Mike Thomas, Orlando Sentinel: blundering on the carpet with oil on his shoes ... by gimleteye

Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas wins the award for "worst timed editorials" of the century. Reading him witlessly bash offshore oil opponents and admit to his failure to do "due diligence" after the fact, reminds me I was pushed off the editorial page at the same newspaper for far less offense. (see note, below)

Here are a few excerpts from Thomas editorials on offshore oil drilling, including one published by the Sentinel exactly a year to the day a killer methane bubble flew up the Deepwater Horizon drill pipe, creating the towering inferno and "greenie" scenarios that Thomas dismissed jokingly:

"The image of oil villains despoiling our beaches is simplistic rhetoric aimed at simple minds. It is fodder for political grandstanding and greenie fundraising. Drilling foes don’t have any recent pictures of oily birds to make their case, so they throw out worst-case scenarios that are about as likely as an oil bit goosing Godzilla out of the depths."

Mike, here's a picture of that bird.



The April 23, 2009 editorial was titled, "Could Gulf Coast oil wells drill vision into us?" Here's more:

"Some places, like Alaska's Bristol Bay, are too precious, too unique and too valuable to allow drilling except in a national energy crisis. The deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico hardly fall into this category. It's nothing but an undersea desert out there. But you'd hardly know it listening to the worn-out, hysterical screeching about oil-stained shores destroying the environment and the economy."

Mike, here's a dead sea turtle. (From Newsweek, it's really dead.)



"Ranked in order of environmental threats, drilling in the Gulf ranks far below freighters emptying their bilge pumps. Yet every day in Florida, some editorial writer, columnist or greenie gets out of bed, turns down the air conditioning, cooks breakfast, drives to work and lashes out at drilling. It's time for members of the congressional delegation to stop pandering to eco-nonsense and cash in on the opportunity that now presents itself."

Pandering. Is that what Mike Thomas was doing on May 1st, when he went back and seemed to eat crow with readers, admitting that he had not done due diligence?

"... The only shameful ploy I see in this drilling debate is opponents using outdated scare stories about oil-coated shorelines destroying our “pristine” beaches. The last offshore blowout of an American well happened 40 years ago off the Santa Barbara coast in California. Ever since, the industry has vastly improved its technology and safety record. Last year, the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors actually voted in support of oil drilling. Some people move on."



This photo was taken a year to the day Mike Thomas' April 23 column appeared in the Orlando Sentinel. Although the Deepwater Horizon sunk, taking eleven lives with it, Thomas' columns still stand.

What is interesting about Thomas' May 1 column is that he fast-backwards to his April 1 column, but doesn't touch on the year earlier, "Drill, baby, drill". I don't disagree with Thomas' on big picture stuff. For poo-poo'ing environmentalists who have argued the precautionary principle for decades, there is no criticism that is too off track. Click 'read more', for the Thomas editorials mentioned above.

(Note: For three years I wrote regular opinion pieces for the Orlando Sentinel as a special contributor. My opinions on politics and the environment engaged readers and worried editors enough that when criticism of them, for publishing me, grew too heavy, they cut me loose. (The archive of opinion pieces is available at: alanfarago.wordpress,com) I started co-blogging Eyeonmiami around the same time. Today, my op-eds are regularly published at Counterpunch.)



Mike Thomas: Drill, baby, drill!
April 23, 2009
Orlando Sentinel


The American oil cartel is using the state’s budget crisis to slip through a last-minute law opening up Florida’s coast to drilling.

For every steel proboscis the kings of crude poke into a fossil-fuel depository, we would get millions of dollars in royalties, which then would be used to buy and preserve land under Forever Florida.

It’s a clever ploy by future House Speaker Dean Cannon to link our most cherished environmental program with our biggest environmental boogeyman.

The St. Petersburg Times calls it a “shameful ploy.”

I call it a golden opportunity to pursue good public policy.

The only shameful ploy I see in this drilling debate is opponents using outdated scare stories about oil-coated shorelines destroying our “pristine” beaches.

The last offshore blowout of an American well happened 40 years ago off the Santa Barbara coast in California.

