Althouse: NYT headline "U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits."

May 14, 2010

NYT headline "U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits."

Do you notice anything missing from that headline and from the text of the article?

Clue: The cited practice has been going on since January 2009.

71 comments:

KCFleming said...: NYT = Pravda; Nancy Pelosi, editor.

The headline, in 2006, would have had "Bush" as the first word.; 5/14/10, 9:05 AM
X said...: you do know Bush was still President in January 2009?; 5/14/10, 9:13 AM
MadisonMan said...: That struck me too. Who initiated the change I wonder.

If it was Bush (I doubt it), why didn't Obama un-do it? If it was Obama, well, bad idea.; 5/14/10, 9:15 AM
Moose said...: Well they worked Bush into the article, but not Obama...

WV: Cavity - oooh. Naughty.; 5/14/10, 9:15 AM
rhhardin said...: It doesn't seem to be missing anything that isn't always missing in the NYT.

It's willfully naive about lefty press releases.; 5/14/10, 9:15 AM
TMink said...: Bush is Obama's invisible evil twin President.

Trey; 5/14/10, 9:15 AM
SteveR said...: "you do know Bush was still President in January 2009?"

"The cited practice has been going on since January 2009."

you do know Barack Obama has been president since January 2009?; 5/14/10, 9:18 AM
Original Mike said...: Channeling Glenn Reynolds: They told me if I voted for McCain Big Oil would wreak havoc on the environment, and they were right!; 5/14/10, 9:22 AM
Fred4Pres said...: You are not allowed to embarass Obama. Who do you think he is, George Bush?

Imagine if McCain had won and this happened? Sarah Palin would be hunted down like a wounded caribou.; 5/14/10, 9:24 AM
X said...: you do know Barack Obama has been president since January 2009?

that reminds me, is Obama putting arsenic in the water supply just like Bush was in 2001?; 5/14/10, 9:26 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: If everyone would just stop driving their damn cars we wouldn't have to drill for oil.; 5/14/10, 9:29 AM
former law student said...: Another biologist who left the agency in 2005 after more than five years said that agency officials went out of their way to accommodate the oil and gas industry.

Because the disgruntled biologist left the agency in 2005, my guess is "GW Bush." The NY Times left GW Bush's name out of the story.

What did I win?; 5/14/10, 9:30 AM
Triangle Man said...: Sarah Palin would be hunted down like a wounded caribou.

...from a helicopter.; 5/14/10, 9:30 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: We should have windmill powered cars.; 5/14/10, 9:31 AM
roesch-voltaire said...: How convient not to mention that the MMS has at least a decade long history of ethical mismanagement. To quote:The MMS captured the public attention in 2008 when an inspector general for the Interior Department, which oversees the agency, found that more than a dozen agency employees had engaged in ethical misconduct such as rigging contracts and accepting gifts, cocaine and sexual favors from oil-company employees.

Then, last year, the Government Accountability Office determined that the MMS failed to collect at least $21 million in oil-and gas-royalty payments. Other government reports found that oil companies might have underpaid $160 million in royalties in 2006 and 2007.; 5/14/10, 9:32 AM
Dave said...: And I can't believe they buried that article too.; 5/14/10, 9:34 AM
SteveR said...: that reminds me, is Obama putting arsenic in the water supply just like Bush was in 2001?

You couldn't have mischaracterized what happen more even if you actually knew the process and facts involved. You need to expand your sources of information.

Off topic and Epic Fail.; 5/14/10, 9:35 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Evryone should go back to wood burning stoves and horses and put Big Oil and Big Gas out of business. They're ruining the envrionment!; 5/14/10, 9:35 AM
AllenS said...: We wouldn't need so much gas if people would learn to shut their cars off at night.; 5/14/10, 9:36 AM
Anonymous said...: "Because the disgruntled biologist left the agency in 2005, my guess is "GW Bush." The NY Times left GW Bush's name out of the story.

What did I win?"

Some carbon offset credits.
Watch your mail for the letter from Algore.; 5/14/10, 9:36 AM
Bill Harshaw said...: If you read the NYTimes background, you find that MMS on Jan. 14, 2009 asked Commerce for comments on their proposed program for 2010-2015. The Times story doesn't say what the policy was for 2005-2009. My guess would be the bureaucrats were operating on autopilot, and the proposal was similar to what was going on in 2005-9. Given the transition, no self-respecting bureaucrat is going to stick his/her neck out and make big changes of policy before the new administration arrives.

