Bobby Jindal’s Oil Spill Failures

Posted on 06/27/2010 at 10:24 am by Bob Cesca

It’s great to see the New York Times finally coming around to report on Bobby Jindal’s ridiculousness — and it only took weeks of Rachel Maddow exposing his roid rage grandstanding and nonsensical, ineffectual ideas (like the stupid sand berms) to get to this point. But we’re here and it’s about time.

Here’s a rundown of Louisiana and Bobby Jindal oil spill failures, via Jed Lewison:

1. The state’s oil spill coordinator’s office has had its budget slashed by 50% over the last decade.

2. Last year, Jindal cut funding from the state’s oil spill research program.

3. The state’s oil spill contingency plan’s include “pages of blank charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels.” A plan for a worst-case scenario was labeled “to be developed.”

4. Before Jindal decided to attack the Federal response, state officials signed off on all Coast Guard response plans.

5. Jindal, who raged at the Federal government for not having enough boom, requested three times as much boom as the state’s plan had called for — and 50% more boom than existed in the entire nation.

And he’s only deployed 1,053 out of 6,000 available National Guard troops. But he’s doing a lot of yelling and helicoptering! That’s just as good as troops, no?

We might know more, but Bobby Jindal has sealed the state’s oil spill response records.

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  • Allonfla

    And Obama takes all the heat. It’s time for Jindal to share in the scorn.

  • Jan

    What an ass. Between him and Boss Hogg, those people are screwed down there.

  • brutlyhonest

    What an ass. Between him and Boss Hogg, those people are screwed down there.

    Pretty shocking to see southerners voting republican and fucking themselves.

  • ec

    I this worries you, check out Dickinson’s article in Rolling Stone on what the drilling moratorium is all about. Offshore exploration by BP at the Liberty site in Alaska begins in the fall. It is not affected by the moratorium, is technologically riskier than the gulf operations, and would be impossible to clean up if it starts to gush.http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/120130I'm going to get a subscription to Rolling Stone. It seems to have the only good journalism around.

  • mattpd

    Cmon bob, this is way too easy.1: Obama’s fault2: Obama’s fault3: Solved by prayer4: It’s not time to play the blame game during a crisis.5: Obama’s faultBesides, if Obama would have only solved it in the time he took to pick a general for afghanistan, the whole issue would be moot…

  • http://critterscrap.blogspot.com Jerry Critter

    Bobby Jindal — typical republican

  • indyfurnace

    Wouldn’t be the first person to seal state records.

  • Diane

    throwing back stimulus money that would have helped the unemployed; allowing BP to tell Americans that not protecting themselves from the dangers of cleaning up the mess from the gulf, is insubordination ..I mean where is the TV friendly Jindal why was he Jindal not condemning BP’s efforts to harm more americans…if Jindal sees another term then the needs of the people will continue to be avoided ignored and violently rejected…cutting back oil research how cowardly some one told him this was the best business move and if the state did not BP would go somewhere else… just who is Jindal supporting..BP did not place him in office the people of Louisiana did and Jindal is too cowardly to stand…we cannot heal as a nation until we see hope that the people issues on progress are address by the press and the elected official …we the people need to know louder Jindal positions and not allow themselves to knocked down by those wanting to destroy america

  • roxsteady

    Finally! I’ve been bitching about this for weeks! Now the piercing glare of the spot light should consume this village idiot and duplicitous douchebag! Get ready for your close up Mr. Jind-ull!

  • http://tarackian.deviantart.com J M Ashby

    Well if Obama would just don some tights and a cape, scoop up the oil out of the ocean with his hands, and toss it into the sun like superman would, none of this would be a problem! Its all his fault.I cant figure out why he hasnt done that yet. I mean he replaced McCrystal in 3 days. Why hasn’t he magically stopped the oil???But just watch, republicans along the gulf will get reelected. The population of masochists in the south is mighty high.

  • MrBrink

    @ecOkay. This is going to be a bad news/good-ish news response to the Dickinson article and the accusations of insensitivity to the situation levied at the Obama administration.So, yeah, it’s a little disturbing to read excerpts like this from the article:

    MMS has continued to accept bids on drilling tracts in the Gulf. Indeed, since President Obama announced his halt to deep-water drilling on May 27th, MMS has approved bids on at least 96 tracts in deep water. Two of the bids are from BP — and one is in the same undersea canyon where the company’s gusher continues to foul the Gulf.

    The White House contends that MMS is simply “finalizing paperwork” from bids submitted prior to the disaster.

