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President Needs To Take Charge of BP Oil Spill Damage Claims

BP DISASTER HIGHLIGHTS FAILURE TO BRING "CHANGE THE", HIGHLIGHTS THE INEPTNESS OF TODAY'S GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

 

Where Are Truman, Kennedy and Reagan When We Need Them

      

                 June 13, 2010---by Fred Kelly Grant

 

 

 

55 days ago the infamous explosion in the Gulf took 11 lives and  scarred  surviving workers and families of workers.

 

Thousands of gallons of oil began spoiling the ocean and moving toward land----destroying the ocean life, wildlife, shore line and the economic life of millions of people bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

 

On Friday, on the 53rd day, the United States Coast Guard sent a "stern" letter to BP Oil executives demanding that within 48 hours they come up with a better plan to stop the oil leak.  A "stern" letter to executives who have lied, delayed, and lied again as the oil spill continues to destroy a way of life and their profits continue.  BP Oil reports over 11 BILLION DOLLAR PROFITS FOR THE FIRST QUARTER OF THIS YEAR.  But, they drag their feet in the process for paying damages to the people who are without jobs, without food, without hope because of their negligence.

 

To me, the most frightening thing about this spill is that once again it demonstrates that the most powerful government in the world, the most powerful government official in the world is helpless against big oil!!!

 

This government, charged with regulating off shore oil drilling, charged with making sure that each driller has a preventive plan to avoid "accidents" like this, charged with making sure that each driller has a recovery plan sufficient to avoid the devastating effects of a spill such as those now being witnessed, has failed! 

 

The failure is that of the Bush-Cheney administration to assure that deregulation did not lead to sloppiness in government oversight and in oil industry development. 

 

It is also the failure of the Obama administration for not taking immediate action to rectify the sloppiness that we all knew existed in the regulatory agencies within the Department of Interior.

 

I am sick to death of the politicians casting blame on each other.  Republican minority House leader John Boehner, whiner extraordinary from Ohio, this morning on "This Week" on ABC asked majority leader Denny Hoyer of Maryland "How long are you going to blame the Bush administration?"  Hoyer replied "as long as it is appropriate."

 

My answer is "as long as the consequences of the Bush-Cheney errors of judgment and deliberate favoritism of Cheney's oil friends continue to plague the people of this country."

 

But, an equally valid question is "When will the Obama administration and the Democrats start shouldering blame for not cleaning up the Bush mess sooner?"

 

The people of this country overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama because they wanted "change" from the terrible years of Bush-Cheney administration.  "Change" was promised.  But where is evidence of that "change"?  Why hasn't the terrible incompetence of the Department of Interior and its Minerals Management Service been cured?

 

We have been warned for years that the Service has turned a blind eye and deaf ear to safety.  We have been warned for years that oversight and regulatory inspections by this Service were lax---particularly involving any structure or facility for which Cheney's Haliburton Empire was accountable.  So, why was not that a top priority for effort during the first 100 days?  

 

The President may not have power against a big oil company once the damage is done, but he sure as the devil has the power to demand that an agency like MMS be cleaned out from the ground up. We saw how the power of the presidency could push through a Health Bill.  Why has that power not been used to clean up the negligent, perhaps criminal, malfeasance within a department of the executive itself?

 

On June 9, 51 days after the terrible rupture in a facility for which Haliburton was responsible, the Secretary of Interior announced a new "directive" to improve safety on off shore drillers.  It should not have taken an entire department of government nearly 18 months into a new presidency to start to remedy malfeasance that everyone knew existed.

 

Because of what I believe to be criminal negligence on the part of the Bush-Cheney administration, and criminal misfeasance on the part of the Obama administration in failing to cure the problem, millions of Americans will lose their way of life, their homes, and their businesses.

 

There is no excuse for any of it.  The United States government is in fact the most powerful in the world.  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy proved that a strong president with a strong supporting cast can successfully take on the Mafia, Union corruption, violation of civil rights, international shipments of weapons to the western hemisphere, and the economic and fiscal irresponsibility of big companies.

 

During the Kennedy years, the steel companies were more powerful even than the oil companies of today.  When the major steel companies planned a price hike that would have resulted in crippling inflation, the president reached out to a smaller company and promised to deliver every government contract if it would hold the line on prices.  Immediately the big companies caved in and held the price line.  We avoided inflation.

 

President Obama could have acted just as decisively in the case of the Minerals Management Service.  He could have cleaned house, he could have instructed Secretary Salazar to make that his first priority.  Everybody knew that the failures of regulatory oversight put us at risk.  Audit reports from as far back as the year 2000 made the risk clear, and described the inaction and negligence that created the risk.

