"Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?"

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue on Friday cautioned against putting too many regulations in place in the wake of the British Petroleum oil spill, saying there may not be enough information yet to make immediate, sweeping policy changes.

“I was astounded yesterday that the president took full responsibility for this and said it was the federal government, and not BP, that was running the cleanup,” Donohue said at a breakfast for reporters. “Well, it was interesting to hear the admiral from the Coast Guard say, ‘We have no capacity to do this cleanup.' (bold emphasis added, Ziggy)

“They’ve already broken up the regulatory body into more regulators. They’ve already got people retiring or being fired. This is the idea that we have to cover our political ass in our very, very difficult time. By the way, both parties do this kind of thing,” Donohue added.

There’s a “mentality in this Congress and this administration that the more regulation, the better,” Donohue said.

“I’m not too much of an advocate of doing the surgery before the diagnosis. Nor am I an advocate of grounding all the aircraft if there’s an aircraft accident, stopping all the trains if there’s a train accident,” Donohue said. “When you overregulate, you under-job.”

On Thursday, President Barack Obama took to task critics of his response to the spill, saying, “In case you were wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure everything is done to shut this down. ... There shouldn’t be any confusion here: The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged.”

The government also took action by extending the moratorium on offshore drilling for the next six months in the Gulf Coast and included waters off the coast of Alaska.

Donohue said a better tack might be for the government to adopt a “calm resolve” to “A) stop the oil, B) clean it up and C) figure out what happened and [how we are] going to deal with it.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E01A804D-18FE-70B2-A844A7C2B7B59D25

Republicans hold a "sincere and fundamental belief" that government "has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges." The administration of President George W. Bush believed that "if you're a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else," - Barack Obama

Stephanie wrote:Ziggy,

Why is the only option MORE regulation? Why not enforce the regulations already on the books?

Section 323
Provides an exemption for oil and gas companies from the Federal Water Pollution Control Act for their construction activities surrounding oil and gas drilling.

Section 390
Increases the ability to exclude a broad range of oil and gas exploration and drilling activities from public involvement and impact analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Section 381
Limits the ability of states to protect their coastlines from oil and gas exploration by limiting their appeals process under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Section 322
Exempts from the Safe Drinking Water Act a coalbed methane drilling technique called “hydraulic fracturing,” a potential polluter of underground drinking water. One of the largest companies employing this technique is Halliburton, for which Vice President Richard Cheney acted as chief executive officer in the 1990s. This exemption would kill lawsuits by Western ranchers who say that drilling for methane gas pollutes groundwater by injecting contaminated fluids underground. Only 16 companies stand to significantly benefit from this exemption from clean water laws: Anadarko, BP, Burlington Resources, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, Dominion Resources, EOG Resources, Evergreen Resources, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, Oxbow (Gunnison Energy), Tom Brown, Western Gas Resources, Williams Cos and XTO. These companies gave nearly $15 million to federal candidates—with more than three-quarters of that total going to Republicans. Moreover, the 16 companies spent more than $70 million lobbying Congress.

ziggy wrote:

Stephanie wrote:Ziggy,

Why is the only option MORE regulation? Why not enforce the regulations already on the books?

What regulations are not being enforced? Part of the problem is that in the past 10 years most of the former regulations re: oil drilling have been rendered useless.

Summary of Industry Giveaways in the 2005 Energy Bill:

OIL & GAS REGULATORY ROLLBACKS

Section 323
Provides an exemption for oil and gas companies from the Federal Water Pollution Control Act for their construction activities surrounding oil and gas drilling.

Section 390
Increases the ability to exclude a broad range of oil and gas exploration and drilling activities from public involvement and impact analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Section 381
Limits the ability of states to protect their coastlines from oil and gas exploration by limiting their appeals process under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Section 322
Exempts from the Safe Drinking Water Act a coalbed methane drilling technique called “hydraulic fracturing,” a potential polluter of underground drinking water. One of the largest companies employing this technique is Halliburton, for which Vice President Richard Cheney acted as chief executive officer in the 1990s. This exemption would kill lawsuits by Western ranchers who say that drilling for methane gas pollutes groundwater by injecting contaminated fluids underground. Only 16 companies stand to significantly benefit from this exemption from clean water laws: Anadarko, BP, Burlington Resources, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, Dominion Resources, EOG Resources, Evergreen Resources, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, Oxbow (Gunnison Energy), Tom Brown, Western Gas Resources, Williams Cos and XTO. These companies gave nearly $15 million to federal candidates—with more than three-quarters of that total going to Republicans. Moreover, the 16 companies spent more than $70 million lobbying Congress.

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/article_redirect.cfm?ID=13980

Democrats have had a veto proof Congress for 2 sessions. Why didn't they simply repeal these rollbacks?

Stephanie wrote:http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bps-dismal-safety-record/story?id=10763042&page=2

The company with the worst safety record in the industry is allowed to operate a deepwater drilling operation?

How many deals did OSHA & the DOJ make with BP enabling them to avoid prosecution?

Bush is gone, Ziggy. How long is "that Bush gang" going to take the blame for everything that goes on?

Why can't Obama and his administration and the Democratically controlled House & Senate do anything but throw there hands up in the air and bitch about those damn Republicans?

How long before they're going to take charge and enforce the laws we have now?

ziggy wrote:

Democrats have had a veto proof Congress for 2 sessions. Why didn't they simply repeal these rollbacks?

Maybe because Democrats are becoming more and more like Republicans? But at this point it does not matter. The Federal Energy Act of 2005 has not been repealed. And the exemptions from earlier environmental laws allowed under that Act are still in effect.

So again, what laws has BP been allowed to violate due to lack of enforcement by regulatory agencies?

In two separate disasters prior to the Gulf oil rig explosion, 30 BP workers have been killed, and more than 200 seriously injured.

In the last five years, investigators found, BP has admitted to breaking U.S. environmental and safety laws and committing outright fraud. BP paid $373 million in fines to avoid prosecution.

BP's safety violations far outstrip its fellow oil companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the "egregious, willful" violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

OSHA & the DOJ have ALLOWED BP to pay fines to avoid prosecution.

BP's safety violations far outstrip its fellow oil companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, in the last three years, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas have accounted for 97 percent of the "egregious, willful" violations handed out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Companies do not pay fines except as a result of prosecutions for violations.

What difference will more regulation mean if repeated violations just = a payoff? Make no mistake about it, it's a payoff.

ziggy wrote: In my younger days I got a number of speeding tickets. I paid fines in the local Courts after being issued citations. Was I just making a "payoff"?