Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

One Month After The Oil Spill, It’s Time To Act.

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Today, on the month anniversary of the spill, I think we all need to take a moment and realize what the spill really means – the devastation in the Gulf is a reflection of our collective failure to force Washington and our elected officials to act on clean energy and propel our country, and our economy, powerfully forward. We have, collectively, allowed Washington to stall and wait and literally do nothing for three decades, ever since Jimmy Carter tried to lead the way forward on the issue.

Today, we must stand up.

Robert Redford has a great new spot out working with NRDC (with whom I also work) talking about this simple fact – that video is here.

 

He's right in that we all need to go straight to President Obama and to our elected officials and say "enough is enough" we need to act.

We need leadership from the White House and from Washington on this issue and we need it now.

Sadly, in the current political climate, leadership happens when Americans force the issue. So please click through, sign the letter, post this on Facebook, Tweet it.

For thirty days and thirty nights, oil has poured into one of our country's most important environmental and economic areas, it's time to act.

Please share widely!
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Comments

  1. Today’s show brought to you by BUNGLING PETROLEUM

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    p>We’re BUNGLING PETROLEUM. We don’t do our maintenence to save every last penny, and then our stuff explodes because we’re BUNGLING IDIOTS.

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    p>http://themoderatevoice.com/71…

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    p>In 2005, BP had a refinery explode in Texas. In 2006, they had a corroded pipe leak in Alaska.

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    p>http://www.gregpalast.com/slic…

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    p>But what about Exxon Valdez? That was Exxon, right?

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    p>Wrong. That also happened because of more Bungling Petroleum negligence.

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    p>Oil companies are greedy and rich and are in it just for the money. That’s what corporations do.

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    p>But no oil company comes close to the number of accidents that BP has. The other companies do their maintainence, at least much more than BP does.

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    p>At the very least, the US should get a copy of the laws that other nations have that FORCE oil companies to do their maintenence, translate them into English, and put them on the books here.

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    p>Fishermen and people with Gulf Coast property should get $$$$ from BP, which has ruined their property or livelihood.

  3. Why the Bush administration — I mean Obama administration — has continued to let BP have free rein of this. Letting BP make the Coast Guard’s decisions, banning the press from the area to try to make heads or tails of this? Letting BP ban the scientific community from doing its work to try to grasp the true scope of this? Letting BP pick which destructive toxins — I mean “dispersant” — to throw in the ocean to make things even more polluted, but not look quite so ugly (at greater cost and more polluting than alternatives… for their friends to profit in the industry).

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    p>This is all very, very ugly business. This absolutely should be the Obama administration’s Katrina in that they were slow to react to this and when they have act, haven’t acted compellingly. BP should be made to pay back the costs of fixing this mess and repairing the damage (as best as possible), but for the love of all that’s holy, they should NOT be allowed to be in charge of the clean-up. They’ve already failed epicly, repeatedly. They can’t be trusted. It’s well past time for Obama to take charge — then leave BP the check. (And if BP refuses to pay up, to create the mother-load of all oil-industry taxes in existence.)

  4. It seems like BP has a conflict of interest where they want to save the well they built over stopping the leak immediately.  Meanwhile the commons (ocean) are polluted while they continue to search for non-destructive repairs.  Collapsing the well may be the most expedient solution.  

  5. a couple of things are happening that make outrage a largely nonexistent feeling away from the spill area. One is that it is not in most people’s back yard, and is out of sight and out of mind. They haven’t connected with the cost of seafood that comes from the region that should rise as a result. Another is the cost of gasoline today, and heating fuel once thew next fall and winter roll around. As long as you don’t see a slick on your beach, you chalk it up to a cost of energy and your need for it, never mind the personal cost to those poor folks who live there. This morning’s Boston Globe has an article about an oil spill in Falmouth some 40 years ago. The long and short of it is that just below the surface of the marshes, strong evidence of the oil still exists. With the WHOI close by, the spill has been closely investigated by marine scientists of the highest caliber.

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    p>http://www.boston.com/news/sci…

  6. Federal scientists should determine how the cleanup is done, not BP.

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    p>These scientists should be specialists, and their pay should be a flat salary that does not change.

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    p>A bill could be drawn up that says, if there is an oil spill after the deadline in the United States (say a specific date and time), the oil company that is responsible must make its employees do as they are told by the federal supervisors.

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    p>The supervisor would tell BP employees, “Do this, do that,” and the law would make them obey.

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    p>A bill like this would have great public support with this disastrous spill, and would make sure that things are done right.

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