REPUBLICANS - THE PARTY OF SPILL

News Item: Bush Lifts Offshore Drilling Ban

News Item: Bush Administration Relaxed Off Shore Oil Drilling Safety Standards

News Item: BP oil spill crisis far worse than Exxon Valdez incident

News Item: Huge Underwater Oil Plumes Found in Gulf of Mexico

News Item: Spill Is Now Estimated At One Million Gallons of Oil Per Day...47 Million Gallons and Counting

Live Spill Cam

News Item: Fox News Host Scoffs At Gulf Spill: 'Where Is The Oil?'

I guess Brit can't believe his own lying eyes.

News Item: As Six West Coast Senators Propose Banning Offshore Drilling, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (S.C.) announces his support for continued - and additional - offshore oil drilling.

As oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico at an unprecedented rate, and attempts to stop the flow fail, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reaffirmed his support for continued - and additional - offshore oil drilling. In a press statement issued late last week, Senator Graham said, "I remain committed to safely expanding offshore drilling because I know oil will be part of our nation's energy plan for years to come."

Safely huh? As in when he supported Bush's weakening of safety standards for offshore oil drilling? Or perhaps it was when he supported Bush's choice of a longtime oil industry lobbyist to be the chief regulator of drilling safety.

Of course, as we are seeing now, it only takes one spill to severely damage our environment, perhaps irreparably. Visit this site to learn more about the scope of the disaster.

Speaking of for years to come:

News Item: Oil Spill Shuts Down 19 Percent of Gulf Fishing As much as 40 percent of America's commercial seafood is harvested from the Gulf of Mexico, and the oil spill is already hurting the industry.
News Item: Seafood testing could last years - The spill "will affect the Gulf, and possibly the entire North American region, for maybe years, if not decades," said Rowan Gould, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. More pessimistic was Harry "Chu Chu" Cheramie, 59, a Louisiana trawler: "That's going to kill our fishing grounds forever."

Comparing the effects of the spill to Katrina, Randy Adams, 48, a construction worker from Grand Isle Louisiana said: "This is worse than a hurricane. We can leave from a hurricane. This we can't leave from."

So, who will pay the enormous costs in clean up and lost business associated with this disastorous spill? Well, if Republicans have their way, it won't be BP and their big oil brethren.

News Item: Republicans Block Democratic Efforts to Raise Oil Spill Liability Cap

Republicans for the second time blocked legislation that would increase oil companies' liability for oil spill damages, setting off criticism from Democrats seeking to make BP pay for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

News Item: Heavy Sludge Oozes into Marshes of Louisiana

News Item: Oil Spill's Economic Impact Spans Country

News Item: Gulf Oil Spill Heads For Florida Beaches & Florida Tourism Begins To Feel The Pain

Government by, for and of big business is not in the public interest. As I have said many times previously, pick an issue and the Republicans are on the wrong side of it as respects what is actually good for our country. The environment is no exception. Republican's have been voting against protecting the environment for at least the last 50 years.

When you take a few steps back and consider the entirety of the situation, Republicans have either facilitated, excused or denied the enormity of the spill.

Indeed they have well earned the title... THE PARTY OF SPILL.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse....

News Item: Researchers Ponder a Hurricane Hitting the Oil-Slicked Gulf of Mexico

You don't even want to imagine.

OIL WATER & WIND

Isn't it ironic that on a day nine years in the making, when the nation's first offshore wind farm was approved off the coast of Cape Cod, the urgent need for it and other forms of clean, renewable energy is being driven home by events 1500 miles to the south where the Coast Guard announced today that they have discovered an additional 5000 foot deep leak at the site of the sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico. They now estimate that 5000 barrels or about 210,000 gallons of oil are spewing into ocean every day. This is up from initial reports of 1000 barrels and 42,000 gallons of just a few days ago.

There are few effective options for dealing with the problem as the safeguards designed to seal any potential leak are not working. In the short term anyway, it seems that we are down to firing cannons to try and scare away the wildlife and setting the sea on fire. Perhaps the emptiest oil barrel of them all, Sarah Palin can explain to us again how safe drilling is.

Very soon, the world will be presented with horrific visions of dead or dying, oil covered fish and birds, on oil slicked beaches along the gulf coastline. Very soon surrealistic visions of flaming seas against a smokey horizon will be reality as the oil is set on fire in a desperate effort to minimize the amount that reaches the coast.

So far, it is estimated that the cost in damage and mitigation efforts has reached $1 billion and counting. The sure to be considerable cost to our environment is as yet unknown.

In the face of these ill winds comes word that there are still many people and organizations who for one reason or another vow to extend the nine year battle to stop the building of the wind farm.

The farm, by the way, will be able to supply about 75% of the energy needed on Cape Cod & Nantucket. The clean energy that will be produced will be tatamount to removing 175,000. cars a year from the road, a significant plus for our air.

Most of those opposed, (Ted Kennedy was among them) do so on the grounds that the wind turbines will be an eyesore on pristine waters. Maybe so, but one thing is certain, no matter what, the water itself will remain pristine and will always look much more appealing than the images we are about to see from the Gulf where clearly, oil and water do not mix.

OIL... IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER

News Item: Oil Leaking Underwater From Well in Rig Blast

About 1000 barrels or 42,000 gallons of oil a day have been discovered leaking from the sea bed, a development that a senior Coast Guard official on Saturday called a “game changer.”

The rainbow-colored sheen of oil stretched 20 miles by 20 miles on Saturday -- about 25 times larger than it appeared to be a day earlier.

It could take months to seal the leak.

Neptune, we have a problem.