Thread: Obama unveils Gulf of Mexico oil spill response

US President Barack Obama has unveiled a series of measures in response to the oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_...a/10177052.stm

mhmm, you would think he would have learned from his predecessors handling of a big disaster. people want action, and they want it quickly.

Originally Posted by CanadianPersian

mhmm, you would think he would have learned from his predecessors handling of a big disaster. people want action, and they want it quickly.

My thoughts as well, especially when it is affecting the same region and then some. People don't want to see committees, they want to see results.

We will see what happens...

his speech sounded to me as "we had our thumb up our ass, and we want to smooth it over"
Something that threatens many states and even foreign countries, needs to have the fed step in. They are so busy wanting to control everything else, why not step up and get the job done. The federal govt should have stepped in full force in the first week. It would have been over and done with with a proper response. There are other oil companies out there, some of them have capability to take care of this. BP should have been set back and other companies and specialist brought in, thats the way you handle hazmat on small scale, just scale it up.

Where are Trigger, Hawg, and Fov? It has been how many days, and he just now has a plan? Where is the outrage?

this is completely different than katrina though... foreign countries and businesses means more time dealing with bureaucratic bullshit, and less time actually on the ground. bush didn't have an excuse for his weak response.

Originally Posted by CanadianPersian

this is completely different than katrina though... foreign countries and businesses means more time dealing with bureaucratic bullshit, and less time actually on the ground. bush didn't have an excuse for his weak response.

Also a natural disaster evac/relief/civil order plan for mass casualty events that FEMA, national guard, and other agencies are supposed to have repeatedly trained for is a lot different than "we have never encountered a blowout in the middle of the ocean where the blowout relief valve broke and oil is gushing up". Oil spill cleanup protocols were invented in the aftermath of Valdez but this case is still different because the source of the oil isn't just a single tanker, it's the entire reservoir and nobody has actually been out this far. The closest thing to the BP accident was the Ixtoc 1 spill from 1980, which again is different because Ixtoc 1 was only 50ft underwater, which meant divers could actually work on capping the thing with conventional well capping techniques, and even then, 3mil bbl ended up on the southern US coastline. Whereas the Katrina aftermath should have been easier to deal with compared sending relief to Indonesia after the tsunami a year prior to Katrina, not to mention Katrina was also fully predictable as well and you could have had boots on the ground within 24 hours of levee failure not 3 days later.

Originally Posted by CanadianPersian

this is completely different than katrina though... foreign countries and businesses means more time dealing with bureaucratic bullshit, and less time actually on the ground. bush didn't have an excuse for his weak response.

local and state governments... name me another hurricane that the federal government has needed to be involved in. Louisiana sat on their ass and passed the blame.
although i think both parties have handled both situations wrong/slow. however if federal steps in too early they could be impeding on state's rights. this should have already been taken care off.

How many hurricanes have hit the Gulf Coast and Florida? How many times has the standing President shown up? Hell, Rita was a year or so after Katrina, and Houston/Galveston is in much better condition with a fraction of the support the NO got. All I am asking is don't look like you totally have Obama's e-peen in your mouth and call it both ways.

Where was you plan on how to stop the leak?

As if there was a plan and it just needed to be implemented?