A Spill of Our Own
By LISA MARGONELLI
NYT
Oakland, Calif.
THE history of American oil spills is the history of the environmental movement. The 1969 blowout of an oil platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., gave rise to Earth Day as well as President Richard Nixon’s National Environmental Policy Act, and led to a moratorium on new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Twenty years later, the spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker near Alaska quashed the first Bush administration’s ambitions for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and ushered in the laws that made oil shippers liable for damage caused by their cargo.
Now 5,000 barrels of oil a day are apparently spilling from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig off New Orleans, and ghastly floating pads of emulsified oil are reaching the sensitive marshlands and coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, coating birds and fish. On Thursday, as the scent of fuel hovered over New Orleans, residents joked online that they should eat fish now, because they might not be able to again for a while. One longtime offshore oil worker told me this looked like a “game changer,” and he was thinking about finding another line of work.
It seems likely that the oil company that holds the lease on Deepwater Horizon, BP, will finally have to abandon its Orwellian “Beyond Petroleum” marketing campaign. This slogan has been so perversely successful that, in 2008, British marketers voted BP’s brand more “green” than Greenpeace. Factually ludicrous, the slogan does accurately reflect drivers’ desire to buy unlimited gasoline while remaining “beyond” all the mess.
In Washington, politicians are trying to get beyond the ugly spill, too. The Obama administration is backpedaling on the president’s commitment to opening more offshore lands to drilling. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida called for an immediate halt to offshore exploration. Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts prepared to call oil executives to a hearing to discuss oil company profits and the spill.
(More here.)
NYT
Oakland, Calif.
THE history of American oil spills is the history of the environmental movement. The 1969 blowout of an oil platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., gave rise to Earth Day as well as President Richard Nixon’s National Environmental Policy Act, and led to a moratorium on new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Twenty years later, the spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker near Alaska quashed the first Bush administration’s ambitions for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and ushered in the laws that made oil shippers liable for damage caused by their cargo.
Now 5,000 barrels of oil a day are apparently spilling from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig off New Orleans, and ghastly floating pads of emulsified oil are reaching the sensitive marshlands and coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, coating birds and fish. On Thursday, as the scent of fuel hovered over New Orleans, residents joked online that they should eat fish now, because they might not be able to again for a while. One longtime offshore oil worker told me this looked like a “game changer,” and he was thinking about finding another line of work.
It seems likely that the oil company that holds the lease on Deepwater Horizon, BP, will finally have to abandon its Orwellian “Beyond Petroleum” marketing campaign. This slogan has been so perversely successful that, in 2008, British marketers voted BP’s brand more “green” than Greenpeace. Factually ludicrous, the slogan does accurately reflect drivers’ desire to buy unlimited gasoline while remaining “beyond” all the mess.
In Washington, politicians are trying to get beyond the ugly spill, too. The Obama administration is backpedaling on the president’s commitment to opening more offshore lands to drilling. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida called for an immediate halt to offshore exploration. Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts prepared to call oil executives to a hearing to discuss oil company profits and the spill.
(More here.)
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