That's what it amounted to, words from the Oval Office.  Words are typically no substitute for action when action is needed and this was no exception.

The President's Involvement

The President began his remarks by indicating that from the beginning of the crisis he had called on the best scientists and engineers and that the work of these individuals had resulted in his directing BP to gather the equipment and resources to attack the problem.   I beg your pardon President Obama but how can we believe you?   It was nine days before you even mentioned the spill to the public and thirty days before you turned your attention from vacation, golf and White House visitations from basketball and soccer champions to even look at the extent of this problem.   The President deserves a pass on the fact that the original estimates were extensively understated however, we all knew these were estimates.  So, if the President was on top of this from the beginning, why did he not waive the enforcement of the Jones Act and allow the Saudi's, the Norwegians and the Dutch to assist with their skimmers as they had offered?  Why did the President not pull all stops to get those booms out of the Maine warehouse and to the Gulf to contain as much of the spill as possible in the Gulf and away from the shoreline?   Why did the President not suspend environmental impact requirements when Governor Jindal requested assistance from the Corps of Engineers to build barrier islands to block the oil from his coastal marshes?   In an emergency it should not require a rocket scientist to understand that the environmental impact of building a barrier island of sand is far less than allowing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil from washing ashore.  In fairness, the President did indicate that he had approved the construction of barrier islands but he did not mention how many.  At last count Governor Jindal wanted to build some 20 or more and at last count I understood that four or five had been approved.   Is this what the President was referencing? 

Why did the President wait 57 days before contacting the chairman or CEO of BP to personally discuss the status of their attempts to cap the well?  If the President truly convened top scientific and engineering minds I have to ask who they were and whether they came from academia or from industry, specifically the oil and gas industry?  Further he later indicated that he would meet with the Chairman of BP on Wednesday at which time he would "inform" this gentleman as to what he would pay.   Who the hell does the President think he is?  Does he think he is King?   It is not his position to inform the chairman of a public corporation, a British corporation, of anything, not in the manner he described with his tough talk on Wednesday evening.  Further, until there is some sort of legally binding agreement he has no business telling BP whether they may distribute dividends to their stockholders.  

The President told us that he would hold BP responsible for paying the entire cost of cleanup and restoration.   He immediately announced intent for something that sounded like a Marshall Plan to restore the coastline to a state better than it was on April 19.  $$$  The President spoke about forcing BP to place monies in escrow to be monitored by an independent third party who would be responsible for administering claims.  The President doesn't have this power?  BP may be willing to cooperate given the volume of business it does with the US but again, the President hasn't thought this escrow thing through?   What impact will this have on the company's ability to use its capital to continue to maintain and grow its business?  If BP is deprived of its capital, how will it sustain itself and if it can't, what is the risk that the company might be destroyed before it can pay all the claims filed against it?     

MMS

The President's only reference to MMS, Minerals Management Services was to identify it as corrupt.  He did so as though this was a corruption that had been inherited.   From what I understand, back in September of 2008 there was a scandal associated with MMS that included gifts that had been provided to government bureaucrats and it was acknowledged that some of the MMS and those they were regulating were sleeping with one another.   Those persons were discharged.   In 2009 President Obama had his opportunity to place his own person in a leadership role in that organization.  If it was still corrupt after that original house cleaning, this is on Obama.   It was his person who granted that variance to existing regulations and if it proves to be the shortcut that caused the explosion then it is not only BP that has its hands dirty but the Obama administration as well.   For good or bad, Director Elizabeth Birnbaum resigned or was fired.  The President didn't know when he spoke a few weeks ago which action had taken place and I am uncertain whether he knows yet.  Regardless, she will be replaced by a gentleman whose background was described as a former inspector general and prosecutor.   Why would President Obama place an attorney in this role instead of a petroleum engineer trained in drilling technologies?    

Moratorium on Deep Water Drilling

The President has declared a moratorium on deep water drilling.  What will be the impact of a six month moratorium on the equipment that is at play in the Gulf?   It won't simply be allowed to sit idle.  The likelihood is that it will be moved from the Gulf to another part of the world where it can be productive.  When that happens, how will we get it back in month seven?  How many more Americans has the President pushed to the ranks of the unemployed?   Thirty percent of this country's oil production comes from the Gulf and 80% of that comes from deep water drilling.   Is the President prepared to cut domestic oil production by 24% when we are already importing far too much of our demand from countries that in many instances don't like us?

