Thread: Jones Act do we need help w/ oil spill Y or N?

Spill now 13 times that of the Exxon Valdez yet America continues to turn away help.

MURDOCK: Keeping up with the Jones Act
Our friends want to help, but Obama says no
By Deroy Murdock
8:05 p.m., Thursday, June 17, 2010


As a self-proclaimed "citizen of the world," President Obama should have welcomed rather than spurned international assistance to prevent BP's underwater oil geyser from wrecking the Gulf Coast. But spurn, he did. Mr. Obama's failure to waive the Jones Act still maintains a sea wall that blocks potentially helpful foreign ships from this tear-inducing mess.

The 1920 Jones Act requires that vessels operating in American waters be built, owned and manned by Americans. Some U.S. ship owners love this protectionist measure. So do maritime labor unions. When it comes to confronting unions, Mr. Obama rarely crosses that line.

On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killed 11 oil rig workers, and began gushing perhaps 60,000 barrels of petroleum daily. Three days later, the Dutch offered to sail to the rescue on ships bedecked with oil-skimming booms. They also had a plan for erecting protective sand barricades.

"The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' " Dutch consul general Geert Visser told the Houston Chronicle's Loren Steffy. Had those Dutch ships departed nearly two months ago, who knows how much oil they already would have absorbed and how many pelicans now would soar rather than soak in soapy water while wildlife experts clean their wings.

After initially refusing to name them, the State Department on May 5 declared that 11 other countries and the United Nations also had offered skimmer boats and other assets and experts to prevent the oil from destroying dolphins, crabs, oysters and this disaster's other defenseless victims.

Alas, they were turned away.

"While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet," stated a State Department statement, "the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future." Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin translated this into plain English: "The current message to foreign governments is: Thanks but no thanks, we've got it covered."

Had Mr. Obama instead waived the Jones Act via executive order - as did President George W. Bush three days after Hurricane Katrina - that S.O.S. would have summoned a global armada of mercy. Who knows how many fishing, shrimping and seafood-processing jobs this would have saved? Instead, thousands of Gulf Coast workers will endure a long march from dormant docks to bustling unemployment lines.

Even now, Mr. Obama could invite the world to send boats to clean the waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and (potentially) the Carolinas and points north, if this mass of oil (so far, roughly equal to 13 Exxon Valdez oil spills) enters the Loop Current, swerves around Key West, slips into the Gulf Stream, and slides up the Eastern Seaboard.

"If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised on June 10. "But, we've not had that problem thus far in the Gulf."

Problem? What problem?

The Jones Act sometimes gets waived. As Fox News Channel's Brian Wilson reported on June 11: "A U.S. Customs official ruled recently that the Jones Act does not apply to foreign-owned vessels installing wind turbines off the coast of Delaware."

Watching Mr. Obama's Tuesday night Oval Office address, BP's brass must have been startled to hear the president say: "I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness."

Should BP pay, and pay big? Yes.

Reckless? BP sure seems so.

But since when does the American president "inform" executives that they must devote billions to any cause, no matter how worthy? Isn't this why Congress passes legislation and courts administer justice?

So, while a pro-labor trade barrier traps potentially helpful boats in overseas ports, due process withers under presidential diktat.

And the crude oil keeps on flowing.

Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... jones-act/

We needed help from day 1 .... Obama aka Soetoro going use this for higher taxes and to get his new world agenda through for cap and trade (failed in Coppehagen, so this next best thing)... doesn't matter what or who dies; Obama and his team of thugs will milk this catastrophe all the way to their "personal" banks. That was the original plan in telling BP to drill there to begin with... Another False Flag to s*** America.

Originally Posted by Dianne

We needed help from day 1 .... Obama aka Soetoro going use this for higher taxes and to get his new world agenda through for cap and trade (failed in Coppehagen, so this next best thing)... doesn't matter what or who dies; Obama and his team of thugs will milk this catastrophe all the way to their "personal" banks. That was the original plan in telling BP to drill there to begin with... Another False Flag to s*** America.

Biggest ecological disaster in history...and the arrogance and self promotion takes precedence over it. Anything anywhere that could suck up oil should be in the gulf right now and as you say...from day one.

I hope that the world sees through this farce of obamanation and understands that he will be coming after their money with cap (castrate) and trade (swindle).

What we need is to shut off the oil gusher. The cleanup we can do. We have plenty of people and boats and equipment. The problem is that the flow of oil keeps coming.

