Democrats Want Control of Oil Slush Fund

The Wall Street Journal has a good article on several bad policy moves the Democrat Congress wants to make with respect to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  As usual, these socialists are not about to let a crises go unexploited.  The article notes that among these misbehaviors are:

• A "public announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that his Department had opened a criminal probe of the spill, a fact usually kept under wraps to protect the innocent."
• Obama pressured BP to suspend its stock dividends.
• "Democrats in Congress are preparing to lift their own $75 million liability cap and apply that retroactively to BP, another move of dubious legality."
• The Democrats want to set up a $20 billion oil spill slush fund to be controlled by the Democrats to make payments to reimburse the injured, though a court-controlled reimbursement system without political influence already exists.
• Just " last week Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted to siphon money out of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund—established in 1986 and funded by oil taxes to help clean-up spills—to pay for their extension of unemployment benefits. The history of such government funds is that they are always raided for politically favored purposes."

The only problem I have with the article was the qualifier at the end of the third bullet above.  There is nothing of dubious legality in retroactive or ex post facto laws.  The Constitution is very clear about such ex post facto laws.  Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." A retroactive change to the $75 million liability cap is an ex post facto law and it is clearly unconstitutional. But as we know, our Democrat Congress cares not a fig about the Constitution.

The Democrat Congress and Obama only care about exploiting crises to pay off its benefactors and favored special interests and to grab more power.  This is why they want an oil spill slush fund that they control.

The Jones Act Prevents Gulf Oil Clean-Up

As Charles Krauthamer has pointed out, the reason wells are being drilled in the deep water Gulf of Mexico is because environmentalists have exerted such influence upon the federal government that on-shore and shallow-water Gulf drilling has been greatly restricted.  Unfortunately, the U.S. does not have much in the way of deep sea drilling technology, though it has the best shallow-water and on-shore drilling technology in the world.  It turns out that the Europeans have more deep-sea technology.

Many countries have offered to use deep-water technology and other technology to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico due to the BP Horizon platform oil spill.  Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Romania, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations have all offered to help with the oil spill and the clean-up.  The U.S. has not accepted their help.  Why?

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports.  Section 27, called the Jones Act, requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports must be carried in U.S.-flag ships, which were constructed in the U.S.  The ships must be owned by U.S. citizens and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.  This act subsidizes a U.S. merchant marine at great cost to U.S. consumers, while providing some strategic value in a possible future war.

The Dutch news site De Standaard says Belgian and Dutch dredgers have the capability to greatly speed up the oil spill clean-up.  The Belgian group DEME says it can clean up the oil in three to four months using specialty vessels and equipment.  The U.S. is estimating a 9-month clean-up.  Only 5 or 6 of the needed specialty clean-up ships are available in the world.  The top companies with these special ships have them built in the Far East, where they cost half what they would cost in the U.S.  They are mostly owned by two Belgian companies, DEME and De Nul and their Dutch competitors.  Thanks to the Jones Act, they cannot be used to speed up the clean-up.

Unless.......  A waiver is given by the Obama administration, as the Jones Act says it can in a time of national emergency or due to a strategic interest.  The Business Insider article says the exemption has not been made simply out of pride.  I suspect it is more involved than that.  Obama does not want to be seen giving jobs to foreigners during our recession and when many Gulf Coast workers are idled by the oil spill itself.  There are also U.S. maritime labor unions he does not want to offend.  So, his policy is to take 9 months to do the clean-up (probably a classic government underestimate), rather than call in the Dutch and Belgians and others with their specialized oil clean-up ships and technology.

But, instead of allowing that the tragedy is in good part due to not allowing shallow-water Gulf oil drilling and the clean-up is being dragged out by the Jones Act, the Obama power thirsters wish to blame everything on BP and a regulatory federal ocean leasing bureau due to a lax regulatory climate claimed to be due to George W. Bush!  The permit to drill was issued after Obama usurped the presidency.  The environmentalists, the Democrats, and BP share the blame for this environmental disaster.