[D] Drilling in the Artic Ocean

Dear Friends,

Another item that you may have missed in all the ado about the debt ceiling is that the Obama Administration has given Shell Oil approval to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean.  Here is the first paragraph from The New York Times yesterday (here).

The Department of the Interior on Thursday granted Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval of its plan to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean next summer, a strong sign that the Obama administration is easing a regulatory clampdown on offshore oil drilling that it imposed after last year’s deadly accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

If oil companies cannot safely drill in the relatively favorable conditions of the Gulf of Mexico, how can they drill safely in the Arctic Ocean?

Shell is the same company that finally admitted to  some of its oil spills in Nigeria.  Here is part of the report from the Guardian (here):

The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK

Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up.
Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline.
Until now, Shell has claimed that less than 40,000 gallons were spilt in Nigeria.

The article goes on to describe the spills and Shell's complete lack of response.

The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills, which occurred within months of each other, in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel.
No attempt has been made to clean up the oil, which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland.
According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as "insulting, provocative and beggarly" by the chiefs of Bodo, but later accepted on legal advice.

And these two spills are just the tip of iceberg.  Shell has a long history of spills and no clean up.

Later this week the company will be heavily implicated by the UN for the environmental disaster in the Niger delta which has seen more than 7,000 oil spills in the low lying swamps and farmland since 1989. Shell first discovered oil in the Niger delta in 1956. According to Amnesty International, more than 13m barrels of oil have been spilt in the delta, twice as much as by BP in last year's Gulf of Mexico spill.

The Obama Administration is rewarding an well known polluter and once again ignoring the risks of drilling in oceans in an attempt to be more like Republicans.  He is failing as an environmentalist.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

[T] Transparency

Dear Friends,

Candidate Obama was all in favor of transparency in government and in political contributions.  Unfortunately, President Obama seems unwilling to take even baby steps to provide some transparency with respect to political contributions by federal contractors.  President Obama has delayed signing an executive order that would provide some transparency.  As an editorial in The New York Times (here) stated today:

By law, government contractors must disclose spending through formal political-action groups. But not through nonprofit “advocacy” groups — an increasingly favored device for operatives of both parties. The proposed order would at least mandate disclosure of any contributions to these groups by all companies bidding for or holding a government contract.

The President should sign the order now.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

 

[A] Accountability and Torture

Dear Friends,

The Obama Administration is defending Donald Rumsfeld in a law suit brought by an American citizen who claims he was tortured by the US.  Here is a summary of the case from NPR (here):

The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld from court filings for fear of retaliation. Attorneys for the man, who speaks five languages and worked as a translator for Marines collecting intelligence in Iraq, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.
The government says he was suspected of helping pass classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces get into Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime, and he says he never broke the law and was risking his life to help his country.
Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused while being held at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding "high-value" detainees, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006.
Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.

I certainly would not be surprised to learn that Mr. Rumsfeld had done exactly what the plaintiff is alleging that he did.  What I find revolting is that the Obama Administration is claiming that legally Mr. Rumsfeld can not be held accountable for his actions.

The Obama administration has represented Rumsfeld through the Justice Department and argued that the former defense secretary cannot be sued personally for official conduct. The Justice Department also argued that a judge cannot review wartime decisions that are the constitutional responsibility of Congress and the president. And the department said the case could disclose sensitive information and distract from the war effort and that the threat of liability would impede future military decisions.

 I bet you thought that President George W. Bush had an overblown view of the powers of the executive branch of government.  He does not hold a candle to President Obama's view of the Imperial President.  Fortunately, at least one Federal court judge is unwilling to let the Obama Administration get away with this injustice.

But U.S. District Judge James Gwin rejected those arguments and said U.S. citizens are protected by the Constitution at home or abroad during wartime.
"The court finds no convincing reason that United States citizens in Iraq should or must lose previously-declared substantive due process protections during prolonged detention in a conflict zone abroad," Gwin wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.

President Obama promised to end torture because it was wrong.  Instead of defending the people responsible for authorizing torture, he should be holding them accountable.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal