Posted on 06/11/2010 4:03:16 PM PDT by Starman417
Why hasn't he accepted cleanup help from friends overseas?
Readers may recall that ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper asked Obama this at the one and only formal news conference he has held since July 2009:
TAPPER: You say that everything that could be done is being done, but there are those in the region and those industry experts who say that’s not true. Governor Jindal obviously had this proposal for a barrier. They say that if that had been approved when they first asked for it, they would have 10 miles up already. There are fishermen down there who want to work, who want to help, haven’t been trained, haven’t been told to go do so. There are industry experts who say that they’re surprised that tankers haven’t been sent out there to vacuum, as was done in ’93 outside Saudi Arabia. And then, of course, there’s the fact that there are 17 countries that have offered to help and it’s only been accepted from two countries, Norway and Mexico. How can you say that everything that can be done is being done with all these experts and all these officials saying that’s not true?Obama could accept help from overseas, but he would have to issue a waiver under the Jones Act which was passed in 1920 to protect America's maritime industry. In other words, to save union jobs. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 President Bush did issue a waiver.
Here's more detail from the Heritage Foundation:
Read more at floppingaces.net...
Yes
IMO, yes. Obama doesn't care about anything or anybody except as he can use them to his advantage.
The Jones Act was was set up to protect our national security through maintaining a US flag fleet. Until the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon, Arco, chevron and others all had non-union (or a non affiliated company union) fleets. There are many non-union small vessel companies particularly in Southern states. Without the Jones Act you could have a lot of these vessels with Mexican flags on them.
The US Maritime Administration has a simple form for obtaining waivers.
According to Admiral Thad Allen, no one has applied for a waiver. The turn down of foreign help by Obama has been speculated to be more from simple arrogance and ignorance.
Seems to me like Bam Bam is more concerned about making sure BP goes bankrupt than in solving the problem. Why the big statement about dividends? Why the demand to pay the salaries of oil workers put out of work by his moratorium?
When we look back on this disaster we'll see it as the start of nationalizing energy companies and the wedge to get all kinds of cap and trade legislation in. That's the real agenda at work here. The fact that now they'll be more offshore oil rigs to use off the Brazilian coast which happens to be a venture Geroge Soros is invested in, is just an added bonus.
I have yet to hear even a half-arsed excuse for not waiving the Jones Act in this circumstance.
Yes.
YES
Does the Sun rise in the East and set in the West?
I come from the cruise travel industry which deals with the Jones Act on a daily basis. The unions have been interfering with fully legitimate American businesses such as the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. - a company owned by the Uebberoths (of Olympics fame). All they wanted to do was run a Mississippi cruise operation with American workers, but not union. James Oberstar (R - MN) blocked the vessels permit as head of the transportation committee because of union pressure. Ask NCL-America what trying to run a union cruise line in Hawaii has been like (they had to reduce their fleet from three to one ships costing thousands of jobs) because the union made them non-competitive with non-union (foreign flag) cruise lines.
Our Seaman’s Internation Union does not care about America - they care about their own agenda. Enough to even scare a sitting President. Sad. Meanwhile Fox is reporting foreign vessels are installing wind turbines off the coast of Maryland.
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