FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
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Gulf Coast Oil Spill by Karen Tumulty
Who says there’s no such thing as loyalty in politics? Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), who has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from the oil industry during this elec- tion cycle, revealed Thursday that he may be the only person in America who believes that BP de- serves an apology for the way it
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washingtonpost.com Following the continuing saga of the oil spill
BP takes it on the chin on the Hill; an animated chart predicts the spill’s spread; images from the “spillcam” still have shock value; cleanup attempts push forward; wildlife struggle for survival; residents fight to counter the toll on their livelihoods.
washingtonpost.com/green
has been treated during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Although Barton later retracted his suggestion that BP was the vic-
tim of a White House “shake- down” — after House GOP leaders threatened to take away his posi- tion as ranking Republican on the
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Energy and Commerce Commit- tee — the episode showed the un- comfortable spot in which some Republicans find themselves. This is not the moment to be seen as coddling Big Oil. The GOP leadership has laid out a set of talking points that spread blame in all directions — toward the company, the White House and the regulators who looked the oth- er way.
But some Republicans are hav-
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ing trouble bringing themselves to say anything bad about an indus- try that has been so good to them. It was notable that in their state- ment distancing themselves from Barton, House Republican leaders John A. Boehner (Ohio), Eric Can- tor (Va.) and Mike Pence (Ind.) re- ferred to the spill — caused by the explosion of an oil rig — as a “nat- ural” disaster. The oil industry “has deep pockets, and they have a long his-
A7 Gulf oil spill puts industry-friendly Republicans in tight spot
tory of supporting Republicans,” said political consultant John Weaver, a former strategist for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Like any kind of ad- diction, it’s a terribly difficult thing to break.” To some Republicans, the de- fense of the oil industry has more to do with their belief in free en- terprise and their wariness of reg- ulation. The debate over drilling has been a core part of their argu- ment for less government. This may not be the best moment to be making that argument, either. For the GOP leadership, it
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hasn’t been easy to get their peo- ple to stick to the script: Blame Obama, but scold BP. (The prob- lem with message discipline is, it requires discipline). It isn’t just Barton. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called the $20 billion escrow account a “re- distribution of wealth fund.” Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga) accused the Obama administration of “Chica- go-style shakedown politics.” Sarah Palin has gone so far as to
suggest that the real fault for the catastrophe in the gulf lies with the environmental movement. On June 1, the former Alaska
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governor and former vice presi- dential nominee sent this message out on Twitter: "Extreme Gree- nies: see now why we push ‘drill, baby, drill’ of known reserves & promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR [the Alaskan Natural Wildlife Refuge]? Now do you get it?” If that kind of spin seems out of touch with public outrage, the GOP also risks falling out of step with parts of its own base. Among some evangelicals, for instance, there is a growing environmental movement. In a blog post the same day as Palin’s Twitter fusil- lade, Southern Baptist theologian Russell Moore suggested that the oil spill should be the same kind of call to arms for conservative Christians as the Roe v. Wade deci- sion establishing abortion rights was nearly four decades ago. “For too long, we evangelical
Christians have maintained an uneasy ecological conscience,” he wrote. “Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corpo- rations to protect the natural re- sources and habitats.”
tumultyk@washpost.com
Q & A Edward Overton, a Louisiana
State University environmental scientist, and Ian R. MacDonald, a Florida State University oceanography professor, answer questions about the oil spill. Send additional questions to
health-science@washpost.com.
Q: Could a hurricane pick up and disperse the oil onto land? MacDonald: Definitely. One of
the exacerbating factors in the Exxon Valdez spill is that they had a bad storm with near-hurricane-force winds about one week after the spill. That dispersed the oil and made it hard for skimmers to get to it and drove it way up on the beaches. If a hurricane was traveling west, the counterclockwise rotation of the storm would bring oil to the land. Overton: Yes, but the key word
is “disperse.” When oil is dispersed, Mother Nature can handle it pretty easily because it’s a natural product. In large clumps, it does damage. Will it cause environmental problems? I don’t think so, because the oil will be dispersed over a big area. This is controversial. Some see
death and gloom from a hurricane, but that’s not my view. A little bit of oil doesn’t cause a problem. It’s not a terribly dangerous material.
Q: When they burn the oil, BUY1ATREGULARPRICE, GET 2 FREE
how do they control the fire? Overton: They burn it in . . . booms that are fire-retardant — they don’t burn up from the heat. Once they ignite it, it burns itself out until it uses up all the oil. The whole ocean doesn’t burn, just what’s collected in those booms.
Q: What efforts are being made to detect contamination in seafood from the gulf? Overton: There’s no fishing or
harvesting in a large area that has been affected by the oil. Of course, fish can swim in and out of that zone, so the zone of no fishing is much larger than the actual oil area. Then, the catch is inspected
rigorously by organoleptic testing, which is a fancy science word for taste and smell. A selected portion is undergoing chemical analysis. MacDonald: There are tasters
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trained to find seafood contamination. It turns out that the trained palate can detect hydrocarbons in the parts-per-million range.
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