The implication of your post is that a Democratic administration with environmentalist pretensions was more friendly to oil companies than a Republican administration headed by two former oil men!; 5/14/10, 9:38 AM
Wince said...: Not sure this type of regulation would have done anything to prevent the catastrophic technical failure that resulted in this full-scale blow-out.

Sounds more like the "hey, stop that, we’ve got research that shows you're bumming out the marine mammals with all that noise” layer of regulation.; 5/14/10, 9:41 AM
AllenS said...: Even though Bush wasn't president then, it's still close enough to be his fault.

WV: spilious

Spilious oil wells.; 5/14/10, 9:42 AM
rhhardin said...: All this on permits and nothing on hall passes.; 5/14/10, 9:42 AM
Michael Haz said...: Government Accountability Office

That one cracked me up.; 5/14/10, 9:46 AM
former law student said...: With hindsight, we learn that part of the permit application should include disaster contingency plans.

I keep expecting the Duke (aka Red Adair) to swoop down and fix things.; 5/14/10, 9:49 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: "Windmill powered cars." LOL.

I can almost picture Ed Begley in one of those. And that d-bag Joe Kennedy Jr. too - maybe the fresh air would clear up his nasally voice.; 5/14/10, 9:50 AM
X said...: you miss my snark stever. I'm just saying I don't remember hearing about Obama reinstating the aresenic regs Bush undid that Clinton didn't feel were important enough to enact until the night before he left office. it was such a big story under Bush, I figured it would be a big deal when Obama put the regs back in place. but I don't remember hearing about it. did he even do it?; 5/14/10, 9:52 AM
Original Mike said...: "We wouldn't need so much gas if people would learn to shut their cars off at night."

That one step alone would save more gas than properly inflating our tires.; 5/14/10, 9:57 AM
Roger J. said...: In a perfectt world bad things never happen--In the world we live in bad things do happen in spite of our best efforts to prevent them.

Thats life--totally unfair, and beyond the yammering of the poltical class to do a fucking thing about it.; 5/14/10, 9:58 AM
SteveR said...: Got it Comrade. /snark; 5/14/10, 9:58 AM
Original Mike said...: "MMS on Jan. 14, 2009 asked Commerce for comments on their proposed program for 2010-2015. The Times story doesn't say what the policy was for 2005-2009. My guess would be the bureaucrats were operating on autopilot, and the proposal was similar to what was going on in 2005-9. Given the transition, no self-respecting bureaucrat is going to stick his/her neck out and make big changes of policy before the new administration arrives."

This changing Administrations all the time really is risky. So many critical things can fall through the cracks. I say we just stick with the one we got.; 5/14/10, 9:59 AM
Joseph said...: If it started in January 2009, then it certainly was not initiated by Obama, as his political appointees would not be in place for months after that. It is more likely a change made by people leaving office.; 5/14/10, 10:18 AM
Unknown said...: Roger J's point is the real issue. Name a form of energy that isn't inherently unsafe - coal, the mines cave in (some other time, Montagne); oil, spills; nuclear, radiation; wind, blocks the view of Maatha's Vineyad.

This is a shell game where the Lefties use the problem of the moment to gain more control because, as Tippytoes told us, you never let a good crisis go to waste.

Fred4Pres said...

...

Imagine if McCain had won and this happened? Sarah Palin would be hunted down like a wounded caribou.

A cornered, wounded caribou can be deadly.; 5/14/10, 10:23 AM
paul a'barge said...: I blame the Juice ....; 5/14/10, 10:32 AM
Beth said...: It's almost as if there weren't oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, it's so much more important to complain about whether a news article says something mean about W. than to actually figure out what's wrong with the way the MMS operates, and has, for the past decade.

