WTF? Carol Browner says ~75% of BP Oil Captured, skimmed, burned, contained

[mod mom]

HEARD THIS ON NPR THIS AM:


About 75 percent of the oil has either been captured, been burned off, evaporated or broken down in the Gulf, according to a report to be released Wednesday by scientists with the Interior Department and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"It was captured. It was skimmed. It was burned. It was contained. Mother Nature did her part," White House energy adviser Carol Browner said on NBC's "Today" show.

About 26 percent of the oil remains in the sea in the form of light surface sheen or tar balls, or has washed ashore, according to the report.

-snip

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127901771


WTF- IS THIS A SNOW JOB TO SAVE BP FROM HAVING TO DISH OUT BIG BUCKS?

[Statistical]

1. I doubt it.

BP liability is based on the amount spilled not the amount remaining.

[ejpoeta]

2. yeah what a load of crap. that oil is out there UNDER THE WATER!!!

this bullshit about how it's contained is just an effort to make it sound like problems's solved.

[joeybee12]

3. "or broken down?"

Yeah, I agree...WTF????

[ejpoeta]

4. yeah i heard how mother nature was breaking it down. what a load of horseshit.

[joeybee12]

6. From Rush Limpballs mouth...to Carol Browner's...

...absolutely phucking amazing.

[Enrique]

5. she was on the Daily Show a week after the spill

and didn't say a word about the spill. Granted, Stewart didn't ask about the spill, but he's not the head of the EPA.

[another saigon]

7. somebody sold their soul

remember what a champion of consumers she used to be? Way to become part of the problem Carol.

:grr:

[mod mom]

11. Actually I recall her roll in allowing the WTI Toxic Waste Incinerator near a school:

WTI failed part of its test burn in 1993, releasing four times more mercury than allowed. Children at the elementary school were tested for mercury in their urine prior to WTI operation and again six months after the facility started burning as part of a state health study. In the first test, 69 percent of the children tested negative; the follow-up test found that nearly the same number tested positive.

U.S. EPA's own risk assessment of the facility found at least 27 possible accident scenarios that could threaten the lives of the children in the nearby elementary school.

Despite these and other problems, the U.S. EPA issued WTI a full commercial operating license in 1997. The agency has also allowed the facility to nearly double the types of wastes it can burn.




Behind The Scenes In Washington

When Clinton became president, he appointed Carol Browner head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

Ms. Browner then sent a small cadre of scientists to court in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as expert witnesses on behalf of Waste Technologies, Inc. (WTI).

Because a memo to Ms. Browner from one of her staff was leaked to Greenpeace (a plaintiff in the lawsuit trying to shut down WTI), Ms. Browner's staff were forced to admit under oath that after Ms. Browner took office on January 20th, EPA conducted a secret risk assessment on the WTI incinerator.


EPA's secret risk assessment revealed that the incinerator would be 1000 times more dangerous than EPA had estimated in the risk assessment they released to the public.

-snip

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/21045/9822/688/446786


JUST ANOTHER CORRUPT CORPORATIST WORKING FOR INDUSTRY. :mad:

[ixion]

8. BS

'nuff said.

[kenny blankenship]

9. The Government lies

What's new?

[Xenotime]

27. Not true. Show me where there is oil? It's almost all gone.

[kenny blankenship]

31. I love sarcasm, too

you are among friends.

[G_j]

10. unbelievable! nt

[zipplewrath]

12. Probably close to true

Roughly 40% "evaporated" on the surface. So to get to 75%, you only need about 35% to have been consumed in other forms. Burning on the surface probably wasn't a big portion, and there may be some double dipping here because part of the 40% estimate is going to include material that was burned before it evaporated. The troubling part is that much of the remaining amount, whether 25% or possibly as much as 40%, is probably predominately under water. The deeper it is, the longer it will take to be broken down, and no one has particularly figured out how to do it mechanically. So we'll be at the mercy of the ability of microbes to work at those depths. Add to that the reality that the 40% were the most volatile elements, and left behind the least, which the microbes might have the greatest difficulty working on and these numbers get less rosy. Finally, storms are coming and that remainder could end up in the rain, or sucked up in storm surges. At that point it is in areas where the microbes don't normally thrive.

