The Lockerbie bomber may have been freed to buy oil drilling rights in Libya for British Petroleum. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was freed last year ostensibly because he was dying of cancer. Today he appears to be in good health and is “living in the lap of luxury” in Libya.

Yesterday reports surfaced that British Petroleum influenced the British government so that they could drill for oil in Libya. Apparently no crime is too heinous to be forgiven when oil is at stake. CNN reports:

A group of U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for the release of the man convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland….

“Reports have surfaced indicating that a 2007 oil agreement may have influenced the U.K. and Scottish governments’ positions concerning Mr. Megrahi’s release in 2009,” wrote Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey in a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Monday.

Britain and Libya sparred over whether Megrahi should be included in a prisoner transfer agreement the two nations were negotiating. British officials and BP said that the oil giant’s interests — the company was seeking a huge deal to drill for oil in Libya — were a consideration in those negotiations….

…Gadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gadhafi told CNN that that Libya pressured the British government to include the convicted terrorist in the prisoner release agreement. Initially, he said, Britain refused to heed Libya’s demands that Megrahi be included in the prisoner release agreement.

“There was no mention of Mr. Megrahi until the British said ‘we are ready to sign but there should be a clause mentioning that Mr. Megrahi is excluded.’ And then we said no,” Gadhafi said. “We were very very angry. It’s not acceptable.”

The London Telegraph casts this as a political attack:

Democratic senators in the US have called for an investigation into BP’s interests in Libya, as they tried to connect the oil group with a deal to free a convicted terrorist….

Frank Lautenberg, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, called for an investigation into whether BP helped to secure the early release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber freed by Scottish authorities last year.

“It is shocking to even contemplate that BP is profiting from the release of a terrorist with the blood of 189 Americans on his hands,” Mr Lautenberg wrote in a letter to the Senate foreign relations committee….

The oil company has faced a series of attacks from US politicians but last night’s was among the most political.

However, it is disingenuous for the London Telegraph to make that characterization, when only a year ago the London Times suggested exactly that reason for freeing the terrorist:

The release of the Lockerbie bomber from prison would liberate Britain’s largest industrial company from a string of problems hampering its $900 million (£546 million) Libyan gas projects, industry sources claimed last night.

BP, the oil giant, signed a deal with Libya in 2007 to explore for gas in the west of the country and offshore. But since then it has faced a string of bureaucratic obstacles, including delays securing official permits and approvals to import equipment through Libyan customs, the sources said….

The close ties between politics and the oil industry in Libya, where 95 per cent of export revenues are from oil and gas, are irrefutable….

Al-Megrahi’s release also comes amid a highly delicate battle for influence over Tripoli between Russia and the West. It is a struggle tied to billions of dollars worth of oil and arms deals, which could shape Europe’s energy security for years to come.

So there you have it, what we have always known — the balance of money and power on the world stage determines what is morally acceptable.

Our writers here at American Daughter have been critical of Obama’s response to the oil disaster. Reader MaryAnne reasonably asks:

Could you please detail exactly what you think Obama should personally do about BP’s complete disregard for the safety of its workers and the destruction of Gulf Coast beaches? I have gone to the trouble of reading some of your past posts and have yet to see you offer one workable solution to any of the problems you address.

I haven’t done this until now, because it doesn’t make any difference what I would have done. The mission of our news magazine is to inform our readers of the capabilities and shortcomings of public figures, so they can make informed decisions about their political activism, financial support, and voting. But such a discussion may offer a useful baseline for comparison, and it certainly is something that I have given a lot of thought. Here’s what I would do if I were president:

1. If I were president, I would immediately assume personal executive responsibility for the response to one of the greatest environmental disasters to face our planet, that happened under United States jurisdiction. I would NEVER abdicate that authority to any profit-motivated corporation. I would use every legal means to force that corporation to finance the clean-up, but I would manage the clean-up myself, by delegating tasks to my government officials.
    