Ever since, the industry has vastly improved its technology and safety record. Last year, the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors actually voted in support of oil drilling.

Some people move on.

The reason is simple. Another accident would devastate the oil companies. There would be the immediate costs of cleanup, economic damages, lawsuits and fines. Then there would be the long-term political consequences of being blocked from future drilling.

The image of oil villains despoiling our beaches is simplistic rhetoric aimed at simple minds. It is fodder for political grandstanding and greenie fundraising.

Drilling foes don’t have any recent pictures of oily birds to make their case, so they throw out worst-case scenarios that are about as likely as an oil bit goosing Godzilla out of the depths.

Not that Miami couldn’t use a good stomping.

The drilling ban always has been a political luxury. We could afford it when gasoline and natural gas were relatively plentiful and cheap. The only reason to drill here, foes argued, was to increase oil-company profits.

Then came the summer of 2008, when gas hit $4 a gallon and there was talk of worsening worldwide shortages caused by demand from China and developing countries.

Florida’s protected status came under the gun. Even Gov. Charlie Crist backed off his longtime opposition to drilling.

Then prices collapsed, as did the motivation for seeking out new supplies.

This would be a wonderful thing if the respite came from vast new discoveries or some breakthrough in hydrogen power. But it came from collapsing demand caused by a global recession.

When economies pick up, so will energy use. Demand will rise, and prices will skyrocket once again.

And we will be back right where we started.

We lurch from energy crisis to energy crisis because decisions are made based on the here-and-now instead of the future.

Critics say this law won’t provide any immediate salve for the Florida budget.

This is true. We probably wouldn’t see any oil or gas or royalties until well into the next decade.

By then, gas could well be rationed at $20 a gallon.

We could slough off such scenarios if we weren’t mopping up after our second oil war, confronting a nuclear-armed Iran, drone-bombing al-Qaeda in Pakistan, facing 200 million SUVs in China and kowtowing to a Saudi royal family that makes Castro look like a Cub Scout.

The oil off our shores won’t by itself solve the above, and it won’t bring down prices. It simply will be one of many small steps we must make on the journey to a future free from burning dead dinosaurs.

The environmental agenda is to eliminate access to oil in hopes we can pull off some technological Hail Mary pass to eliminate the need for it. That day remains decades away. So all they are doing is laying the groundwork for the next energy crisis.

Hybrids are nice. But they still burn gas.

Perhaps even more important than the oil off Florida’s shore are massive reserves of natural gas. The nation, particularly Florida, has grown increasingly addicted to this energy source to fuel power plants. And like oil, most of the world’s reserves are found in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.

A rational energy policy would direct us toward conservation, insulation, renewable energy, smaller cars and more mass transit.

It also would recognize the continuing need for fossil fuels during the transition away from it.


Conserve — and drill? We must do both
April 01, 2010|By Mike Thomas, COMMENTARY
For decades we have had an energy policy based on no.

From the environmentalists, we got no to drilling, no to nuclear plants and no to coal.

From conservatives we got no to conservation and no to increased mileage standards.

The policy of no is taking us in the direction of constant shortages, brownouts, huge price increases and more dead troops in the Middle East.

The policy of no threatens not only our economic development but our national security.

And now, at least, we have a president with the common sense to begin saying yes to everything. We need drilling, we need nukes, we need energy-efficient lifestyles, we need cars that can go from Orlando to Daytona on a gallon of gas.

In unveiling the drilling portion of his national energy plan, Barack Obama proves once again he is more pragmatist than socialist.

Long ago, Jimmy Carter declared that pursuing oil independence was the moral equivalent of waging a war. At last we have a president who seems to be pursuing it.

As part of his energy policy announced Wednesday, Obama would allow drilling within 125 miles of Florida's west coast, where the rigs would be far, far from view. Given the safety record of drilling in American waters, this is about the most benign way possible to extract fossil fuels.

It sure beats blowing the tops off mountains in West Virginia to get coal, or poisoning aquifers out west from the increased use of a natural-gas-drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing.

Obama's energy team understands all this. It is why sensitive areas in the Arctic either were put off limits or were required to undergo more study before drilling is allowed.

