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Why Did The U.S. Refuse International Help on The Gulf Oil Spill?
By Dian L. Chu, Economic Forecasts & Opinions
Despite the vow by President Obama to keep the Gulf oil spill a top priority until the damage is cleaned up, 50 days after the BP rig exploded, a definitive date and meaningful solution is yet to be determined for the worst oil spill in the U.S. history.
So, you would think if someone is willing to handle the clean-up with equipment and technology not available in the U.S., and finishes the job in shorter time than the current estimate, the U.S. should jump on the offer.
But it turned out to be quite the opposite. .
U.S. Refused Help on Oil Spill
According to Foreign Policy, thirteen entities had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance within about two weeks of the Horizon rig explosion. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.
The U.S. response - Thank you, but no thank you, we've got it.
"..While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future."
Blame It On The Jones Act?
Separately, Belgian newspaper De Standaard also reported Belgian and Dutch dredgers have technology in-house to fight the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Jones Act forbids them to work in the U.S.
A Belgian group--DEME-- contends it can clean up the oil in three to four months with specialty vessel and equipment, rather than an estimated nine months if done only by the U.S. The article noted there are no more than 5 or 6 of those ships in the world and the top specialist players are the two Belgian companies- DEME and De Nul - and their Dutch competitors.
The U.S. does not have the similar technology and vessel to accomplish the cleanup task because those ships would cost twice as much to build in the U.S. than in the Far East. The article further criticizes this "great technological delay" is a direct consequence of the Jones Act.
What Is The Jones Act?
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is a United States Federal statute that regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27, also known as the Jones Act, deals with coastal shipping; and requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.
The purpose of the law is to support the U.S. merchant marine industry. Critics said that the legislation results in increased costs moving cargoes between U.S. ports, and in essence, is protectionism, Supporters of the Act maintain that the legislation is of strategic economic and wartime interest to the United States. .
European Service Sector - Offshore Subsea Specialist
As discussed in my analysis of the oil service sector, the European companies typically possess the knowhow in offshore and subsea; whereas their North American counterparts excel in onshore drilling and production technologies.
So, it is more than likely that European firms do have the expertise to clean up the spill quicker and more effectively as DEME asserts.
Since the Jones Act means the Belgian ship and personnel cannot work in the Gulf, it does seem the Act has inhibited technology and knowledge exchange & development, and possibly prevented a quicker response to the oil spill.
Jones Waiver Time
On the other hand, waivers of the Jones may be granted by the Administration in cases of national emergencies or in cases of strategic interest. It would appear the U.S. government's initial refusal to foreign help most likely stemmed from a mis-calculation of the scale and deepwater technological barriers for this unprecedented disaster, and/or perhaps ..... pride.
Whatever the rationale, and if De Standarrd's claim that the Jones Act forbids the European companies to help fight the spill is true, it is high time the U.S. government grant the Jones waiver, and let this be an international collaborative effort.
It's always better late than never.
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Wonder if you could explain something to me GG. It's a pretty widely held opinion that the U. S. Gov't can't scratch its own balls without causing damage. So, how come so many people want the gov't to take over this Gulf fiasco? Those who seem to complain the most about gov't "intervention" in private business (not to include you) are the ones seemingly screaming the loudest. Like, "Stop gov't spending, but don't mess with my Medicare!". Why the disconnect in thinking? What the hell is going on? If BP is screwing up so royally, why would any sane person want the gov't to take on the mess? There is nothing historically pertinent to say that the gov't can do a better job. It just seems so dissonant. I'll admit to being socially and politically inept, but my first guess is that the situation is MUCH more disastrous than reported that nobody wants this hot potato. At least BP can be blamed. If the gov't took on the task then the blame would shift. Bad move!
Movies, propaganda, and the education system.
Statism has evolved from a niche self-justifying belief of court intellectuals into a religion upheld by schools and families.
The government and its workers are usually held up as superheroes. The entire male gender, for example, is raised on tales of costumed crusaders who use fists, guns, and high technology to fight "bad guys." There's no problem that can't be solved by violence or torture in the popular culture. Or seduction, in the case of women.
The state is also widely considered to be the arbiter between good and evil. Mere scraps of paper are considered to be holy documents that actually have power over the actions of men.
If you want to speak about movies propaganda, in the US, it is all about the middle class. All about it. The middle class is the hero of the US movie propaganda.
