"The Pollyannas of Offshore Drilling" - Calls Out Bobby Jindal!

[TomCADem]

NPR this morning did a story about how the oil spill is somehow helping Bobby Jindal politically. However, the real story is how Bobby Jindal's sordid past with the oil industry is repeatedly being suppressed by the major media, except for a few isolated references in publications like Mother Jones and occassional stories like this one:

Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal — who’s been nothing but critical of the federal response as BP’s oil creeps onto his beaches — has been on the front lines of the push to allow states to expand the drilling off of their shores.

In February, 2006, while serving as a member of the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives, Jindal introduced the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act. Passed by the House a few months later, the bill would have opened up the entire US coast to offshore oil drilling. States could override the law and ban rigs in their territorial waters, yet the law would let them share lease royalties with the federal government — a strong incentive to drill. Adjacent states would have little say in the matter (clearly a problem, given that BP’s spill has marred several states’ coastlines).

Jindal’s bill, Harkinson adds, even included language specifically downplaying the risks associated with offshore drilling:

(4) it is not reasonably foreseeable that . . . development and production of an oil discovery located more than 50 miles seaward of the coastline will adversely affect resources near the coastline;

And it’s worth noting that the Louisiana governor — who’s been screaming from the rafters for federal help since the crisis began — also foresaw little role for Washington in his drilling expansion plans. Harkinson again:

As Jindal was pushing to radically increase offshore oil drilling (while accepting more than $100,000 from oil and gas companies), there’s no indication that he saw the slightest need to increase government oversight. His stated governing philosophy is deeply anti-regulatory. In March, 2009, he said: “There has never been a challenge that the American people, with as little interference as possible by the federal government, cannot handle.”

The question as we go into over 70 days into the BP oil disaster is whether the media will ever critically examine the history of the BP oil disaster and Jindal's direct role in pushing the deregulation that lead to the disaster?

[hlthe2b]

1. gotta linkie dinkie?

[TomCADem]

3. Oops! Here is the link

The funny thing is that Bobby Jindal did not merely vote for the DOER Act. He was the sponsor of a version of the bill that was even more lenient then the one that Congress eventually passed. Yet, he has been given a complete free pass on how his efforts at deregulating deep ocean offshore oil drilling helped lead to this disaster.

http://washingtonindependent.com/86268/the-pollyannas-of-offshore-drilling

[Robert DAH Bruce]

2. K&R