All in all the number may sound "good" but may hide some grisly realities. And 25% of a big shit load is still a quarter of a big shit load.

[slackmaster]

13. Not even BP is claiming anything close to that

:crazy:

[Romulox]

14. Per wiki, Browner is an (ex?) oil industry lobbyist, married to a current oil industry lobbyist

Browner is now married to former Congressman Thomas Downey. The marriage, his second, her third,<1> took place on June 21, 2007, in Riverhead, New York.<53> Downey heads a lobbying firm representing clients in the energy industry.<5> In 2006, she and Downey collaborated on behalf of Dubai Ports World, but were unable to persuade Senator Charles Schumer to their viewpoint during the Dubai Ports World controversy.55]

Browner joined the board of the National Audubon Society in 2001 and became chair in 2003;<56> her term expired in 2008.<57> She also joined the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization founded by Gore in 2006.<53> In 2008, she joined the board of APX, Inc., which specializes in technology infrastructure for the environmental commodities markets<9> including those for carbon offsets and the CDM Gold Standard.<58> She was also on the boards of the Center for American Progress, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and the League of Conservation Voters.<9> She left all of these boards in late 2008 when she was named to serve in the Obama administration.<59> Until summer 2008 she was a member of Socialist International's Commission for a Sustainable World Society,<60><59><61> although the commission's web site still had her listed as a member in January 2009.<62>
Her income in 2008 was between $1 million and $5 million from lobbying firm Downey McGrath Group, where her husband was a principal.<63> She also reported $450,000 in "member distribution" income, plus retirement and other benefits from the Albright Group.<63>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Browner

[mod mom]

16. What a disappoint Obama's picks are!

I sadly admit, I was totally bamboozled, and thought he was diffusing the power of the corporatists by placing them in key roles. :blush:

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. Fox in charge of the hen house.

Bu$h did that=bad
Obama does it=good.


:wtf:

[izzybeans]

40. Does anyone know who Carol Browner is

really?

I mean it's like she's never been in charge of the EPA before. :sarcasm:

[golddigger]

15. They have no shame.

[truebrit71]

17. I saw a similar headline this morning and wondered just WTF she had been smoking..

75% of the oil has "gone"? Yeah, my arse it has...This is just SOOOO much bullshit..Just who the fuck do we have in office these days? I was used to being treated like a moron when * was in office, but I thought 'Change' would bring that to an end..Guess not...:eyes::grr:

Simply unfucking believable..

[mod mom]

22. They didn't call her out on this on NPR.

I would think many of the listeners, who I guess are better informed than others, were questioning this statement. Truth no longer matters with either party it seems. :mad:

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. No, it is actually how it works

and the nature part... I just love nature... them pesky bacteria, with no help, would have taken two years. But reality is withing a week of oil reaching surface, the lighter parts of it do evaporate.

Why a few of us said that things were bad, but that there was hope.

Here is more to this "snow job" gulf coast food is SAFE to eat.

Oh and in case you were wondering... they still SHOULD be fined on ALL the oil that gushed out.

And I am personally pleased they were able to pick up as much as they did... oh wait, where were the ships? Jones Act and all that...

And no, they are not clean, and they should be fined to the max of the law, and no, we don't know the full effects yet... it will take a couple years at least.

[Oregone]

20. But when it evaporates, doesn't it leave all the heavy metals and shit in the water?

[backscatter712]

21. More like 75% of VISIBLE oil captured, skimmed, burned, contained.

Don't forget the underwater dispersed plumes and the Corexit which should be adding extra flavor to your seafood very soon...

[mod mom]

24. Charter boat captain has a hard time believing this:

Charter boat captain Randy Boggs, of Orange Beach, Ala., said Wednesday he has a hard time believing BP's claims of success with the static kill and similarly dismissed the idea that only a quarter of the oil remains in the Gulf.

"There are still boats out there every day working, finding turtles with oil on them and seeing grass lines with oil in it," said Boggs, 45. "Certainly all the oil isn't accounted for. There are millions of pounds of tar balls and oil on the bottom."

