How does Obama's refusal to accept clean-up assistance from the Dutch sit with environmentalists?

Obama refused the ships and clean-up crews from the Dutch to not upset the unions in his party base. Bush suspended the Jones Act during Hurricane Katrina because emergency help was needed from anyone and everyone.



How should the environmentalists digest this fact when they see oil covered pelicans?How does Obama's refusal to accept clean-up assistance from the Dutch sit with environmentalists?
He loves seeing a sea of oil. He can pretend to be 'in control' when he calls the emergency dutch. Plus also he can harp on about bp compensating everyone.
Source?



If that's true, then it's despicable.How does Obama's refusal to accept clean-up assistance from the Dutch sit with environmentalists?
A Dutch skimmer is not a boat or ship as right-wing media likes you to believe but a sweeping arm skimming system that can be attached to a boat or ship so the Jones Act does not apply.



BP took a shipment of 4 of them.
They see it as a chance to get cap and tax passed.How does Obama's refusal to accept clean-up assistance from the Dutch sit with environmentalists?
It had nothing to do with a union issue, now how about addressing the fact that bush refused assistance from many nations after Katrina hit?
Uhh, no he didn't "suspend the jones act during katrina because emergency help was needed" They waived ONLY for ships carrying oil and natural gas. We turned down aid from foreign countries, does france ring a bell?



If the parties wanting to help follow our guidelines and laws I don't see why we should be turning away help.
No. Obama didn't accept the help because the Dutch system will still put back tiny dropplets of oil into the ocean which goes against EPA regulation standards. I think that was stupid. We can clean up most of it with the help of the Dutch then worry about the rest later, however it can be understood that it would take twice the resources to do that and we would have to do the job twice even if it is better for the environment this way. Bottom line it comes to $$$. Like always.
It would be nice if the harm could be mitigated somehow.

It's not surprising that the US will not be seen as

weak enough to need help while being

well armed enough to conduct two wars.



It's not right to leave your people unprotected and spend huge money to hurt others.

There's little hope of saving face now, but that's the goal.
I doubt Obama's waiting to do anything was because of his usual slow to action. Obama wanted this oil slick to be as bad as it could be, which is why he hindered and ordered nothing to be done in the first few weeks of the oil disaster. Individuals are still being stopped by the Coast Guard when they take on the efforts to clean up the oil themselves. All Obama does is step in, mugs for the camera, then leaves to give a lame speech.



Obama wants his Cap and Trade to pass, so he's doing what he can to make us all agree with it. "See! See, I told you this would happen!"



Obama is also trying for some reason to stop what little growth we have of the economy. All of his stunts have proven effective in doing so from unchecked illegal immigration to a health care "reform" that's going to scare small businesses into not hiring, to this oil spill which Obama is using to push more ineffective and costly legislation.
Fine, since he did not refuse help from the Dutch, no matter what Palin and crew say. They offered skimmers, and we accepted them. Skimmers are not ships, they are skimming equipment.



No, Bush did not suspend the Jones Act to get emergency help; he did it to keep the oil flowing. From the US Customs and Border Patrol (who oversee the Jones Act):



"unless otherwise instructed, the waiver of the Jones Act applies only to vessels transporting petroleum and refined petroleum products and ends September 19, 2005 at 12: 01 a.m. eastern daylight time."
Environmentalists -- liberals -- don't really care about the environment. Communism will come to us wrapped in a Green Environmental Agenda. And they were right. It's very obvious now. They don't care about he environment. It's all for the purpose of weakening the USA and as this oil spill gets worse and worse and it helps Obama's agenda to tax the Western World into a lower standard of living and to keep us dependent on foreign oil.



As you can see, these liberals could care LESS about the environment. They're having a blast chiding Republicans about drill, baby, drill.
It appears this proves environmentalists have an alternate agenga as we all thought.

I think it was 13 or 17 countries that offered to help. If that had been used it is very likely it would never hit the coasts.

see the Sweden offer below.



There was a backup plan the government never used.



Why was the BP emergency blowout plan lifted and given an exclusion 10 days before this happenned?



This whole thing needs to be investigated. It's more than just strange that right after offshore drilling was approved this happened. Too many on the left are happy about this.



There are other issues.

BP did donate allot of money to obama's campaign.





Safety responsibility shifted to companies The Canwest News Service also notes, “In a recent investigation, the Wall Street Journal found that the U.S. (Department of the Interior’s) Minerals Management Service (MMS), which regulates offshore drilling south of the border, has been gradually shifting safety responsibility to the oil industry.”



Documents show that no blowout plan was required for BP’s sunken Gulf rig because of relaxed federal regulations in 2009.



A Washington Post investigation concluded that in April 2009 the MMS granted BP a "categorical exclusion" from requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act to file papers on what it would do in the event of a blow-out at the new well. It reported that BP had lobbied for the exclusion just 11 days prior. Moreover in its own assessments, the MMS concluded that a blow-out at a deepwater well in the Gulf would be unlikely to generate spills bad enough for oil to threaten coastal ecosystems.



In 2008, the Interior Department took disciplinary action against eight MMS employees who accepted lavish gifts, partied and — in some cases — had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated. An investigation cited a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" involving employees in the agency's Denver office. Bush put forth 17 warnings in 2008 and the Democrats sat and fiddled.



If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.



The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore. "They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose."





it could have been contained to the point of not reaching land and that was offered May 8th, 2010. Stockholm were prepared to offer up to three skimming vessels able to collect about 50 tons of oil per hour from the sea and hold about 1,000 tons at a time. But for the record, the current message to foreign governments is: Thanks but no thanks, we’ve got it covered. WE DO NOT HAVE IT COVERED.



Sweden offers to help the US to clean up oil spill

http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/4377…

"These offers include experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research and technical expertise, booms, chemical oil dispersants, oil pumps, skimmers, and wildlife treatment," the State Department said in a statement.



Published: May 8, 2010

Michael Mohr, Sweden’s homeland security liaison at the embassy in Washington, said Saturday that officials in Stockholm were prepared to offer up to three skimming vessels able to collect about 50 tons of oil per hour from the sea and hold about 1,000 tons at a time. The ships could take several weeks to arrive from the Scandinavian peninsula, Mr. Mohr said. “We’re on standby,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/us/09r…



The administration has been relentless in its messaging that it is doing everything possible to aggressively respond to the oil spill.
Doesn't matter, because the one who should have made that call was BP.