Originally Posted by redpony353

What we need is to shut off the oil gusher. The cleanup we can do. We have plenty of people and boats and equipment. The problem is that the flow of oil keeps coming.

I think the means to do so does exist... but you know our thugs and their "never let a catastrophe go to waste" attitude. They want to milk it for all it is worth, as they sail on their yachts and play golf. Scumbags, all of them.

By the way, if you have not noticed we have a one party system in this country now. Both sides are owned by the same scumbags... Keep that in mind during the next election...

Originally Posted by Dianne

Originally Posted by redpony353

What we need is to shut off the oil gusher. The cleanup we can do. We have plenty of people and boats and equipment. The problem is that the flow of oil keeps coming.

I think the means to do so does exist... but you know our thugs and their "never let a catastrophe go to waste" attitude. They want to milk it for all it is worth, as they sail on their yachts and play golf. Scumbags, all of them.

By the way, if you have not noticed we have a one party system in this country now. Both sides are owned by the same scumbags... Keep that in mind during the next election...

Well I have to disagree with you on that one. There is no advantage in letting oil continue to flow into the ocean for two months straight.

Originally Posted by redpony353

Originally Posted by Dianne

Originally Posted by redpony353

What we need is to shut off the oil gusher. The cleanup we can do. We have plenty of people and boats and equipment. The problem is that the flow of oil keeps coming.

I think the means to do so does exist... but you know our thugs and their "never let a catastrophe go to waste" attitude. They want to milk it for all it is worth, as they sail on their yachts and play golf. Scumbags, all of them.

By the way, if you have not noticed we have a one party system in this country now. Both sides are owned by the same scumbags... Keep that in mind during the next election...

Well I have to disagree with you on that one. There is no advantage in letting oil continue to flow into the ocean for two months straight.

Well no one in the government seems to be concerned about it.... all I see now are new methods in which to get the Al Gore, Obama/Soetoro, United Nations forced taxes through to pay for the air we breath... There are several countries who have had their ships ready to aid us since day 1 of this disaster, and the US has shunned their cries to help. "Never let a disaster go to waste" .... Obama and Emanuel along with the other lunatics in the WH are going to play this out until the end..

Obama..you are a jackass!

I could have sworn BP and Halliburton was responsible for this, not Obama. What's funny is that IF Obama had jumped in from the get go, the right-wingers would have said "keep government out!!" It's a no win for Obama. You guys hate him no matter what he does or doesn't do. CONGRESS needs to repeal the Jones law so we can get more cleanup boats out there. Here in Dallas there is a guy that has a fleet of 17 oil cleaners, but because they aren't registered in the US, he can't send them. They are ready to go but the Jones act prevents it.

And by the way hardline, this ISN'T the worst spill. In 1979 there was another spill that lasted 250 days. The oil companies need to be punished for their incompetence, and the politicians that are in their pockets need to be punished as well. I'm sure that would get rid of most of the DRILL BABY DRILL republicans.

Originally Posted by DarthIllegal

I could have sworn BP and Halliburton was responsible for this, not Obama. What's funny is that IF Obama had jumped in from the get go, the right-wingers would have said "keep government out!!" It's a no win for Obama. You guys hate him no matter what he does or doesn't do. CONGRESS needs to repeal the Jones law so we can get more cleanup boats out there. Here in Dallas there is a guy that has a fleet of 17 oil cleaners, but because they aren't registered in the US, he can't send them. They are ready to go but the Jones act prevents it.

And by the way hardline, this ISN'T the worst spill. In 1979 there was another spill that lasted 250 days. The oil companies need to be punished for their incompetence, and the politicians that are in their pockets need to be punished as well. I'm sure that would get rid of most of the DRILL BABY DRILL republicans.

Ok...man your picky! The stories I am reading say it is the worst...mabe because they know it will not be contained soon enough to stop it from being. But anyway...if it goes 10 months like the Ixtoc I...you can do the math...

"The record is tenuously held by the Ixtoc I blowout, a disaster that pumped 140 million gallons of oil into the southern Gulf of Mexico in 1979.

With disturbing similarities to the current crisis, Ixtoc I gushed oil for 10 months after it exploded and sank on June 3. Nothing -- not the blowout preventer, a "top hat," the junk shot or the top kill -- could stop the volcano of oil.

Government advisers (many say much more) estimated last week that 116 million gallons of oil had spewed into the Gulf from the Deepwater Horizon. At the current rate -- and despite efforts to capture some of the oil -- the spill could eclipse Ixtoc I within a matter of days.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20 ... LE/6211057