But what does Rush think?; 5/14/10, 10:57 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: All of you should be cyclists like me. Driving cars is environmentally unsound and cycling is excellent exercise and creates buns of steel.; 5/14/10, 11:06 AM
Original Mike said...: Beth, if I could stop the oil, I'd be on the next plane. Unfortunately, I can't.; 5/14/10, 11:17 AM
TheThinMan said...: Comrade X: "that reminds me, is Obama putting arsenic in the water supply just like Bush was in 2001?"
(This poor guy lives on nothing but Kool-Aid.) Comrade, in Clinton's last few hours before leaving office, he did as much damage as possible, to stick it to the Republicans and because he's an asshole. Besides pardoning people who stole millions and fled the country like Marc Rich, he gave dozens of executive orders on things that are normally approved by congress, the courts and/or voters. One of these was to make new water regulation. For his whole 8 years as president, there wasn't a peep out of him about this "problem." (Not to mention Arkansas having one of the worst environmental records when Clinton was governor.) The new regulation would have been so ridiculously expensive without having any noticeable effect (since the old regulation was already so stringent), even the New York Times at the time said Bush was right to rescind this last--minute order. But by the time BDS set in, the "Bush poisoned my water" myth was unshakable.; 5/14/10, 11:19 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: If Fred Flintstone could power his car with his feet there is no reason we should be drilling for oil and upsetting the delicate balance of nature.

Think of the childrens.; 5/14/10, 11:22 AM
Beth said...: Original Mike,

Damn, I was hoping you had this thing figured out.; 5/14/10, 11:26 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Mike is still pissed there is no Santa so don't count on any environmental miracles from him.; 5/14/10, 11:32 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: I did hear that Obama is borrowing Charleston Heston's Moses outfit from The Ten Commandments and is heading out to the Gulf Coast now to part the sea and get this thing fixed once and for all.; 5/14/10, 11:34 AM
Original Mike said...: More like crestfallen.; 5/14/10, 11:37 AM
AC245 said...: Once again:

1. Obama fucks up.
2. ?????
3. It's Bush's fault!; 5/14/10, 11:39 AM
SteveR said...: Once again a government agency with a very specific mandate apparently fails to do its job. That's easy to put onto one president or another but its really the system. That's what many people fear about health care reform.

How's the Department of Energy doing with energy, the Department of Education doing with Education? SEC, HUD, etc....; 5/14/10, 12:19 PM
Alex said...: Beth:

It's almost as if there weren't oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, it's so much more important to complain about whether a news article says something mean about W. than to actually figure out what's wrong with the way the MMS operates, and has, for the past decade.

But what does Rush think?

Never let a good crisis go to waste. Especially when you can get a dig in on Rush. Also I assume Beth uses NO fossil fuels or plastics.; 5/14/10, 12:26 PM
Synova said...: I think that, realistically, Obama didn't mess up and Bush didn't suppress scientists. I think that the politics involved are far more local, agency politics, office politics, which is why the election of a new president didn't change anything at all.

I don't give a lot of credence to the people in the article claiming that their warnings were ignored, mostly because none of it seems to be about how to prevent an explosion and spill. They may have a point about the risk of operations to wildlife, but there is never zero risk and we can't know if they were zero risk sorts of people. But an explosion and spill is a disaster no matter what. None of those scientists were giving determinations on where in the ocean it won't do any damage to have a spill like this.

So it all doesn't really tell us anything relevant and doesn't even tell us if the agencies were unethical or truly cutting corners... it's just he said/she said.

That was actually left to someone in the comment thread here. I guess real journalists can't be bothered.; 5/14/10, 12:26 PM
Alex said...: Imagine a 100 new nuclear plants so we could all charge up our electric vehicles. Gas would only be for semi-trucks and industrial uses. But nah, we can't have nuclear energy because Chernobyl is always around the corner!; 5/14/10, 12:28 PM
Original Mike said...: SteveR said: "Once again a government agency with a very specific mandate apparently fails to do its job. That's easy to put onto one president or another but its really the system. That's what many people fear about health care reform."

Yep.; 5/14/10, 12:29 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: RogerJ said "...beyond the yammering of the poltical class to do a fucking thing about it."

The political class is pissed at the very concept of something that is beyond their yammering.; 5/14/10, 12:30 PM
David said...: But Obama just said in the Rose Garden that we need to end this cozy relationship between the regulators and the regulated.

News flash: Except at times of CYA demagoguery, coziness between the regulators and the regulated it the natural order of things. Regulation inevitably turns into incumbency protection, capitalism version.; 5/14/10, 12:34 PM
David said...: "IS the natural order . . ." Typo King strikes again.; 5/14/10, 12:36 PM
Beth said...: Also I assume Beth uses NO fossil fuels or plastics.

Only a complete idiot believes that our choices are to give up all use of fossil fuels, or to give up regulation of the energy industry. It's either unregulated market or we're living in caves again!

