Blood and Oil on Pallone's Hands

By guest columnist Ernesto Cullari.
triCityNews, Asbury Park, NJ

Cross posted at Justified Right

What does Democrat Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. have to show for his 20 plus years in office? He has his well-crafted talking points. For example, he claims to care for senior citizens, he touts his concern for the environment and he feigns expertise on healthcare issues, but other than pandering to certain segments of his constituency what has Frank Pallone actually done with his political clout, other than help his wife, Sarah Hospodor-Pallone, land a lucrative job at the EPA?

To be specific, during his tenure as Congressman of New Jersey’s sixth Congressional district Pallone claims to have expanded access to healthcare, yet his behemoth healthcare legislation cuts benefits to disabled children and seniors, prevents physicians from competing with operating room services also provided by publicly funded hospitals and creates government rationing bureaucracies to decide who does and doesn’t receive certain medical treatments. Pallone has given the federal government an insurmountable advantage in administering medical care thus making it difficult for all other private practice competitors to continue to work. Details within his legislative record indicates that there is a vast difference between how Congressman Pallone portrays both himself and the laws that he writes with who Frank Pallone really is.

Perhaps the most recent example of Congressman Frank Pallone’s duplicity is that he claims to be a champion for the environment yet he has failed for decades at his Constitutional duties that required him to oversee the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which was responsible for safety investigations of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded, killing several and causing the worst environmental disaster in American history. In fact, Congressman Pallone’s professional negligence runs so deep that it took him over 20 years to reign in an agency that has been notoriously plagued with corruption since 1990 and as a result he is ethically culpable for both the deaths of the rig workers and the environmental damage that ravages one of our nation’s treasured coastlines.

Norman J Ornstein, writing for the American Enterprise Institute, in an article entitled, “Lack of Congressional Oversight Plagues MMS” details how both the Houston and the Denver office of the Minerals Management Service were rocked with scandal in 1990 when it was discovered that their employees had engaged in sexual trysts with prostitutes. In a New York Times article written by Charlie Savage, dated September 11, 2008, the very same agency that Pallone is Constitutionally charged with overseeing is once again hit with controversy when an investigation reveals “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.” had occurred at the MMS. These are all instances that Frank Pallone Jr. as a leading member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was well aware of. Pallone had a fiduciary duty to reform the MMS, but he failed to do so.

As the historical record indicates, Congressman Pallone waited for disaster and tragedy to strike before he moved to reign in the MMS. It took more than 20 years since scandal first struck the MMS and almost 90 days after the worst oil spill in US history for Pallone to show any sign of leadership on his committee. Note that on July 15th, 2010 Congressman Pallone finally issued a press release stating that he had approved legislation to “abolish the Minerals Management Service”. As a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. has maintained a great deal of power over the Oil industry and its regulating agencies long before millions of gallons of oil poured into the Gulf waters and precious lives were lost under his tenure; nonetheless, he sat idly by while lawlessness, debauchery and incompetence ran rampant throughout an agency that he himself was empowered to hold accountable. BP isn’t the only one to blame for what happened on that fateful day in April. Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. is responsible for enabling and tacitly consenting to over 20 years of lawlessness. While he’d like to point the fingers at others, the sordid trail of blood and oil starts with him.

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.