Friday, June 18, 2010

Oil Leases CONTINUING in the Gulf.................

Have YOU heard about the information below ? HERE is the full PRESS RELEASE about a lawsuit regarding the MMS's continued lease of deep water drilling...here are bits of it:
ATLANTA –
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continues to approve new leases after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that give British Petroleum and other companies the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same inadequate oversight that led to the current oil spill, according to a new legal challenge filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups say current policies create an incentive to allow drilling even in the face of evident risks because once a lease is issued by MMS, the U.S. government is obligated to pay the lessee either the fair market value of the lease or the amount spent to obtain the bid plus costs and interest if the government cancels the lease or refuses to allow drilling. MMS approved new leases for deepwater tracts as recently as June 10 under the same lax oversight complicit in the current Gulf spill. “MMS quietly granted oil companies the right to drill 198 more deepwater wells as if the spill wasn’t devastating the Gulf,” said Derb Carter, senior attorney and director, Carolinas Office, Southern Environmental Law Center. “If it’s too deep to stop a spill, it’s too deep to drill. BP is under criminal investigation for its explosion and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, yet MMS approved 13 new leases for BP to drill in deepwater without any better oversight.” The groups’ lawsuit challenges MMS approval of leases, including 198 deepwater leases, in the Central Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 and ongoing spill. In a legal claim added on June 10 to an ongoing lawsuit in federal court, the groups allege that MMS failed its legal responsibility after the explosion and spill to reconsider its 2008 conclusions that the sale of the deepwater leases and future oil drilling would have no potential significant impact to the environment and no detailed environmental review was required. .......Despite President Obama’s moratorium on new deepwater wells, MMS approved the leases as it did the Deepwater Horizon rig—under the same inadequate environmental review, requiring no failsafe spill preventions, and with insufficient spill response plans—all of which led to the ongoing Gulf oil spill. Now news reports say the President is considering cutting short his moratorium on new deepwater wells due to increasing pressure from oil companies.

I am all for drilling...as are the residents of our Gulf Coast...and there probably aren't any FAILSAFE spill preventions but shouldn't they be CLOSE?... and shouldn't there be
sufficient spill response plans? Have you heard this on the news? Should the media be reporting on this, too!?
z (thanks, Martha)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is only so much oil in the world and by November, we will all be floating in it!

Anonymous said...

It's my understanding Shell oil has a deepwater well, or wells five miles deep. It sounds crazy to me, but what do I know?

In order to move closer in to shallower waters, they'd have to build new rigs wouldn't they?. I have no clue how long that would take. I do know there's such a thing as slant drilling, and for all I know they are doing that.

The economy nor the availability of oil, can afford to have these wells shut these operations down, and Obama probably spoke too soon about a moratorium, so now is backtracking.

We still don't know what caused the explosion do we? Heck, we may never know.

As far as BP is concerned, maybe that twenty billion dollar slush fund was the price for these new leases. A quid pro quo as it were.

And yet, there sits Anwar, off limits. Amazing.

Pris

Anonymous said...

If the BP story tells us anything at all, it is how corrupt our government is. Congress requires oil companies to do deep sea drilling; successive administrations have failed to monitor drilling methodology and technology. So in many ways, the government is the problem —a common theme.

I mentioned to Maggie a while ago that Rachel Maddow did a story indicating that the exact same problem occurred in June 1979 and there have been no technological advancements to help prevent oil drilling platform problems, nor even any improvements in cleaning up the mess. Even more worrisome is the fact that the dispersants are very toxic; there is only one company able to field these chemicals —amazingly, George Soros and Al Gore owns the company.

Have I mentioned how corrupt our government is?

Z said...

The fact that they're saying "Whoa...let's make sure we're putting all we can into safety measures and THEN resume drilling" makes sense to me. But, they aren't.

Yes, Pris, there are reasons not to stop these leases but I'd say a little safety precaution inside the contracts would help...it's not like we can't show there is NEED NOW, right? :-)

Dark Wolf...first let me get over the fact (and rejoice) that your avatar and blog are so edgy and that you're conservative in most of your thinking (from what I was able to read at your blog in a few minutes) >WELCOME TO GEEZ :-)
By November, we'd better get rid of most of Congress, or we'll be REALLY floating in it, and the 'it' won't be OIL!

Mustang...corrupt beyond comparison.
Mr Z used to say NO MORE LOBBYING, THE TIT FOR TAT STUFF HERE MAKES AMERICA LOOK LIKE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY...STOP the private funding of party candidates$$$ WHO HAVE PAY-OFFS AFTER ELECTION. I know most people in America disagree but it sure helps keep that kind of corruption out of Germany, at least.

Anonymous said...

"it's not like we can't show there is NEED NOW, right? :-)"

There may be need, but the contracts may already show that safety procedures are required. They may even have been observed.

How can we believe what we're told? There's a political agenda here, and so we can't trust what we're told.

The problem is, when our government is corrupt, how do we know the truth? I sure don't.

Pris

Z said...

Pris, so you're saying that all might be in order but Obama wants to keep leasing for other reasons$$$

I believe the law firm pressing this suit must have checked into it, ..what do you thinK?\
ugh, another political call...I'm not going to ANSWER

Always On Watch said...

MMS approved new leases for deepwater tracts as recently as June 10 under the same lax oversight complicit in the current Gulf spill.

What???

Z said...

ALWAYS...THAT was the reaction I expected to get!!! Ya, "WHAT?"