Beware bold-face lying about the oil damage

[Enrique]

I'm starting to hear hints of the lies to come.

We should keep in mind the breathtaking ability of politicians and pundits to lie in our faces about oil.


http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/06/19/mccain-katrina-spills/

Speaking before Houston oilmen Tuesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared his support for lifting the 25-year federal moratorium on offshore drilling. He justified this reversal of his longstanding opposition by explaining that it’s now “safe”:

As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201004290040

Fox's O'Reilly: "ou've got technology that will prevent pollution," "when Katrina hit, none of the oil rigs spilled in Louisiana." While discussing offshore oil drilling with a caller on the July 9, 2008, edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated, "ou have to have a sane environmental policy when it's 25 miles offshore that no one'll see and you've got technology that will prevent pollution." He added, "Remember when Katrina hit, none of the oil rigs spilled in Louisiana. So we have the technology."

Fox's Huckabee: "not one drop of oil was spilled" during Hurricane Katrina, offshore drilling "extraordinarily safe." During the June 27, 2008, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, contributor Mike Huckabee stated: "When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico. So we know that the technology to drill offshore is extraordinarily safe and environmentally friendly. And it's not something that we have to be as worried about as we do a refinery on shore or some other type of issue."

CNN's Velshi: Rigs "seal" to prevent oil from leaking during storms, which succeeded during Katrina. During the August 31, 2008, edition of CNN Newsroom, senior business correspondent Ali Velshi stated that Hurricane Gustav is "is tracking toward this area, and there's a lot of concern about what's going to happen to oil facilities," and that "before they evacuate those rigs, they have to seal them down completely so that if the rigs are damaged or blown off their moorings, no oil will flow into the Gulf of Mexico." He added: "In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 40 of these platforms, but still no oil shed into the Gulf of Mexico because of that."

MSNBC's Mitchell repeatedly let guests suggest purported lack of spills indicated drilling was safe. On the June 24, 2008, edition of MSNBC Live, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell stated that Sen. John McCain was "pushing his energy plan in Santa Barbara, but protestors won't let the senator forget about the massive 1969 oil spill that city suffered from a leak at the same type of offshore drills that John McCain is now supporting." In an interview with Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), she then allowed him to claim that "technology has changed since 1969. It can take a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf that really came twice, and the technology made sure that there wasn't a drop that was spilled in the Gulf."

Lott, Breaux use Katrina falsehood to suggest new technology makes drilling environmentally safe. On the July 15, 2008, edition of MSNBC Live, energy industry lobbyist John Breaux claimed that "You can develop all natural, domestic resources here in the United States, and it can be done safely. The last spill they talk about was in 1969, the Santa Barbara oil spill. Technology is totally different." His partner, Trent Lott, added "We didn't have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in, you know, recent history, Hurricane Katrina."

Fox's Cavuto allows Bachmann to push back against dangers of oil spills with Katrina canard. During the September 1, 2008, edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto and Rep. Michelle Bachmann had the following exchange:

CAVUTO: All right, so, you know what they're going to say, that a bad -- "We're one bad storm away from a lot of rigs getting knocked to smithereens and oil spilling all over the place, and now the Republicans want to push this too much. Bad, bad, bad."

BACHMANN: No, no, no. It's nonsense, because if you want to talk about a bad hurricane, it's Katrina. We didn't have any spillage whatsoever from the oil rigs during Katrina.

CAVUTO: They're saying, "We lucked out; a 4 or 5 storm -- Katie, bar the door."

BACHMANN: Hey, isn't that great? Isn't that great that we did? I don't think it's luck. I think it's the fact of American ingenuity and technology. We know how to do things, and our companies have done a wonderful job making sure that we are both environmentally sound, but also able to produce the energy that America needs.

Fox's Jarrett advances claim that Katrina example indicates that drilling can be done in a way that protects the environment. On the July 30, 2008, edition of Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Gregg Jarrett asked then-Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, "ou're an engineer by background. Has technology improved so dramatically that drilling can now be done in a way that protects the environment?" He then allowed Bodman to reply, "I believe that it can. When we had Katrina and Rita, the two worst hurricanes in at least in recent memory, in '05, some three years ago, there was not one case where we had a -- a situation with oil or gas being spilled in the environment."




http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/19/opinion/main4275167.shtml

As former Sen. Trent Lott told MSNBC on Tuesday, "We didn't have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in, you know, recent history, Hurricane Katrina."

