"I Love It When A Plan Comes Together" - Words You Will Never Hear From BP or The Obama Adminstration

Given that a new movie about the television show "The A-Team" is coming out this summer, I thought it might be appropriate to recall this famous line ("I love it when a plan comes together.") from the TV show and apply it to the oil spill in the Gulf, which is now more than 50 days old. According to an Associated Press report from June 9, 2010 by Holdbrook Mohr, the BP contingency plan for dealing with a runaway well and oil spill did not quite come together:

• The contingency plan listed Professor Peter Lutz, a national wildlife expert, as a person to contact in case of a well disaster but..... he died in 2005.
• The contingency plan listed Professor Lutz's university as the University of Miami but.. the professor left the University of Miami almost 20 years ago.
• The contingency plan listed several names of Texas A&M professors who were marine life experts but.... their names and phone numbers were wrong.
• The contingency plan listed "sensitive biological resources" in the Gulf including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals but.... none of these species exist in the Gulf.
• The contingency plan stated that BP had the "capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge but.... that is obviously not the case as we are now in the eighth week and oil is still discharging and hitting the beaches in the Gulf.
• The contingency plan assumed that fish, animals, and birds would escape damage in a spill but.... that is obviously not the case if you follow the images from the Gulf.
• The contingency plan listed a company that BP uses for spill cleanups but.... the listed website for that company in the plan links to a defunct Japanese language website page.
• The contingency plan made no mention of the Gulf's Loop Current but... that current is expected, by all experts, to carry the remnants for the spill out into the Atlantic and possibly over to Europe.
• The contingency plan assumed that BP would be able to put together enough resources to block off the beaches but... within a few weeks of the spill, beaches were being fouled from Louisiana to Florida.
• The contingency plan and its underlying model estimated only a 21% chance that a spill would reach the Louisiana beaches within a month but.... those beaches were hit hard within nine days.
• The contingency plan did consider different orders of magnitude of the spill since they said they were planning for the worst case scenario but.... they could not handle this worst case scenario.
• The contingency plan states there would be no shortage of resources to fight a spill but.... there were not enough booms (floating lines of plastic to hold in oil on the surface); Alabama claims its beaches were fouled because of the limited number of booms that were deployed elsewhere.
• The contingency plan assumed that the booms would be properly deployed but.... out-of-state contractors hired by BP deployed the booms in the wrong places, relative to currents and tides, and those that were installed were not installed correctly.

It is obvious, that unlike the A-Team, BP had a contingency plan that did not come together and apparently had no chance of ever coming together, given how bad it was and how little it was thought through. One has to assume they never did a test run or a complete shakedown of the plan. Such a drill, if conducted properly, would have easily uncovered the above shortcomings.

The Obama administration, and the Washington political class, are no better than BP since they obviously did not have a plan either:

• according to the Associated Press report, this 582-page BP contingency plan was approved by the Federal government last year before BP started drilling this well.
• BP had a 52 page sub-contingency plan just for this specific well that was also approved in 2009. Note that both of these plans were approved on Obama's watch, Bush was no longer President.
• In a previous post and in other Associated Press reports, it was uncovered that those Federal employees responsible for regulating and oversight of the wells were very often provided hunting and fishing trips, parties, gifts, and employment which may account for the lax oversight and regulation that resulted in a 582-page contingency plan abomination.
• Given that the head of the Federal agency responsible for regulation and oversight in this area has already been removed from her job as has a high ranking Coast Guard officer in charge of the mission indicates a lack of planning and competence on the Federal government's part.
• It was reported today that President Obama has not even met the Chairman of BP face-to-face since the disaster started over 50 days ago. How can you say you have a plan and are on top of the situation, like Obama has said, if you have not met with your counterpart at BP?
• Following along that theme, since the disaster began, Obama has played six rounds of golf, has taken two vacations, has made three fund raising trips to California (he has only visited the Gulf three times which logically would say that fund raising is just as critical as the Gulf situation), has hosted a photo session with the New York Yankees, has hosted a photo session with the Duke University basketball team, has hosted a photo session with the United States' World Cup Team, and has played at least several games of basketball besides being interviewed about basketball by Marv Albert. While I understand that he has other concerns and priorities as President in addition to the Gulf oil spill, he cannot claim that he is ticked off and has been on top of the situation since day one when he allows his time to be taken up by these superficial other activities. Could he have at least canceled one round of golf to work out a plan with the chairman of BP?
• Congress is no better in being out in front of this situation. Senator Bill Nelson (Florida) and Senator Barbara Boxer (California) have asked that a criminal investigation be launched. The source of Nelson's information? The AP report listed above. Thus, Senators Nelson and Boxer, are you telling me that you get the big bucks as U.S Senators to sit back and react only after you read an AP report? Does not look like very good planning to me.
• While Obama has been to the Gulf only three times (Bush went to New Orleans four times within 18 days of Katrina), I have seen no reports of other Congressional members from outside of the Gulf states going on scene. I am assuming there are politicians, from outside the Gulf states, sitting on Congressional committees that are responsible for the whole situation, including drilling, energy, Department of The Interior, wildlife, etc. How can you plan for the clean up when you have not visited the disaster site?

Thus, both entities, the Federal government and BP, did not have any semblance of a plan that could have come together to prevent or mitigate the situation. Disgusting. This is a perfect example of why should no longer believe in the fallacy, and fund that fallacy with taxpayer dollars, that government is here to help you. The SEC (and a myriad of other Federal agencies) did not protect us from the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression, the Interior Department and the Minerals Management Services did not protect us from this oil spill disaster, the Federal consumer safety organizations did not protect our kids from lead laced products and toys several years ago or cadmium laced products this year, the Federal automotive agencies did not protect us from fatal Toyota auto designs (89 dead Americans so far and counting), and no Federal agency has protected us from the flood of illicit drugs that comes across our unprotected borders.

Step 1 in "love My Country, Loathe My Government" would start the process of redefining government, downsizing it so that it finally gets something right by focusing on a much smaller set of higher priorities. Now, the Federal government focuses on nothing but gets involved in everything. As a result, it fails at everything while wasting TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars. Step 34 would immediately eject all of those politicians sitting on any committee that was responsible for keeping us safe from drilling, they have failed miserably at that task. Step 39 would get rid of all of the current members of Washington since it would institute term limits. Given the above list of grievances and failures to protect us from disaster, it is apparent that long term politicians cannot do the job they are supposed to do. Lets get rid of them after one term, how much worse could it be?

I hope the A-Team movie has a happier ending than what we are experiencing today, both in the Gulf and in Washington. For once this summer and during this administration, I would like to see at least see one plan come together, even if it is only in the movie theater.

One last note: while I have referred to Bush above, I am not endorsing his reaction and effectiveness in the face of Katrina. It also was a disaster. For the most part, it is a waste of time to compare the two, Bush/Katrina and Obama/Oil Spill. Both were failures and saying one was better than another is no better than being queen of the pigs. You may be a queen but you are still a pig. Continuing to bring up the Bush presidency does nothing to solve our current problems.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.