No amount of fossil fuel will make that dim bulb brighter.; 5/14/10, 12:40 PM
Alex said...: Beth - the problem with you lefties is your constant agitation against the oil industry period.; 5/14/10, 12:49 PM
Synova said...: "Only a complete idiot believes that our choices are to give up all use of fossil fuels, or to give up regulation of the energy industry."

True. The argument is definitely in Jeremy-land.; 5/14/10, 1:14 PM
Opus One Media said...: @Beth...

You really need to abandon the use of common sense and logical observation on here. It is purely pow-zoom over the heads of a lot of folks.; 5/14/10, 1:49 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: After talking to someone in oil and gas today, my money is on this thing being fixed by the end of the month.

But sure, let's pretend this kind of thing would never happen if the government issued more pieces of paper.; 5/14/10, 2:28 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Why isn't Transocean mentioned in the article? It's their rig, not BP's.

You mean to tell me that the NYT has no idea how the oil industry works? No! Couldn't be!; 5/14/10, 2:29 PM
Blue@9 said...: I find that article rather comical in that it completely dodges the questions most interesting to political observers.

Who, exactly, approved of the policies?

Was it the Bush admin that initiated the policies?

If so, did the Obama admin and appointees undertake a review of the policies?

Who approved of this particular well?

I love the rather vague reference to January 2009--what does that mean in terms of political accountability? Who knows!; 5/14/10, 2:29 PM
Blue@9 said...: Oh, and let's be clear: Anytime the NYT prints an article where they bury or ignore such pertinent information, my bias radar goes up. There is certainly more to this story than they let on.; 5/14/10, 2:51 PM
Beth said...: Freeman, I hope your sources are right, but right now, I doubt it.

I'm not concerned so much about bits of paper, but about what they represent. The shutoff valve had many, many flaws, and is used anyway. The cementing process went wrong. BP had no plan to deal with a possible leak. A strong regulatory process would at least encourage the belief that each decision should matter, that each stage of a process creates accountability. That's lacking, and with the MMS literally in bed with oil company lobbyists, it's no wonder.; 5/14/10, 2:54 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Written by someone in that industry: http://oilmatters.blogspot.com/; 5/14/10, 3:04 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: @Beth:

A strong regulatory process would at least encourage the belief that each decision should matter, that each stage of a process creates accountability. That's lacking, and with the MMS literally in bed with oil company lobbyists, it's no wonder.

Haven't you figured it out yet? MMS is figuratively in bed with oil lobbyists BECAUSE there is a strong regulatory process. The stronger you make it, the tighter their relationship will be.

Because in a strong regulatory environment, only the biggest players can afford compliance. The biggest players have the most money, and the most influence on the political process. They trade some freedom and profit for more security.; 5/14/10, 3:35 PM
vnjagvet said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/14/10, 3:52 PM
vnjagvet said...: You can usually tell an article that hides the ball; the headline is in passive mode.

Since it was not "Bush allowed Drilling Without Needed Permits", Obama must be the guy.; 5/14/10, 3:54 PM
Original Mike said...: I think the issue isn't regulation-good/regulation-bad. There are few who would argue that we don't need regulation. Unfortunately, getting effective regulation seems to perpetually ellude us.

No matter who's in charge.; 5/14/10, 4:03 PM
Anonymous said...: The decision to drill or not to drill is a deeply personal one that I would never tell anyone else how to make.; 5/14/10, 4:17 PM
Beth said...: Gabriel, I'm not confused about the usage of literal and figurative. The MMS is literally in bed with energy company lobbbyists. As in, in bed and fucking. And doing drugs together.
Read all about it.; 5/14/10, 11:58 PM
Beth said...: getting effective regulation seems to perpetually ellude us.

No matter who's in charge.

Indeed. Money talks, especially to lawmakers. BP has a lot more speech than some shrimpers on the coast.; 5/15/10, 12:00 AM
Beth said...: The biggest players have the most money, and the most influence on the political process.

Good point. Our legislature is currently in session, and one bill supported by our chemical and energy industry, is aimed at shutting down Tulane Law School's Environmental Law Clinic. The chem lobby also sent out a letter to a bunch of industry CEOs asking them to withdraw all financial support from Tulane and not employ any Tulane grads so long as the law clinic operates. So, that's just another flank in their assault on regulation. Seduce the regulators, dilute the regulations, and shut down the people who use legal channels to enforce compliance.

And this is how screwed we are. This is all going on right now, with the spill in the Gulf.; 5/15/10, 12:26 AM