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.

Obama Again Fiddles in California as Gulf Coast Burns over Inaction on Oil Spill

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It seems to be a habit with the Obama administration. Just when he is getting pressure from the left and right wing media to do something about a grave crisis he jumps his jet for California and holds million dollar fund raisers. While Obama fiddles Rome burns and millions of more special interest dollars are poured into Democrat campaigns.

Today Obama again flies over a disaster area on his way to the golden state of California where he can mine gold for campaigns. It is his third cross country flight to shake the big bucks out of California and a pattern seems to be developing. It seems every time the Gulf coast or America needs an explanation from the president on what he is doing to help us, the president is not available.



Today it is the BP oil spill in the Gulf which happened over one month ago. The only people who failed to act more than BP to avoid this environmental tragedy was the Obama Interior department, Homeland Security and White House. Obama, as president, not BP, was responsible for approving permits, approving the installation of the deepwater rig, making sure contingency plans were in place and monitoring every step of the drilling process.

Try as they may to place the total blame on BP it was the federal regulatory and safety role, or lack of one, that enabled this to happen. BP should have been prepared for a disaster, but the federal government was responsible to make sure the plan existed. Both failed. In fact 34 days later the Obama people are still bumbling around trying to figure out what to do. This week they say they are relying on BP expertise after raking BP over the coals the last week.



So rather than go to the disaster area and take charge, Obama is flying over the disaster on the way to multi-million dollar campaign fundraisers in California. Instead of walking the beaches and encouraging workers, many of them volunteers, who are cleaning up the oil he is charging $2,000 a person to join him for cocktails or $35,200 to join him for dinner in San Francisco.

Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should.

Just a few months earlier, in October Obama made his first visit to New Orleans. During the campaign and after taking office as president Obama’s steady criticism of how former President George W. Bush’s administration ignored the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina was a shrewd political move that helped propel him into the White House. Unfortunately, the people of New Orleans only got a photo op and more words, not action, as he quickly hopped the jet for the west coast.



Once safely in lala land with Nancy Pelosi citizens could see the president and actually spend time with him, if they paid $34,000 per couple for dinner with Obama or $1,000 for a concert ticket with him. As he was behind closed doors in San Francisco hobnobbing with contributors the BBC on the other side of the world was announcing that Obama was going to send 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Obama did not confirm the exact number of troops until December 2.



Just last month Obama was back in California raising $3 more millions on April 19, just a day before the BP oil rig explosion on April 20. This trip fell between Obama's toothless Nuclear Summit April 12-13 and his speech to Wall Street on April 22.

When things get tough the president heads out for California fundraisers where the millions he rakes in for the political fat cats seems a lot more important than what is happening in the Gulf, or Afghanistan, or the economy.



Had we been paying attention we would know the White House was great at making the president disappear when the heat is on. Back on February 17, 2009, just a couple of weeks after becoming president, Obama signed the controversial economic stimulus bill at a cost of $787 billion. The same day he also announced the $245 billion housing and mortgage bailout which has largely failed.

Quietly the same day the Pentagon, not president, announced a 17,000 troop increase in Afghanistan while Bill Clinton was saying he was not responsible for the economic crisis even though he apologized for allowing his staff to change federal regulations that allowed the economic crisis to happen.



Perhaps our national priorities have suffered from lack of presidential attention and focus but at least the political campaigns are getting all the money they need from Obama. The people of America, it seems, are still waiting to get the president's attention.

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