WASHINGTON — An Obama administration task force formed this week to determine how much crude is surging into the Gulf of Mexico from a wrecked oil well includes an engineering professor who's told Congress he believes the spill is far larger than originally thought, but not a representative from BP, the oil company responsible for the spill.
Administration officials, who've stressed for nearly a month BP's preeminent role in cleanup efforts as the "responsible party," offered no explanation for BP's exclusion from the panel, which a top Coast Guard official said was expected to deliver a new estimate of the spill's size early next week.
A Coast Guard spokesman, Christopher O'Neil, said that BP would be a “welcome and needed contributor” to the task force by providing “reams of data” that the panel will need to make a decision on the flow rate.
Yes, it's much more effective for BP to pay off the investigators behind the scenes than move to squelch the investigation right up front.
...The move to keep BP from being a full member of the task force may be intended to provide credibility for the new estimate after nearly two weeks of open challenges to the official 5,000 barrel a day estimate. Experts who've studied videos of the spill pegged the amounts at many times that, and legal experts told McClatchy this week that a low estimate would favor BP in future court cases involving the spill.
BP's own announcement Thursday that a tube inserted into one of the leaks was now siphoning 5,000 barrels of oil to the surface, while a live video feed showed crude still billowing from the pipe, further discredited the official estimate...
They don't even begin to lie effectively, do they?
Meanwhile, people I am sure Rand Paul considers communists- like Republican Bobby Jindal- are starting to take aim at that Holy of Holies
GRAND ISLE – Surrounded by officials from several parishes and towns threatened by the impeding oil, Gov. Bobby Jindal did not mince words.
“Let’s be clear,” Jindal said. “The oil is here. Heavy oil is here.”
At a press conference held Thursday afternoon in Grand Isle, Jindal made his case for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue an emergency permit so that the state could begin a dredging plan to build sand booms along the alignment of the state’s barrier islands in Chandeleurs, Barataria Bay and Timbalier Bay.
Across the street from the press conference, clumps of brown oil had already begun washing up on shore.
“We must get the dredging plan approved,” Jindal said. “We’ve seen firsthand this works.”
Jindal said the $350 million dollar plan needs to be approved because it’s easier and cheaper to fight the oil on the coastline than it would be to clean it from the wetlands.
“If I was them (BP),” Jindal said, “I wouldn’t worry about the cost. It’s a fraction of what they’re going to pay if this gets in the wetlands...”
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