2. The assessment of “guilt, fault, and blame” is only useful if it prevents future mistakes based on “lessons learned.” And technological mistakes usually result from policy driven by wishful thinking rather than scientific data. In this respect, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is almost an exact reprise of the Challenger disaster, in which decision makers ignored the warnings of scientific personnel about the O-ring’s potential failure at freezing temperatures.

   If I were president, I would immediately make it perfectly clear and well understood by the public that the deepwater drilling was promoted during the Clinton administration (the Outer Continental Shelf Deepwater Royalty Relief Act of 1995) without due consideration of disaster contingencies. Our government gave British Petroleum a “categorical exclusion” for the well during the Obama administration. I would do this, not to indulge in partisan finger-pointing at Democrats, but to prevent the root administrative causes and lax safety standards of our own government agencies from being obscured by Democrat partisans throwing up smoke-screens about Dick Cheney’s relationships with the oil industry.
    

3. Within hours of the first phone call notifying the White House of the rig explosion, I would have assembled a crisis team, booked a hotel on the Gulf Coast, and taken the whole team there on location to assume personal positive control of the situation. Within the first twenty-four hours I would have convened an emergency meeting with the governors of the Gulf States. For the entire duration of the crisis, I would not have played one hour of golf, nor done anything else but be the country’s executive.

   To be president of the United States is an honor, and it is an executive position, a management position, and a good executive “rests in action.” A qualified executive does not need the personal recreation of sports or parties to “recharge his batteries.” He draws his strength and energy from his passion for the job, from the personal satisfaction of giving his hands and heart to the cause and knowing he has done his best.
    

4. Upon first being notified of the rig explosion, I would have placed an emergency call to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I would have decreed, under the executive powers, that she bypass the normal protocols for data calculation and delivery, assemble her best scientists immediately (waking them up if necessary) and get back to me within eighteen hours with her best estimate of the latitude/longitude coordinates of the point above the blown hole where the center of the oil “volcano” was most likely to first breach the ocean surface.

   I would have asked the Gulf State governors to mobilize their National Guards to protect the beaches and wetlands, and asked Congress for emergency funding for same. I would have tasked the Secretary of the Navy to identify some Naval assets in the Gulf for assisting oil containment operations. I would have instructed the Coast Guard to immediately mobilize a fleet of boats on standby, awaiting the NOAA calculations. As soon as the NOAA coordinates were received, I would have had the Coast Guard deploy five widely spaced concentric rings of oil booms around the NOAA-calculated surface point. The containment booms would have been in place within two days, tops. (Those measures would impede, but not prevent, the spread of oil. They would buy time for dredging and bioremediation.)
    

5. I would have ordered dredging to begin immediately to create sand reefs connecting the barrier islands offshore from sensitive wetlands and marshes, to protect the pelican rookeries and sea turtle hatching grounds from contamination. As executive, I would have taken the responsibility for my decision and not hidden behind the requirement for an Environmental Protection Agency impact study that could take months or years.
    
6. Under the authority of the Executive Powers, I would have forbidden British Petroleum or any other agency from using the toxic chemical dispersant Corexit 9500. I would have personally taken the responsibility for ordering the bioremediation of oil-eating microbes, stored in large enough quantities in Texas warehouses.
    
7. With respect to the potential for environmentally friendly solutions, I would have immediately tasked Cornell University’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering to recommend plant-based bioremediation. I would have used discretionary grant money for a crash program aimed at the specifics of the Gulf situation.

   I would also have used discretionary grant money to task Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences to do a systems analysis of the oil spill response, and to quantify risk factors associated with various strategies — chemical dispersant, burn-off, booms, reefs, skimmers, bioremediation via plants or microbes. (I have no doubt that the combination of chemical dispersant and burn-off currently being implemented is the worst possible choice with respect to long-term environmental considerations. It has short-term cosmetic appeal, in that it masks the full dimensions of the disaster, but we will pay a long term price worse than that for DDT.)
    

8. Under the authority of the Executive Powers, I would have suspended the Jones Act, or Merchant Marine Act of 1920, and accepted help from the foreign governments that offered it on DAY ONE — Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

   The fact that Obama deferred his leadership role to British Petroleum is most egregious here:

   Four weeks after the nation’s worst environmental disaster, the Obama administration saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills.

