"Ken Salazar, corporatism and the BP oil spill" (and exposing the Admin's lies)

Luminous Animal

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Thu Jun-03-10 09:37 PM
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"Ken Salazar, corporatism and the BP oil spill" (and exposing the Admin's lies)

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

Greenwald covers a lot in the piece. There are fantastic links and two informative updates. For me and many DUers, Salazar's appointment was, to put it mildly, a disappointment. There were good reasons why environmentalists protested the appointment while oil and mining industries praised it.

What makes all of this particularly egregious in the BP case is how predictable it was. An Interior Department review itself found in 2008 that MMS was "a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration's watch," findings which "provoked immediate outrage in Congress." It was long known that the Interior Department, for at least the last decade, was nothing but a rubber stamp for the oil industry.

Yet who did Obama choose to head the Interior Department? Ken Salazar, notorious for being beholden to the very industries he would be regulating.

Early reports from the Center for Biodiversity included the fact that many oil leases are granted with an environmental review waiver. The excuse for granting these waivers, eagerly promoted on DU and further catapulted repeatedly by the Obama administration, was that the Minerals Management Service has their hands tied --- that the law demanded that lease requests be reviewed within 30 days. It turns out that this excuse is blatantly false as Greenwald demonstrates in this court ruling rendered during the Bush administration, here:

The court categorically rejected that excuse (emphasis added):

The agency may be correct that it is difficult for an agency to conduct a full EIS in only thirty days, but its argument that OCSLA precludes such a result is unconvincing. There is flexibility built into the regulatory scheme so that the agency can perform its full duties under NEPA. The thirty-day clock begins to run only when an exploration plan is deemed complete. 30 C.F.R. � 250.233(a). If the agency is able to identify gaps before that point, then it can request that information be added before the proposal is finalized. See 30 C.F.R. � 250.231(b). Additionally, at the end of the thirty-day review period, the agency may opt to require modifications to an EP if there are concerns that it does not comport with environmental standards. 30 C.F.R. � 250.233(b). These options give the agency additional time to consider a plan and compile an environmental impact statement, if necessary. To say simply that the agency only has thirty days to complete a full EIS is misleading.

Without a doubt, BP has taken control of the narrative in the mass media... including the internet. Millions are watching the disaster cam and, with each failed attempt to stem the destruction, suffering not with the wildlife, the human life, or the environment, but BP's agony of defeat.

As the days turn to weeks turn to months, attention will wane, BP's propaganda (buoyed by useful catapulters in government on both sides of the aisle) will prevail, it will pay some fines, its stock will rise.

In my 20s and 30s hundreds of thousands were well informed about the environment and the amoral rapaciousness of corporations. The actions of an informed citizenry resulted in steps to impose meaningful limits on the industries that gave little or no concern to befouling that which sustains all life. And I will tell you now, that, unless you make a commitment to actively join with the people and the critters in the Gulf and demand substantive change within our regulatory agencies, little will be done to change the course.