From Benintn's Diary:
One easy way to see what the US government is doing to coordinate its response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is by looking at the Joint Information Center Twitter account. For those who are so busy complaining about the lack of responsiveness, it might be helpful to see what is actually being done and the number of coordinated federal, state, and local responses in coordination with businesses, media, and residents of the area.
He goes on to provide the twitter feed for just the last 24 hours. It shows how many have been sent down to the Gulf Coast and pictures of the gusher itself.
Things like this:
Sec. Salazar & Sec. Napolitano to lead bipartisan Senate delegation to LA to inspect response to the BP #oilspill Press Release .
This press release names Kendra Barkoff (DOI), (202) 208-6416 and Clark Stevens (DHS), (202) 282-8010 as the points of contact for the information.
WASHINGTON—At the direction of the President, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will visit Louisiana on Monday to inspect the ongoing response to the BP oil spill, accompanied by a bipartisan Senate delegation.
Secretary Salazar, Secretary Napolitano and the Senate delegation will conduct a flyover of the affected areas; discuss the latest response efforts in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast with federal officials leading the effort as well as BP representatives; and meet with local community and industry leaders.
The Senate delegation accompanying Secretary Salazar and Secretary Napolitano will include: Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Senator David Vitter (R-LA).
He goes on to say this about this press release:
Note that Vitter and Landrieu will make the trip to represent Louisiana, which is most adversely affected. But I'm also seeing that we've got a 4:2 ratio of Dems to Republicans in this bipartisan group, with Durbin, Bingaman, and Whitehouse triple-teaming Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Durbin's in the home state of BP (formerly Amoco) and I can remember him giving Amoco a hard time a decade ago regarding price gouging of gas in Chicago. I trust that while Durbin is a pro-business guy, he's also going to be using his clout as a top member of the Judiciary Committee regarding the future of any regulation. (Remember that the Dems are battling Republican opposition to increasing the cap on damages from $75 million to somewhere in the billions of dollars - and Murkowski has been vocally opposed to raising the caps because of the potential negative impact on smaller oil and gas companies.) Bingaman, for his part, has been hard on BP execs in his role on the Energy committee. He chaired a meeting 2 weeks ago on the issue of the spill and cleanup efforts. And Whitehouse, for his part, serves on the Environment Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee and has a bully pulpit on the push for green energy legislation as well as corporate regulation.
I don't know if anyone on Daily Kos has written about this flyover, or the continuing push in the Senate to increase the caps on damages caused by this and future spills. But it seems evident to me that the Salazar-Napolitano trip is designed to pressure Murkowski into dropping her block on moving the bill forward.
That's just the first couple of things.. The entire diary is worth a read... Please check it out by clicking HERE.
I really don't see what else the President can do... He is and has been sending his best people to watch, listen and learn and to check what BP is actually doing.
Someone in the comment section said he should get on TeeVee and make a major speech about it... Not sure how that will show anything... He has spoken out a few times... but this person wanted a Prime Time Speech... That sure won't stop the gusher nor will it show anything to clean it up. So what would be the purpose of him doing such a thing.... You tell me.
Thanks all... I hope you read this and make note of the location where this is found. It is worth taking the time to look it all over.