 

So, I come to the most depressing thought of the day for me.  The President of the United States, the most powerful government official in the world, is powerless to take on one huge oil company.  BP Oil, making millions of dollars of profits EACH DAY THAT THE GULF AND ALL ITS PEOPLE ARE BEING DESTROYED, lies to the President, ignores the President's demands, delays solutions to the problem, and watches as the worst environmental disaster in history---human and natural---continues to build.

 

How can we ever hope to become free of the strangle hold that the oil industry has on our economy and way of life, when the government cannot, or will not, take remedial action.

 

Second most depressing is the fact that the President is not even doing what he can.  During one of the press conferences during this last week, the official in Admiral Thad Allen's staff who is in charge of facilitating payment of claims by BP Oil said that she had been in meetings all day the prior day with BP claims officials trying to see how the process could be speeded up.  She planned to spend two more days in those discussions.  Typical government bureaucracy---the kind that Barack Obama promised us would change.  Perhaps we should put together a book called "Claims payment for Dummies".  Any of us who have suffered an insurance loss could write it.  "In three sentences explain what proof must accompany a claim submitted by someone harmed, send as many people to the Gulf as it takes to man a table in each town effected, sit them down at tables in each town, start taking claims and helping people fill out claims, and PAY THE CLAIMS."  End of story.

 

You say "it can't be done"?  Ridiculous.  Of course it can be done.  In the old days, before big companies began to delay payments in order to accumulate interest on their money while the injured wait, insurance companies handled disasters in that way.  You can believe that if it were BP stockholders who were being harmed, company officials would be on the ball, handling complaints rapidly and successfully.

 

Since BP won't do that, I have a suggestion for the President who promised change.  "Mr. President, when you go to the Gulf tomorrow (Monday, June 14, 2010) take some folding tables with you, have the injured line up, take their claims and proof of loss, and then hand them to the Chief Executive Officer of BP and demand that they be paid within 48 hours."  With the Attorney General of the United States at your side, and with the United States Attorney of each District you visit at your side, explain to BP's top dog that immediate action will be taken to nationalize the company if those claims are not paid within the 48 hours.  Present them with a copy of the Executive Order by which you will take the action---it wouldn't take Eric Holder and his staff longer than 3 hours to draft.

 

As George Will and other republican "philosophers" bemoan government interference with big business, threaten to take the courageous action that Harry Truman took with the railroads when he acted to avert a wartime strike. 

 

Will it survive a court test?  Who cares?  Do you think BP will risk losing all those profits while the litigation drags on?

 

One of the two only reasons that our Founders collaborated on creating a federal government was to control the safety and security of our shores.  The other was to prevent disruption of interstate commerce.  Both reasons would be served by this simple act.  Our shores are under attack in this case just as destructively as if a foreign power or an American terrorist group were attacking with military force.  Interstate commerce dependent on the fishing industry of the Gulf will be irreparably harmed.  So, both constitutional predicates are present to support the action.

 

Will it happen?  Of course not.  Why not?  Because politics and political correctness rule every decision that our government makes. Our government is inept when it comes to facing down big oil.  Because we do not have a president who will take the risk in behalf of hurting American people.  Because we have had only three presidents during my knowing life that had the gumption to take such risk:  Harry S. Truman, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.  I had hoped that Barack Obama who in so many ways reminded me of the courage that those three demonstrated would bring us back to those days.  But not so.

 

People who have been polled during the last two weeks compare this disaster to the Katrina disaster.  In my mind that is a ridiculous comparison.  Katrina was a disaster that could have been taken care of immediately with prompt, effective action by local government using federal funds.

 

This disaster, in my mind, is more similar to the hostage crisis during the administration of Jimmy Carter.  A third world country which at that time had no atom potential demonstrated the helplessness of a President unwilling to take a huge risk.  Carter, the eternal optimist for peaceful solutions, refused to allow the Israelis to send in rescue teams to free our hostages.

He refused to even intimate that we would send in troops in sufficient force to punish the kidnappers even if it meant the loss of our hostages----in order to assure that it would never happen again.

 

We knew at the time that the Israelis were capable of such rescues.  We have all seen the rescue successfully implemented by the Israeli commandoes when the tyrant Idi Amin took and held hostages. They could have done the same for our hostages.

 

Carter proved how inept the Presidency can be, just as Truman, Kennedy and Reagan proved how powerful it can be.

 

The Carter ineptness is the backdrop for the BP oil spill disaster.

 

It is too bad.  Too bad for our people along the Gulf Coast.  Too bad for all our people in other states who depend on the industry of the Gulf Coast.  Too bad for our nation that is shown to be helpless in the face of greed.  Too bad for the world---if we can't stop such a horrible human and natural disaster, if we can't remedy the harm, what nation can?

 

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