46% Give Obama Poor Rating on Energy Issues

Thirty-one percent of people gave the President a positive rating on his handling of environmental and energy issues while 46% believe he's done a poor job on these issues. However, this represents a decline in negative ratings from last month which is likely due to the fact that the gulf oil  leak is somewhat under control in comparison to the same period last month. In fact, voters are less critical of Obama's handling of the environmental disaster than they were just one month ago. The disaster does not seem to have the power to lower the presidential ratings like Katrina. I guess dirty beaches and oil-slicked water are no match for the messy scene in New Orleans.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/offshore_drilling/voters_slightly_less_critical_of_obama_oil_companies_for_gulf_leak 

CRU Exonerated Based on Dubious Investigation

Everyone can rest easy, as some crackpot, ex-gubment team of lackeys in London declared that the emails stolen from one of the leading climate change research centers "contained no evidence to undermine the case for man made global warming." Apparently, this rigorous investigation into the British research unit named CRU, or Climatic Research Unit, found no wrongdoing, but don't worry, the report "criticized their lack of openness and said some of their data was misleading."  Oh, goodie. 

The team of expert investigators were from the esteemed University of East Anglia, eastern England.  I feel better already. "Their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt," the report concluded. Okay, so why conduct the investigation in the first place? As memory serves, this team of scientists deleted emails prior to responding to questions about climate data lodged under Britain's freedom of information laws, sent emails telling members to delete data and refused to print or peer review any scientist's data that failed to line up to theirs. I can totally see their point. What is wrong with telling scientists to "hide the decline" or "trick" people by manipulating data to support the scientists' views?

Hold on. We can explain. Apparently, the investigators found that they did not mean to actually "hide the decline" in warming. The team also explained that the use of the word "trick" may have been "shorthand for a neat mathematical approach to a problem." Are you serious? What a bunch of garbage. I am much more skeptical of global warming than I was before I read their silly investigation.

The British authorities are still conducting an investigation to find the hacker that stole the dubious emails. I bet that investigation will yield real results. What a joke.

'Arbitrary and Capricious' Ban Lifted on Deepwater Drilling

New Orleans United States District Court judge Martin Feldman issued an injunction today lifting the reactionary six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by Obama a few weeks ago in response to the BP oil spill. Feldman stated that he could see no reasonable rationale for Obama's ban on drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet "to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations."  The injunction is effective immediately and prohibits the government from enforcing the ban.

Apparently, the government told Feldman the ban was based on a report following the sinking of the rig, which attempted to link further drilling to "public safety," but Feldman stated that he could find no rational relationship between the findings and the scope of the moratorium. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.” Feldman cause the public policy "arbitrary and capricious" also also noted that the ban would cause irreparable economic injury in the region as oilfield companies estimated that the ban could cost as many as 20,000 jobs if it lasted 18 months.

Finally, someone called Obama and his cronies out on their BS.  It would've been more fun to hear the judge substitute "arbitrary and capricious" with "horse sh*t," but I'll take what I can get.

Obama's Green Obsession

In the linked article, Charles Krauthammer aptly noted what last week's oval office speech was - an attempt to leverage the oil spill and its consequences to advocate Obama's cap-and-trade climate-change agenda. Sure, Obama decried BP and attempted to sympathize with the people in the gulf region, but by the second half of the speech, he was telling the American people why they had to ditch the evil black substance and turn toward the green. Gotcha. What green technology? Ethanol? Nope. That one didn't work. Okay. What else? The fact is, he has no clue, but this doesn't stop him from peddling the nebulously defined green economy and relentlessly attempting to "tax carbon, spend trillions, and put government in control of the energy economy."

In a stable economic environment, designating reasonable amounts of money for the research of alternative energy sources isn't a terrible idea.  But we neither enjoy a stable economic environment nor modest success with any alternative green energy sources to date. Throwing insane amounts of money at every cockamamie green project and heavily taxing the current energy industry simply for existing, will drive up gas prices and send our economy into further turmoil.

Wasting Lots of Green on Green "Jobs"

Yesterday, an old government colleague of mine who is now a lobbiest, emailed me to ask if I knew the new "Chief Greening Officer" at our old agency.  Seriously.  Obama created that position for all federal agencies.  Apparently, the chief greening officer, who is in charge of overseeing sustainability efforts within all agency-owned and leased buildings is to "strive to meet [Obama's] commitment of achieving a zero environmental footprint.”  That is about the most vague internal job description I've ever heard.  Then, I read the title-linked article and realized, the appointment of Chief Greening Officers in all agencies is just a drop in the green bucket.  What an absolute waste of time and resources.

