Connecting the Dots: Oil Slick Leads Straight to Dick Cheney

When George W. Bush made his first run for President he raised more money faster than any candidate in history.  Where do you suppose all that money came from and how do you suppose a guy who had failed at virtually everything he’d ever done managed to pull that off?  I’ll give you a hint: it was not in small donations from “real Americans” like the Obama campaign.  It was oil money. 

With Bush, it’s always been oil money.  Big oil bought and paid for the US Government and they even put their own watchdog in office to look after things in one Dick Cheney.  Big oil certainly got their money’s worth with Cheney.

In just his second week in office, Bush formed the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), commonly referred to as the Energy Task Force.  Cheney chaired the task force, which was made up of energy company executives.  We may never know exactly what the NEPDG did because Cheney has actively worked to keep their activities a secret. 

In 2003 the Supreme Court ruled that all NEPDG documents be released that contained references to any companies that had made agreements with the previous Iraqi government regarding the extraction of Iraqi oil.  

Coincidentally, 2003 was also the year that Cheney decided not to file NEPDG reports with the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by law.  The NARA is the organization charged with protecting classified information coming from the Executive Branch, so it’s a tough stretch to claim that it was done for reasons of national security.  The NEPDG also refused to allow the NARA to inspect their record keeping. 

What specifically was going on at the NEPDG may never be known since Cheney has cited executive privilege in denying congressional information requests.  Simply put, records of their activities have never seen the light of day and likely never will, despite this little thing called the Freedom of Information Act.  We can connect the dots, however, by taking a look at who the NEPDG met with.

In 2007, the Washington Post reported that the NEPDG had at least 40 meetings with energy companies and special interests groups from energy producing industries.  They had one (1) meeting with representatives of 13 environmental groups, who speculated that the meeting was merely an attempt at appeasement, since a draft paper had already been produced by this time and more than half the meeting was spent on introductions.

So what does all of this have to do with the oil slick that is now threatening our entire eastern seaboard?  On April 28, 2010 the Wall Street Journal reported that the leaking well lacked a safeguard device called an acoustic switch that may well have prevented this catastrophe.  The acoustic control is a backup device that is triggered by acoustic pulses and triggers the blowout preventer, a large valve that shuts down the flow of oil in an emergency. Norway and Brazil, which are major oil producing countries, both require the device.  They have been on virtually every rig in Norway since 1993.

An acoustic trigger would have been a 3rd line of defense against a blowout.  Anyone who has ever worked in the aircraft industry can tell you that redundancy is the key to safety systems whose failure could cause catastrophic consequences. 

An acoustic trigger costs about a $500,000, so why didn’t BP use one on the Deepwater Horizon rig?  After all, the rig replacement costs are about $560 million, and BP claimed to be spending about $6 million per day to battle the oil spill.  It certainly looks like there is a pretty good cost to benefit ratio.

Some have speculated that an acoustic trigger would not have prevented the spill due to the magnitude of the explosion but that is precisely why it is located off the rig.  The people who died in the explosion are the very people who would have trigger the existing shutoff valve, which may explain why it didn’t close.  We’ll never know if an acoustic trigger would have worked or not since it didn’t have one.

According to the same WSJ article, “U.S. regulators have considered mandating the use of remote-control acoustic switches or other back-up equipment at least since 2000. After a drilling ship accidentally released oil, the Minerals Management Service issued a safety notice that said a back-up system is "an essential component of a deepwater drilling system."
Nevertheless, US regulators decided against requiring it because they felt it was too expensive.

Brazil begin requiring the use of acoustic valves in 2007 after an incident that was eerily similar to the Deepwater Horizon accident yet US regulators called for more study before requiring implementation.

Bottom line?  They didn’t use it because they didn’t have to. 

Did I mention that the “special interest groups” that Cheney and the NEPDG met with in 2003 included  “James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp.; Jack N. Gerard, then with the National Mining Association; Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute; and Eli Bebout, an old friend of Cheney's from Wyoming who serves in the state Senate and owns an oil and drilling company.” (from Wikipedia article linked above)

Cheney met personally with the Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum during the time of the NEPDG’s activities. 

At a time when Americans are paying in excess of $3.00 per gallon for gasoline while oil companies consistently make the largest profits in the history of the world quarter after quarter; when BP itself made a profit in excess of $4 billion in the 4th quarter of 2009, it is nothing short of criminal that they couldn’t spend a paltry $500,000 on a safeguard than might have prevented this disaster. 

It’s simply not that hard to connect the dots from the takeover of our government by big oil and big business in 2001, to the NEPDG’s nefarious and secretive activities, to drill baby drill, to what may well turn out to be the worst environmental disaster of all time in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. 

