Obama spill panel big on policy, not engineering

Obama has put this panel together like he has handled the Gulf Oil Spill with no oil and gas expertise wanted. Not one member of the Obama Commission has a background in petroleum engineering. Only one member has a background in engineering but it it optics and physics not oil and gas. He chooses an anti-off shore drilling former Governor and Senator in Bob Graham from Florida who keeps logs on when he brushes his teeth, etc., and was in the back pocket of lobbyists for years.

Then Obama chooses 'expert' members of 'his' commission with no petroleum engineering backgrounds who oppose offshore drilling openly. The Obama agenda of wanting offshore drilling ended for the United States and more dependence on foreign oil is becoming clearer.

This is nothing more than a political panel opposed to offshore drilling who will be given a podium to trash oil and gas. It was Obama's Administration who mishandled the BP Oil drilling with the Minerals Management Office who kept giving BP exemptions including missing safety inspections and allowing them to change drilling procedures at the last minute.

His spokesmen trying to make everyone believe they will ask the experts reminds us of Jamie Gorelick who was on the 9/11 Commission. She erected the wall between intelligence agencies for the Clinton Administration. It seemed her sole purpose on the 9/11 Commission was to make sure that her and the Clinton Administration culpability in all of the problems leading up to 9/11 didn't come out.

This Commission with no experts should be a non-starter.

Obama spill panel big on policy, not engineering
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer
Sun Jun 20, 12:02 am ET

WASHINGTON – The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly.

Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it's in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.

The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.

The White House said the commission will focus on the government's "too cozy" relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will "consult the best minds and subject matter experts" as they do their work.

The commission has yet to meet, yet some panel members had made their views known.
Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: "We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America's addiction to oil." And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic.

"Even as questions persist, there is one thing I know for certain: the Gulf oil spill isn't just an accident. It's the result of a failed energy policy," Beinecke wrote on May 20.

Two other commissioners also have gone public to urge bans on drilling.

Co-chairman Bob Graham, a Democrat who was Florida governor and later a senator, led efforts to prevent drilling off his state's coast. Commissioner Donald Boesch of the University of Maryland wrote in a Washington Post blog that the federal government had planned to allow oil drilling off the Virginia coast and "that probably will and should be delayed."

Boesch, who has made scientific assessments of oil spills' effects on the ecosystem, said usually oil spills are small. But he added, "The impacts of the oil and gas extraction industry (both coastal and offshore) on Gulf Coast wetlands represent an environmental catastrophe of massive and underappreciated proportions."

An expert not on the commission, Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University and an Obama campaign contributor, said the panel should have included more technical expertise and "folks who aren't sort of already staked out" on oil issues.

Jerry Taylor of the libertarian Cato Institute described the investigation as "an exercise in political theater where the findings are preordained by the people put on the commission."

(snip)

the panel will draw on a technical analysis that the National Association of Engineering is performing. Also, members will "consult the best minds and subject matter experts in the Gulf, in the private sector, in think tanks and in the federal government as they conduct their research."

That makes sense, said John Marburger, who was science adviser to President George W. Bush.

"It's not really a technical commission," Marburger said. "It's a commission that's more oriented to understanding the regulatory and organizational framework, which clearly has a major bearing on the incident."
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Online:
Executive order creating the commission: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/us_gulf_oil_spill_commission/36607897/SIG=10v1sbiac/*http://tinyurl.com/spillpanel
White House announcement on commissioners: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/us_gulf_oil_spill_commission/36607897/SIG=10s8juqhs/*http://tinyurl.com/25g39t4
Frances Beinecke's blog archive: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/us_gulf_oil_spill_commission/36607897/SIG=10r2u6bcs/*http://tinyurl.com/3p86vx

Excerpt: Read More at Yahoo News