   “We’ll let BP decide on what expertise they do need,” State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19….

9. Under the authority of the Executive Powers, I would have relaxed the oil-to-water ratios required for returning processed ocean water to the Gulf, thereby permitting the immediate deployment of the South Korean-built, Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-flagged ship “A Whale” for oil-skimming in the Gulf. The Obama administration allowed it to languish tied up to the docks in Norfolk, Virginia for weeks.
    
10. If I were president, I would never have limited access to the oil spill damage by the press or by photographers, except to the extent required for their safety. I would have valued our mutual stewardship of our natural resources above any concerns for my political reputation. I do not believe that the American public is a mindless herd of sheep whose perceptions need to be manipulated. I do believe that they are a resourceful and creative force that should be kept FULLY INFORMED and engaged in the solution to this truly earth-changing disaster.
     
11. If I were president, I would never have used phrases like “boot on the neck” or “kick ass.” The empty rhetoric and political grandstanding characteristic of this administration does nothing to solve the problem, and it does nothing to reassure the public that a responsible leader with a thoughtfully reasoned plan is in charge. It is the language of a guttersnipe, not a statesman.
     
12. As for the other part of MaryAnne’s question, what “Obama should personally do about BP’s complete disregard for the safety of its workers,” the remedy, if any, is the province of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration. The president can make clear to Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor, and to David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, his deep personal concern about this matter, and ask them for a study and special report with recommendations. But that is “locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.” It would, however, have serious value with respect to the remaining nearly 4,000 active oil and gas platforms in the Gulf.

And that’s just the first couple of days….

References:

American Daughter — The Executive Orders

LENTA — How to remove oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico? (translated from the Russian)

The toxic chemical dispersant Corexit 9500 was pumped into the Gulf to counter the oil spill. Now it appears to have gassified, entered the atmosphere, and rained down on inland farmers, damaging crops and killing songbirds:

One month ago, on May 24, The European Union Times wrote about a report prepared by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources for President Medvedev — Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America:

A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning … that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.

Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

The dispersal agent Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, Illinois that is four times more toxic than oil….

A greater danger involving Corexit 9500, and as outlined by Russian scientists in this report, is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to “phase transition” from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as “toxic rain” upon all of Eastern North America.

Even worse, should a Katrina like tropical hurricane form in the Gulf of Mexico while tens of millions of gallons of Corexit 9500 are sitting on, or near, its surface the resulting “toxic rain” falling upon the North American continent could “theoretically” destroy all microbial life to any depth it reaches resulting in an “unimaginable environmental catastrophe” destroying all life forms from the “bottom of the evolutionary chart to the top”….

By June 10 the San Fransico Chronicle reported crop damage — BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage:

….It seems like damage brought by the oil gusher has spread way beyond the ocean, coastal areas and beaches. Collateral damage now appears to include agricultural damage way inland Mississippi.

A mysterious “disease” has caused widespread damage to plants from weeds to farmed organic and conventionally grown crops. There is very strong suspicion that ocean winds have blown Corexit aerosol plumes or droplets and that dispersants have caused the unexplained widespread damage or “disease”….

The warning on the Corexit 9500 label is clear enough:

“Keep container tightly closed. Do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing. Do not take internally. Avoid breathing vapor. Use with adequate ventilation. In case of contact with eyes, rinse immediately with plenty of water and seek medical advice. After contact with skin, wash immediately with plenty of soap and water. Wear suitable protective clothing.”

Now the stuff is raining down on us!

It has been well-known in the oil industry since the 1980s that oil-eating microbes can clean up the oil with no lasting environmental impact. They were developed at the behest of the Texas Land Office and the Texas Water Commission, and used successfully in 1990 to clean up a large oil spill in Galveston (see Business Insider — An Oil-Eating Microbe That’s Been Around Since 1989 Could Single-Handedly Clean Up BP’s Entire Oil Spill).