How many movies has a middle class hero? That is even caricatural.
Been a long time I havent not watched a US made movie. But when I used to, usually the other characters were either failures (the poor class) whose personal attributes cause their downfall or unproficient elite (the rich class)
Funny as funny because the general message somehow mirrors what you can read on this site. A hero who has enough heart to provide a solution for failures who are only leechs to him and this despite of an inefficient ruling elite.
How many movies have this structure?
The State is certainly not the core of the US movie propaganda. The middle class is. Normal as they are the bulk of the US movie consumption and that US citizens cannot bear to hear speaking of someone else than themselves.
To conclude what you do in the final paragraph, Apostate, requires a total divorce of self from reality for the last 30 years.
Privatize, priviatize, privatize - that has been the order of the day for decades. Under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. "Government is the problem," "fuck you" to the air traffic controllers, Clinton's NAFTA attack, and all that . . .
The self-serving, self-righteous businessman - the stock jobber like welfare queen Jack Welch - is the true hero in this fading Empire. Hank Reardon lives (and his name is Alan Greenspan)!!
The efforts to which died-in-the-wool capitalists endeavor to shift the blame away from capitalism is breathtaking!
Fiat currency that allows policy-makers to decide who wins and who loses instead of merit is not capitalism. Fiat currency that discourages efficiencies and capital re-allocation is not capitalism.
Merit in what way? Efficient in what way?
You replace a word with loose meaning by other words with loose meaning.
Quick example: capital re-allocation.
There is a finished pool of resources. Several solutions that grew on the resources pool. One solution A has been draining 45pc of the resources extraction volume per year, by far the biggest share among the other solution.
The resource pool is consumed up to 70pc.
What is efficiency?
Is it to direct the remaining resources toward A on matter that it achieved something that the others can no longer reach? Or is it to direct resources on other solutions which can still get bigger?
I don't intend loose meaning with those words.
I agree that the pool of resources is fixed. Labor, time, natural resources.
Borrowing from the future to use up resources with current technology does not encourage finding efficiencies and will end up using more resources more quickly. Efficiencies - processes used to either increase production at the same cost or keep production the same at a lower cost.
I may be wrong with the next part, but it is just a thought. As the economy grows (say in housing) more people start investing in housing, more companies start building houses and all of a sudden you have too much supply, not enough demand so prices fall and the marginal producers fail while those who can innovate (create efficiencies) survive. Now assume that you don't let this happen because you can borrow from the future (print or borrow), you have sub-par producers using up resources more quickly and less efficiently than the good producers. Now assume that you have a military and tons of government agencies that create no products for no revenue and likely wouldn't exist without fiat currency at their current size, but are capable of existing and paying their employees who are not incentivized to become more efficient (no profit, minimal raises for performance). Now assume that the military uses more fossil fuels than anything else on the planet. Does this use up resources more quickly than would otherwise be used in value-based exchange economy? It all boils down to survival of the fittest, if you make things more easy for people to exist and get-along, they will use the easy resources more rapidly and less efficiently than if they were forced to innovate to compete (merit). If it were decided by a true free-market who won and who failed, more capital would flow to the capable producers which can innovate and can be more efficient and hire more people to help ensure their products can be produced the most cheaply at the best quality which collectively benefits the consumers - unfortunately the producers make most of the laws. When politicians decide by who lobbies the most, this process stops and everyone burns through resources much more quickly. This is a long way of describing what I meant by capital re-allocation.
Other solutions can grow, but only when humans are forced to.
It's not about playing the blame game at this point, but to remedy the situation as quickly as possible and salvage what's left. I'm personally a small Government advocate and I'm not asking the government to fix this, because as you said it will further fuck up everything. What I am saying is that at least the Government should not HINDER people/countries who have the know-how/experience/ideas to fix this thing. Instead it is allowing the criminal (BP) to clear up its own crime scene. BP has responded predictably by focusing more on hiding the facts than fixing things. At this point it seems like the government WANTS everything to get even worse, which is just a manifestation of the fact that all the politicians are interested in is avoiding blame rather than fixing things. In this case, as in all, it would help the situation more if the Government did NOTHING, than if it did anything even though we have BIG government and it has appropriated all the resources from the private sector, such is the sorry state of today's US Government.
