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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201...ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

quote:
Report: White House altered drilling safety report
AP
By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Dina Cappiello, Associated Press – 1 hr 14 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The Interior Department's inspector general says the White House edited a drilling safety report in a way that made it falsely appear that scientists and experts supported the idea of the administration's six-month ban on new drilling.

The inspector general says the editing changes resulted "in the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed." But it hadn't been. The scientists were only asked to review new safety measures for offshore drilling.

The inspector general's report, which was originally requested by Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Steve Scalise in June, said the administration did not violate federal rules because the executive summary did not say the experts approved the recommendations and the department offered a formal apology and had publicly clarified the nature of the expert review.

Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, said in a statement that the investigation proved "that the blanket drilling moratorium was driven by a politics and not by science."

"Candidate Obama promised that he would guided by science, not ideology," Cassidy said. Cassidy said if that were true thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity would have been preserved on the Gulf coast.


Note: AP story, as per ONO request. Smiler
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You left out the last paragraph, B. The one that says they got this story from Politico.com.

Frederick J. Ryan Jr. is the President and CEO of politico.com. Used to work for Reagan and currently "serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation", per Wikipedia.

So I guess the story has a definite right-wing slant. The AP story carried that disclaimer.
Report: White House altered drilling safety report

(AP) – 1 hour ago

The Web site Politico was first to report the inspector general's findings. The Associated Press on Wednesday obtained a copy of the report, which has not been publicly released.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Any better? It says 'findings' were reported to politico. Not the whole story.
Tough.

If BP was ignoring mandated safety regulations, why would there be any reason to doubt that the other drilling companies are doing same??? The feds dont have the manpower to inspect the rigs, so the compliance is based on the honor system.

Hopefully, since BP was willfully ignoring their responsibilities, they will be culpable for treble damages, or about $90billion, or about 3-4 years of worldwide profits.
quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
Tough.

If BP was ignoring mandated safety regulations, why would there be any reason to doubt that the other drilling companies are doing same???


Guilt by association now? This is your idea of a free society that is supposed to follow the "rule of law"?

quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
The feds dont have the manpower to inspect the rigs, so the compliance is based on the honor system.


Really? So employees of the so-called government watchdogs like U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Minerals Management Service that has a 582-page "Regional Oil Spill Response Plan – Gulf of Mexico" that doesn't even address a deep water oil spill, have no responsibility in the matter at all?

These government bureauracies, not to mention left wing enviromental groups, have long regulated this industry in a myriad of nanny state ways..."so the compliance is based on the honor system"...Yeah right...
Wonder if this is the typical trick that people fall for in most studies which is edit the article excerpts to say something entirely different than what the whole report says as the excerpt is not peer reviewed like the main article.

This does not excuse this case, but everyone does this as ultimately the group that did the study want to make the group that provided funding happy, and the people who don't know better (the general public) rarely if ever read the entire study, let alone understand if anything was rigged for a particular bias.
quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Nation:
quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
Tough.

If BP was ignoring mandated safety regulations, why would there be any reason to doubt that the other drilling companies are doing same???


Guilt by association now? This is your idea of a free society that is supposed to follow the "rule of law"?

quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
The feds dont have the manpower to inspect the rigs, so the compliance is based on the honor system.


Really? So employees of the so-called government watchdogs like U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Minerals Management Service that has a 582-page "Regional Oil Spill Response Plan – Gulf of Mexico" that doesn't even address a deep water oil spill, have no responsibility in the matter at all?

These government bureauracies, not to mention left wing enviromental groups, have long regulated this industry in a myriad of nanny state ways..."so the compliance is based on the honor system"...Yeah right...


If you break the law, is it the fault of the Police???

I like how you included the "Palin Phrase of the Day"---nanny state, especially went it does not even remotely apply. Next.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...n-gulf-oil-explosion

quote:
For Davis, the events of that night, when the rig exploded killing 11 of the 126 crew, was only the beginning of his ordeal. He says he and other survivors were to spend the next 40 hours in isolation – barred from phoning their families – while his lawyers believe Transocean, the owners of the rig, readied its legal defences. Seventeen crew members were seriously injured in the incident.


