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Three Republican senators demanded Friday that the White House explain last-minute editing changes to an Interior Department report on the BP oil spill that falsely implied that a group of independent experts had endorsed a political decision to temporarily halt all deepwater oil drilling. The senators, members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called for hearings into the matter, contending that the White House had manipulated science for political ends, a claim Democrats frequently made about the George W. Bush administration. The Interior Department’s inspector general issued a report this week asserting that officials in the office of Carol...

Bobby Jindal says Barack Obama told him to stop going on TV to criticize him during the oil spill. In comments meant to plug his new book, "Leadership and Crisis," Jindal told Sean Hannity that Obama was so insecure about his public image that he actually tried to prevent him from making more TV appearances where he would criticize Obama for his failed response to the BP oil spill. Jindal’s new book went on sale earlier this week, and as other media has noted, he really chides the president in a way that sitting governors normally don’t do, which has...

Governor Sarah Palin’s Record That Gave Her A 90% Approval Rating: Energy Independence, Development, and Environmental Stewardship *Governor Palin’s cornerstone accomplishment is AGIA (Alaska Gasline Inducement Act). During the Palin administration, TransCanada and Exxon formed an alliance to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48. Under Governor Palin’s governance, the project was expanded and revised from what previous governors had proposed with an open policy process for the Alaskan people. More progress was made on this effort than in the previous 30 years. This is the largest private sector infrastructure project in North American history and...

See the link. Jinda accuses Obama of staging the lecture on the tarmac for media purposes, and says Obama was more concerned about the White House's image than the oil cleanup. Complained to Jindal about Jindal complaining about Obama.

The Great Oil Spill Panic of 2010 will go down in history as mass hysteria on par with the Dutch tulip bubble. The catastrophists were wrong (again) about the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. There have been no major fish die-offs. On the contrary, a comprehensive new study says that in some of the most heavily fished areas of the Gulf of Mexico, various forms of sea life, from shrimp to sharks, have seen their populations triple since before the spill. Some species, including shrimp and croaker, did even better. And meanwhile, the media has greatly exaggerated damage found in...

I am appalled watching the news now about the Obama White House signaling that they intend NOT to extend the Bush Tax Cuts that will help small business owners all over the United States so they can stimulate the economy and hire more people. This will be devastating for people all over. It will cause massive bankruptcy in the private and business sector. If they do this then Palin literally will have the ammo to take Obama down and she will have corporate backing from business leaders everywhere that will propel her to the Oval Office. This is a arrogant...

advertisement With the Republican Party's newly won control of the House of Representatives, national energy policy could be rolled back to 2005, with all legislative advances under a Democratic Party majority at risk. Republicans could adopt a dual-track strategy that attacks energy regulation through budget reductions of the Environmental Protection Agency that de-fund efforts to impose carbon emissions on industrial infrastructure, at a minimum coal-burning utilities and the gas and oil complex of extraction and refining.

"Academics, environmentalists and federal investigators have accused the administration since the April spill of downplaying scientific findings, misrepresenting data and most recently misconstruing the opinions of experts it solicited. "Meanwhile, the owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, Transocean Ltd., is renewing its argument that federal investigators are in danger of allowing the blowout preventer, a key piece of evidence, to corrode as it awaits forensic analysis. Testing had not begun as of last week, the company says, some two months after it was raised from the seafloor."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The oil spill that damaged the Gulf of Mexico's reefs and wetlands is also threatening to stain the Obama administration's reputation for relying on science to guide policy. --snip-- Meanwhile, the owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, Transocean Ltd., is renewing its argument that federal investigators are in danger of allowing the blowout preventer, a key piece of evidence, to corrode as it awaits forensic analysis. Testing had not begun as of last week, the company says, some two months after it was raised from the seafloor. --snip-- "There are really only...

