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Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) released details of the energy bill he is putting before the Senate on Tuesday, making it official that any hope for a national renewable electricity standard (RES) is dead. Last week Reid said as much while foreshadowing the contents of his bill, which focuses more on oil spill response than renewable energy. Since then, dozens of democratic senators (including one republican) and industry groups pressed Reid for, at the least, inclusion of a national RES to promote a shift to cleaner power over the long term.

For at least the short term, any RES prospect has been declared dead by the one man who could have given it life.

To make matters worse, the bill excludes just about everything else that could really help the renewable energy industry, especially the troubled wind sector, which has seen quarterly figures drop 71 percent from the same time last year.

NOT included are:

• A national RES
• Extension of the production tax credit (expires next year)
• Extension of the Treasury Grant Program (expires this year)
• Any cap or tax on carbon emissions by polluters

What the bill does offer:

• Oil Regulations: A removal of the $75 million cap on economic liability that oil companies must account for in response to an oil spill. Companies would pay higher fees into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. It would also speed up the claims process for people damaged by oil spills and overhaul government regulation to ensure that conflicts of interest do not exist.
• Energy Efficiency: The bill would set aside $5 billion for the proposed federal Home Star rebate program that incentivizes homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements.
• Conservation: The bill would also fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses a portion of receipts from oil and gas leases to support state and local conservation programs.
• Electric and Natural Gas Vehicles: Encourages the deployment of electric cars through $400 million doled out to certain cities. Also funds a federally-run competition to develop a battery that will power an EV for 500 miles in a single charge, and encourages federal agencies to introduce EVs into their operating fleets. Finally,  the bill offers incentives to retrofit heavy-duty vehicles to run on “clean natural gas” (CNG).

The oil industry is railing against the bill, which means it must be doing something right. Yet while incentives for electric vehicles, increased oil regulation (so obviously lacking in the lead up to the BP spill) and energy efficiency incentives are good steps, this can hardly be called an energy bill — at least not in the sense that the renewable energy industry, President Obama, nor any environmental advocate had hoped for.

Harry Reid and other Senate Democrats admit that the bill is far from sweeping, but claim that it’s the best they can do without a guaranteed, filibuster-proof 60 votes — something Reid says they most certainly do not have. And even this gutted sham of a climate change bill faces stiff opposition from republicans, whose main objective seems to be to oppose anything and everything until the GOP has a chance at regaining power in November. Although, they apparently have all the power they need already, or at least enough to stop the less-than-brave democrats tiptoeing around the Senate floor and all over the progress-minded constituents that voted them in nearly two years ago.

And where’s President Obama on all this? Good question.

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The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Tony Hayward would likely be stepping down from his position as chief executive officer of the company. The multinational oil and gas corporation is reeling from the explosion of an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and the resulting three-month oil leak which has caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Looking for someone to blame, the world has pointed to the corporation (or, more generally, offshore oil drilling), but BP hasn’t had anywhere to point but inward. Perhaps that will change (they hope) if the company’s board of directors decides to oust CEO Tony Hayward during a meeting Monday night.

The meeting will be held the night before BP is to release quarterly earnings results — a release in which they’ll have to explain heavy losses due to the gulf oil spill, the true environmental and economic damage of which may never by known.

Another source speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post that Hayward and several other company members who had had roles in the spill response could be punted, with Hayward being the most obvious and likely choice. Not only is he the figurehead most equated with BP and its criminal negligence, but some of his comments in the wake of the disaster have been…er, less than sensitive to victims of the disaster.

The hope for BP’s board could be that Hayward stepping down would be construed as someone taking full responsibility for the spill, and thus symbolize a new direction for the company.

The most likely successor to Hayward is American Bob Dudley, reports BBC News. Dudley is in charge of BP’s clean-up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico and would be the first American to run British Petroleum. He came to BP when it merged with Amoco in 1998.

The choice seems an obvious one from a PR standpoint. Dudley is American, more relatable to the wounded populace, and he is from Mississippi, a Gulf state — even more relatable to the wounded populace. He’s also in charge of the clean-up effort, perhaps the only visibly proactive measure BP has taken in a region where the company is now widely despised.

