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Steffy: U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise
Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.
It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.
Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.
U.S. ships are being outfitted this week with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.
At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?
UPDATED:
From the Huffington Post: Obama Lunches With Progressive Pundits: Maddow, Robinson, Collins
President Obama met for lunch on Thursday with a group of predominantly progressive columnists to discuss a range of topics, chief among them the oil spill in the Gulf.That's interesting, considering they all wrote very less than flattering opinions of his oil speech from the oval office. Maddow even gave her own speech. Is Obama trying to get that lovin' feeling back?
Attendees included Gail Collins of the New York Times, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Gerald Seib, the Washington bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, all of whom were spotted leaving the West Wing at roughly 1:45 p.m.
The lunch lasted more than an hour, said a White House spokesman. But no further details were offered.
I'm guessing you've heard James Carville's about face on how he thought Obama is handling things as well?
ReplyDeleteI'm begining to wonder how many cushy Gov't. jobs are being offered in return for favorable TV coverage. It starts with BO buying you lunch...
I have been watching Rachel Maddow's show for a while now. While I do not agree with her on most political issues I have to say that her coverage of the BP gulf oil spill has been excellent. She slammed both BP and the Obama administration both as being inefficient and blames them both for the extent of the damage to the coast/animals. She had nothing good to say about either side and was not so keen on Obama's speech,at least she wasn't the day after she heard it.
ReplyDeleteI was quite surprised though when I recently turned on her TV show and saw her practically praising parts of Obama's speech and slamming governor Jindal's efforts at sand berns. It was like she did a complete turnaround on her thinking. I didn't know what apparently changed her mind. I still don't, but now know, thanks to you, that it was White House related. Everybody can be bought out it seems.
I am glad that the US is finally accepting Dutch and Norwegian help even with those sand bern barriers.
Wow! That sure was a quick turnaround....I guess lunch was delicious. haha
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