    If you had a subscription, you’d be able to read Jann Wenner’s Editor’s Notes which in the current issue says of the Dickinson article and the Obama administration’s position on drilling in light of the Gulf gusher:

    America did not elect Barack Obama to “finalize paperwork”

    I feel the same way.It doesn’t get much more blunt and direct from a magazine that has been very supportive of Obama and in which the great majority of the musicians and artists the magazine covers, as well as its readers, do as well.The president knows this.So, let’s just appreciate that a friend and supporter of the president, Jann Wenner, isn’t afraid to tell the president that he’s potentially making some big mistakes when it comes oil companies and drilling and not taking ateps to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.Here’s where my goodish news and observations and experience with Dickinson’s reporting tries to soothe obvious and potential detractors and defend the president’s response.1) From the article:

    A spokesman for the Interior Department assures RS that the final paperwork for Shell’s drilling in the Arctic won’t be considered until January.giving the department time to “gather additional scientific information about resources, risks and environmental sensitivities” in the region.

    Now, Dickinson relies on “experts,” which I have no doubt that they are, but most of the article is just an alarm bell of what could happen, potentially, and tries really hard to not take the president and his administration at their word. The 6 month moratorium and the creative maneuvering being undertaken by the administration and the Interior to appeal the crooked decision by a Louisiana “judge” that overruled the ban, which is being fought by Obama and through the courts, isn’t something he’s being given credit for in this article.2) “The lease sale is the first step in the oil drilling process. Companies must first obtain the right to drill the tracts before they can devise exploration plans, which must be approved by MMS.”3) I consider the Gulf incident to be a sort of FDR/Pearl Harbor incident. The Obama administration, despite radical environmental views to the contrary and ignorant oppositional political grandstanding(duh…Drill, Baby, Drill!)has been quietly going after companies like BP since he came into office. For one, he forced BP’s Indiana refinery operations to go back to the drawing board on their pre-existing expansion project that was permitted by previous laws and backed up by the courts to dump even more toxic sludge into Lake Michigan than was already permitted.For another:

    In October 2009, OSHA fined oil company BP a record $87 million for failing to fix safety hazards after a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers in the company’s Texas refinery. The fine was more than quadruple any previous OSHA fine and sent a message to other employers.

    “An $87 million fine won’t restore those lives, but we can’t let this happen again,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said.

    So, less than a year in office, his administration was working the legal system, away from the general public’s A.D.D./corporate media trained eye to shut down and slow up the most powerful industry in the history of mankind. Oil companies are evil bastards with no scruples, ethics, or comparable supply of money and influence.Did anyone think it was going to be pretty? Or easy? to take on Big fucking Oil?Are we really that naive?4) Dickinson presumes the Obama administration isn’t an administration of it’s word, even calling the 6 month moratorium “a stalling tactic,” and takes a shortcut to the future almost insistent that the Arctic drilling, further deep water drilling, and every other inherited act and system of egregious rubber stamping will go on without even minimal considerations and restructuring of the most powerful industries known to man and their ubiquitous relationship with America, politics, and the planet over.I love Rolling Stone. I highly recommend it. I’ve been a longtime reader and subscriber. But you have to take into consideration the context and appreciate that under another administration, and by other, I’m not talking about a Greenpeace party because the alternative would either be right of center, or batshit crazy right of center, we very very likely wouldn’t see any accountability whatsoever.All things considered, I’m not at all simply “content” with the administration’s response and unforeseen plans for the industry’s future, but do we even remember what we’re up against?It’s important to keep things in perspective.This Gulf gusher has changed the game and anyone that says otherwise isn’t paying attention.

  • ec

    @MrBrink,Thanks for the comments. One of the more disturbing things in the piece is the discussion of the Liberty rig off Alaska. I heard an alarming discussion about this operation on NPR last week, yet no one seems to be talking about it.

  • MrBrink

    @ecWell, it made it’s way into the most talked about issue of Rolling Stone since Taibbi’s Great American Bubble Machine, so I wouldn’t say nobody is talking about it, just not enough(damn you CNN!). And Jann Wenner used his editor’s note, not to talk about The Runaway General, but the Tim Dickinson piece instead.You know things are f-ed up when the editor of the same magazine that struck journalistic gold over a story about a shit-talking General and his crew leading the fighting on the front lines of a nearly 10 year war is less substantive than BP’s proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic and the administration’s response.Sad to say, I’m not sure which story is more important.

  • MrBrink

    Slight correction-That last paragraph should have read:You know things are f-ed up when the editor of the same magazine that struck journalistic gold over a story about a shit-talking General and his crew leading the fighting on the front lines of a nearly 10 year war considered it less substantive than BP’s proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic and the administration’s response.Pardon my lack of proof-reading haste.