It looks like the kid’s glove approach that the press has allowed the Obama administration on the oil spill is about to end. The Washington Post has an excellent article up asking five critical questions of Obama on his response to the BP oil disaster (it’s more than a spill folks!).
Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post poses the questions that are likely to come up for Obama in his first full presser given since July, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052603800.html
I rate her questions and tweak them a bit for improvement and then ask a few of my own:
1. In explaining and defending your decision in March to open up additional offshore areas to drilling, you argued that improvements in technology have made drilling significantly less risky. Just 18 days before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, you said: “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” What kind of assurances were you given that this was the case and by whom? What do you think of those assumptions now?
I’d give this question 8 out of 10. No need to ask a politician about who gave him “assurances” because that just provides wiggle room and any politician will squeeze through that like an oiled pig. She should also ask: “Do you want to apologize to the nation for making that boneheaded statement”?
2. BP is now in the position of making many of the key decisions on how to deal with it [the oil catastrophe] — a situation that is drawing growing criticism. …In at least one instance in which the federal government has attempted to overrule BP, which was over its use of dispersant chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency says are too toxic, the company has not complied. What do you say to those who say too much control has been ceded to BP? And what kind of changes, if any, should be made in the process for dealing with future oil spills?
Rating: 5 out 10. The problem with this question is it is a series of questions (and it is too long, even with my cuts). Journalists need to study lawyer’s questions. Lawyers know that you shouldn’t ask multiple questions because the defendant then gets to choose what he will answer. This question should be broken into multiple questions but I like the one about the EPA saying the use of dispersant was too toxic.
3. Salazar has pledged reform of the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for offshore drilling, which is now recognized as having been too compliant with the wishes of the oil industry. But his proposals — for instance, splitting the agency into separate leasing, revenue collection and oversight — have dealt largely with the organization of the MMS. If the problem is, as you have said, a cozy culture in the agency, is it enough simply to redraw the organization chart? How can you quickly change a culture that has taken decades to develop?
My rating: 7 out of 10. Again, too long and multiple questions. The first one is SUPERB.
4. On May 6, Salazar announced a moratorium on the issuance of final permits for “new offshore drilling activity.” Critics such as the Center for Biological Diversity note, however, that this policy has never been put into writing, and that its definition “has become steadily narrower as the Interior Department changes it to exclude whatever drilling permits MMS issues on any given day.” And the New York Times has reported that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, waivers have continued to be granted for drilling projects. What, exactly, does this moratorium cover?
My rating: 9 out 10. Very good general idea. Why not incorporate more specifics in the question? The NYTimes gave numbers relating to the issuance of waivers after the “moratorium”. Put that in the question. And why not call Mr. Ken Salazar, “your choice for the Secretary of the Interior” to highlight that Obama chose a guy who had a very poor environmental record (and was criticized for the pick when it was made)?
5. Should anyone in the government be fired as the result of this disaster?
My rating: 6 out 10.
It’s good that this question is direct and blunt. But why not be more specific: “Mr. President, when you hired Ken Salazar his appointment was criticized by environmentalists. He was accused of being in bed with special interests and for being an advocate of offshore drilling? George Bush fired Brownie. Shouldn’t you fire Salazar?
This should be followed with this question: “With all of the reports of the cozy nature of the regulation in MMS (including potentially criminal acts like bribes and kickbacks), shouldn’t the head of that agency be fired, Mr. President?”
Here are some other questions I suggest to the press:
- For 27 years, Mr. President, Democratic and Republican presidents alike enforced an offshore oil drilling ban in bipartisan fashion. On April 2, 2010, you reversed that long standing policy and we all know what happened 18 days later. Didn’t you make a tremendous mistake, Sir, and would you like to apologize to the Nation and the world for it?
