Do you remember when you were a teenager and you wanted to go run around with your friends, but your Mom wanted you to stay home and finish your chores and get your homework done?  Do you remember how you sounded?  It was something like this:

Even though I’m president of the United States, my power is not limitless. So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing.

This was on a video released by the White House showing The Magnificent One, Barack Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) slumming with some Grand Isle, LA residents, hand-picked for the photo-op.

Meanwhile, White House energy adviser Carol Browner denied the accusations of  a panel of experts that the administration misrepresented their views to justify a six-month ban on offshore drilling in response to the BP oil rig disaster. 

These experts are saying  that the Interior Department changed the findings of  a report in late May that was used as the basis for the devastating ban on existing drilling and new permits. 

The version of the report that the administration issued claimed the analysts, picked by the National Academy of Engineering, “peer reviewed” the department’s recommendations.  However, the experts say the two paragraphs that called for the moratorium were added after they signed off on it and gave it to the White House. 

The actual opinion of the experts is that such a moratorium could not only harm the economy but make the situation in the Gulf more dangerous. The April 20 oil rig explosion occurred while the Deepwater Horizon well was being shut down — a move that is much more dangerous than continuing ongoing drilling, they said. 

In a letter the experts wrote claiming that Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar’s report “misrepresents” their position, they said:

A blanket moratorium is not the answer.  A blanket moratorium will have the indirect effect of harming thousands of workers and further impact state and local economies suffering from the spill.

We do not believe that punishing the innocent is the right thing to do. We encourage the secretary of interior to overcome emotion with logic. 

Salazar actually acknowledged that the moratorium was his decision, not theirs, and then Browner had the temerity to argue on Fox News  that the administration did nothing wrong: 

No one’s been deceived or misrepresented.   These experts gave their expert advice, and then a determination was made looking at all of the information, including what these experts provided — that there should be a pause, and that’s exactly what there is. There’s a pause. 

According to the experts, the draft report that they looked at called for a six-month freeze on permits for new exploratory wells 1,000 feet or deeper and a “temporary pause” on current drilling. 

The administration changed the report, calling for a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an “immediate halt” to drilling operations on 33 permitted wells. 

Oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News:

None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report.  What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation. 

The experts also faxed a memo to clarify that they do not believe the report justifies the moratorium to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter.   They also said that because the floating rigs are scarce and in high demand worldwide, they will not simply sit in the Gulf idle for six months. The rigs will go to the North Sea and West Africa, possibly preventing the U.S. from being able to resume drilling for years. 

According to the experts, the best and most advanced rigs will be the first to go, leaving the U.S. with the older and potentially less safe rights operating in the nation’s coastal waters. 

Brilliant.

Unfortunately, we’ve got another month until they completely close the cap.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters at a briefing in Washington this week that once a “hard cap” containment system is in place by the middle of July, BP’s oil-siphoning capacity will rise to up to 50,000 barrels per day.

Allen said that  BP’s collection capacity is currently about 18,000 bpd, and will increase to about 28,000 bpd once a new oil-flaring rig is activated next week.

Hey, no worries.  The Magnificent One is on top of this disaster.  After all, he’s been on the case since Day One.  He has issued a Royal Summons.

The Obama administration has summoned the chairman of BP to meet with the president and senior White House officials June 16, in order to receive a verbal tongue-lashing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the company’s financial liability and clean up efforts.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander on the scene, said in a letter Thursday to BP board chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg in London:

“BP is financially responsible for all costs associated with the response to the spill, including stopping the leak, protecting the shoreline, [as well as supporting] long-term recovery efforts to ensure that all individuals and communities impacted by the spill are made whole.

Time is of the essence in resolving these issues.

It’s a little late for that.

Allen requested, on The Regime’s behalf, that Svanberg and “any appropriate officials from BP” attend the meeting.

Obama’s procrastination in dealing with the Gulf Coast Oil Crisis is reminiscent of a teenager putting off chores and homework.  However, the consequences of this petulant adolescent’s lack of responsibility and leadership are much more severe.  His incompetency is ruining the economy and the ecology of America’s Gulf Coast.  Estimates are that the spill could eventually make its’ way as far up as the coast of North Carolina.  There is no excuse for how badly the President and his administration has bungled the containment of this disaster.  And appearing in photo-ops, whining about the situation, doesn’t look Presidential at all.

Hope and change, indeed.

Sources:  washingtonpost.com, foxnews.com, reuters.com, politicsdaily.com