Obama's Speech in Panama City Florida Aug. 14 Video

Recovery roundtable:

Thad Allen Gives Oil Spill Update Aug. 3

Obama Signs Wall Street Reforms July 21

Another major piece of legislation done.

A simple animated explanation of what Wall Street reform means for you:

Obama will sign the financial reform bill at 11:30 am eastern. See who will be there here.
For the rest of Obama's public schedule today, Obama will have lunch with Joe Biden, meet with senior advisers and get an update on the oil spill.

BP Has Stopped the Oil Leak

YAY!

BP says a new cap has stopped oil from leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since April.

BP has been slowly dialing down the flow as part of a test on a new cap. Engineers are now monitoring the pressure to see if the broken well holds. NPR

Claims will begin to be paid in August:

With the disaster nearly three months old, the man in charge of the $20 billion fund set up by BP to pay individuals and business for their losses said it will start making payments in early August.

Ken Feinberg, who was in charge of the compensation paid to families of victims in the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, told a meeting of government officials in Louisiana that he expected a seamless transition from BP management of claims to his administration.

Thad Allen: Relief Well on Target for Mid-August

Obama pushes BP to sop up more oil.

The Impact of Unregulated Oil Companies on the Niger Delta

Republican Joe Barton apologized for Obama's BP "shakedown" of a $20 billion fund to pay claims. Barton's apology was despicable, but it showed where republican alliances lie.

We're fortunate that we have a government that can "shakedown" the oil companies. In Nigeria, the government isn't strong enough to stand up to the oil companies. Oil companies have abused, devastated and left the Niger Delta trashed and the people in poverty.

Kpor is a world away from the Gulf of Mexico.

In the Niger Delta, there is little independent monitoring of spills, and the companies themselves disclose virtually no data about their own pollution.

But, according to the Nigerian Government, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000. Environmentalists believe spills - large and small - happen at a rate of 300 every year.

Site after site visited by the BBC - in both Bayelsa State and Ogoniland - had happened months before, and still not been cleaned up.

In May, an Exxon Mobil pipeline in Akwa Ibom State spilled more than a million gallons over seven days before the leak was stopped.

"The Gulf of Mexico has drawn the attention of the whole world," says Erabanabari Kobah, a local environmentalist.

"Even the President of the United States must go there to see it. The people there get compensation. But here, you must go to court. You cannot win against the oil companies in court." Read it all at Africa Review

Profits first:

Nigeria produced more than two million barrels of oil a day last year, and in over 50 years thousands of miles of pipes have been laid through the swamps. Shell, the major player, has operations on thousands of square miles of territory, according to Amnesty International. Aging columns of oil-well valves, known as Christmas trees, pop up improbably in clearings among the palm trees. Oil sometimes shoots out of them, even if the wells are defunct.

“The oil was just shooting up in the air, and it goes up in the sky,” said Amstel M. Gbarakpor, youth president in Kegbara Dere, recalling the spill in April at Gio Creek. “It took them three weeks to secure this well.” NYT

Thad Allen Joins White House Press Briefing July 1

Feinberg Meets With Gulf Coast Residents

Kenneth Feinberg, in charge of administering the BP money to gulf coast residents, has a tough job. A lot of people are lined up with valid claims and a lot of greedy people are lined up trying to take away money from those with valid claims. Feinberg says it will take 30 days to get claims paid. This summer, Feinberg will stop being the "pay czar" to focus solely on BP claims administration. Feinberg has been supervising executive pay of companies that were bailed out, including AIG, GM and Chrysler.

Thad Allen's Oil Spill Update June 25 Video

Joe Biden heads to the gulf coast on June 29 to assess the clean up.

Browner Meets With BP Executives

The administration is still on top of the oil disaster, even though the media has shifted from its Obama-centric coverage. From the White House:

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner met with BP executives Bob Dudley, Lamar McKay, David Nagel and Karen St. John earlier today to discuss a number of key issues including containment, redundancy, claims and scientific monitoring. The meeting with Dudley was important to do given his new role for BP in the Gulf restoration. Browner reiterated the President’s commitment to the people of the Gulf, that we are not going to rest or be satisfied until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil in the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people of the Gulf are able to go back to their lives and their livelihoods. Browner reminded them that we will be judging their work and response based on that bar, no exceptions.

Gulf Coast Governors Tapping Few National Guard Troops for Oil Cleanup

National Guard troops have been approved but some state governors aren't using them. Only 1,200 of 17,000 authorized have been deployed. Where's the media story on this? Why aren't state governors using guard troops to help out with the oil spill? Is that Obama's fault too?

Judge Blocks Oil Drilling Moratorium

Update: Obama administration will appeal.

And the day just gets worse. The judge called the moratorium "arbitrary."