Smack in the middle of it all?  The treasonous traitor, one Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney.

Twenty One Day Salute

Wow, it's been quite a year. It's been quite an eight years too. Strange as it may seem, especially if you've read some of my other writing recently, I'm actually optimistic about 2009, both in my personal life and in the world at large. No, I don't have my head in the sand, not at all. You'll have to trust me on that one.

Since life is nothing if not a contradiction, let me now say the future looks pretty bleak. Even an economic dummy like me can see that the coming depression has only begun. The signs of global climate change are, quite literally, all around us. The Bush administration's assault on our constitutional rights and their apparently successful attempts to insulate themselves from being held accountable, have left our Government in shambles. We're fighting war on two fronts with Chinese money. We're short on soldiers and long on debt because of it. No, I'm no Pollyanna.

Good news though, is on the horizon. We only need survive twenty one more days without another major setback and hope is on its way. I'd like to believe that our new President will wave his magic wand and restore all of our rights, fix the climate and our economy, and while he's at it, bring back the 2300 + US soldiers and 98,000 + civilian casualties in Iraq. Maybe Santa Obama can bring me a new motorcycle too. Obviously, that's not going to happen.

No, it's not going to be easy to undo the damage that Bush has done and so much of it will never be undone. We can't bring back the dead, for example. It's unimaginable that this guy sleeps at night knowing that over 100,000 human beings are dead because of his arrogant insistence on a needless war. He says he sleeps very well.

Now I hear Bush is working on his legacy, expecting to walk away unscathed, believing that history will judge his holy war as the right thing to do. This is why religion is so dangerous. Silly me, I thought we hung people for treason?

See how hard it is not to digress, even when I'm trying to write an optimistic piece? I wasn't happy when Bush overthrew our legitimate Government in 2000 but in my worst nightmares I could never have guessed just how badly he could mess the world up. I know rash statement like that take away from my credibility but how is it not a coup when he loses the election and becomes President anyway? And how can manufacturing evidence to gain support for the War in Iraq, resulting in all those aforementioned deaths, be anything less treasonous? What traitor has ever damaged the US more than Bush? Do I sound pissed. HELL yes!

Alright, alright, back to the optimism. We finally have a President-elect with an IQ higher than mine. That's not a brag folks, we need someone a whole lot smarter than me to deal with this mess. Unlike Bush, I can form complete sentences all on my very own, but that doesn't make either of us geniuses.

While President Obama won't have that magic wand, he does seem to have a firm grasp on our challenges and a determination to take them on. I'd love to see a more liberal lean to his Presidency but let's be real, we won't get anything done that far from the center, at least not right now. I fully expect things to get worse before they get better. No, my optimism is not of the Pollyanna variety so much as my belief, or maybe just hope, that there is a 'better" to follow. Through the lens of the last eight years, that would be a very radical change and it's about as optimistic as it gets these days.

On the personal front, I'm very concerned about what will happen as the economy continues to plunge. My self-employment situation is certainly vulnerable. I'm working full time for one client while I prepare to find others before the full time project is finished. Meanwhile, my client's business is down 40% from a year ago and that seems to be the norm in the industry. Finding new clients is always hard and will be even harder now. When I do find clients, getting paid may well be a bigger problem than in the past. Obviously, you can see my optimism, right?

My personal finances aren't all they could be but they could be a lot worse. Since my wife's income is assured, at worst, we won't lose our house, whatever happens in the economy... I think. That puts us well ahead of an awful lot of the country so I'll count my blessing and hope to minimize the damage when things get worse, as they inevitably will. Thankfully, my motorcycle is paid for so it's safe too. How can I not feel good about that? So I hope to survive the worse part on our way to the better part. Hey, it's a depression folks, I'll take that.

Most of my extended family will be okay too, I hope. My mother has a secure income, my daughter is doing well and works in a profession unlikely to get the worst of the hard times to come. My wife's children will survive, even if they need some help from us. They're young and resilient. We have our first grandchild on the way. I've finished my book and it's on the internet and getting good reviews from readers. I hope to see it published soon. So yes, I do see good things ahead.

I don't remember any time in my life when what was happening politically seemed so directly relevant to my own personal situation. I guess that's what happens in depressions. I remember some pretty hard times for everyone in the 70's and I've had some personal hard times of my own that I hope never to repeat, but this is on a whole new scale for those of us who weren't around for the last depression.

I generally have little faith in the intelligence of American voters so I am amazed that at this time, when it was so important, somehow, the right candidate was not only present but elected. It's nothing short of a miracle, given our voting history and the choices we typically have to vote for.

That, my friends, in the face of these terrible times, is the source of my optimism. Maybe I should call it guarded optimism and that may be as good as it gets these days.