So why is Corexit 9500 being used in the Gulf of Mexico? Back on May 30 blogger Jo Anne Moretti published a Bombshell Exposé based on meticulous and lengthy research that she had performed showing that Democrat party bigwigs including Warren Buffett, Maurice Strong, Al Gore, and George Soros reaped huge profits from the sale of Corexit. Not only that, but her findings show that some increased their holdings preceding the disaster:

There is big money and even bigger players in this scam. While they are letting the oil blow wide open into the Gulf, the stakes and profit rise.

The Dolphins, Whales, Manatees, Sea Turtles and fish suffocate and die. The coastal regions, salt marshes, tourist attractions and the shore front properties are being destroyed, possibly permanently. The air quality is diminished. The Gulf of Mexico fishing industry is decimated.

All to create a need for their expensive and extremely profitable poison.

By now an outraged public has become aware of the microbes, which were warehoused in large quantities and available for use in the Gulf. But it is too late to use them now that Corexit has depleted the oxygen in the water. The microbes need oxygen to live long enough to eat the oil.

The European Union Times report sums it up best:

…the greatest lesson to be learned by these Americans is that their government-oil industry cabal has been just as destructive to them as their government-banking one, both of which have done more to destroy the United States these past couple of years than any foreign enemy could dare dream was possible.

But to their greatest enemy the Americans need look no further than their nearest mirror as they are the ones who allowed these monsters to rule over them in the first place.

Tail wag: Serg N of Common Sense Patriots

Related reading:

JoAnneMor — Bombshell exposé. The real reason the oil still flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

[Note: Jo Anne Moretti represents the best of the Blogosphere, an ordinary blogger whose dedicated work uncovers hidden evils that endanger us and makes them public knowledge.]

The Next Right — BP’s strange Democrat bedfellows

One of the top media consultants for British Petroleum gave free rent to a politician who became White House Chief of Staff. And, no, this was not Karl Rove giving a freebie to Andy Card. No, the recipient of the favor was Rahm Emanuel and the benefactor was Stanley Greenberg….

© Nancy Matthis, all rights reserved

Iowa Republican Steve King broke with the leadership and agreed that Texas Congressman Joe Barton was right in calling Brother O’s strong-arm tactics to force BP to create a $20 billion escrow account for victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill a “shakedown.”

“Joe Barton was spot-on when he called it a ‘shakedown.’ If you look at all they have nationalized during this administration … it should tell you, they want to swallow up as many Fortune 500 companies as they can.” –Representative Steve King

Pantywaist Republicans, which include Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, Alabama Representative Jo Bonner, and Florida Representative Jeff Miller, have joined the Democrat chorus to denounce Barton’s remarks. Bonner and Miller even threatened to strip Barton of his House Energy and Commerce Committee position if he didn’t apologize for the apology he made to BP for the White House’s “shakedown” of the oil producer.

The three Republican lawmakers chose to pander to their outraged constituents rather than uphold the rule of law and fight the Constitutional breach by the would-be dictator. What Brother O did to BP was nothing short of a Chicagoland mob-style “shakedown” in forcing money from the hands of a private business. At the behest of Brother O, BP

1. agreed to pay $20 billion over four years to an “independent” party;
2. identified $20 billion in U.S. assets that could be liquidated should BP not be able to pay on time;
3. received no assurances that the ultimate economic damages would not be higher;
4. remained liable for all individual and state claims in court;
5. kept the fund completely separate from any environmental damages, which the Bread and Circuses administration says could top $30 billion;
6. paid $100 million to workers who are unemployed because of Brother O’s moratorium on offshore oil drilling; and
7. received no assurance that Brother O would not ask for more money if the ban becomes permanent.

All that BP got in return was a statement from Brother O saying he didn’t want to drive BP into bankruptcy, a response suggestive of an “Empty yer pockets and maybe I’ll let ya live” thugocracy.

The Constitution does not give the President dictatorial powers to ensure victims get what’s coming to them. The Executive Branch does not house a Cosa Nostra Don, and the United States is not some banana republic with a ruling dictator who can intentionally ignore its Constitution and arbitrarily step outside the laws and procedures of its judiciary.

If America continues to operate as a criminal enterprise, it will soon lose its hard earned reputation in the world as a responsible country and become just another rogue state ruled by a despotic regime.