Not to interrupt the 'hating' on BP and Haliburton, but Transocean, the owner of the rig, is the company who forced the signing of the waivers and also isolated the workers for over 40 hours.

And Cheney has not been part of Halliburton since 2000.
quote:
Originally posted by Shugpie:
quote:
Originally posted by Buttercup:
And Bush lied about the WMDs.


Then Bill Clinton also lied about WMDs. He also said they had them before Bush ever became president.


And the Bush administration altered NASA reports about climate change.

Again, administrations alter facts in their favor....ALL of them have done it.
quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Nation:
quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
Tough.

If BP was ignoring mandated safety regulations, why would there be any reason to doubt that the other drilling companies are doing same???


Guilt by association now? This is your idea of a free society that is supposed to follow the "rule of law"?

quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
The feds dont have the manpower to inspect the rigs, so the compliance is based on the honor system.


Really? So employees of the so-called government watchdogs like U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Minerals Management Service that has a 582-page "Regional Oil Spill Response Plan – Gulf of Mexico" that doesn't even address a deep water oil spill, have no responsibility in the matter at all?

These government bureauracies, not to mention left wing enviromental groups, have long regulated this industry in a myriad of nanny state ways..."so the compliance is based on the honor system"...Yeah right...


If you break the law, is it the fault of the Police???

I like how you included the "Palin Phrase of the Day"---nanny state, especially went it does not even remotely apply. Next.


"Nanny State" did not come from Palin...what are you 12? And yes it does apply.

Yes, BP is responsible...but to say ..."so the compliance is based on the honor system" is horribly simplistic...again are you 12?

Most people who propose the logic you exibit in your post, suggest even more illegitimate, ineffectual, wasteful bureauracracy to replace the current illigetimate, ineffectual, wasteful bureauracracy.

And yes if the "police" were standing around eating donuts while a homicide was taking place...yes they would bear some responsiblitily.
quote:
Originally posted by JuanHunt:
Tough.

If BP was ignoring mandated safety regulations, why would there be any reason to doubt that the other drilling companies are doing same??? The feds dont have the manpower to inspect the rigs, so the compliance is based on the honor system.

Hopefully, since BP was willfully ignoring their responsibilities, they will be culpable for treble damages, or about $90billion, or about 3-4 years of worldwide profits.


The Minerals Management Service was in bed with those they were supposed to inspect -- in bed and doing drugs. When government is too big, it gets corrupt and ineffective. Government performed some of its best work, such as the Panama Canal, when it was small, lean effective.

"An eye-opening series of reports in fall 2008 by the Department of the Interior’s inspector general disclosed a stunning level of corruption at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), and a coziness with industry officials that included a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” at the agency. MMS is responsible for collecting royalties from companies for the right to produce oil and gas from federally controlled land and water; in 2007, MMS collected more than $9 billion in oil and gas royalties, making it one of the largest sources of income for the United States government. The agency also runs the Royalty-in-Kind program out of its Denver office, through which it takes delivery of oil and gas from energy firms in lieu of cash payments, and then sells it to refiners.

The inspector general concluded that officials in the MMS Royalty-in-Kind program “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.” The IG said that one-third of Royalty-in-Kind officials were taking bribes and gifts, and noted that former MMS officials received contracts from their friends still in the department. Out of 718 bid packages awarded by MMS between 2001 and 2006, 121 were modified by the agency — and all but three of the modifications benefited the oil companies. The inspector general said that these relationships have cost taxpayers $4.4 million in lapsed collection fees, but due to the sloppy administration at MMS, the real cost may go undiscovered.

In a separate report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that MMS is plagued by inefficiency in collecting royalties, and that there is no way to backtrack and figure out how much has actually been lost. Currently, oil companies submit their own data and MMS simply takes them at their word, rather than independently confirming that the numbers are correct — what the inspector general has referred to in a letter to Secretary Dirk Kempthorne as a “Band-Aid approach to holding together one of the federal government's largest revenue producing operations.” A separate GAO report found that the United States is not collecting fair market price for royalties on public resources — which may be seriously limiting the amount of money taken in by MMS, and hence, the taxpayers."

http://www.publicintegrity.org...articles/entry/1022/

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