Some places, like Alaska's Bristol Bay, are too precious, too unique and too valuable to allow drilling except in a national energy crisis.

The deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico hardly fall into this category. It's nothing but an undersea desert out there.

But you'd hardly know it listening to the worn-out, hysterical screeching about oil-stained shores destroying the environment and the economy.

Please. Florida's major beaches now consist of dredged-up offshore silt piled up in front of condos and hotels.

Florida's beaches are as phony as the opposition to drilling.

We have dumped so many pollutants into the Gulf we have turned it into a red-tide cesspool. On top of that, we are wiping out the fish stocks.

Ranked in order of environmental threats, drilling in the Gulf ranks far below freighters emptying their bilge pumps.
Yet every day in Florida, some editorial writer, columnist or greenie gets out of bed, turns down the air conditioning, cooks breakfast, drives to work and lashes out at drilling.

It's time for members of the congressional delegation to stop pandering to eco-nonsense and cash in on the opportunity that now presents itself.

Last year, there were proposals in Congress to bring drilling rigs within 45 miles of the west coast. They could come closer in the Panhandle to tap into a massive natural-gas deposit south of Pensacola. To entice Florida into taking the deal, one idea was to give the state 37.5 percent of royalty fees paid to the federal government.

Over time, this could amount to billions of dollars.

We need to revive this deal. There is no difference between drilling 45 miles offshore and 125 miles offshore.

And just to be clear, this will not end our dependence on foreign oil. We can't drill our way out of this mess because we don't have the reserves. Drilling will not bring down prices. The pro-drilling forces who promise such things are lying.

But as Obama says, we can tap into our own energy sources as a bridge to the future. A gas field that meets only a fraction of our needs today will meet a much bigger fraction in 10 years when we are more efficient.

Drill, baby, drill.

Conserve, baby, conserve.


COMMENTARY
May 2, 2010

There is nothing like the taste of crow deep-fried in a barrel of light, sweet crude.

With a side of poached tar balls.

It has been served up daily in my e-mail:

Dear Mike: Remind me one more time why offshore drilling is responsible and necessary? Your brain is diminishing more quickly than your carbon footprint.

Dear Mike: The first thing I thought of when I saw pictures of the oil slick were your columns swearing these drilling platforms were harmless and could be used for sunbathing within a dingy hop from St. Pete Beach.

Here is what I said only one month ago about drilling off Florida's coast: "There is no difference between drilling 45 miles offshore and 125 miles offshore. Given the safety record of drilling in American waters, this is about the most benign way possible to extract fossil fuels."

Not if you're a Louisiana pelican, it seems.

For someone who covered the shuttle Challenger explosion, I should have known better. I bashed NASA for its negligence, then fell into the same mindset on offshore drilling.

The space and oil disasters share many similarities. The technology behind them had not failed in the past, creating a complacency that they would not fail in the future despite the harshest operating environments possible. With the shuttle it was space; with drilling it was ocean depths up to 5,000 feet and holes drilled another 20,000 feet. The heat and pressure are tremendous.

Both endeavors require an army of people do their jobs correctly and that thousands of components function properly. Margins for error are miniscule. The smallest of breaches can lead to catastrophic failure in a fraction of a second.

It is impossible to eliminate such risk, just manage it with training, oversight, engineering and redundant safety systems.

NASA believed it had the risks of space flight so well managed, a crew escape plan was not necessary.

The oil companies believed they had the risks of drilling so well managed, a fast-response blowout plan was not necessary.

Now there is a plan to lower a dome over the leak and funnel the oil up to a tanker. But it has never been tested at extreme depths. A plan to bring in another rig and drill a second hole to plug this one will take months.

Given the increased amount of deep-water drilling, the natural questions are:

Why haven't they tested a dome at depths to see if it would work? Why isn't a dome ready to go?

And why isn't there a backup drilling rig stationed in the Gulf, ready for immediate deployment?

I know the answers. The drilling industry considered the blowout risk so low that it did not justify the cost of adequate preparation.

And I fell for it, based on the industry's record. I didn't do my due diligence and ask, "What if?"

Chew. Chew.