Spill, Baby, Splill!

Gulf Oil Spill Could Eclipse Exxon Valdez Disaster

The President pledged to "use every single available resource" -- including the U.S. military -- to help the London-based energy giant BP fight the crude oil spill, which was about 3 miles from the marshes of the Mississippi Delta and spreading faster than expected toward the shoreline, according to the Coast Guard.

The widening oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is the excuse for the Obama Administration to shelve the idea of offshore drilling off the American outer continental shelf. Axelrod just made some announcement that there won't be any more drilling until he, "has answers."

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the estimated 42,000 gallons of oil gushing daily has been feeding the congressional opponents of offshore drilling. They're using this disaster as evidence that offshore drilling threatens the environment, human life, fishing industries and coastal states' tourism dollars and anything else they can run with. Despite all the oil, they're getting a lot of traction.

The success of the massive recovery and containment mission now under way will influence the near-term future of offshore drilling, said Ken Medlock, a fellow in energy economics at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. But don't expect to hear anyone yell "Dril, Baby, Drill" again anytime soon.

Meantime, after the Valdez disaster - which was caused by a drunkard sea Cap'n - the Congress created a bill that required oil companies to "you broke it, you clean it" -- which means that BP is footing the bill. First they waived off the government and said, "no thanks, we got this." Then it got worse, they couldn't shut it off, and still have been unable to cut it off. Then BP said, hey, er, government. Can you lend a hand? We'll still pay for it.

Doug Suttles, the oil company's chief operating officer said, "We'll take help from anyone."

As the slick has grown, 1000 to 5000 barrels a day. And so have potential cleanup costs.

"As the president and the law have made clear, BP is the responsible party" for costs, Napolitano said.

Now, to put this in some kind of perspective before some drunkard sea Cap'n makes some sort of jump to conclusions. How much oil is actually being lost? 5K barrels a day is about the daily consumption of the island of Bermuda. Or the amount consumed by Afghanistan.

The daily consumption of oil in the United States is 20,680,000 barrels of oil.

EACH DAY.

This minor spill is merely a drop in the Gulf.

In order to keep that insatiable appetite for crude, America WILL have to drill. Baby. Drill.