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Drilling Moratorium Violates Panel’s Recommendation

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  June 9th, 2010 at 07:14 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Peer-review, schmeer-review.

If Obama and Salazar wanted to cripple the domestic oil and gas industry and the very-red Gulf Coast states that depend on offshore drilling, they couldn’t find a better way to do it than to impose a six-month (at least) moratorium on all deepwater drilling, including the unprecedented step of shutting down operations on wells that were already underway.

But they couldn’t just do it. They needed the cover of a “blue-ribbon panel”, a seven-member committee from the National Academy of Engineering. Their report was issued May 27.

Trouble is, the panel reviewed a draft of Salazar’s technical recommendations that said nothing about a six-month moratorium for ongoing drilling operations. The panel recognizes the damage that the moratorium will do, and they are pi**ed off to have been so manipulated.

I tried to tell these guys not to mess with engineers. Not on their home turf.

H/T Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

ADVISERS CITED BY SALAZAR SAY DRILLING BAN IS BAD IDEA

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.”

One of the panelists who signed the letter, University of California at Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea, said in an e-mail message that a moratorium should be reserved for “unconventional, very hazardous operations” and shouldn’t apply to the “majority of conventional offshore operations, (which) meet fundamental requirements for acceptable risks.” [emphasis added]

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  • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir
    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      re history of deep water oil drilling and/or BP

      Common sense suggests that if more land and shallow water oil drilling were allowed, there would not be the need for any or so much deep water drilling.

      But given that the shallow water areas have been tapped so much, is it true that the only reason we have deep water drilling is due to the restrictions on shallow water?

      Has BP a history of deep water drilling unrelated to shallow water accessibility of availability?

      • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir

        MS & AL to a lesser extent.

        Think of the second & third harvest of a cotton field. That’s my company’s niche. Most of the majors figured out that they can’t do it profitably, so they left the shelf for deepwater 15-20 yrs ago.

        We didn’t let them drill in ANWR or off FL or CA. They pretty much had to go to deepwater to find the elephant prospects they need to sustain their business models.

        Their other alternative was (is) to go oversea

        • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • redpens

    introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to block the EPA from regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act. Call your senators and tell them to support S 26. And hopefully we’ll have a conservative Republican majority to de-fund the EPA in January.

  • mjn1957

    Work with liars and they will lie about you.

    Go figure…

  • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

    We talk to these folks because they, potentially, have the best answers so I know whose a– to kick.

  • snowshooze

    Nothing dishonest there. Not a bit. An we all workin’ really hard, Boss.
    Ok, well…it wasn’t the Full story, with all the details, but you have to give credit where credit is due. So, there WAS an element of truth to the statement! That’s just great, and a solid move in the general direction we want! So I have to give an E for effert…
    I still pray for the administration. I pray they will get caught screwing up so bad that they cannot even step aside to avoid prosecution and they all wind up in prison. See, I pray for them, that’s even better than ” Peer Revued”
    Ok S 26, really important tomorrow, Keep the EPA at bay. ( Thanks redpens) Lisa is my Gal, so I cannot bring myself to e-mail her to vote for her own bill, but any help would be appreciated, This Woman never ceases to amaze me, she just keeps at it, never seeks glory and seems to be on the right side of every battle. I have yet to see her make a bad call.

  • Scope

    this administration will lie, twist, contort and do anything that the O wants them to say. It’s a good thing that your are keeping this info alive, please take screen shots of what is, or better put it on discs. Save it all for possible future hearings, and for your own I told you so moments that will eventually come. Nothing good is going to come out of this accident, nothing, for the O and his idiot admin, or for BP. I await the day that we can finally find the O’s “ass to kick” however, it is going to be hard to find, even under a micro Scope.

  • The_Rebel

    in placing an immediate moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, yet Salazar wants BP to pay the salaries of rig workers laid off because of this decision. How Obama will require BP to do this should prove quite interesting. Somehow, I don’t think an executive order will do the trick.

    I think that BP has had about enough of Obama’s daily rhetoric and pushback, and with British pensioners highly dependent on the success or failure of BP, they are probably ready to do battle.

