Washington Post — White House requests meeting with BP’s senior executives
After being told that their plan to have BP pay its competitors’ workers for lost wages from President Obama’s regulatory crackdown will require congressional action and will therefore take a long time and turn out poorly, the White House is calling another meeting of the presidents’ working group on ass kicking.
After pressure from the press and Republicans about having not met with BP’s hobbit CEO, Tony Hayward, whose firing Obama has suggested, the president is bringing BPs executive team to the White House on Wednesday.
Staying in the defensive crouch, the administration is acceding to the wishes of Sarah Palin and Matt Lauer, and summoning BP to the White House. Obama will attend, but only for part of the session, and Hayward will be there, but is not named specifically in the Coast Guard commander’s letter. What a bunch of handwringers these Obamanauts are.
Just imagine the late nights that will be spent fretting over the language Obama will use in dressing down the BPers that will be subsequently leaked as evidence of Obama’s rage. They’re probably watching the baseball scene from “The Untouchables” for inspiration.
“Obama has said there is no need to meet or talk with Hayward, adding that he would have fired the executive by now for underestimating the scope of the disaster and for complaining that he would like his life back.
The British government said Thursday that Washington should “remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America.” British Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to talk by phone with Obama this weekend.”
Washington Post — Scientists offer varied estimates, all high, on size of BP oil leak
How much oil, exactly?
12,000 barrels a day or 50,000 barrels a day?
It doesn’t really matter in the sense that the rate of flow from BP’s well doesn’t change the cleanup or containment effort.
But the fact that we can’t know is proving frustrating – proof that the leak is beyond our control, so hard to defeat that it defies even efforts to quantify it.
There’s also the American statistical obsession. If this is the Babe Ruth of oil leaks, we want to know what the new record is.
For environmentalists, it matters because they believe that the monster leak is poisoning all of the world’s oceans and that we may not survive long enough to be killed by global warming.
For lawyers, it matters because big numbers mean big multipliers on damages.
For BP, it matters because the size of the fines it will pay to Uncle Sam will be determined by how much of its product was dumped in the Gulf.
Writers Joel Achenbach and Juliet Eilperin reveal the journalist’s obsession with the exact size of the leak: reporters feel that the changing and imprecise estimates on the rate of flow are evidence of a cover-up.
BP and the Coast Guard saying that measuring the flow of oil propelled by methane in the water 5,000 feet below the surface can’t really be done precisely is proof to reporters that something is fishy.
Plus, by talking about volume, reporters can indulge agenda-driven sources on wild speculation about the size of the great beastie below the sea.
“Third, the higher figures call into question the circumstances that led to the much lower estimates of the spill early in the crisis. On April 28, after having received estimates of the size of the spill from BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coast Guard announced the 5,000-barrels-a-day estimate. Not until May 27 did the flow rate group increase the estimate to 12,000 to 25,000 barrels….An internal BP document marked “confidential” shows that the company on April 27 had arrived at three estimates for the size of the spill: low, best guess and high. The calculations were based on satellite imagery of the slick. The low estimate was 1,063 barrels a day. The best guess was 5,758 barrels. The high estimate was 14,266 barrels.
The next day, the Coast Guard announced the 5,000-barrel estimate.”
Wall Street Journal — Senate Rejects Ban on Greenhouse-Gas Rules
A big win for the Obama administration on global warming.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska came up four votes short on her resolution that would have stripped the EPA of the power to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions, now deemed by the agency as a danger to human health on the grounds that it will cause global warming that will kill people.
Six Democrats from coal and manufacturing states came over to vote for the plan, but couldn’t break Harry Reid’s serve. He got carbon-state Democrats like Jim Webb, Michael Bennet, Mark Begich, Bob Casey, and Claire McCaskill all to vote for the plan.
That means the president’s plan to use the impending EPA crackdown, designed to cause maximal pain, as a lever to pry votes for his proposed system of the government selling (and awarding to the politically deserving) tradable global warming credits.
Writers Siobhan Hughes and Corey Boles explain that carbon Democrats are hanging on to hope that their party’s leaders will let their states off the hook.
“Even so, the concerns point to the cloud that remains over the EPA rules even with the defeat of Ms. Murkowski’s resolution. Mr. Dorgan as well as Sens. Jim Webb (D., Va.) and Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) say that they support an alternative approach advanced by Mr. Rockefeller to suspend EPA rules on power plants, factories and other stationary sources for two years. Mr. Webb signaled the intensity of his position on the Senate floor, announcing that he would ‘regretfully’ oppose the Murkowski resolution.
It wasn’t clear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has agreed to bring such an alternative up for a vote. ‘I don’t know if Harry has made any promises along those lines,’ Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, told a reporter Thursday.”
The Hill — Sen. Coburn takes aim at tax bill’s ‘California Schemin’ ’ provision
The battle in the Senate is over the so-called “extenders” bill – a $140 billion, deficit-funded Democratic proposal to forestall cuts to doctor payments from Medicare, prolong unemployment benefits and sprinkle some stimulus fairy dust over the land.
Republicans are pitching a $127 billion version paid for by cuts to other programs.
Democrats are agonizing over adding more to the deficit, and Sen. Tom Coburn is turning up the heat by calling out a special provision in the plan intended to keep California lawmakers on board.
Writer Walter Alarkon explains:
“It would increase Medicare payments to doctors in California counties considered rural under Medicare’s payment formula.
These growing counties increasingly are becoming urban and have seen healthcare costs skyrocket. The higher Medicare payments offered in urban areas are needed to ensure hospitals can hire doctors to take care of patients under Medicare, supporters of the provision said.
Sen. Tom Coburn, a conservative Oklahoma Republican, argues that the provision is a wasteful special deal — an earmark — that unfairly singles out one state for favorable treatment. The payments would cost $400 million over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”
Wall Street Journal — Democrats Spar Over Derivatives Rules
The effort to merge the House and Senate banking bills is stuck on the question of how to regulate commodities trading.
But what’s really playing out is that lawmakers are using the conference process to try to rewrite the legislation completely. It puts the outcome in some peril and certainly jeopardizes the president’s June 26 deadline for the legislation.
Writer Damian Paletta explains:
“Democrats appeared to be hardening their anti-Wall Street bent and showed little sign of compromise.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D., Pa.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) said the bill should move closer to the Glass-Steagall Act of the 1930s that walled off commercial banks from investment banks.
Republicans said Democrats were rushing the process and alleged the bill could kill jobs, constrict access to credit and make the U.S. less competitive globally. Several Republicans said a flaw in the bill was that it didn’t address the government-run mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Shelby accused Democrats and the White House of holding ‘a number of private meetings’ and said the bill was being ‘negotiated and compiled behind closed doors.’”
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