Sarah has a new blog entry.
You'll need a pair of chest waders and a barf bag to get through it.
Blasting the president for not taking control of a free-market corporation reveals frayed tea bag credentials:
These decisions and the resulting spill have shaken the public's confidence in the ability to safely drill. Unless government appropriately regulates oil developments and holds oil executives accountable, the public will not trust them to drill, baby, drill. And we must! Or we will be even more beholden to, and controlled by, dangerous foreign regimes that supply much of our energy.
Foreign regimes like Canada and Mexico who deliver more oil to America than any other country? The best way to enter this country from North or South would be in an oil barrel. She goes on:
As the aforementioned article notes, BP's operation in Alaska would hurt our state and waste public resources if allowed to continue. That's why my administration created the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office (PSIO) when we saw proof of improper maintenance of oil infrastructure in our state. We had to verify. And that's why we instituted new oversight and held BP and other oil companies financially accountable for poor maintenance practices. We knew we could partner with them to develop resources without pussyfooting around with them. As a CEO, it was my job to look out for the interests of Alaskans with the same intensity and action as the oil company CEOs looked out for the interests of their shareholders.
In March of 2006, Alaska had the largest onshore spill in Alaska history (210,000 gallons) went undetected for at least five days. Three BP gas and oil pipelines on Alaska's North Slope clogged or ruptured between September 2008 and November 2009. All while Palin was preoccupied with shopping, campaigning, race baiting and getting a book deal. Todd Palin worked for BP for 18 years. BP had another spill in December 2009 when a pipeline, while being inspected, broke from its well housing. Six acres of Alaskan tundra was contaminated. The DOJ began an investigation. The Alaska Attorney General, Talis Colberg, was too busy advising Todd Palin and other Palin aids to ignore subpoenas to notice. Just last month, the pipeline was closed down due to a spill that cost the state tens of millions of dollars.
BTW, you weren't a CEO, you were a governor. Elected not hired. Quit not fired.
I learned firsthand the way these companies operate when I served as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC). I ended up resigning in protest because my bosses (the Governor and his chief of staff at the time) wouldn't support efforts to clean up the corruption involving improper conflicts of interest with energy companies that the state was supposed to be watching. (I wrote about this valuable learning experience in my book, "Going Rogue".) I felt guilty taking home a big paycheck while being reduced to sitting on my thumbs - essentially rendered ineffective as a supervisor of a regulatory agency in charge of nearly 20% of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.
The reason Palin really quit was complicated. Corrupt? Oh, beyond belief. Palin hacking into a co-workers email account? Well, priceless. It got a bit uncomfortable around there. I never noticed Palin unwilling to take money for nothing. Paid for sleeping in her own bed, flying her kids around, clothes, etc. Good to see she's gotten over that.
My experience (though, granted, I got the message loud and clear during the campaign that my executive experience managing the fastest growing community in the state, and then running the largest state in the union, was nothing compared to the experiences of a community organizer) showed me how government officials and oil execs could scratch each others' backs to the detriment of the public, and it made me ill. I ran for Governor to fight such practices. So, as a former chief executive, I humbly offer this advice to the President: you must verify. That means you must meet with Hayward. Demand answers.
Considering the cozy relationship between Palin and Dick Cheney, I don't want to think about back scratching. Sarah's "executive experience" in her own hometown? She left it in massive debt-still losing the battle with meth. The largest state? That's geography. Consider the "largest state in the union" didn't give one red cent to SarahPAC in the first quarter of this year. We demanded answers. She quit.
In the interview today, the President said "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."
Please, sir, for the sake of the Gulf residents, reach out to experts who have experience holding oil companies accountable. I suggested a few weeks ago that you start with Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, led by Commissioner Tom Irwin. Having worked with Tom and his DNR and AGIA team led by Marty Rutherford, I can vouch for their integrity and expertise in dealing with Big Oil and overseeing its developments.
One of the best things Palin did was hire Irwin and Rutherford. She didn't put Pat Galvin on the list, but should have. I'll vouch for them. See, they're still working for Alaskans. Palin also failed to mention Rick Steiner and Riki Ott who have been invaluable to those suffering in the Gulf. Steiner had his funding pulled by the University of Alaska last year-the same week they cut the red ribbon on the new UAA Conoco Phillips "Science" Building.
We've all lived and worked through the Exxon-Valdez spill. They can help you. Give them a call. Or, what the heck, give me a call.
No. I lived and worked through the Spill. I smelled it every day, ruined more boots than I can count and if tears could clean crude off a baby otter, I would have saved every one of them. When Katie Couric asked what SCOTUS decision other than Roe v Wade weren't to Palin's liking, she COULDN'T REMEMBER the Exxon v Baker decision 3 months earlier!
If President Obama wants to look North for advice, I'd point him to the late Wally Hickel's book Who Owns America? Hickel was Nixon's Secretary of the Interior at the time of the Santa Barbara Spill in 1970. He pulled their leases for wasting a publicly owned resource. He dusted off the 1899 Refuse act for "teeth" to fight water polluting companies.
Hickel wrote: "That was law enough. All that was lacking was guys with guts. The laws are there. What is needed is the men--men with attitude."
Wally knew how to kick ass after an oil spill. His fighting spirit and can-do attitude are missed now more than ever.