EPA'S UNNECESSARY REGULATIONS TERMINATED BY TRUMP'S SIGNATURE

EPA'S UNNECESSARY REGULATIONS TERMINATED BY TRUMP'S SIGNATURE (EXECUTIVE PRDERS):

OBAMA'S TAXES DISGUISED AS REGULATIONS ARE NO MORE.


Sources: Reuters, YouTube


***** Trump signs order dismantling Obama-era climate policies


Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era climate change regulations, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry and calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming.

Flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, Trump proclaimed his "Energy Independence" executive order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The move drew swift backlash from a coalition of 23 states and local governments, as well as environmental groups, which called the decree a threat to public health and vowed to fight it in court.

The order's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a key factor in the United States' ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

Trump's decree also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions. Carbon dioxide and methane are two of the main greenhouse gases blamed by scientists for heating the earth.

"I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations," Trump said at the EPA.

The room was filled with miners, coal company executives and staff from industry groups, who applauded loudly as Trump spoke. Shares in U.S. coal companies edged higher in response.

The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump’s broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the drilling and mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Energy analysts and executives have questioned whether the moves will have a big effect on their industries, and environmentalists have called them reckless.

"I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create, but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration’s commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters.

Environmental groups heaped scorn on Trump's order, arguing it was dangerous and went against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies. A coalition of mostly Democrat-led states and local governments issued a statement saying they would oppose the order in court.

"We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change," the coalition, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said in a statement.

The coalition includes states such as California, Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado.

PARIS DEAL NOT ADDRESSED

U.S. presidents have aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, which triggered soaring prices. But the United States still imports about 7.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, almost enough to meet total oil demand in Japan and India combined.

An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that human use of oil and coal for energy is a main driver of climate change, causing a damaging rise in sea levels, droughts and more frequent violent storms.

But Trump and several members of his administration have doubts about climate change, and Trump promised during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, arguing it would hurt U.S. business.

Since being elected, Trump has been mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it.

Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change who helped broker the Paris accord, lamented Trump's order.

"Trying to make fossil fuels remain competitive in the face of a booming clean renewable power sector, with the clean air and plentiful jobs it continues to generate, is going against the flow of economics," she said.

The order directs the EPA to start a formal process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but was never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states.

The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Some 85 percent of U.S. states are on track to meet the targets despite the fact the rule has not been implemented, according to Bill Becker, director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state and local air pollution control agencies.

Trump’s order also lifts the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management temporary ban on coal leasing on federal property put in place by Obama in 2016 as part of a review to study the program's impact on climate change and ensure royalty revenues were fair to taxpayers.

It also asks federal agencies to discount the cost of carbon in policy decisions and the weight of climate change considerations in infrastructure permitting, and it reverses rules limiting methane leakage from oil and gas facilities.

Charlotte's Duke Energy Cuts Off Power In Low Income Homes During Heat Wave! For Shame!!!

ATTENTION CHARLOTTE AREA HOMELESS CITIZENS, SENIOR CITIZENS & LOW INCOME CITIZENS! THERE WILL BE COOLING CENTERS OPEN TODAY IN THIS REGION! THANK GOD!

This Morning Local Media Stations are reporting that today in Charlotte, NC there will be Cooling Stations Open in Uptown Charlotte at the Hal Marshall Building for People with NO Access to Central Air or Air Conditioners.

Who do you think is Responsible for News about Cooling Centers being Open in Charlotte? The Mayor! An Elected Official!

The Mayor's Office is Responsible for Communicating to the Public about Cooling Centers being available & Open to help provide Relief for Homeless People, Senior Citizens & Low Income People.

Its funny how whenever there is any news about the upcoming 2012 DNC Convention, that information is quickly reported by the Local Media & Local Newspapers. So why not Broadcast information about Open Cooling Centers in this region too?

I Don't Apologize for anything because I sincerely Care about regular, everyday People, NOT rubbing elbows with Politicians!

Duke Energy Company the Greedy, Electricity Monopoly for North Carolina, is cutting off Electricity for people who in Low Income Communities and for people who often use Air Conditioners, just to Conserve Energy for Wealthier Citizens who reside in Wealthy Charlotte Communities.

Unlike the Mid-Atlantic where Dangerous Electric Storms knocked out power to more than 2 Million People this weekend, North Carolina did NOT experience such Inclement Weather until Sunday evening.

I repeat.

North Carolina did NOT experience any Inclement Weather (Storms) until Sunday Evening, so why did Duke Energy cut off the Power of many Low Income & Middle Class Customers on Friday and Saturday during an Extremely Dangerous Heat Wave?

Low Income Customers who use Air Conditioners or lack Access to Central Air.
For example: Low Income Senior Citizens.

So.....

Why did Duke Energy cut off Energy to 6,000+ Customers, mostly Low Income BLACK Customers this weekend during one of the Worst Heat Waves in History?

They did it to Conserve Energy for Wealthy Customers, mainly Wealthy WHITE Customers.

That's Right!

Duke Energy Company did it to help Conserve Energy for Wealthy WHITE Customers who don't want to Pay High Utility Bills.

Its okay for Low Income & Middle Class Citizens (mainly BLACK Citizens) to pay Higher Utility Bills, but NOT North Carolina's Wealthy WHITE Citizens.

This is Nothing New about North Carolina!

Such Racist Practices have been in force the entire 20+ Years that I've lived here.