- Sir, You have been accused by three leading Democratic political advisers, namely, James Carville, Donna Brazille and Peter Daou of poor management of the oil disaster bordering on ineptness. Carville said you are “naive” to rely on BP and that you haven’t spent enough time in the Gulf. Brazille said your haven’t taken the initiative and have let BP do everything and Daou has called your response “lame” and your leadership “nonexistent”. Aren’t your fellow Democrats making valid points, Mr. President?
- Your White House first held a major conference on the oil disaster two full days after it happened and you yourself did not visit the Gulf until 11 days after the rig blew up and oil began gushing into the ocean. James Carville, a leading Democrat, says you need to get on down to the Gulf and get a grip on what’s going on. Hasn’t your response, Mr. President, been completely inadequate?
- BP received a number of waivers of environmental impact statements, apparently even after you issued a so-called moratorium on these. MMS under your administration seemed to be looking the other way continuously. BP was also a leading financial contributor to your 2008 campaign. Has your administration been lax on regulating oil companies because it has in part also been such a huge recipient of campaign money from these very companies? Will you return BP’s campaign contributions?
- You’ve placed a so-called moratorium on offshore drilling for 30 days so the “problem can be studied”. Shouldn’t it be abundantly clear that offshore oil drilling especially at deep depths is inherently dangerous and that we do not have the technology to make it safe yet? Why not reinstate a complete ban on offshore drilling now?
- What exactly is the need for a commission to look into this incident? Any such commission will take time (at least 6-8 months to report) and will cost the taxpayers yet more money. Don’t we pretty much know what went wrong here: you lifted the offshore oil drilling ban when you shouldn’t have, your administration was lax in enforcing rules and regulations on all oil companies, and BP acted irresponsibly and perhaps criminally. What else is a commission going to tell us that we don’t already know?
- Sen Carl Levin has been quoted recently as saying that your administration is a late convert (in the last few days) to really pushing a change in policy on DADT. Was that late conversion due to the oil disaster and your need to change the conversation?
- Exactly why is the United States about the only country in the developed West that has problems with gays serving in the military? In NATO, of which we are a member, 22 out of 26 countries that participate militarily allow this with no adverse effects. So too do Canada and Israel. Consul David Saranga of the Israeli Consulate in New York City, has stated, “It’s a non-issue. You can be a very good officer, a creative one, a brave one, and be gay at the same time.” Exactly what is the problem, Mr. President, with gays in the U.S. military?
- Yesterday at a fundraiser in San Francisco, according to Sam Stein of the Huffingtonpost, you essentially heckled someone who was heckling you on DADT. Was your response appropriate for the President of the United States? Would you like to apologize to that young man, who was arrested incidentally, for asking you to speed up action on DADT?
- Yesterday, after the above incident, Mr. President, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that you went to the “lavish mansion” of an oil billionaire, the heir to the Getty oil fortune. There some 80 wealthy individuals wrote out checks to you for a reported $32,500 each. Doesn’t that just hammer home Mr. Carville’s point that you have been essentially missing in action in the Gulf on the oil spill? Can you take all of that oil related money and still work for average Americans to provide a clean and safe environment?
- Mr. President, Hillary Clinton accused you in 2008 during the Democratic party presidential primaries of “not being a fighter for average Americans.” Hasn’t your inadequate response to the environmental disaster in the Gulf, your trillion dollar bailouts to banks and Wall St., and your inadequate response to the unemployment/economic crisis, borne her criticism out?
- Mr. President, BP was a leading financial contributor to your presidential campaign and as we have seen they seem to have gotten lenient regulatory treatment during your administration with all of those waivers for filing environmental impact statements. Goldman Sachs also was a big contributor to your 2008 campaign, almost to the tune of $1 million, and they too seem to have benefited through numerous appointments of Goldman people to your administration (like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner) and through policies being implemented that in a sense benefited Goldman Sachs but not its competitors (like Lehman Brothers which was given no bailout). Have you not brought pay to play politics from Chicago to Washington, D.C., Sir?
NOTE: I’ve broken my own rule and clumped some questions together for presentation purposes.