Dual source: Obama administration issuing new deepwater drilling ban - Polidicks

CNN: Obama administration issuing new deepwater drilling ban [release]The U.S. Interior Department said Monday it is issuing a new moratorium order in a second effort to block deepwater oil and natural gas projects. The new moratorium is to "protect communities, coasts, and wildlife" while oil and gas companies implement safety measures to reduce the risks of blowouts and oil spills associated with deepwater drilling, the government said. The ban will be in effect through November 30, 2010, or until Interior Secretary Ken Salazar determines that deepwater drilling operations can proceed safely. Shallow water drilling activities can continue to move forward if operators comply with all safety and environmental requirements, since they don't present the same type or level of risks that deepwater drilling operations can, the Interior Department said. A previous six-month ban issued in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster was thrown out by a federal judge in New Orleans. Last week, a federal appeals panel rejected the government's request to overturn the lower court judge's decision. Like the initial drilling ban, the new moratorium probably also will face stiff opposition from commercial interests in the Gulf region. Michael Hecht, president and chief executive officer of the economic development group Greater New Orleans Inc., told the the National Oil Spill Commission, "Economically speaking, the BP oil spill is really a tale of two impacts: it's the impact of the oil spill itself and the impact from the moratorium on deepwater drilling." The commission is a presidential panel tasked with investigating the Gulf oil gusher and making recommendations about the future of offshore drilling, The ban would prevent further deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico until officials determine what went wrong in the April 20 explosion and fire at an oil rig that led to oil gushing into the ocean 5,000 feet below the surface. A new sealing cap could cover the breached well as early as Monday, the man in charge of the federal response team told CNN's "American Morning." Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday that once the cap is placed on the well, scientists will be able to gauge the pressure inside the well, then determine whether the cap is holding the oil in or if crews will need to continue siphoning up oil. While robots replace the old cap, crude is leaking out. Scientists estimate that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing daily from BP's breached well. Some of that gushing oil should be collected soon, BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Monday. He said the oil-gathering ship the Helix Producer should begin collection of oil from the ruptured well Monday and should "ramp up to full capacity" in several days after two setbacks Sunday delayed its implementation. Suttles blamed the delays on problems with a hydraulic system used to operate the valve and a leak in the methanol system. But he said the Helix Producer had only been set back less than a day and both issues had been resolved. Once the Helix Producer gets hooked up, between that ship and the Q4000, which is already active, crews should be able to collect up to 33,000 barrels of oil per day, Suttles said Monday. In the best-case scenario, the containment cap would have the ability to close down the valves and slowly contain all the oil, Allen said Monday. But if oil collection was still necessary, over the next two to three weeks, 60,000 to 80,000 barrels (2.52 million to 3.36 million gallons) a day could be collected as part of the containment process, BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said Sunday. That's because the new containment cap would allow four collection ships to access the well, rather than the maximum of three allowed by the old cap, Allen said earlier. Allen said Monday he has asked BP for plans on how to do "integrity" testing on the sealing cap and hopes the company will "move on that" later Monday to determine how to move forward. The testing could take 48 hours, Suttles said. "What we are talking about now is containing the oil. That's far different than actually killing the well and plugging it with cement," Allen said. "We will need to do that, ultimately, but this will significantly improve our situation regarding the amount of oil coming to the surface while we finish the relief wells, which are the final solution." The first relief well that BP plans to use to shut down the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is now 5 feet away from the main well and, at 17,840 feet deep, it's 30 feet above the hoped-for final casing point, Suttles said Monday. That's where BP will run additional tests, then aim for the final intersection point. Given the closeness to the target, he said that BP was estimating "kill" operations to shut down the main well could take place at the end of the month. The second relief well, which has been drilled as a redundancy measure at the behest of the Obama administration, is now at 15,874 feet deep, Suttles said. He added that BP is going to stop drilling that well farther unless it ends up being needed. "If the relief wells for whatever reason happen to fail, the other option we are working on how do we install what I will call a permanent collection system, which is where we're working on pipelines to other facilities," BP's senior vice president, Kent Wells, told the National Oil Spill Commission on Monday. While response crews were hard at work over the weekend, seven members of the commission visited different areas of the Gulf Coast affected by the oil disaster ahead of their first two meetings in New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday. Committee co-chairman William K. Reilly, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, went to Gulfport, Mississippi, to talk with disaster victims and inspect recovery efforts. The visits and meetings will help the presidential commission "begin to lay the groundwork for our efforts going forward, to determine what really to concentrate on and where to put our priorities and, very importantly, what the people most affected by all of this think about how effective the response has been," Reilly said. Minutes after the commission's first public meeting Monday morning, a protester stood up and disrupted it. He was escorted out by security. A second protester, New Orleans environmental activist Kimberly Wolf, interrupted the meeting about 45 minutes later to question the responders' use of dispersants in the Gulf. After Wolf was removed, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger told the panel, "I understand that concern. I think that's shared by all. This is a very difficult trade-off," he said. "The use of dispersants is to avoid significant shoreline impact." "In my opinion, they're using us as guinea pigs," Wolf said by phone after she had been ousted from the meeting room. "What's happening is people in the street don't know the name of the dispersant that's going to kill them." Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Coastal Conservation said to the panel. "Frankly, the Gulf is a big experiment station, now. And I think people are learning the dispersant pretty much keeps oil out of sight." President Barack Obama established the bipartisan commission last month and gave members six months to investigate the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The panel will listen to public comments and official testimony from BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the recovery efforts.[/release] [url]http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/12/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T1[/url] FOX: Obama Administration Issues New Moratorium on Offshore Oil Drilling [release]The Obama administration is issuing a new moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling and it's no longer based on water depth. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made the announcement Monday, arguing that a pause is still needed to ensure that oil and gas companies implement safety measures to reduce risks -- and are prepared to handle spills. The new moratorium will last through Nov. 30. Unlike the last moratorium, which applied to waters of more than 500 feet, the new one applies to any deep-water floating facility with drilling activities. Last week, a federal appeals court rejected the government's effort to halt the approval of any new permits for deep-water projects and suspended drilling on 33 exploratory wells.[/release] [url]http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/obama-administration-issues-new-moratorium-offshore-oil-drilling/[/url] Dam it Obama, quit it with the ban!