The Interior Department's inspector general says the White House edited a drilling safety report in a way that made it falsely appear that scientists and experts supported the administration's six-month ban on new drilling.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal calls the Obama administration "lackadaisical" in its Gulf oil spill response in his new book "Leadership and Crisis," laying out his views on everything from health care to energy policy while keeping silent on whether he harbors presidential ambitions. Criticism of Democratic President Barack Obama for the federal disaster opens Jindal's 311-page book set for nationwide release next week as speculation turns to those Republicans who might challenge Obama in 2012. Part autobiography, part conservative manifesto, the book charts the rise of the 39-year-old son of Indian immigrants to the Louisiana governorship...

Alabama's Gulf Spill Post-Mortem: Up To $3.3 Billion And 49,000 Jobs Were Destroyed Gus Lubin Nov. 6, 2010, 8:19 AM A study out from the University of Alabama gives the first real look at economic impact of the BP oil spill. The score card: $1 billion to $3.3 billion for Alabama alone. Perhaps we can quadruple that number to account for Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, in which case the worst case would be over $13 billion -- pretty close to David Kotok's estimate back in May Here's the data:[snip]

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Shares of Halliburton Co. fell sharply on Thursday after the lead lawyer for a presidential commission to investigate the Deepwater Horizon accident focused on the cement-sealing work, meant to prevent gas leakage from the stricken well that caused the death of 11 workers and the worst oil spill in U.S. history. A letter from the commission’s lawyer also points out that tests of the sealing job were either misinterpreted or not made by well owner BP PLC or Transocean Ltd. , the operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Halliburton stock dropped 10% at $30.94 in afternoon...

WASHINGTON -- Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday. It's the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said tests showed the cement mix was stable....

(CNSNews.com) – Nearly two-thirds of the outstanding compensation claims from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have no documentation to backup their loss, according to the administrator in charge of distributing compensation money to the victims. Meanwhile, at least 50 claims are considered "very suspicious" and could be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.On terms largely dictated by the Obama administration, BP, a British multi-national corporation, agreed to set up a $20 billion escrow fund and have lawyer Kenneth Feinberg independently administer it to compensate victims of the oil spill.The overwhelming number of compensation claims deal with economic loss or...

Now the nation’s top drilling regulator is taking aim at that vulnerability with a plan to supplement rig inspections by putting government engineers to work studying pressure readings, fluid levels and other real-time data streaming from offshore wells. In the future, “we may rely somewhat less on our inspectors going on rigs, having their clipboards, going through lists and checking whether the rigs meet certain requirements,” said Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Instead, he said, “there is a need for more instrumentation on these rigs to provide real-time kinds of electronic data...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, once criticized by President Barack Obama for taking too long to toughen regulation of offshore oil and natural-gas drilling, said he expects to keep his job after the mid-term elections. "I absolutely believe that I will stay on," Salazar said today in a phone interview. "The president and I talk about what I do here at Interior. I think he's pleased with the work I've done. He's told me so." Salazar's performance drew criticism in the months after a BP well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, setting off the worst U.S....

ON THE FLOOR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO -- On the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, just 20 miles north of BP's blown-out well, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many of these delicate deepwater habitats. Scientists are currently in the early stages of studying what effects, if any, BP ( BP - news - people )'s oil spill in April had on the habitats of plankton, fish, crabs and corals. So far, it appears they dodged a bullet - at least in this area. Researchers have not found any immediate damage, but...

NPR's Scott Horsley conjured a striking image of President Obama in his Morning Edition report on whether the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused significant and lasting political damage to the president. (Scott's report concludes it probably didn't.) Anyway, heres's how Scott's piece began: There was a time this spring and early summer when President Obama seemed like another helpless shore bird, drenched in oil, unable to fly. USA Today asked if this latest Gulf disaster was becoming "Obama's Katrina." And the New York Times drew ominous parallels to Jimmy Carter, as TV's spill-cam offered a round-the-clock...

I was reading today in the news that Ancestery.com had genealogist that concluded that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin shared a common ancestor. Now it just struck me that Hawaii Dept of Health has not released Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate to anyone who has requested it. So now that Sarah Palin has a common ancestor she should be able to aquire his vital records according to HRS 338-18 (b)(5) which is this: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrs2008/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0018.htm §338-18 Disclosure of records. (a) To protect the integrity of vital statistics records, to ensure their proper use, and to ensure the efficient and proper administration...