The Republican leadership either no longer knows or has forgotten the importance of adhering to the underlying authority of the Constitution and following the rule of law. Patriots need to remind them in November by electing representatives like Steve King and Joe Barton who will stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law even when it’s not popular to do so.

We are just beginning to see the effects of the massive oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But after a few weeks of press coverage, muted by restrictions on journalists from the Obama administration in collusion with British Petroleum, the focus of the press will turn elsewhere. The story will be “old news” just as the real ecological devastation is revealed. A resident of Panama City sent pictures with this note:

:By the end of viewing these photos I felt like I was at a funeral, and the millions of barrels of oil have only just begun to kill. If you have access to any environmental people, government and elected officials, please send them these pictures; I don’t think they know or understand. Louisiana’s St Bernard Parish President went out into the marsh in an air boat and killed the engine. He said there was dead silence — not even a mosquito!

Most importantly, please, please pray for a miracle; we need a miracle!

This is so important for the world to see. This will affect not only us, but the entire United States, and as far as I see it, the World. Please, take the time to share these pictures with everyone you know. It’s our responsibility as Americans to let EVERYONE know of the severity of this disaster and to realize the long term affects.

These are some of the saddest pictures I have ever seen. Please share them so that more people are aware of the devastation. Out of sight … out of mind. Also, the more people who witness this … the more possible change will happen.

The pictures are posted here — Ripple effects of the BP oil spill.

Dead shorebird

Dead barnacles

Dead jellyfish

Dead hermit crab

Dying hermit crabs

Dying pelican

Dying shorebird

Dead shorebird

Dead vegetation

Dead fish

It was so easy when he gave speeches and wrote books about himself! Are you starting to feel a little sorry for Pres BO? Why is everything just going wrong at the same time?

On Memorial Day, Pres BO skipped the Arlington Cemetery ceremony and got rained out in Chicago. (Thunder, lightning stop Obama Memorial Day speech)

The oil spill keeps on spilling. There is no end in sight. Sorry but daddy can’t “plug the hole”! Blaming BP is a little difficult given that BP gave over a million dollars to BO’s campaign. (Obama biggest recipient of BP cash)

Pres BO keeps blasting Arizona over “a misguided law” and calling for a federal solution. He continues to blame the federal government for failing to act but conveniently forgets that he is the president with a congressional majority. Why can’t “hope and change” get a Dem majority to agree on an immigration package? Can you say labor unions and their historic opposition to a “guest worker program”?

Down on the border, people want their families and property protected from ruthless cartels that kill and kidnap. The country wants action: 72% Say Military Should Be Used Along Mexican Border.

The so called stimulus has done little to stimulate the economy. In fact, unemployment is 9.9% and there is little chance that it will drop before election day. We are running federal budget deficits of over 10% of GDP. On the other hand, Pres Bush averaged 2.7% over two terms. Weren’t these the people who ran against Bush’s deficits? Wouldn’t it be nice to have Bush’s deficits today?

Over in the Middle East, Iran is not very impressed with Pres BO’s overtures. On the contrary, they are reading all of this “new approach” as weakness and march forward to fulfill their nuclear ambitions. Our allies are worried and our enemies are chanting “yes we can”:

IRAN ‘HAS FUEL FOR TWO NUCLEAR WEAPONS’…

Syria conducted nuclear experiments…

Last, but not least, what happened to all of that rhetoric that our allies did not send troops to Afghanistan because they didn’t like doing business with the Texas cowboy? They are not answering Pres BO’s requests for sending troops to Afghanistan either. So much for everything being Bush’s fault!

We ask again: Are you starting to feel a little sorry for “hope and change”?

P.S. Even David Brooks is now starting to wonder about BO:

“President Obama swept into office having aroused the messianic hopes of his supporters……

But now the troops are exhausted, the country is anxious, the money is spent and the Democratic majorities are teetering.

The remaining pieces of legislation, on immigration and energy, are going nowhere. (The decision to do health care before energy is now looking extremely unfortunate.)”

