GOVERNMENT TELLS BP TO INCREASE ITS CAPACITY TO CAPTURE SPILLED OIL OR...WHAT?

"The U.S. Coast Guard gave BP Plc 48 hours to find more capacity to contain its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico after scientists and researchers doubled their estimates of the spill’s size.

BP’s efforts don’t “provide the needed collection capacity consistent with the revised flow estimates,” said Rear Admiral James A. Watson, the federal on-scene coordinator, in a letter dated June 11. It was sent to Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, and was released today.

...The spill began after the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon sank April 22, following a blowout of BP’s well that killed 11 of its crew.

It has closed as much as 37 percent of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, cut offshore drilling in the nation by half, polluted 140 miles (225 kilometers) of shoreline from Louisiana to Florida, and cost BP more than $1.43 billion.

Separately, BP said today its board will meet June 14 to discuss whether to cut or defer its second-quarter dividend payment following the spill.

A decision on the dividend may not be reached at the meeting, BP spokesman Robert Wine said today in a telephone interview today. “All options are being considered,” he said. “No decision has been taken.”
Bloomberg

"Brazil could benefit from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill as a U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling boosts available rigs for the country's deep water oil exploration program.

Even as an ecological catastrophe makes the future of U.S. offshore drilling less certain, Brazil is plowing ahead with a $220 billion five-year plan to tap oil fields even deeper than
BP's (BP.L) ill-fated Gulf well, which is still leaking crude.

With an estimated 35 rigs idled in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil is already receiving inquiries from companies looking to move their rigs here, where vast discoveries in recent years
may soon turn the country into a major crude exporter."
Reuters

So we threaten and we bellow. We shut down drilling and we cry for justice. And what will happen? The oil companies will move their rigs elsewhere. The Obama administration just can't figure this out. It's just like taxes; raise them high enough and the rich will go someplace else. The people and the companies that control vast amounts of money and power are not constrained by national boundaries.

Our leaders are incompetent. Not just the current crop but stretching way, way back. The ones that have never led, only followed the money and the power, doing as they were told by their masters in the corporate world and the special interests. They sold our freedom for personal power. And now, as they sit in their halls of power and mansions, surrounded by luxury, we watch as our waters, air and freedom drift away.

As the rigs leave the Gulf the environmentalists will rejoice thinking they've realized a dream. In reality, the nightmare will just be beginning. If they think our oversight was lax, just what in the hell do they think China is doing in Cuban waters? How about Mexico or Venezuela? Do they think these Marxist Utopias even have the slightest concern for the environment? They don't. The only thing that concerns their leaders is money and power, just like ours. The difference is that the people are out of the loop. No one can force Castro or Chavez to follow any safety or environmental guidelines.

And the best part of all? Every gallon of oil we buy from them goes to support our enemies and their push to destroy our country and our way of life. And buy it we will. We have to have oil to function and if we won't drill it ourselves we'll get it where we can.

Isn't that special?