-snip

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/1310ap_us_gulf_oil_spill.html

and comments @ NOLA aren't buying it. I'd like to hear Oceanographers not connected w the oil industry speak on this.

[backscatter712]

25. Good point.

Even if we're talking about visible, floating, non-dispersed oil, any claims from BP should be taken with a tanker truckload of salt...

[AlabamaLibrul]

30. I live down the road from him and I have a hard time believing it too. n/t

[Individualist]

23. Disgusting but not surprising blatant lie from a former (?) oil industry lobbyist.

[neverforget]

26. move along, nothing to see here......

[The Backlash Cometh]

28. This sounds as stupid as giving ground zero at the Twin Towers a

clean bill of health a month after the attacks.

[mod mom]

29. we expected that from the GOP but NOT our own party.

The sheeple on the right buy this BS but many D's are losing faith in our party.

[yawnmaster]

32. anybody have any scientific evidence one way or another?

instead of just "bullshit"
do we have evidence that this is a snow job? or the converse?

I, personally, would like to know the truth and it is hard digging through the hyperbole.

thank you

[AlabamaLibrul]

37. A short trip down memory lane of BP / NOAA's lies.

The fact that BP and NOAA lied about underwater plumes of oil that NOAA later admitted existed, the fact that BP spent 3 months coming up with the allegedly "true" amount of oil exploding out of the well, all the while inching it up, the fact that Tony Hayward claimed the drilling "mud" was "water-based" and "non-toxic" even though it had sodium hydroxide (lye), ethylene glycol (the *toxic* antifreeze) and some other chemicals...Need I go on?

I, for one, have no scientific proof one way or the other. It's above my pay grade.

But in the words of *, "Fool me once, shame - shame on you. Fool me twice... You can't get fooled again"

[yawnmaster]

41. I don't see the coupling between those lies and whether its true about the 75% reduction of oil...

I will personally wait for some real evidence.

[AlabamaLibrul]

42. There is no coupling, in theory, my point is that pathological liars continue to lie until there's

reason not to.

I'm not saying it's 100% false, but I'm definitely not buying it at this point in time.

[yawnmaster]

43. that is true. But for logical arguments, one must observe evidence...

with little regard to previous lies. It can be difficult as we are emotional creatures, and those lies can leave us biased and doubting. I'd hate to be biased wrongly because of someones lies, so I try and observe things with a logical and scientific perspective - again - not always easy.

[joeybee12]

33. Carol Browner is now head of the eBPa....n/t

[izzybeans]

39. as she was in the 90s under Clinton.

[Vinca]

34. Don't worry, be happy. It was the biggest oil spill in history, but it's all good now.

Do they think we all just fell off a turnip truck? This is BP getting ready to throw up the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Accompanied, of course, by the checkbook closing ceremony.

[nc4bo]

35. Commonsense is telling me this is a big pile of blatant BS. It's just too bad "this" admin.

expects us to believe it.

:wtf:

[Barack2theFuture]

36. "headline" and teaser on MSNBC this morning is "The Oil from the Leak is Gone"

I call bullshit.

[Orsino]

38. Watch closely, folks. Their thumbs never leave their butts. n/t

[mod mom]

44. WOW 40% unrecommends, either a lot of BP fans or Browner fans out there.

:eyes:

[krispos42]

45. 25% of huge fuckin' number is still a pretty huge fuckin' number

The Holocaust would still be the Holocaust if "only" 3 million people were systematically exterminated.

[Sebastian Doyle]

46. What pisses me off is her claim that all the seafood from Dead Sea 2 (the gulf) is "completely safe"

Yeah, sure it is. Which is why crude oil and Corexit are right there next to the ketchup and salsa in the door of your refrigerator. Perfectly safe. :eyes:

[Romulox]

47. Would love to see the President and his family dig into some Gulf seafood! nt

[mod mom]

49. I'd rather see the f-ing oil tycoons feast on that toxic s#@!

just after they rolled up their sleeves and w/o protection helped clean up the mess they created.

[nc4bo]

51. +1!!! nt. My first thoughts on the 1st family munching on oysters is...

it ain't gonna happen.

[lib2DaBone]

48. Hey Carol.. your check is in the mail... honest...

[Cetacea]

50. KICK