Rep. Blunt Joins Chorus of Republicans Peddling Hurricane Oil Spill Lies
By Bill W. Saturday Jul 19, 2008 8:00pm
On Sunday's Late Edition Rep, Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who reliably votes in favor of the Oil & Gas industry and against renewable energy bills and has been rewarded in return, joined the month-long chorus of Republicans including McCain that have been making the demonstrably false claim that there weren’t any major spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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Blunt: If there was ever a test of this system it's in the one place that we do drill which is the gulf - 4,000 platforms in the gulf - thank God we've got them. 238 of them were injured by either Katrina or Rita. There was really no oil loss of any appreciable kind at any of those. Less oil was lost than used to seep up out of the gulf floor."
In fact, as we continue to note each time a new version of this claim has been made, there were at least 124 oil spills as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The website Skytruth.org even has posted satellite images of the spills as seen from space. Blunt added to his false assertion a repeat of what must be the new talking point on this issue that was offered on Thursday by McCain’s policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (an energy lobbyist) after she was called out by MSNBC's David Schuster after trying to claim that "hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop” of oil, a downplaying of the spills by comparing them to the amount of oil that naturally seeps into the ocean floor.
As ThinkProgress notes, “the effects of seeps and spills differ hugely” in their environmental impact. It's an apples and oranges comparison, as seeps are natural, thus not preventable, and they have very little adverse ecological impact due to the fact that they result in a much lower rate of release over time over a larger area, while the effects of spills on the surface can be devastating.
Rep. Blunt also attacked Speaker Pelosi's calling for a release of 10% of the oil in the strategic oil reserve and her pointing out many of the same facts I had written about a month ago that the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban — 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush’s own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR “would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents" a gal. by 2025.
Despite every claim made by Blunt through his entire interview, Speaker Pelosi was right on all counts:
A Department of Energy analysis determined that opening the OCS to offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”
A much faster, more effective action to reduce oil prices would to sell a half million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase supply, reduce prices, and burst the “speculative bubble” that leads speculators to buy oil futures based on the assumption that supply will remain fixed and prices will escalate.
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It sucks they can lie about things that did affect both SE and SW Louisiana...when it's on film! How can somebody get away with that?
That's only because all the republican rushed out to the shore
And hid the oil in their hair.
Over 68,000 sq. miles of oil leases they are not drilling. WTF!
ysbaddaden@2. LOL! I couldn't agree more!
Free market forces really work. Especially when you can rig the market.
No oil spills as the result or hurricane Katrina is a flat out Republican lie:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9365607/
The Great Oil Party just makes crap up so they can steal from the citizens to give to the robber barons who run the oil companies. They are thugs in a crime family.
next time have schwartzenegger on....CNN let's what the
(R) california governor has to say about off shore drilling
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arnold27-2008jun27,0,858804.story
Fuck that ugly ass Blunt... Meanwhile in St. louis. it's Viva Obama Royale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAINhIz2svE
Bottom line. We have 2 oil men in the White House. We have $4 gallon of gas. They and their allies in congress are using the $4 gallon of gas they've created to try to drill in ANWAR before they slither out of office in 2008 and before the GOP oil puppets loses more seats in congress. Get rid of the crooked oil men in the White House, quit bombing oil rich countries, get rid of more of the crooked GOP oil puppets in congress and watch low and behold the prices come down after 2009. These corrupt crooked oil profiteers are doing everything they can to drill as much as they can while they can. Hang tough till 2009!
I like how he dismissed fellow GOPer Ahnuld with "That's just California politics". These oil puppet GOPers will eat their own if anyone tries to stand in the way of their big oil buddies.
"Not a drop of oil was spilt. 5 trillion drops were."
Major oil spills or no major oil spills, Katrina and its affect on America is one huge Republican failure.
I don't get why people or politicians ask the real question: How much do the big 5 oil companies stand to make if we open up the OCS and ANWR?
Is it that they think they will get more oil to the market, or do they think they will be able to get oil to the market cheaper thereby increasing their profits, but not decreasing prices? I mean are they going to produce an extra million bbl per day, or are they going to produce the oil for $20/bbl instead of $25 having no impact on the overall supply/demand relationship and thereby increasing their profits because they can sell it for the same price.
The largest 4 oil companies (BP, Exxon, Shell, Texaco) produce about 10 million bbl per day, at $130 per bbl with $30/bbl in costs to the oil companies that is $1.0 Billion/day now lets say that best-guess they can get another million bbl per day out of the OCS/ANWR, well they would then need oil to be at $121/bbl to make the same amount $, or about $0.07/gallon - now this is the kind of relief that Americans want? Heck no I can get more than that Tuesdays at Cumbies!
really don't understand why these guys like Blunt
never push for non carbon renewable non polluting energy.
The oil compnies feed their trough with cash!!! ie, feedin' the pigs!
exactly #14.
