Oil Drilling Myths and Lies - Fact Checking the Media on Gulf Oil Spill

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Myth 1. Media have reported up to 70,000 barrels of oil a day are being released into the Gulf.

Fact:
An Administration task force today said the actual spill is between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day. An unknown percentage of the spill was natural gas escaping with the crude oil. This would reduce the oil in the Gulf.

Myth 2. Media has reported it is worst oil spill in history exceeding the Exxon Valdez accident.

Fact:
According to the official government estimate, not BP, the total spill to date is between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels per day, meaning a total of 440,000 to 703,000 barrels total. At present the Top Kill procedure is underway and oil is not escaping, thus the total spill to date may remain stable.

At the highest estimate the spill ranks below the top 14 oil spills in history with the top being 11 million barrels in the Persian Gulf.

The Exxon Valdez, so often mentioned by the media, ranked 35th in world history. While the Gulf spill is larger the Exxon Valdez was 257,142 barrels. It was from a single tanker ship, the Gulf leak is from an oil field.



Myth 3. Media have reported this will be the largest environmental disaster in US history.

Fact:
The Gulf oil spill contains a yet to be determined amount of natural gas, perhaps 30-40%, that reduces the contamination of the waters. In addition, the warm water and weather in the Gulf is causing up to 40% of the crude oil to evaporate. Remember the Exxon Valdez was off Alaska in much colder cold water and weather.

Myth 4. Media have reported that much of the oil will reach the Gulf coast beaches and wetlands. In fact some media reported the oil spill would hit the beaches within days of the explosion.

Fact:
So far land contamination has been very small with the vast amount of oil dispersed 5-12 miles from land. Limited marsh land has been contaminated so far and most Gulf coast beaches have not been reached by oil.

Myth 5. Media have reported the chemicals being used to disperse the oil were banned by EPA.

Fact:
All chemicals dispersed to date were approved by EPA. They have recommended a reduction in the amount of chemicals being used which is being implemented.

The use of chemicals to disperse oil spills has been proven to substantially reduce the amount or residue from the oil by breaking up the oil slick and allowing natural biodegradable processes (microbes) to destroy it.



Myth 6. Media have reported burning surface oil just contaminates the atmosphere.

Fact:
Burning surface oil reduces the oil residue by 99% and carbon dioxide is what is dispersed.

Myth 7. The media reported the Administration said today they fired Elizabeth Birnbaum fired director of the U.S. Minerals Management Service and that eliminates the Bush people involved in cozy relationship between big oil and federal regulators.

Fact:
After Obama said he was not aware of what happened to Birnbaum the Interior Secretary said she had resigned, and was not fired.

Birnbaum never worked for Bush but was appointed to the Interior Department by Bill Clinton. She had worked for various Democrat Congressional committees in natural resources before the Clinton job in 1999-2000, then worked for environmental groups before returning to the Pelosi committees in 2008.

In 2009 Obama, not Bush appointed her as director of the US Minerals Management Service. As a graduate of Harvard Law school and Brown undergraduate along with her long career working for House committees and non-profit environmental groups she was most certainly an exceptional talent and Obama person. Seems odd the White House didn't know they appointed her.



Myth 8. The absence of a single large oil pool on the surface is very bad because it means the oil is already contaminating the environment.

Fact:
The absence of a large oil pool is a very good thing because it means there is less oil because of the natural gas and evaporation and that the effort to disperse the oil is working which makes it much more vulnerable to natural biodegradable processes.

Myth 9. BP was also responsible for the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Fact:
Exxon was responsible for the Exxon Valdez disaster. BP owned a controlling interest in the Alaska oil industry consortium that was required to write a cleanup plan and respond to the spill two decades ago.

BP also supplied the top executive of the consortium, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

The consortium was blamed for having a flawed response plan but the consortium was an independent subsidiary of BP and other oil partners. BP was not blamed for the accident or clean up problems.

BP needs a break, Obama needs a czar, governors need a friend, and TV news needs a long vacation!

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If the news shows were required to use fact checkers before the talking heads went on the air and made their latest wild claim as to why the "other" guys are incompetent, in other words if they were required to tell the truth with no exaggerated distortion, then would they have anything left to say?

Imagine that, all the hosts and reporters for Fox and MSNBC, along with their guests, had to tell the truth? Just the thought would leave them speechless and I happen to think the "Sounds of Silence" would be much better for the American psyche than news shows on TV.



