Perspective on oil spills

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has generated almost unprecedented hysteria in the mass media. Not to minimize the seriousness of this disaster – 11 men died and a large amount of oil has poured into the Gulf of Mexico, some of the most important fishing grounds in the U.S. — but to claim that it spells the end of a way of life to many Gulf residents is questionable at best. Surely the Gulf coast economic outlook is not good for the near future, especially with the current recession, but oil spill disasters of equal or greater magnitude have occurred over the past century with little or no long-term consequences.

According to the most recent flow-rate estimates of this spill, it has exceeded the Exxon Valdez, which released 259,000 barrels of oil within the first week. It is interesting to note that, according to the Coast Guard, Hurricane Katrina caused approximately 167,000 barrels of oil to be released from broken pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants. There was not much environmental damage reported from these leaks, which presumably would have affected the same waters.

These incidents, however, are dwarfed by the 1979 Gulf of Mexico Pemex/Ixtoc I Oil blowout, that, until now, was the largest accidental spill in history. Lasting almost 10 months, that spill released between 10,000 and 30,000 barrels per day (BPD); in total approximately 3.3 million barrels was released into the Gulf.

Using the current upper end estimate of 60,000 BPD, the Deepwater Horizon spill has surpassed the Pemex spill, but it still is dwarfed by Saddam Hussein’s deliberate release of somewhere between 5.7 and 11 million barrels from tankers 10 miles off the Kuwaiti coast.

While the Pemex spill affected 162 miles of coastline in Texas and Mexico, the long-term environmental consequences were negligible. As one marine biologist put it, “… considering the magnitude of the spill, we thought the Ixtoc spill was going to have catastrophic effects for decades … within a couple of years, almost everything was close to 100% normal again.”
The worst spills came in the opening months of WWII, when German U-boats off the north Atlantic coast sank 452 oil tankers carrying approximately 29.4 million barrels. Those spills had no serious long-term environmental impacts that we know of. For the Gulf blowout equal this, it would have to spew 60,000 BPD for 490 days.

I am no oil expert, and am not trying to downplay the severity of the Gulf spill, but the experts I have talked with agree: this oil leak will cause damage in the near term, but is not likely to cause the kind of cataclysmic long-term damage projected by the news media.

This hysteria and crisis has been hyped to provide Obama with the pretext he needs to cynically promote “Cap and Trade” — legislation certain to wreak havoc on our tottering economy while working against satisfying our energy needs. And, never one to overlook an opportunity to milk the private sector, he also used it to put his jackboot on yet another industry. Yes, his demand for a $20 billion “aid” fund was a shakedown. Where in the Constitution does the President have such despotic authority?

While he bludgeons the oil industry with fines, promises of stringent regulations and attempts a shutdown of all offshore drilling operations — actions only guaranteed to prolong the suffering of Gulf residents — Obama has refused to waive the Jones Act and other restrictions which would allow foreign companies, particularly the Dutch, to offer their cutting-edge equipment in containing the spill.

Additionally, other bureaucratic roadblocks have hampered efforts, roadblocks that Obama could easily lift if he ever decided to use his executive authority properly, including missed opportunities to burn off more of the oil because of overblown air pollution concerns; holdups in the use of dispersants; permit delays in allowing the state of Louisiana to create artificial barriers against the encroaching oil slick, and failure to approve barges and booms in time to block oil from reaching Alabama’s Magnolia River.

Meanwhile, Obama does nothing to stop his benefactor, George Soros, from moving forward with his Brazilian offshore drilling project, funded with $10 billion in U.S. tax dollars courtesy of Obama. Not a squeak about this from the media of course. Despicable hypocrites!

Putting it as politely as possible, the reckless corruption and ineptitude of this administration knows no bounds. There is nothing to be said for this carnival of clowns except that they must be voted out of office as soon as possible, followed immediately by a nationwide RICO investigation into their extensive, willfully destructive, corrupt activities. It seems apparent that nothing will stop these people short of jail.

Editor’s note: Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth & Consequences at http://truthandcons.blogspot.com