well so far would fill up one-seventh (1/7th) of the volume of the Superdome. Here’s a view of the Superdome from the air, at a scale of 1:2,500. Note the bar for scale. (First four images from | Read More »
Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District is Southeastern Louisiana: it stretches from St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines on the east, through the Bayou Country near Houma, to the sugar cane fields of New Iberia. Now, LA-03 is Ground Zero for the BP Oil Spill. We’ve seen the impact of the oil on its fragile coastal marshlands; only time will tell the impact on the fishermen and the | Read More »
Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, hearing the case of Hornbeck v. Salazar, has blocked the President’s moratorium on all drilling in water depths greater than 500 feet. The White House is expected to appeal the ruling immediately. H/T Artie, for d’most part
I’m no apologist for Big Oil. As a resident of South Louisiana, I’ve seen the mess that was left behind when they left for greener pastures. The simmering animosity between the “majors” and us “independents” goes back generations. They also have enough dough to carry their own water; they don’t need the help of a small fish blogger like me. That being said, the press | Read More »
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