Well, at least he's doing [i]something[/i].

seems reasonable

lolnowgocleanuptheoilspill

[QUOTE=venn177;23313085]Well, at least he's doing [i]something[/i].[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/[/url]

if you can't do it right then you don't get to do it at all

Why can't you guys do what we do in Canada (and Norway) and require relief wells to be pre-drilled on deep water rigs? Late edit: Seems this was only a half-truth, for Canada at least. [url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=23317792&postcount=54]Clairification[/url]

That actually would had been a good idea.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;23313184]seems reasonable[/QUOTE] [i]One company[/i] screws up and [i]everyone[/i] gets punished? Seems slightly [i]un[/i]reasonable to me. :crossarms:

Obama is killing this country. [editline]12:00AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Zeke129;23314421]Why can't you guys do what we do in Canada (and Norway) and require relief wells to be pre-drilled on deep water rigs?[/QUOTE] We're not Canada or Norway.

[QUOTE=Ragy;23316146]Obama is killing this country. [editline]12:00AM[/editline] We're not Canada or Norway.[/QUOTE] No, stupidity is killing the US. And Canada and Norway are better countries, so you should try and be like them.

My biggest problem is that we could loose a [I]shitload[/I] of money on this. Deepwater rigs are ships, they are not held down by anything extensive. It's going to cost millions a day for big companies to have multiple idol rigs. The company has two options, wait 6 months for the ban to be lifted and loose potential billions of dollars, or sell the rig back to the owner, which could in turn sell the rig to someone else in the world who is actively drilling. We could loose millions in jobs and money. This does not seem reasonable or even smart to me. This is the first major fuckup of it's kind in the gulf. It was caused by irresponsible rig workers, the rig itself was in good condition, the problem would have been easily fixable if the appropriate response was taken. All the warning signs were there but they were ignored. What we need is stricter monitoring of the rigs, which does not require shutting them down.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;23316460]No, stupidity is killing the US. And Canada and Norway are better countries, so you should try and be like them.[/QUOTE] Are you on drugs? The United States ≠ Norway or Canada. There's a reason we have been the top country.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;23314421]Why can't you guys do what we do in Canada (and Norway) and require relief wells to be pre-drilled on deep water rigs?[/QUOTE] I wasn't aware Canada even had a big offshore industry. I thought you got most your shit from the oil sands in Alberta. [editline]07:22PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Ragy;23316746]Are you on drugs? The United States ≠ Norway or Canada. There's a reason we have been the top country.[/QUOTE] Pre-drilled relief wells is actually a good idea. It's just so expensive that no company would do it unless it was mandatory. You would basically be doubling your expenses on the operation because you would have to float two rigs out there, with one not producing oil. It costs twice as much.

[QUOTE=OvB;23316776]Pre-drilled relief wells is actually a good idea. It's just so expensive that no company would do it unless it was mandatory. You would basically be doubling your expenses on the operation because you would have to float two rigs out there, with one not producing oil. It costs twice as much.[/QUOTE] It's much more expensive and pointless, that's one of the many reasons. All the liberals will scream for it until they find out who will be paying for it.