How in the world did America ever survive World War II or the Korean war without those news talk shows? Back then we actually trusted the news media, believed the anchors told the truth, and felt the news people were being as objective as possible.

When you turned on Walter Cronkite, John Cameron Swayze, Huntley and Brinkley, Lowell Thomas or even Edward R. Morrow on radio, you got the news. Not filtered, not slanted toward a social issue or political philosophy, not intended to help a sponsor sell product or propaganda, just the plain old unbiased truth.



Those were the good old days. Way back when integrity meant something. When story content, not speculative spin, really was fair and balanced. But alas, those days are gone.

Just today the MSNBC shows demonstrated yet again, and at MSNBC program content is a collective and shared experience, how the chain reaction lie can work. Once a speculative fact is told on the air regardless of the truth in it, every subsequent show on MSNBC repeats the original story, even if the claim is not true.



When TV programs have to tell lies and undertake character assassination for the purpose of getting ratings, then they should not be allowed to claim special privilege under the Bill of Rights, freedom of the press.

The Morning Joe Show, with their large cast of liberal elitists and one conservative apologist, were raising the roof because the Obama administration was letting BP take the lead on the disaster. Are they really that insane?



When Apollo 13 went haywire on the way to the moon and it looked as if the craft and crew were goners, the White House turned to the people responsible for the mistake in the first place, NASA and their contractors, to solve the unprecedented problems.

BP has already called in the top scientists and engineers in the world, from their competitors and from universities and public and private laboratories.

There are two distinct and separate aspects to this disaster. One is capping the spewing well, which may be done today. This problem is much like Apollo 13, it had never been experienced before because of the depth of the well, one mile below the sea. They have to take care of that problem and the oil industry experts are best qualified to do it.

The second aspect of the problem is the containment and clean up of the oil that has leaked into the Gulf. This program should be managed by the federal government, particularly the Federal Emergency Management Program, good old FEMA.



One can only hope that all the improvements made to FEMA since Katrina by Bush and by Obama the last year and a half will make it capable of managing the task at hand. A massive and highly sensitive environmental clean up and restoration of the wetlands, the marshes, the beaches, the Gulf waters and all the environmental and ecological aspects of the Gulf Coast states is required.

The White House needs a Gulf Environmental and Ecological Czar to oversee this effort. How can that be so hard for an Administration that already has more Czars than banks have vice presidents? For once they should take the unusual step of ignoring the left leaning requirement for new appointments and name someone actually qualified to manage such a disaster response.

There is much that can be done right now to set in place actions to clean up the environment or protect certain critical areas from becoming polluted. The Corp of Engineers, Defense Department, Homeland Security, especially the revived FEMA units, and other federal agencies can be doing things right now to help. Permits can be expedited, emergency waivers granted, agencies forced to break bureaucratic logjams and other actions that a czar could take.

Thousands of volunteers need to be recruited to help save the environment and protect the ecology and Obama could get it done. Emergency approval of government permits for attacking the oil must be granted from a variety of agencies and a Czar should be empowered in the event of a national emergency, to grant the waivers and permits needed to be solving problems.

National disasters are not the time for partisan politics, which makes the political fundraisers being done by Obama this week seem rather shallow and self-serving. Maybe his sudden awakening to the fact the only thing missing from the disaster was leadership, confidence, determination and responsibility, had something to do with the fact he is suddenly going to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast this Friday, and not just for a photo op.



The last bizarre story propagated on MSNBC on the oil spill is that Congress is inept because they cannot raise the liability limit for oil companies from the current $75 million to $10 billion and this is a disasterous situation. What is MSNBC talking about? BP has already said over and over they will pay all legitimate claims for the oil spill. They have already agreed to pay over $350 million for claims and they are just beginning to assess the cost.

If they already committed to and expect to pay out $350 million plus a whole lot more, does anyone really think they expect to pay only $75 million in total damages as specified by law. Of course not, they committed to far more than their legal and pitiful liability. Our inept Congress can fix that law any time, both parties already know it is nonsense and that BP has already agreed to pay the costs. Whatever happens it has nothing to do with the current oil spill. BP said they will pay!

BP needs a break, Obama needs a czar, the state governors need a friend, and television news needs a long vacation, so the nation can pull together and help fix what congress cannot do. No country on earth responds to a disaster like Americans if government and the press would get out of the way and let us work together to get the job done to the best of our ability.

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