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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he will step up efforts to supply energy to Asia after Washington delayed a decision on whether to approve a new oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.

In a subtle warning to Washington, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao that providing energy to Asia was an important priority for Canada.

“This does underscore the necessity of Canada making sure that we are able to access Asia markets for our energy products,” Harper told reporters on Sunday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Hawaii. “That will be an important priority of our government going forward and I indicated that yesterday to the president of China.”

Citing health, safety and environmental concerns, President Barack Obama’s administration said it would now study a possible new route for TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline. The delay could end up killing the $7 billion project altogether if supporters back out or the administration is unable to chart a new route.

Health, safety and environment are the concerns voiced. Most are wholly illegitimate. I’d gladly discuss any real issues here – but, decades of experience as environment activist requires cutting through the political crap.

Canada is already the largest foreign supplier of oil, natural gas, electricity and uranium to the United States. The proposed pipeline has the capacity to move 700,000 barrels of crude produced from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in Texas…

Harper’s conservative government has repeatedly voiced disappointment at the delay and some big businesses say the move by the Obama administration was purely political to push the decision out past the November 2012 election.

Certainly, the issues are being discussed. I started to watch a presentation on CNN, yesterday; but, the sophistry, lies and hypocrisy were at the level of a Republican “debate” on commerce with China. As soon as the so-called environmentalist said the oil was being transported to the Gulf of Mexico to be transshipped to our “arch enemy, China” – I changed the channel back to an FA Cup match.

As it stands, Canadians still must commit one way or the other on the much more critical ecological decision ranging from nuclear power generation to landscape regeneration before any expansion of oil sands production.

Before 9/11, we may have allowed ourselves to be cynical about Western governments and their leaders, but we took it for granted that, faced with rising terrorist threats, they were not just hoping for the best but planning for the worst.

It turned out that nobody was.

The intelligence community saw warning lights flashing, but nobody took preventive action. Then airport security failed. Then the jets failed to scramble. Institutions that were supposed to protect us were asleep. In an instant, we discovered that no one was looking out for us.

The fire crews, the police and the emergency medical service teams who were called to the scene that September morning tried to make up for the failure of institutions with raw courage. The men and women in uniform who climbed upward into the fire displayed that virtue beyond measure or praise. But courage is no substitute for sovereigns that fail.

A sovereign is a state with a monopoly on the means of force. It is the object of ultimate allegiance and the source of law. It is there to protect, to defend and to secure. It is there to think the unthinkable and plan for it.

A sovereign failed that morning…

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One year ago the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon erupted in a torrent of oil, gas, drilling mud, and flames, claiming the lives of 11 men and setting off an 87-day environmental nightmare. The explosion also triggered an equally ferocious barrage of rhetoric in the nation’s capital. A frantic burst of congressional hearings emerged as the immediate oversight response. As usual, they were full of sound and fury—sadly but not surprisingly—signifying nothing.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that 101 oil-spill-related bills were introduced in the 111th Congress, which came to a close in 2010. Exactly zero were enacted into law. Another 15 have been introduced so far this year—none of which has been acted upon by its committee of jurisdiction.

This is an abject failure on the part of the legislative branch when obvious fixes remain on the table. Mandated liability limits for economic damages incurred by local residents are shamefully low and no mechanism is in place to ensure any fines BP or other responsible parties are forced to pay would actually be returned to a region still devastated by the companies’ negligence…

Now, with the 112th Congress…House Republicans have stomped on the gas pedal. The first set of oil-related bills marked up by the now Republican-controlled House Committee on Energy and Natural Resources were three introduced by that body’s chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA). Rep. Hastings’s bills would dramatically accelerate the permitting process in the Gulf of Mexico and require the secretary of the interior to open portions of the heretofore untouched outer continental shelf in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans to more drilling…

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Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The blowout preventer that should have stopped the BP oil spill cold failed because of faulty design and a bent piece of pipe, a testing firm hired by the government said…in a report that appears to shift some blame for the disaster away from the oil giant and toward those who built and maintained the 300-ton safety device…

The report by the Norwegian firm Det Norske Veritas is not the final word on the Deepwater Horizon disaster last April that killed 11 workers and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from a BP well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

It helps answer one of the lingering mysteries nearly a year later: why the blowout preventer that sat at the wellhead and was supposed to prevent a spill in case of an explosion didn’t do its job.