SHOW ME NUMBERS!!! All these talking heads spewing how we need to drill because of the effect it will have on prices. Ok, we drill. Prices go down and everyone is happy for 10 minutes then "poof" they go up. Holy shit, why are they going up? Because the supply is FINITE.
What is up with the mentality if you have a dollar you have to spend it? I can't understand why anyone would want to make the oil companies more rich. Are people that mentally enslaved?
The Chimp in the White House wants all to believe oil drilling is the only way out to lower gas prices. Chimpy the snake oil salesman has fought against a comprehensive energy policy that did not enrich his Houston buddies.
Cycle3man @ 15:
Mark my works... Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered.
Mother fuckers will get theirs in the end.
JimboSlice @ 14:
A federal gas tax vacation would reduce prices by $.184/gallon. Big deal. C'mon, McKept. You can do better than that, right?
KKKarl Rove taught the WHOLE REPUBLICAN PARTY that you can LIE WITH IMPUNITY to American television viewers and get away with it... at least for a time. Didn't I read just recently that Rove has LEFT THE COUNTRY because he has to avoid possible CONTEMPT CHARGES from Congress!
This can't last forever.
When the Democrats acheive controlling majorities in BOTH the House and the Senate in November... KKKarl Rove will finally learn that you can fuck some of the people some of the time, but you can't fuck all of the people all of the time.
Hey, I just had a thought.
After January of next year, when KKKarl Rove calls into this country for his clandestine consultations with political clients... will the Democrats be able to use the new FISA law to moniter his calls (originating from a foreign country) because he can be designated a political terrorist and an enemy combatant by the new president?
On which page will the world find $150.00/bbl oil in Cheney's secret energy policy? Probably on the same page as "war" in Iraq and Kenneth Lay is dies. Anybody who thinks the occupation in Iraq was about anything but the 2004 re-election is a fool.
I'm waiting for:
"Most of the oil spills and slicks were a result of all those poor people in the water. So poor and so black".
Roy Blunt....now there's a guy who has some character. His son is governor of our state, and is a butt nugget that hasn't fallen from from the turd.
Blunt left his wife of over 25 years to marry a tobacco lobbyist, and son, who wanted to be governor, went to the wedding. (all of this was going on, of course, at the time that our Democratic State Attorney General, was filing lawsuits against big tobacco.)
Roy Blunt is worse than John Ashcroft for hypocrisy and lack of character. Ashcroft has a minute amount of character and class. Blunt has none at all.
PS...I don't usually talk like that, but I just can not stand either of these corrupt and smarmy snake oil salesmen. They creep me out, beyond words, and are the worst kind of unfair dealers.
For information, 40,000,000 acres = 62,500 sq. miles ..... or more than the equivalent of all of New England -- plus Long Island. All in areas believed to contain oil, all land that they already control. And they can't find oil??????
Representative John E. Peterson (R - PA) is one of the tools leading the charge to off-shore drilling.
When I called his office an aid kept saying these same lies to me. (BTW oil and gas industry are his top contributors)
Orwellian. Because you would think with the internet and google they would know it only takes a few seconds to know they are lying. But they do it anyway with a straight face. Challenging reality with each lie. And so many of them are in on it I sometimes think, hmm, maybe it is true.
Forgive Roy because he is a little distressed recently. He has been working hard to quash the story about his son, Gov. Matt Blunt. It seems that he is about to pull a McGreavy and be outed. He hastily dropped out of his re-election bid and illegally ordered his emails to be destroyed. The attorney general is running for the Governor spot and is pushing hard to investigate the emails. So, forgive Roy as he is desperately trying to hammer the party line all while he watches his son's career crash and while his term in a party leader role happens as the republican party is in a nose-dive. In those times you cater to those that brought you to the party....and that would be the oil boys.
YAWN!! - More of the same . . . .
The rePIG-lic party -- Home sweet Home to ...
... Bigots, Perverts, Pedophiles, Murderers, War Criminals, Homophobes, Misogynists, Sociopaths, Psychopaths, Bank Robbers, Murders and Liars -
Oh! - and terrified doughy white male Chicken Hawks.
*
The non squeaky Pol gets the money from the Oil Robber Barons. Way to go Blunt. Yeah, if we drill enough we'll never run out of oil. It's the Psyche Job.
Actually...Tom...I've heard those nasty rumors as well, and as much as I personally don't endorse outing people who want to remain private......I see no reason not to do what is necessary to make this man/boy see the light of scrutiny.
I have a lot of faith that the AG is going to get his way, because he has a score to settle with the Blunts for trying to make it look like he was in some way responsible for Taum Sauk, and all of the kickback money that Blunt's brother was receiving via the public service commision. It's good when the truth outs. It'll be better when Jay Nixon outs. : )
somebody better tell these guys that the peddling of fictitious lies doesn't sway the public anymore and to maybe do something better with themselves... the majority has caught on...
send MCcain to the to the retirement manors so he could see how poor, elderly Americans of his age get by these days.. he wouldn't like it very much I bet
Those 124+ oil spills amounted to over 7,000,000 gallons of oil into the gulf, onto the city of NO and into the Gulf of Mexico.