Does It Matter?

Whoever Hayward’s successor may be, how anyone could take the resignation of one (or even several) high-profile employees as valid, substantial evidence for the turning over of a “new leaf” for BP is beyond me. Hayward may have been in charge during the worst oil spill in U.S. history, but the laundry list of BP atrocities goes back well before him. He himself promised a new era of safety and reliability when he took power in 2007.

So a new face at BP amounts to nothing more than a new face. Their work is inherently dangerous to the environment, especially given the difficulty of finding new oil reserves, and the company’s primary goal, as it must be for any corporation, will continue to be profit — a goal impeded by increased government regulation and surveillance.

So if BP is to change, to turn over a new leaf, it will only come through increased pressure from the global public through its representative governments, assuming that each populace has more control over its government than do the oil companies in question, as is evidently not the case here in America given the near total lack of action from the U.S. Congress in response to such a revolting and unprecedented disaster. Some members of Congress even felt compelled to apologize to BP when President Obama took the company to task over its negligence and poor response to the spill.

Does Hayward’s ouster matter? Not really. Only when we put more preference on clean, renewable energy and stop coddling and subsidizing the oil and gas industry will oil and gas companies begin to see that there is safety in safety and profit in a newer, cleaner energy source. They’ll keep right on drilling and, unfortunately, the oil will keep right on spilling until we find a way to stop relying on it.

By the way, even if this did change BP for the better (not just until the heat dies down), there’s still ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips and a host of other global oil and gas companies to contend with. Broader change than a Tony Hayward resignation is needed.

Photo Credit: Guardian, nola & Boston

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After nearly 90 days, the Gulf of Mexico oil leak has finally been capped, at least temporarily. Following delays and apprehension, the wellhead was capped on Thursday afternoon as part of a test evaluating the amount of pressure within the well. If all goes well through Friday, the well could remain shut indefinitely.

Brought to you by BP, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and whether or not the well remains shut, cleanup and recovery from it will no doubt last years.

The longer the test lasts, the more hope for a long-term solution to the oil leak. As of early Friday morning, nearly 12 hours after the well was capped, everything remained quiet a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet despite the promise of a successful pressure test, those involved have stressed that these are just that — tests. While the cap could remain on the well permanently if pressure holds, BP and the government may also decide to let the oil flow again and try to collect all of it. The cap could also allow closure during hurricanes when collection is impossible.

Cautious optimism is the doctrine of the day for BP and the U.S. government, for whom the three-month oil spill has been utterly embarrassing, not to mention atrocious, deathly and economically disastrous for all life in the Gulf region. President Obama has called the cap a “positive sign” but will not go further. Indeed, Thad Allen, who is in charge of the government’s spill response, asserted that the cap was in reality only meant to be used during inclement weather. The Gulf of Mexico currently stands in the midst of hurricane season.

The cap would be used to more efficiently siphon oil onto ships on the surface. Two ships are above the well right now with two more slated for arrival in about a week. With all four ships in use, and given success of the pressure test, BP should be able to capture all of the oil leaking from the well — roughly 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, according to the latest, obviously rough estimates.

As Day Two of the test begins, BP is at least 12 hours closer to shutting down the flow of oil for good. The cap will hopefully buy them time to drill a relief well to permanently stop the leak. But at this point, there is little trust in hope in the Gulf region. While oil drillers and politicians plea for a lift on an Obama administration ban on new offshore drilling to save jobs, fishermen and others tied to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico face an uncertain future. Some hardly believe anyone involved in the spill response anymore. Most see little hope for the future, regardless of any success in stopping the leak.

“It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a dead man, in my opinion,” a local crabber told the New York Times. Millions of barrels of oil still float in Gulf waters and no one has even attempted to estimate the horrible ruination imposed on flora and fauna, indeed the entire food chain of the region.

With one offshore oil spill, BP has effectively ended life as anyone in the region knew it, and immediately ended the lives of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and countless members of the animal world. And still some 42,000 offshore oil wells continue to draw oil from American waters.

