I will not be watching President Obama's speech tonight--I will be at a debate between Republican Primary candidates for the Third Congressional District in Massachusetts. I pray that in November one of the men I hear tonight will be elected to replace Jim McGovern, but that is not what this article is about.
President Obama will no doubt in his speech place the lion's share of the blame for the mess on the Gulf coast on BP. He will also say that the current disaster shows the need for bigger government and a Cap and Trade (aka Cap and Tax) bill. There is some truth in the first statement and very little truth in the second.
On June 9, the Business Insider posted an article about the Obama Administration's refusal of international help during the early days of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are countries in the world that are much more experienced in deep-water drilling than we are, and some of those countries have successfully and quickly cleaned up the type of disaster we saw in the Gulf.
The article states:
"According to Foreign Policy, thirteen entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance within about two weeks of the Horizon rig explosion. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.
"The U.S. response - Thank you, but no thank you, we've got it.
"...While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Cpast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future."
The reason for declining help--"The Jones Act." The Jones Act requires that goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships. The purpose of the law is to support the U.S. merchant marine industry. The Jones Act was waived in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and should be waived again. The fact that it has not been waived has resulted in much greater damage to the environment that would have otherwise happened. There are European countries who specialize in deep-water accidents, we need their help in this.
I would love to see the President waive the Jones Act in his speech tonight, instead I think we will be watching the beginning of a government takeover of the energy sector or the economy.
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