In a significant blow to the Obama Administration, a federal judge has blocked the Obama Administration's moratorium on off shore oil and gas drilling.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans issued a preliminary injunction that keeps the Interior Department from enforcing the ban. more at NPR

Republicans Making Hay of Obama's Golfing

Tony Hayward's yachting isn't comparable to Obama's weekend golfing, although I could care less if Hayward yachts. What else do people expect a rich guy to do on his weekend? People are getting mad at the wrong things. If it disturbs them that Hayward took the yacht out this weekend, then they ought to want to see the country move away from oil dependency. They ought to want to see more regulation of the oil industry. They ought to want to see less of republicans, who are the party of drill baby drill.

The Morning joe crew says that republicans are also starting to make hay out of Obama's Sunday golfing, which is ridiculous.
Contrary to popular belief, Obama is a human who needs to do human activities occasionally, otherwise he could face severe burnout with all the crap that he has to put up with. The least he should be able to do is golf on the weekend. He should also be able to go on dates with his wife and spend time with his kids too.
He's a working stiff who spends day and night in the thankless job of POTUS for a salary of $400,000 a year.
The Morning Joe crew also discusses the next attack on Obama--vacation--and the rumors that Rahm, the guy that both the left and the right love to hate, is leaving.

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Feinberg Says He Answers to People of the Gulf

Kenneth Feinberg says BP is paying for his salary. More on the gulf coast claims process:

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BP's Tony Hayward Comes in Fourth in Yacht Race

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Sure, it's ironic that Tony Hayward is racing in ocean waters that his company negligently polluted. But I'm surprised that people are outraged, still expecting BP or Hayward to care. Do folks really think that Hayward connects his yacht racing to the oil spill. Yacht racing is what many wealthy people do for fun.

That's the difference between the privileged and the rest of us. The privileged can affect the rest of us but the wealthy aren't affected.
That's why it's also surprising to me that after eight years of republican policies that led to the wealthy class bankrupting the nation, people are ready to run back into the arms of the republicans. Not only that, republicans, who are the oil party, seem to be getting away with blaming democrats for being chummy with oil. It doesn't make sense to me. If we don't at least get energy reform out of this disaster, it will be all for naught.

Feinberg Explains Claims Process on Meet the Process

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David Gregory was very excited this morning, like he was on some kind of energy drink or something.
He flitted from person to person trying to find his answer. The truth about the oil spill is that, like everything else, politics has gotten in the way of truth. Gregory can't get the answer he's looking for because no one is willing to tell state the facts because everyone has politics to think of. So truth can never be found.
Mary Landrieu has it about right when she said Obama's cabinet people were there from day one, Obama wasn't on the scene, but he was involved.
Politics took over soon after that because Obama didn't move to the scene fast enough to have his photo taken there.
The biggest irony of the oil spill is that republicans always say that business does everything better and yet this is a clear example that business doesn't do everything better. A company's job is to what's best for its shareholders, and the majority of companies still aren't on board with the philosophy that doing what's best for the environment and society is doing what's best for its shareholders.
Gregory also showed a quote from an interview of Tony Hayward in the Times of London in May that Hayward expects a lot of illegitimate claims because it's America:

“This is America — come on,” the well-tailored head of London-based BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, told the Times of London. “We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

Hayward is right that there will be plenty of illegitimate claims, but Hayward didn't use much tact in saying it in a derogatory manner.
We all know that people who have no rights to the BP claim money will try to take money from others who are deserving because they have hired lawyers to get their share. Compared to Britain, Americans like to sue, which drives up costs of everything for all of us.

Another thing that's nutty is the endless pursuit of trying to come up with the number of gallons of oil that is flowing into the ocean. One gallon is too much. After that, it doesn't matter. A lot of oil is flowing into the ocean. We'll pay more consequences than we know.

See all of Meet the Press here.

Obama and Mabus Meet on Gulf Coast Restoration

Here's some good news. Thad Allen says the relief well is ahead of schedule.

Texas Republican Apologizes to BP for Government "Shakedown"

Representative Joe Barton of Texas apologizes to BP for government "shakedown." He calls the claims account a $20 billion "slush fund."

What in the world is he thinking? Is this guy nuts?

I understand that there is a lot of theatrics going on right now in the public lashing of BP, but the company's rig killed 11 people, wiped out local economies and killed wildlife. The long-term effects are unknown. There looks to be evidence that BP was irresponsible and minding only its profits when it was setting up its oil drilling rig.

But why do people expect companies to do anything else but make profit a priority? That's what companies do and that's why they need oversight.

A little update: Barton comes to us courtesy of oil. Of course.

Robert Gibbs' statement on Barton's apology:

What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments.

At the White House press briefing, Joe Biden is outraged by Barton's statement. He puts it as only Joe can. I'll post his remarks when they're available.

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"Small People" Faux Controversy

Another show of how politics and the media get in the way of substance and forward movement. When I heard BP's chairman say he cared about the "small people" yesterday, I knew it would be a gotcha for the media, but I also knew exactly what he meant.

But for the media and the political arena, the oil spill is nothing but theater and entertainment.

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BP's Press Conference: We Mean What We Say

BP says it won't be paying any dividends this year. Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg apologizes and says it is doing an independent investigation to determine the root cause of the rig explosion.
On Obama, Svanberg says Obama is frustrated "because he cares about the small people." Svanberg says BP cares about the small people too.

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