Because Goldfinger Wants It That Way

Columnist Paul Rubin asks, in an unexpected Wall Street Journal article (link below), why the EPA, the Coast Guard, and the Obama administration stand in the way of cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. He quite rightly laments that “the EPA is unwilling to grant a temporary waiver of its regulations” to allow available vessels to go about cleaning up as much oil as possible. He questions why the Obama administration won’t accept offers of assistance from other countries, or even “allow” more than 20 % of American skimmers to take care of business.

Rubin points out several possibilities as to why – like his predecessor, during and after Katrina – “solving the problem” seems to be omitted from Obama’s priority list. In a fit of candor I found remarkable (in a WSJ piece), Rubin actually acknowledged the simplest truth:

Because Goldfinger Wants It That Way.

Of course, he didn’t say that in so many words. As he put it:

“Finally there is the most pessimistic explanation—that the oil spill may be viewed as an opportunity, the way White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said back in February 2009, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Many administration supporters are opposed to offshore oil drilling and are already employing the spill as a tool for achieving other goals.”

Hmmm. Goldfinger’s Goldman Sachs division made a FORTUNE (again!) by selling a large block of its BP holdings not long before the Deepwater Horizon became news. Funny, how that "opportunity" enabled GS to make a killing in the market.

The Halliburton subsidiary (of Goldfinger) was curiously able to acquire "Boots and Coots", a company described as “doing” the cleanup (?), three weeks before most of us ever heard of Deepwater Horizon. Remarkable, the stroke of luck that Halliburton would acquire such a company a mere three weeks before an oil rig Halliburton operated on made such a mess...

Could it be that this is why Obama refuses all offers of help? Why EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and Coast Guard continue to drag their feet (when not actively resisting efforts by others)?

Yeah, I know…another crazy conspiracy theory. It’s only coincidence that these guys “get in” or “get out” at just the right time.

Every time.

Time after time.

After time.

After time.

After time.

(Note: one wonders if the author, who “held several senior positions in the federal government in the 1980s”, is any relation to Robert Rubin, of “U.S. Department of Goldfinger”…oops, “Treasure’…no, “Treasury”. Yeah, that's what they call it!)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703426004575339650877298556.html