It does seem that they want it to get worse. I do know that most of our current policy makers are haters of mankind and especially the proletariat. If their food supplies or beach front property aren't affected, they could care less and probably deep-down enjoy watching it happen.
G_G,
Well the only BRIGHT spot in this, at last we FOUND ONE THING BHO doesn't want to RUN.
Gotta be a first............
So much for the U. S. dominance in "technology" and superiority, eh? What you would like to see (as well as the rest of us) will apparently not happen. For the very reasons you outline. One wonders where NASA is! They do very difficult maneuvers in the void of space. Not much different from 5,000 feet below sea level technologically speaking. Well, there I go again -- showing my ignorance. If folks would just do what they were elected to do: Support and protect the populace. How hard can that be?
++ Gordon and Rocky.
I've backed off on this statement. Obviously it's a BITCH!
"It's a pretty widely held opinion that the U. S. Gov't can't scratch its own balls without causing damage. So, how come so many people want the gov't to take over this Gulf fiasco?"
I will presume to chime in by saying that these two facts are not mutually exclusive.
It is the case that 'gov't can't scratch balls'. It is also true that many people want the government to intervene.
I have to agree that it seems pretty stupid to ask your abuser for assistance, things might not turn out well here.
It could be that a focal point for blame is needed. There are too many players right now for the lumpen proletariat to zero in on. We need a villain goddamit! Give us something to make some paper mache effigies to burn.
The government should be taking charge of preventing the oil from hitting the coast and for general cleanup. In fact they have a mandate to do so. No sane person wants them involved in trying to stop the leak. That's BP's job. The problem with the government response is that they bought BP's lies about how much oil was/will leak for too long and did not mobilize to try to get control over the actual spillage until way late in the game.
According to Packgen (who has buku footage of boom sitting in a warehouse), the Feds have totally deferred to BP on what will be deployed. Here is an entrepreneur who wanted to answer the bell and instead got the back of the hand for his expense and initiative:
http://www.necn.com/06/03/10/Confidence-turns-to-frustration-for-Main/la...
Thanks for the replies. So, as things stand, the gov't is waffling. I sure expected more.
Does either of you think that when all the smoke clears (hoping there is actually no smoke!) that it will ultimately be shown that there is a major economic disaster going on? See my quote post below. If the real information were to be fully known there could be a mass migration from the Gulf area, and make Katrina look like a summer breeze.
Rocky, I live in New Orleans and went through the entire Katrina debacle. I don't know how bad this is going to be but the more I see the worse it looks. The worst case scenario that I see for the short term is a hurricane coming through the northern Gulf and dumping this stuff on New Orleans and surrounding areas. We are expecting a very busy hurricane season and the weather so far this spring has been indicative of a busy season. People should realize that about 30 percent of the nation's oil and gas goes through here, as well as a huge percentage of the shipping, and if get wiped out the nation's economy will suffer a huge hit. And that doesn't begin to address the ecological disaster the entire nations could suffer from this.
Tricky and Rocky, agree 100% about what a disaster this is and likely will be.
I'm with the author, just let the European guys in who can deal with this.
BP is doing something, and they WILL pay. .gov would just be much worse.
Tricky Dick! Whatever you do, please do not change your name to AlfredEObama!
It is an example of how bad policies become immortal within government. Medicare has been a cost overrun train wreck for decades but people are used to it and allowed themselves to plan their lives around the expectation of it. At one level they know new entitlements would be bad but cannot accept that the existing ones need to be killed as well if fiscal sanity is ever to prevail.
A bigger mystery is why BP, a company with extensive European links, would be resistant to recruiting aid from a European company. Or why this administration, which is pretty much the most resistant to the idea of American exceptionalism as any in my lifetime, would be opposed to making it an international effort. (The label 'transnational progressive' comes to mind.) Especially if it is likely to deflect the massive negative PR accruing from their slow reaction to the problem.
It is worrisome when one has to attempt to figure out, 'are they evil or stupid, and which is worse?'
LOL. You know you're in the shit when these are your choices.
Man. O man o man o man..... If I had a dime for every time I have heard that question brought up, I would almost have as much money as Gordon G. Seriously: Can any of you remember a time that the word "evil" has been used so often, and so seriously?
Possibly the greatest collateral damage done to this country by this administration to date is the almost complete and universal lack of trust that has been bred within each of us.
When trust is gone, the United States of America is over.
That's because we've secretly accepted a Russian offer to nuke the well shut.