Hurricanes happen. Oil spills are NOT so unavoidable. Cost-cutting in safety and prevention infrastructure, exacerbated by human negligence and poor protocols, are corporate choices, not “acts of God.”

The human cost of hurricane Katrina in lost lives and property was almost entirely the fault of the Democratic administrations of the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. Both jurisdictions failed to implement their carefully planned hurricane response procedures until it was too late, even though there would have been plenty of time to save their constituents. Despite this obvious truth, Democrats and their media lackeys were quick to blame the disaster on the Republican president George W. Bush.

Now a catastrophic oil spill has been polluting the Gulf of Mexico since April 20th, well over one month, and the current Democratic president has done NOTHING. But only now are some Democrats and media figures beginning to criticize his failure to act.

Last Thursday, native Louisiana son James Carville lamented Obama’s inaction to CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

I’m as good a Democrat as most people, and I think this administration has done some good things. They are risking everything by this ‘go along with BP’ strategy they have that seems like, lackadaisical on this, … they seem like they’re inconvenienced by this, this is some giant thing getting in their way and somehow or another, if you let BP handle it, it’ll all go away. It’s not going away. It’s growing out there. It is a disaster of the first magnitude….

Also last week, Chris Matthews appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and expressed disappointment with Obama’s lack of leadership:

The president scares me. He’s been acting a little like a Vatican Observer. When is he actually going to do something?

And I worry. I know he doesn’t want to take ownership of it. I know the politics. Because the minute he says I’m in charge, then he’s blamed. But somebody’s got to take charge.

On Sunday morning, ABC’s This Week brought more Obama disapprovals. From Cokie Roberts:

The oil is gushing and we’re being lied to by how much oil is gushing … and the administration has now named a commission. Now this is what you do when you really don’t have anything else to do: You name a commission. That’s not going to stop the oil.

And from Democrat strategist Donna Brazile:

One of the problems I have with the administration is that they’re not tough enough. They are waiting for BP to say, ‘Oh we have a new plan to stop the oil leak.’ They need to stop it, contain it, clean it up and try and help us conserve our coastal wetlands.

Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs is struggling to deflect the blame. According to the Huffington Post:

The tensions peaked during the daily press briefing at the White House on Friday when Gibbs was repeatedly questioned as to what, exactly, the administration was doing to help with the catastrophic spill. The line of inquiry grew so contentious that Gibbs ended up calling reporters after the briefing finished to ask them about their tone.

In this time of high unemployment, the damage to the fishing and tourism industries is especially hurtful. Yet the Obama administration is focused on saving its political reputation, and not on soving the problem.

The situation here is that Barack Obama had no executive experience before taking on the management of this country. Zip. Nada. Not even a MacDonald’s franchise. By contrast, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is showing real leadership. Despite not having the requested federal approval, he plans to go ahead with construction of sand booms to block the oil offshore:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the state will not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Oil has pushed at least 12 miles into Louisiana’s marshes, with two major pelican rookeries awash in crude….

The governor said he has been forced to protect Louisiana without the approval of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is weighing the ecological impact of the construction of more sand booms. “We are not waiting for them. We are going to build it,” Jindal said.

“….we can fight this oil … on the Barrier Islands 15 to 20 miles off of our coast, or we can face it in thousands of miles of fragmented wetlands,” Gov. Jindal said… “Every day we’re not given approval on this emergency permit to create more of these sand booms is another day when that choice is made for us, as more and more miles of our shore are hit by oil.”

So there you have it. Obama’s lack of leadership in stark contrast to Jindal’s decisive action.

One more note for those who care about the environment — for one month this administration has allowed British Petroleum to use a toxic chemical as an oil dispersant, one that “may cause lasting damage to coastal ecosystems.”

Related:

Michelle Malkin — Louisana Gov. Jindal blasts Obama inaction, moves on sand booms

Hewitt Blog — Obama’s Oily Beaches and Wetlands

Los Angeles Times — White House slammed for oil spill — Obama’s Katrina?

Right Pundits — Sarah Palin Slams Obama, Gulf Oil Spill Enters Fifth Week