How much are those cons getting paid to spew that propaganda? e
Tom @ 29:
Gee, poor Roy. I did not realize how bad he was having it. I wonder if he has considered the Golden Gate Bridge? I hear it is a great place to solve your woes, this time of year.
the dems had better start getting their act together and counter these lies in a much more effective way than has been shown since 2000. the repubes are once again showing that they can stay on message/lies and repeat them until too many americans accept the lie as fact. and they can do this without an equal dose of the truth being injected because the opposing view/truth is not heard often enough. the same applies to the McSame lie about the gas tax holiday. this was effectively beaten down in the past by the counter argument being repeated and heard. in the past month that argument has been way too silent.
Blunt was very good in giving no answers to Blitzer's questions. He simply repeated evasions and talking points to derail Wolf, and succeeded.
Pelosi is doing the right thing on this one. I hope she sticks to her guns and continue to deny these bastards what they want as they attempt to screw up more of our land in their cheap efforts to go after more riches for no one but their own greedy asses.
They have millions of acers of land they have not even began to start digging in, yet they want to chose land they know is preserved and they are lying out of their asses, when they again make the false claim of 80% of the people want them to have their way.
Just like they continue to use this fake polling data, given to them by these evil greedy ass pollsters, that are also on the take, when they claim more then half of the people in this country know the war is illegal, but want them to stay and finish the dame job.
These are the most disgusting, lying ass bastards that ever dropped from a woman's wound, which is why I just can’t even stomach watching any of these people as they do all they can to destroy this country because that is what their nasty asses get paid to do.
May all of these evil bastards rot in hell.
beckyboo @ 25:
speaking of Ashcroft, Blunt looks like his uglier brother. as if Ashcroft was talking, and someone hit him in the face with a pipe mid-sentence.
Of the active oil rigs in production, very few are actually pumping oil, most are pumping natural gas.
Check this site for the number, location and purpose of all our active drilling rigs.
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html
We have 1922 active US rigs operating right now. Of that total, only 370 (19.3%) are producing oil with the other 1544 producing natural gas.
If oil production was such a big concern, wouldn't these numbers be a little different? Wouldn't the oil companies be using some of the OIL leases they already have, but refuse to drill?
"Show me" an lying asshole republican from Missouri.
Hi Roy.
GOP = Great Oil Party
You almost have to give them credit. It takes some effort to wake up in the morning, face an oncoming catastrophe like the GOP is facing, and put on your pretend-serious face and go play the game of late 90's, early 2000's GOP partisan.
There's a hollowness to it, now, like they realize they've been making bad choices for a very long time, but there's really no time to change course. So they straighten up, lift that violin up to their chin and play on.
"Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure serving with you."
Tom Brokaw said something similar in his interview with Al Gore. In talking about opening up off shore drilling, Brokaw commented that there hadn't been any recent off shore spills.
In the 1980's Republicans did not consider hurricanes a threat to oil production in the Gulf, but an environmental protection tool. When Mexico's Ixtoc oil well near Yucatan blew into a catastrophic spill that threatened the Texas coast, reporters asked out Governor, Bill Clements what should be done. Clements was very knowledgeable. His own off shore drilling company SEDCO, was involved in Ixtoc. "Pray for a hurricane," was
Clement's response.
My apologies. The Ixtoc oil spill started in June, 1979. It was the second worst oil spill in history at the time. http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/6250.
Bill Clements was a wonderful piece of work. He was our first Republican since reconstruction in Texas. He was the first to impose the death penalty by lethal injection.
He was also the first to cause the death penalty to be imposed on a football team (SMU). When asked about his untrue denial of later revealed payoff s to SMU football players during his time as Cahirman of the schools Board of Trustees, Clements said "There weren't any Bibles around. " He was also one of the first Texas R's to come out this cycle for John McCain.
The desperate Reslugs continue to lie, cheat and steal to their very stupid, hateful sheep.
Blunt looks like he should be saying, "Live brief, and don't prosper."
What a moron! Has he ever been on the coast? Catalina island is 200 miles off the coast and I can see it just fine. I think I will be able to see the oil platforms 50 and 100 miles out. Oh, wait! We already do here in California. How about the oil I see on the beach here in Long Beach from our three little island platforms? What a jerk!!
Why does this guy (Blunt) remind me of Sen. Larry Craig? I just can't figure it out. Oh yeah, now I know.....
Dear Roy:
Thaaaaanks for the immuuuunity!
-southworstern bell corp ("at&t")
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9365607/
did you read the article
As for oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Paskewich said the Coast Guard has fielded no reports of offshore spills there, though leaks could spring when the thousands of oil platforms and hundreds of miles of pipeline are restarted
The Coast Guard estimates more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled from industrial plants, storage depots and other facilities around southeast Louisiana.
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