Too Little, Too Late, Pandering Pallone Highlights His Own Failure

I'll say one thing for Frank Pallone. He manages to package his own failure and ineffectiveness in such a way that it sounds good if you're not listening or reading critically.

Pallone issued a statement yesterday touting the fact that that a House panel approved Offshore Drilling Reforms.

You can view his statement uninterrupted here or follow along as I take it apart:

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., (NJ-06) along with members of the Natural Resources Committee Wednesday approved legislation to abolish the Minerals Management Service and inject greater accountability, transparency and efficiency into the leasing process. The “Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act,” was approved by a vote of 27-21.
The key provision of the bill divides the beleaguered agency blamed for approving permits to BP and Transocean for the Deepwater Horizon rig into three different entities which separately manage offshore leasing and permitting, safety investigations and environmental enforcement, and collection of all revenues from these leases.

That's nice Frank. But where were you before the disaster in the Gulf. You sit on the committee responsible for overseeing the Minerals and Management Service and MMS knew BP was having problems 2 months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people and devastated the Gulf.

“Reforming the agency responsible for approving offshore drilling permits is a significant step forward in a larger process to reform our offshore drilling policies and dependence on fossil fuels,” said Pallone. “I’m proud of this committee’s work in demanding more scrutiny of these leases, the safety records of oil companies, and increasing the government’s enforcement ability.”

Why is he proud? He should be ashamed. If Phoney Palloney and his fellow committee members had been providing the oversight their job requires, the disaster could have been prevented.

Pallone offered two amendments during the markup which address strictly limiting new offshore drilling leases. The first amendment Pallone proposed would trigger a prohibition on offshore oil and gas leasing if 5,000 barrels or more were spilled into the ocean again. In the markup, Pallone made the point that if the technology truly exists to prevent future oil spills than there should be no concern of triggering his provision.

The second amendment would prohibit oil and gas leasing in the New York/New Jersey Bight as well as in National Marine Monuments and National Marine Sanctuaries. Pallone argued that the coastal waters off New Jersey are vitally important to the regions economy and ecological significance and should not be open to offshore oil and gas development which would greatly jeopardize the regions vitality. Both amendments were withdrawn for future consideration before the bill moves to the floor of the House of Representatives.

22 years in congress and Pallone still has so little clout. Perhaps his fellow Democrats see how contrived he really is.

Pallone makes a point to emphasise how his first failed amendment should not be a problem "if the technology truly exists to prevent future oil spills."

It stands to reason that if the technology did exists to prevent future oil spills, and Pallones first failed amendment had passed, that there would be no need for the second failed amendment which would have prevented drilling off the coast of New Jersey.

Pallone will spend all summer and fall telling CD-6 voters how he is fighting for New Jersey's coastline. But he won't tell them that his legislation failed because 1) he has no clout even after 22 years in congress and 2) because his legislative ideas are terrible.

Regarding his first failed amendment and his point "the technology doesn't exists" and his previous statements that it will never exist, there's a danger of that becoming true due to the Pallone/Holt/Pelosi/Reid/Obama/etc socialist economy that they are working so hard to force on the United States of America. How many technological breakthroughs have been achieved in socialist economies? A free, capitalists economy breeds innovation.

Pallone ignores the fact that we still don't know what caused the disaster in the Gulf. Was it technology? Was it human error, mismanagement, a MMS inspector under Pallone's oversight jurisdiction being bribed to look the other way on infractions, sabotage? We don't know.

Has anyone seen or heard Pallone's statement lauding the fact that the well was plugged, due in large measure to the technological innovation of a lowly American plumber? No you haven't. Pallone has been silent on the well being plugged.

“It is unfortunate that these policies were not in place to prevent the Gulf of Mexico spill in the first place

Why weren't they? Pallone has been on the committee with oversight responsibility for offshore drilling for 20 years? He has no clout.

which only confirmed what I’ve been saying for the past 20 years

See what I mean? No clout.

And he hasn't exactly been saying that for 20 years. He voted for the Deep Water Drilling Act, which was enacted during the Clinton administration, twice before he voted against it.

– that the technology does not exist to do this deepwater drilling safely and the oil companies sold the MMS a bill of goods.

We don't know if the technology exists. New technology will never exist in a Pallone/Pelosi/Obama economy. If the oil companies sold MMS a bill of goods, where was the congressional oversight? We don't know what caused the spill.

We do know that there has been deep water drilling for 15 years. One significant spill that we don't know the cause of. The technology must be working.

It makes logical sense to move forward with this legislation and additional measures to ensure our nation’s coasts are protected and to place a greater emphasis on developing a clean, renewable energy plan for the United States.”

Logical? See all of the above. Clean, renewable energy? How about affordable? Oh, and the technology doesn't exist for clean, renewable affordable energy. American innovative scientists are working on it. Pallone's economic policies will kill technological innovation.