Which will come first: an end to our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, or the BP oil spill cleanup process? An unfortunate riddle for the ages. Let’s just hope that both come as soon as humanly possible.

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New video illustrates devastation on Gulf, wildlife.

An important pressure test on the latest attempt by BP to cap its leaking oil well was originally scheduled for Monday, but has yet to get underway. The problem seems to be nervousness about how well the cap will hold, and the even longer delays stemming from a test failure. Thad Allen, Commander of the federal spill response and retired Coast Guard Admiral, made the choice yesterday to delay the test at least another 24 hours.

The test would shut off the flow of oil by sealing a stack of valves on a cap already installed at the wellhead nearly a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. If the well is able to hold pressure, then the cap could remain on, effectively closing off the leak that has been spewing anywhere from 2 to 4 million gallons of oil into the Gulf daily. Estimates on the exact amount of oil leaking daily vary widely, but are certainly more than the low-ball accounts given by BP when the spill began nearly 90 days ago (after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and setting off the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history).

Senior BP Vice President Kent Wells, who noted that the test was so important officials decided to give another day to study it, told the New York Times that his company was waiting for pressure to build up to ideal test conditions. “It’s very clear,” he said. “What we’re waiting for is pressure to build up. The higher, the better.”

However, a technician involved in the test, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Times that the real debate was whether the test was worth the risk, as a pressure buildup could damage the well bore and force the repair team several steps backward in eventually sealing it up. The technician added that the test is also designed to provide data in relation to drilling the relief well that will permanently stop the leak, but he asserts that many relief wells have been drilled in the past without such information and that to wait for it is unnecessary.

The test could take anywhere from 6 to 48 hours to complete, if and when it gets started.

On a different note, today I discovered a video compilation of photos taken of the BP oil disaster. The photos, from the Alexander Higgins Blog, illustrate the incredible devastation the oil spill has leaked on the Gulf of Mexico, its shores and the wild and marine life inhabiting the region. Higgins prefaces the compilation as “the photos BP does not want you to see,” which is obvious considering BP’s blatant culpability in the disaster and almost laughable (if not so disturbing) ineptitude at doing anything about it.

Say what you will about Higgins’ rather inflammatory blog or the soundtrack he provides to the aforementioned video; the photographs do not lie and really bring home for us who live on the other side of the country (or world) real pain and destruction caused by the BP oil spill for the residents of the Gulf region, both human and animal. It also goes to show the true necessity and urgency of weening ourselves off of fossil fuels and into renewable resources such as solar power (a good alternative for ailing southern U.S. states in the line of fire from the spill).

Photo Credit via screengrabs of a CBS Video

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It’s really a shame that BP has been left all alone, standing in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico holding the million-plus-gallon barrel of oil that gulf has become. We really should have more sympathy for the likes of Tony Hayward. After all, his personal life has been seriously disrupted by all this. Now, to make matters worse, the Obama administration continues to push for a moratorium on all new offshore drilling and BP has been “forced” to set aside $20 billion (and probably more) for clean-up and relief to affected Gulf residents.

Fortunately for BP, the company still has some loyal friends in high places, there to nurse their scapegoat back to health even if it means wide public embarrassment and ridicule by anyone who isn’t completely blind to BP’s culpability in the worst oil disaster in U.S. history.

These are the BP Republicans. These are the poor saps who are either so deep in Big Oil’s pocket or unfathomably detached from public opinion and solid politicking that they remain staunchly in BP’s corner. Indeed, the oil that once quietly lined their pockets now drips from their ears.

Now you may have heard these greasy stalwarts expressing their love for BP on the airways, especially lamenting any recourse to make BP pay for its mistakes and negligence. But just in case you’re not sure exactly who is and who isn’t prestigious enough to be a BP Republican, the Democratic National Committee has been sporting enough to give them their very own website, complete with complementary list as follows:

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In opposition to two separate rulings by federal judges, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the Obama administration imposed another moratorium on new offshore drilling permits in U.S. waters. After an appeals court judge last week denied the administration’s request to overturn the lifting by a previous circuit judge of the initial ban, the Obama administration decided to take matters into its own hands. The new moratorium will be in effect until November 30 or such time as Secretary Salazar sees evidence that deepwater oil exploration and drilling can proceed with safety.