Americans Rate Obama's Response to Oil Spill as Worse than Bush's to Katrina

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 60% of Americans rated Obama's federal response to the British Petroleum oil spill negatively compared with a 62% negative rating for the Bush administration's response to Katrina two weeks after the hurricane hit.

Unsurprisingly, there was a partisan divide among those that viewed the Obama administration's response negatively and those that did not. Democrats, at 56%, were less critical of the Obama response compared to 74% of Independents and 81% of Republicans that viewed the response negatively. The results ran in the opposite direction for Katrina, as 41% of Republicans viewed the Bush response negatively compared to 64% percent of Independents and 79% of Democrats.

However, partisanship ended when it came to environmental concern regarding the aftermath of the spill as 70% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats and Independents viewed it as a major environmental disaster. Indeed. And the Gulf will take a lot more time, money and effort to restore than New Orleans. My best guess is that the fallout from the spill will wreak at least twice the damage to Obama's poll numbers.

Obama's BP Bungle

Journalists across the country are comparing Bush's Hurricane Katrina response to Obama's handling of his Louisiana problem - the British Petroleum oil spill:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-05-27-Spill-poll_N.htm?csp=hf

http://www.freep.com/article/20100527/NEWS07/5270453/1319/

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/bp-oil-spill-political-headache-obama-democrats-slam/story?id=10746519

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/05/can_obama_do_more_about_the_bp.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

But, is the comparison fair? Well, obviously, in terms of loss of life, there isn't a correlation as 11 men lost their lives in the explosion compared with 1800 individuals in the hurricane, but aside from the number of casualties, there are striking similarities between the two events.

During Katrina, the White House pointed out that the federal response was governed by the Stafford Act, which says that in natural disasters states are in charge, not the feds. The federal obligation is only to support the states in their efforts. Similarly, Obama's team pointed to a 1990 law that requires oil companies to clean up their spills, and that they are only offering oversight in response to this mandate.

 

State officials in Louisiana during Katrina, said Bush's response was too slow, bogged down in red tape, and their people lacked the equipment and necessities they expected FEMA to provide immediately. Again, Louisiana residents are crying out that they have begged, but have not  been given necessary equipment, even as oil has invaded marshes and beaches. In fact, Governor Bobby Jindal said they haven't even received the oil-stopping boom they requested three weeks ago from the Coast Guard. Apparently, requests for more boom or other oil-fighting equipment are routed to a British Petroleum subcontractor for approval, then sent through two command centers, which delays the Coast Guard. So, not only does the Coast Guard have its own bureaucracy, but BP has set up a few stumbling blocks of its own. Brilliant.

In the wake of Katrina, people complained that Bush failed to issue an emergency plan to rescue, evacuate and house displaced residents. And now, Jindal and Louisiana are at a loss to understand how, when they came up with their own plan, Washington couldn't even manage to register its vote on their proposal to build a 94-mile-long string of sand berms across Louisiana's coast to keep the oil at bay. Louisiana requested an emergency permit for the plan from the Army Corps of Engineers that would bypass environmental impact reviews and the matter is still under review. As a result of the lack of decision-making, the oil has filled the marshlands.

After Katrina hit, Bush was lambasted for waiting four days to head to New Orleans. It took Obama 12 days to show up in the gulf.

So, doesn't it sound like the same finger-pointy, decisionless, inept response to you?  Apparently, Obama now understands the red tape and headaches inherent in dealing with an emergent crisis.

BP Coffers

It seems Obama and the Dems can no longer claim that Republicans are the primary recipients of  "big oil money." Just as we discovered that the Democrats and their leader received almost 70% of Wall Street contributions in the last presidential election compared to the Republicans, we now learn that the Dems take a chunk of change from big oil, too. In 2000, British Petroleum gave almost 39% more to Republicans, but by 2008, the company was giving equally to the parties.

Interestingly, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the company and is "the top recipient of BP Political Action Committee and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records." Of course, Obama denied taking "big oil money" as his representative stated that he "didn’t accept a dime from corporate PACs or federal lobbyists during his presidential campaign," "rolled back tax breaks and giveaways for the oil and gas industry, spearheaded a G20 agreement to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, and made the largest investment in American history in clean energy incentives.”

He can huff and puff as much as he wants, but financial disclosure records don't lie. After this oil spill and the administration's response, the green peacers and environmentalists of the world aren't buying his kabuki dance.