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., also told Fox News on June 27, "When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico. So we know that the technology to drill offshore is extraordinarily safe and environmentally friendly. And it's not something that we have to be as worried about as we do a refinery on shore or some other type of issue."

Newspaper columnists and editorial boards also jumped on the "not one drop" bandwagon. The Wall Street Journal published an editorial on June 12 saying, "Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn't cause a single oil spill."

Meanwhile, on Monday Nancy Pfotenhauer, an energy lobbyist and senior energy adviser to McCain, said on MSNBC, "We withstood Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, and we didn't spill a drop."

And the Washington Post on Monday quoted Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as saying, "I think people are reassured that not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina or Rita. Those rigs in the Gulf, there was not a single incident of spillage that anyone reported."

Others have used slightly hedged terms, such as Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., who told Fox News on June 26, "That’s one of the great unwritten success stories, after Katrina and Rita, these awful storms - no major spills." And Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told the Fox Business Channel, "When Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast where we have about 4,000 oil and gas platforms … we had no significant oil spill." (July 15)


http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/?p=30201

The Obama administration has leapt into action to respond to the growing crisis of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, which killed 11 workers and left a West-Virginia-sized oil spill in the Gulf Coast. But in the weeks before the calamity, President Barack Obama promoted his initiative to expand offshore drilling as “not risky” and repeated the conservative myth that Hurricane Katrina did not cause any oil rig spills. At a town hall meeting in South Carolina on April 2, the president was challenged that his “decision to allow offshore drilling could have the effect of chilling investment into alternate sources of energy.” While recognizing that “energy efficiency and renewable, clean energy” is his “biggest priority,” Obama also defended offshore drilling:

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

[snot]

1. To fill in the picture, per Media Matters at the link above,

"In fact, Hurricanes Rita and Katrina spilled nearly 17,700 barrels of petroleum products

Report for federal agency: Hurricanes caused 127 spills, total volume of nearly 17,700 barrels. According to a 2007 report prepared for the U.S. Minerals Management Service by the international consulting firm Det Norske Veritas, due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, "124 spills were reported with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products," including more than 10,000 barrels from platforms and rigs alone. The report further noted that "about 13,200 barrels were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 4,500 barrels were refined products from platforms and rigs.""

[stray cat]

2. people need to do their homework - and not just listen to those they agree with

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. K & R

[lib2DaBone]

4. BP is getting ready to bug out... "your check is NOT in the mail".

The BP spill was equal to the Exxon-Valdez every 4 days.

The gushers lasted ..what.... 90 days? (So we had approx 20+ Exxon-Valdez spills)

If people think the oil "evaporated"... that Brooklyn Bridge is waiting.

[flyarm]

5. Sierra Club: The truth about OIl Spills and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

http://congress.b-team.org/ocs/Katrina_Oil_Spills-Factsheet.pdf

Sierra Club: The truth about OIl Spills and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

http://congress.b-team.org/ocs/Katrina_Oil_Spills-Factsheet.pdf

124 oil spills into the Gulf waters

During Katrina 233,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf

508,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf During Rita
Total of 741,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf = to 7 significant oil spills

the 2 hurricanes destroyed 115 oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and 457 Pipelines

"Houston Chronicle review of data from the National Response Center report that including spills on land , the two Hurricanes caused 595 spills and spilled approximately 9 million gallons of oil"


Remember When Obama opened up oil drilling less than two weeks before the Horizon exploded repeated the lies that no oil was spilled in the Gulf during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita..it was a lie then and it was a lie now!

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http://www.terradaily.com/reports/US_Oil_Production_Reels_From_Hurricane_Katrina.html
b]Hurricane Sends Runaway Oil Rig Crashing Into Alabama Suspension Bridge
Mobile, Alabama (AFP) Aug 29, 2005 - An oil rig tore free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast, before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge, witnesses said Monday.
The platform broke free from the Bender shipbuilding and repair yard in Mobile during the morning as the then Category Four Hurricane walloped the southern US coast.

[Enrique]

6. something really scary about these lies

it's so blatant and so coordinated, and so un-challenged by the media (CBS News stands out in how it called them out). Look how many people are saying the same lie in the exact same way.

[PufPuf23]

7. The lies seem well-organized. nt

[PufPuf23]

8. The lies seem well-organized. nt