The oil industry and its political allies are in an uproar over the move, citing primarily the loss of thousands of jobs as good reason not to enforce the ban.

Said Secretary Salazar, “I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill, and to operate safely.”

Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu felt otherwise: “Obviously more effective regulations and greater transparency are a must, but this Deepwater Horizon incident is an exception and it should be treated as such,” she told a presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill. “I urge this commission to take immediate and swift action to immediately lift the moratorium.”

Landrieu noted that the ban could cause the loss of up to 120,000 jobs in Louisiana as unusable oil rigs move to countries where they are allowed to work. She stated that this “second economic disaster has the potential to become greater than the first.”

42,000 other wells still operate in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and the moratorium only affects new deepwater drilling permits, limited to just 33 projects.

While the Obama administration has expressed concern and understanding regarding the economic loss in the region stemming from the moratorium, it presses that safety is of the utmost concern. As Salazar and a number of other administration officials have reiterated several times, any evidence showing that oil companies are prepared for an oil spill or even to operate safely pales in comparison to the glaring evidence that they are not. Until these companies can show the administration otherwise, the moratorium remains in effect.

“I remain open to modifying the new deepwater drilling suspensions based on new information,” noted Salazar, but first the oil drilling industry “must raise the bar on its practices and answer fundamental questions about deepwater safety, blowout prevention and containment, and oil spill response.”

Oil companies have been using their economic clout to try to dissuade the administration from instituting the moratorium. Indeed, Diamond Offshore Drilling, which operates 10 of the 33 rigs affected by the moratorium, has already redeployed two rigs to Egypt and West Africa with a third slated for departure to Brazil if the administration sticks to its guns on the new moratorium.

Source: Grist.org

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In opposition to two separate rulings by federal judges, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the Obama administration imposed another moratorium on new offshore drilling permits in U.S. waters. After an appeals court judge last week denied the administration’s request to overturn the lifting by a previous circuit judge of the initial ban, the Obama administration decided to take matters into its own hands. The new moratorium will be in effect until November 30 or such time as Secretary Salazar sees evidence that deepwater oil exploration and drilling can proceed with safety.

The oil industry and its political allies are in an uproar over the move, citing primarily the loss of thousands of jobs as good reason not to enforce the ban.

Said Secretary Salazar, “I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill, and to operate safely.”

Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu felt otherwise: “Obviously more effective regulations and greater transparency are a must, but this Deepwater Horizon incident is an exception and it should be treated as such,” she told a presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill. “I urge this commission to take immediate and swift action to immediately lift the moratorium.”

Landrieu noted that the ban could cause the loss of up to 120,000 jobs in Louisiana as unusable oil rigs move to countries where they are allowed to work. She stated that this “second economic disaster has the potential to become greater than the first.”

42,000 other wells still operate in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and the moratorium only affects new deepwater drilling permits, limited to just 33 projects.

While the Obama administration has expressed concern and understanding regarding the economic loss in the region stemming from the moratorium, it presses that safety is of the utmost concern. As Salazar and a number of other administration officials have reiterated several times, any evidence showing that oil companies are prepared for an oil spill or even to operate safely pales in comparison to the glaring evidence that they are not. Until these companies can show the administration otherwise, the moratorium remains in effect.

“I remain open to modifying the new deepwater drilling suspensions based on new information,” noted Salazar, but first the oil drilling industry “must raise the bar on its practices and answer fundamental questions about deepwater safety, blowout prevention and containment, and oil spill response.”

Oil companies have been using their economic clout to try to dissuade the administration from instituting the moratorium. Indeed, Diamond Offshore Drilling, which operates 10 of the 33 rigs affected by the moratorium, has already redeployed two rigs to Egypt and West Africa with a third slated for departure to Brazil if the administration sticks to its guns on the new moratorium.

Source: Grist.org

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