“Unacceptable that North Carolina still does not have representation on a key ocean resources committee.”
Wilmington, NC: Ilario Pantano, Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, renewed his assertion that President Obama and his administration have been asleep at the wheel leading up to the oil leak and the 84 days since.
“Obama and his administration weren’t listening to their own experts on Energy prior to the spill,” Pantano said. “And since the spill they’ve continued to ignore their own experts along with many outside experts, and they’ve refused to deploy all available resources to solve this crisis.”
Pantano pointed to three examples that illustrate his concerns:
1. After neglecting and ignoring OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) Policy Committee, Obama has allowed their charter to expire during the midst of the Oil Spill Disaster. The purpose of this committee was to advise the Secretary of the Interior and the President on the leasing, exploration, development, and protection of OCS resources. The committee, which has been in existence since 1975, did not meet from the time Obama took office until May 6th of this year (after the BP Disaster), and amazingly the agenda for this meeting did not include anything related to the oil spill. Meanwhile Obama released his major proposal for OCS exploration expansion in March without meeting with this group.
a. North Carolina, despite the largest OCS acreage on the East Coast and the fourth largest in the nation, has had no recent representation on the committee. Two seats designated for experts specifically from Louisiana and Florida as well as four general seats filled by other coastal states were vacant at the time of the spill.
b. Now, not only do all seats remain vacant, but the group ceased to exist on June 5th and the charter has yet to be renewed.
2. Obama created a commission of seven to investigate the oil spill that is short on engineers and experts on oil spills, but big on commissioners who are outspoken in their opposition to offshore drilling. Obama appointed only one commissioner who is an engineer and only one is known as an expert in coastal issues and oil spills. There have been so many concerns about the lack of impartiality and the lack of technical expertise on the Obama commission that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has voted to create a bipartisan commission to do their own investigation.
3. The world’s largest skimmer, the “A Whale,” is still not in use despite assurances that it could skim twenty one million gallons of water today (a number that is 75% of the total water skimmed by other skimmers since the cleanup began). Federal government red tape, like failing to suspend the Jones Act for almost three months (President Bush suspended the restrictive Jones Act in just days following Hurricane Katrina) and EPA restrictions continue to obstruct the full spectrum of solutions to adequately deal with this environmental crisis.
“Obama has found time to play golf at least 8 times since the oil spill occurred, but he can’t find time to re-charter the OCS Policy Committee, to create an impartial commission of experts to investigate the oil spill, or to ensure that all available resources are being used to plug the leak and clean up this disaster,” Pantano said. “We need a Congressman who will do his part to help hold the President’s feet to the fire. We can’t afford to wait until the oil reaches our beaches here in North Carolina. We have to stop the leak at the source and clean up the spill now.”
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