The report cast blame on the blowout preventer’s blind shear rams, which are supposed to pinch a well shut in an emergency by shearing through the well’s drill pipe. In the BP crisis, the shear rams couldn’t do their job because the drill pipe had buckled, bowed and become stuck, according to the DNV report.

The 551-page report suggested that blowout preventers be designed or modified in such a way that the shear rams will completely cut through drill pipe regardless of the pipe’s position.

The blowout preventer was made by Cameron International and maintained by Transocean Ltd.

The report suggested that actions taken by the Transocean rig crew during its attempts to control the well around the time of the disaster may have contributed to the piece of drill pipe getting trapped.

“This is the first time in all of this that there has been a clear design flaw in the blowout preventer cited,” said Philip Johnson, a University of Alabama civil engineering professor who did not take part in the analysis. “My reaction is, ‘Holy smokes, every set of blind shear rams out there may have this problem…’”

Speculation on why the blowout preventer failed has persisted during the year since the disaster…

Johnson, the professor, said the report indicates that the blowout preventer had a design flaw that may have gone unnoticed by the entire industry, not just by Cameron.

RTFA if you feel you really need to know how each company’s lawyers attempts to pass the blame along to one or more of the other companies. Predictable.

The only item of substance – aside from laying the blame at the feet of Cameron International and Transocean – is that all the blowout preventers of this type may be potentially faulty. And that had better be changed real soon, folks.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Britain said on Wednesday it would review its regulations covering offshore oil and gas drilling in the North Sea following the publication of a U.S. investigation into BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The review will start within a month and will report later this year, Energy Minister Charles Hendry said in a statement…

A White House panel probing BP’s massive oil spill called on Tuesday for an overhaul of America’s offshore drilling regulatory system, damning it as “entirely unprepared” for disaster..

Last week a parliamentary report warned Britain was not ready to tackle a spill of the kind suffered by BP and that if one did occur, taxpayers could end up paying the clean-up costs.

Hendry said his officials would study the White House oil commission’s report to identify its implications for British deepwater drilling. He said some of the report’s recommendations were already existing practice in the North Sea but that Britain was committed to learning what it could from the findings.

“We have already acted, in the light of the emerging information from the many investigations into the disaster, to strengthen where we can what is already one of the most robust environmental and safety regimes in the world,” he said.

In particular, devices called acoustic switches required by Norwegian regulators and accepted by the Brits could have been, should have been, used on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. They had been in place for previous drilling ventures in the North Sea.

The dead have no voice in our politics
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

BP and its partners made a series of cost-cutting decisions that ultimately contributed to the oil spill that ravaged the Gulf of Mexico coast over the summer, the White House oil spill commission said on Wednesday. In its final report on causes of the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, the commission said BP and its collaborators on the doomed Macondo well had lacked a system to ensure their actions were safe.

“Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money),” the report said.

Created by President Barack Obama in the midst of the BP spill, the panel is the first government-sanctioned group to wrap up its probe of the causes of the drilling disaster…

Although the commission lacks authority to establish policy or punish companies, its conclusions could have a bearing on future criminal and civil cases relating to the spill…

The commission’s report ultimately blamed management failures for the April 20 explosion that ruptured the Macondo well and unleased millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf.

The commission also concluded the Gulf spill was not an isolated incident caused by “rogue industry or government officials”.

“The root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur,” the report said.

The report offers no surprises. Neither will the responses, I fear.

We wil get to watch Congress in action as both sides work at avoiding doing anything of importance.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The Justice Department on Wednesday sued BP and eight other companies in the Gulf oil spill disaster in an effort to recover billions of dollars from the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.

The Obama administration’s lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the oil spill, including damages to natural resources. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act…

The federal lawsuit says inadequate cementing of the well contributed to the disaster. Similar charges were made by BP in its internal investigation, and by the independent presidential oil spill commission. But Halliburton Co., the contractor in charge of mixing and pumping the cement, is not named in the suit…

An explosion that killed 11 workers at BP’s Macondo well last April led to oil spewing from the company’s undersea well — more than 200 million gallons in all by the government’s estimate. BP disputes the figure…

The lawsuit alleges that safety and operating regulations were violated in the period leading up to April 20.