  • chriser

    Any self-respecting engineer should refuse the “honor” of being associated in any way with any boards, panels, commissions, etc. that report to this Administration. I used to have respect for Norm Augustine, but he let his Commission last summer be used by Obama and his cronies (Lori Garver) to destroy the U.S. manned space program. One might think that this or that commission really needs sane and sound advice (and of course they do), but as we’ve seen from Vladimir’s post, the hacks in this Administration will twist the recommendations to their liking or even flat out lie about them to achieve their ends. So my advice as an engineer with 30 years experience is to just say NO!

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    After all their reputations are being destroyed by the O’s lies…

  • hungarianfalcon

    Thought you’d be interested to know that our NAFTA executive VP stated that (paraphrased):

    1. The dispersant being used was supplied by NALCO
    2. My employer supplies ALL the surfactant in the dispersant
    3. Contingency plans by BP were poor.
    claims that (again, paraphrased):

    1. Oil spill was reasonably well contained until the feds ordered BP to cease use of the NALCO surfactant and it’s been downhill since then.

    2. The claim of toxicity of the dispersant was patently bogus and the opposite of valid science. Dispersant itself was not significantly toxic but the by-products of the dispersant-oil combination were toxic but so were the combinations of other dispersants with oil.

    HF

  • http://www.thehayride.com MacAoidh

    Obama Ignores Own Panel In Imposing Drilling Ban

    “The idea that the federal government expected to impose a six-month (most observers expect that the moratorium will last at least twice as long) ban on deepwater offshore drilling by regulatory fiat and simply saddle BP with all costs associated with such a drastic action is breathtaking in its departure from reality. BP has repeatedly said it would pay ?all legitimate claims,? but virtually no company in its position would voluntary open itself to this level of exposure.

    The Obama administration is teetering on the brink of collapse. Never in American history has the federal government so drastically violated a state?s economy. It comes out that the administration has done so against the advice of its own experts. The administration apparently has strategized that it would smooth over the consequences of its decision by imposing the costs for it on BP, at a time when Obama?s Justice Department is pursuing criminal charges against the company and engaging in a full-on rhetorical assault complete with references to a ?boot on the neck? and an ?ass to kick? and bragging about the refusal to engage in dialogue with BP?s CEO because of an assumption Tony Hayward would merely shine the president on ? all the while expecting BP to both stop the spill and head efforts to mitigate it on land. At some point, it was inevitable that BP ? in the face of collapsing stock prices and what could plausibly become an existential crisis which threatens its ability to pay the legitimate claims of fishermen and others affected in the Gulf states harmed by the spill ? would begin to push back.

    With such a picture emerging, the only conclusion to be made is that this is a staggeringly incompetent administration, lacking in moral character and refusing to engage in honest assessment of reality for fear of antagonizing the ungovernable Left. And while Obama and his minions scheme to advance partisan political agendas in the face of the spill, real human beings are seeing their lives destroyed ? not by BP?s considerable negligence, but by idiotic government policies warned against by the president?s own experts.

    Has America ever been saddled with such leadership? And what consequences may emerge from such a scenario?”

  • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

    Didn’t know you looked so much like Slim Whitman.

    Since I used to be in the Oil Industry, My wife and nephew still are.

    I just wan to say that I LOVE it when we are the bad guys. That means the price of oil is high, and my stocks are doing well.

    (glad I didn’t have any BP stock)

    When the lefties are no longer paying attention to us that means the price of oil is low. I would rather they hate us.

    • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir

      …not to say it was much fun, but it was financially rewarding. I was six months out of college when the entire technical staff of the large oil company I worked for got 25% across the board pay increases.

      Then Reagan came along and screwed up a good thing by decontrolling the price of oil and gas. Liberals howled. By 1986, it had almost sunk the industry.

      Progressive Dems always think they can outwit the market. When will they learn?

  • http://www.scragged.com petrarch

    It seems to me that a forcible shutdown of operating drilling rigs with already-approved permits, would be a “taking” under the Supreme Court’s definition and the operators would have the right to sue for damages. Or is there something I’m missing?

  • uselogic

    Not trying to threadjack. Just think it’s another, related example of the nanny state – fueled by special interests – destroying people’s lives:

    http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/jun/09/red-snapper-ban-and-closure-approved-safmc/

    Fisheries Council ban is based on bad science (SEDAR 15) pushed by lefty Pew Environmental group. Numbers are so far off they are criminal (missing 40M lbs of fish, more fish caught than study says exists, etc). Council members in Carolinas changed votes after their states were excluded. Snapper & many “related species” banned. Will effectively kill off charter fishing in the area on the map. Thousands of jobs lost.