I became more astonished when the President began to speak to the reason we drill for oil in deep water locations.   He indicated that there were no longer many places left in this country where we could drill for oil on land or in shallow waters.   What about ANWR?  What about California and other shallow water locations that are available but that are locations where environmentalists have successfully blocked drilling for years?  I understand reserves were recently discovered in North Dakota.  The water should be really shallow there.  What about the oil shale in Colorado?  How on earth could the President blame oil company lobbyists for pushing us to deeper water and keep a straight face?   The answer to that question, I fear, is that this is standard operating procedure for the Obama Administration.  Demonize your adversary so that he may more easily be destroyed.  

Domestic Consumption

The President discussed a statistic that is too often used and abused.  The United States consumes twenty percent of the world's oil production but its reserves account for only 2% of the world supply.   Interesting!   I wonder what percentage of the world's consumption of bananas occurs in the US and how many bananas are actually grown in the US?   This has no relevance.  It suggests we should consume no more than our own resources.   We are a highly industrialized country and we get oil from other regions of the world.  It is called trade.  Certainly we would like to reduce our imports from those countries that would do us harm because we don't wish to finance their bad intentions.  However to point to this kind of statistic as something that should be telling and to then indicate this as a reason we must turn to alternative forms of energy funded by Cap and Trade lunacy is disingenuous at best.  Worse, Obama wants us to abandon fossil fuels before a marketable substitute energy source is available. 

Clean Energy / Cap and Trade

What was the President's mission in this speech?  The President spent a great deal of time in the latter part of his remarks talking about clean energy as though this has something to do with the current crisis in the Gulf.   Was it the President's intent to project himself into this problem as a leader or was it his intention to capitalize on this crisis to try to push Cap and Trade?   Has this country not already been through enough?   The President says we cannot afford not to do this and I say we cannot afford to do it and this is why.

There is no plan.  It is the President's intention to create a slush fund to attack the problem of alternative energy sources.  This isn't how it is done.  I spent four years as a Controller in a Research & Development organization for a Fortune 110 corporation.   I cannot recall the corporate office ever sending us a slush fund with the instructions to find solutions with this money.  Instead, concepts were developed and tested in the laboratory.  If there were positive results in the laboratory those concepts would be taken a step further to prove feasibility and a proposal would be presented to the headquarters to achieve a sponsor for research.   The concept was first defined before we ever sought funding.  The cost of production was estimated.  The market was evaluated.   Before any significant research was conducted it was known that the idea had economic merit.  It doesn't happen the other way around.   If someone has a great idea as to how to turn a windmill when there is no wind, great!  Present it, obtain a sponsor and if it is determined to be within the constitutional purview of the federal government and it is a good idea, let's fund it.  But don't tax energy and then take the money and scatter it in multiple directions in the hope of finding something that will work.   Regardless, until an economic solution can be found to replace fossil fuels like oil and coal we will continue to be dependent upon them to run our economy.   

The President invoked memories of the space program and World War II to inspire us.  The President's solution will be hard but this is no reason to say no.   No, there are many better reasons to say no but I would ask this President whether NASA suspended its race for the moon when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in that capsule?  No, instead they re-engineered the capsule to recognize the door had to be capable of being opened from the inside as well as the outside.   The program continued.  This deep water Horizon platform is one of thousands of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.  It had an explosion.  The cause can only be determined after the pipe has been capped.   Find out why but recognize there are more than six thousand rigs in the Gulf and none have had a similar accident.  Just as the other astronauts did not have a fire in their capsule while training on the ground those working platforms should continue to be manned and continue to work.  There should be no moratorium.   The President must not be allowed to declare such a work stoppage.  

The Commission

Finally, the President announced the creation of a "commission" to study the cause of the explosion.  When all is not certain, form a committee.  

I am certain that the Nobel Prize winning physicist that will lead this commission is a brilliant man.  However, is he a petroleum engineer?  What makes this commission better able to secure an understanding of what caused this problem than an independently hired consultant to work with BP to review the cause of the explosion and understand what the impact of that explosion was on the pipe?  Was the pipe thick enough?  Was it too small?  Was it too big?  Was anything missing?  Were safety procedures ignored?  Was the variance granted by MMS prior to the explosion causal?   Some of these questions may be capable of being answered by a commission but how is a commission better than the individual who understands deep water drilling and the company that has so much at stake and that will itself not ever want a repeat of this incident?