It says that the defendants failed to keep the Macondo well under control during that period and failed to use the best available and safest drilling technology to monitor the well’s conditions. They also failed to maintain continuous surveillance and failed to maintain equipment and material that were available and necessary to ensure the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources and the environment, the suit charges.

Democratic Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., a member of the House energy panel that is investigating the spill, acknowledged the government will have a tough fight on its hands since BP has already taken an aggressive stance regarding its liability.

“It may have taken these companies months to cap their well, but they will spend years trying to cap their financial obligations to the people of the Gulf,” Markey said. “That is why it is vital for the Obama administration to swiftly advance this legal action.”

And so it begins. I wonder if the suit will be resolved in my lifetime. Between judicial processes, laws written for lawyers, decisions promulgated to protect corporate wealth, it will be years if not decades for anything approaching justice. It’s the American way.

The Department of Justice has filed fraud charges against eight people over claims of damages related to the BP oil spill.

The indictments were announced on Friday against people in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Michigan and North Carolina who the government said fraudulently sought money from the $20 billion pool financed by BP.

Among those charged were Cam T. Hang of Louisiana, who, according to the Justice Department, demanded $42,000 for business losses related to a restaurant that does not exist. A Michigan man, Kevin Hall, claimed he lost $9,000 at an ice cream stand in Pensacola, Fla., that, according to his indictment, is similarly mythical.

Charlette Dufray Johnson, a North Carolina woman, was accused of filing claims in the name of her sister, saying that she worked for a company in New Orleans that suffered losses because of the spill. The sister is deceased. Ms. Johnson is also alleged to have also filed a dozen other claims totaling nearly $80,000 related to Hurricane Katrina, a California wildfire and storms in Georgia and Tennessee.

“The charges announced today send a strong message that we will not tolerate any fraudulent activity designed to profit from this tragic oil spill,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer.

This is the little end of the “American Way” of fraud. Understand these are hustlers who aren’t capable of a real con. They’re just fraudsters accustomed to shucking and jiving past run-of-the-mill bureaucrats. Hopefully, the tidying up that the Obama Administration has been injecting into the DC way of doing things will continue to root out government-job hacks.

Some of the layabouts have been bounced. Let’s see if any of the “important” campaign contributors end up facing serious penalties.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Halliburton and BP knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job…

In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.

The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners…

Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well on April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, yet those findings were never sent to BP, Mr. Bartlit found.

Although Mr. Bartlit does not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he makes clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident…

The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. The blowout preventer, which sits on the ocean floor atop the well and is supposed to contain a well bore blowout, also failed…

The commission obtained from Halliburton samples of the same cement recipe used on the failed well, including the same proportion of nitrogen used as a leavening agent and a number of chemicals used to stabilize the mixture. The cement slurry was sent to a laboratory owned by Chevron for independent testing.

The mixture failed nine separate stability tests designed to reproduce conditions at the BP well and did not pass any, according to Chevron’s test results, which were returned to the commission this week.

Enough said. Now, we can look forward to years of politicians, pundits, pimps and lawyers delaying resolution of the disaster. Survivors be damned will be the rule of the day.

Arranging blue crabs for sale in New Orleans
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The US government reopened nearly 30 percent of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that were closed to fishing following the BP oil spill after tests showed that seafood there is safe to eat.

The area covers 6,879 square miles off the coasts of Florida and Alabama, and is the ninth reopening of waters since the spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a statement on Friday.

At its closest point, the area is about 110 miles southeast of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in April and sank to the sea floor, hemorrhaging crude for more than 100 days.

“Each reopening is a reassuring sign that areas once impacted by oil can again support sustainable fishing activities,” said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco.

“Tourists and consumers should know most Gulf waters are open for fishing and seafood from these waters is safe to eat…”

About seven percent of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, or 16,481 square miles (42,685 kilometers), remain closed to fishing, it added.

Of course, if you think you need more to worry about in terms of food safety — you can always warm yourself with no confidence in any testing whatsoever.

One of the benefits of being a lifetime news junkie.