[QUOTE=Ragy;23316746]Are you on drugs? The United States ≠ Norway or Canada. There's a reason we have been the top country.[/QUOTE] but we're not the top country. Canada and Norway both have a higher median (average) income, higher average life expectancy, lower violent crime rate, lower nonviolent crime rate, better student scores on most school subjects, lower infant mortality rate, lower poverty rate, higher literacy rate, and less unemployment than the US.

[QUOTE=Ragy;23316746]Are you on drugs? The United States ≠ Norway or Canada. There's a reason we have been the top country.[/QUOTE] Maybe you could go into more detail with your argument. Top at what? Military spending?

[QUOTE=Conscript;23316949]Maybe you could go into more detail with your argument. Top at what? Military spending?[/QUOTE] percent of population in prison

[QUOTE=Sigma-Lambda;23316939]but we're not the top country. Canada and Norway both have a higher median (average) income, higher average life expectancy, lower violent crime rate, lower nonviolent crime rate, better student scores on most school subjects, lower infant mortality rate, lower poverty rate, higher literacy rate, and less unemployment than the US.[/QUOTE] Don't remind me.

[QUOTE=Sigma-Lambda;23316960]percent of population in prison[/QUOTE] ooh, I know, we're furthest to the right of all western countries

[QUOTE=Sigma-Lambda;23316939]but we're not the top country. Canada and Norway both have a higher median (average) income, higher average life expectancy, lower violent crime rate, lower nonviolent crime rate, better student scores on most school subjects, lower infant mortality rate, lower poverty rate, higher literacy rate, and less unemployment than the US.[/QUOTE] There's a lot which goes into determining what country is better than the other, including your own opinion. It goes deeper then the average income or crime rate, which are highly affected by population. It's more about what a country does and what it stands for and less about pointless statistics.

[QUOTE=Ragy;23317112]There's a lot which goes into determining what country is better then the other, including your own opinion. It goes deeper then the average income or crime rate, which are highly affected by population. It's more about what a country does and what it stands for and less about pointless statistics.[/QUOTE] No, it's not affected by population because it's all [B][highlight]PER CAPITA[/B][/highlight] [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_capita[/URL] And the statistics are pointless? So living longer, healthier, safer, more financially secure, and with a better environment for your children are all pointless? Basically what you're saying is "America is just better because I said so"

[QUOTE=Zeke129;23314421]Why can't you guys do what we do in Canada (and Norway) and require relief wells to be pre-drilled on deep water rigs?[/QUOTE] Now that I think about it that would require two rigs for each well. Can you show me proof that the Canadians mandate this?

[QUOTE=Ragy;23316746]Are you on drugs? The United States ≠ Norway or Canada. There's a reason we have been the top country.[/QUOTE] Besides the fact we weren't shelled or blown up in World War II? Which has now come and bit us in the ass because we can't keep up with the infrastructure updates.

Alright. Back to Alaska!

[QUOTE=Ragy;23317112]There's a lot which goes into determining what country is better then the other, including your own opinion. It goes deeper then the average income or crime rate, which are highly affected by population. It's more about what a country does and what it stands for and less about pointless statistics.[/QUOTE] Not really, no. Countries can be objectively better than another, through various measurements. For example, the US only ranks 13th on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index"]HDI [/URL], lower on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index"]Democracy Index[/URL], [URL="http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1128060"]Mercer's Survey [/URL], and so forth. We're a good country, yea, but nowhere near the best. There's better out there.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;23317243]Not really, no. Countries can be objectively better than another, through various measurements. For example, the US only ranks 13th on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index"]HDI [/URL], lower on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index"]Democracy Index[/URL], [URL="http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1128060"]Mercer's Survey [/URL], and so forth. We're a good country, yea, but nowhere near the best. There's better out there.[/QUOTE] It's all about what [B]you[/B] believe makes a country the best.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;23317243]Not really, no. Countries can be objectively better than another, through various measurements. For example, the US only ranks 13th on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index"]HDI [/URL], lower on the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index"]Democracy Index[/URL], [URL="http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1128060"]Mercer's Survey [/URL], and so forth. We're a good country, yea, but nowhere near the best. There's better out there.[/QUOTE] Lived in Canada, can't take the long winters. The United States is good enough for me. Now can we shut up about who's better and get back on topic?

[QUOTE=Ragy;23317277]It's all about what you believe what makes the best country.[/QUOTE] Yea, no. You can believe all the patriotic bluster you want, there are still objectively better countries.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;23317301]Yea, no. You can believe all the patriotic bluster you want, there are still objectively better countries.[/QUOTE] As I've already said, those facts don't make a country any better than the other.