Duke Energy prefers to use Coal because its a Huge Money Maker and is Angry at the Obama Administration over its New EPA Standards recently upheld by a Federal Appeals Court.

Yes! Duke Energy Officials Will quickly smile in Pres. Obama's Face but behind his back they are Extremely Angry over the Enforcement of his EPA's Administration's Carbon Emission Reduction Standards to improve the Quality of Air.

And in case you are wondering if those Low Income Citizens pay lower Energy bills than the Wealthier citizens in North Carolina you are sadly Mistaken & WRONG!

To the Contrary it is the Low Income Citizens who are often charged Higher Energy Bills than the Wealthier Citizens in North Carolina.

Wealthier citizens can have every Appliance, Gadget & Heated Swimming Pools in their Homes while only being barely charged $100. a Month by Duke Energy, if that much.

On the other hand Low Income BLACK, North Carolina will simply own an Air Conditioner and a Washing Machine while being charged almost $200. EACH Month by Duke Energy.

Please don't tell me this is due to Wealthier Citizens living in Energy-Efficient Homes or having Energy-Efficient Appliances because its NOT!

Instead its due to North Carolina Still being a Klan-Ruled, Segregated State in the 21st Century!

The same thing happens with North Carolina's Piedmont Natural Gas Company and the Water Supply Companies.

ALL of North Carolina's Utility Companies frequently Charge Low Income & Middle Class, BLACK Citizens much Higher Utility Bills than they Charge Wealthy WHITE, North Carolina Citizens.

Excuse me but isn't that considered Discrimination?

Considering how Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas Company and Charlotte Water Dept ALL receive Annual Federal Subsidies, isn't it ILLEGAL to Practice Discrimination against some Customers based on RACE????

This is why I'm NOT Biting my tongue about what REALLY goes on in the City of Charlotte or the State of North Carolina.

Some BLACK Charlotte Residents want to PRETEND that life is GREAT for BLACK People or GREAT for Low Income Citizens when its NOT!

Charlotte & the Entire State of North Carolina is still primarily a Klan-Ruled State and a Segregated, Klan-Ruled City.

BLACK and Low Income Citizens are frequently Mistreated & Thrown Under The Bus even by BLACK Politicians because those BLACK Politicians are Afraid to Change the Current, Racially Segregated, Unfair Institutional System.

During Election time BLACK Politicians often come knocking on BLACK Voters' doors with promises of FREE Fried Chicken, than after those Voters re-elect them those Same Selfish, BLACK Politicians throw their BLACK Constituents under the Bus to Appease North Carolina's WHITE Power Structure Officials.

What a Shame!!!

I Refuse paint a Rosy picture about life in Charlotte or life in the State of North Carolina when BLACKS & Latinos are still being treated as we were in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s.

Thus its imperative that people like myself who also live here, Expose to the World what's REALLY going on in this Region.

I am happy to report today that this Morning Local Media Stations are reporting that today in Charlotte, NC there will be Cooling Stations Open in Uptown Charlotte at the Hal Marshall Building for People with NO Access to Central Air or Air Conditioners.

Thank GOD!

I Thank God because I know he will protect me for doing what is Right.
NOT for doing what is Popular.

Please Keep Charlotte, NC in your daily Prayers.






Charlotte heat wave strains ailing, elderly and A/C

Tim Reilly says he knew there was trouble when he returned from work Friday evening and entered his University City townhouse.

Reilly and his wife Dana and their 108-pound bull mastiff Porter had joined the legions of Carolinas residents who lost their air conditioning at the worst possible time – on the day when Charlotte equaled its all-time heat record of 104 degrees.

Charlotte hit the 104-degree mark again Saturday, and the heat wave has air conditioning technicians scrambling to deal with calls from frantic customers who want cool air in their homes again. The situation isn’t likely to improve soon, with 101-degree high temperatures forecasted for Sunday and Monday in Charlotte.

Forecasters see only a gradual relenting of the heat over the next several days, as the powerful high pressure system responsible for setting hundreds of high temperature records across the eastern two-thirds of the nation gradually breaks down early this week. But high temperatures are still expected to be in the 90s all week – and in the upper 90s for the Independence Day holiday.

As of late Saturday afternoon, Medic had taken six people to Charlotte-area hospitals for heat-related injuries, spokeswoman Katie Rutland said. She said one person had life-threatening injuries and three others had potentially life-threatening injuries.

In northwest South Carolina, authorities in Abbeville County are awaiting autopsy results to determine if a 71-year-old man whose body was found in his trailer home near Calhoun Falls was a victim of the heat. When authorities arrived Friday afternoon, they discovered Billy Johnson dead in a home with no air conditioning and a small fan blowing.

If you’re looking for a glint of good news on the weather, and it’s just a glint, the Charlotte area will be under a heat advisory on Sunday, rather than the more severe excessive heat warning that was in place Saturday. That means a heat index of 105 degrees, rather than 110.

There will be one other difference Sunday and Monday. With the high pressure system weakening, clusters of thunderstorms that have been forming each day in the Midwest and pushing southward will be able to reach the Carolinas. That means there will be a chance of storms both Sunday and Monday nights.

All of that seemed very distant Saturday.

No escaping the swamp

Charlotte, Greenville-Spartanburg, Asheville and Raleigh were among many cities setting records for the date or the month. It was 107 degrees at 5 p.m. in Columbia, a day after it reached 108.

In the immediate Charlotte area, a number of automated thermometers recorded 105 or 106 degrees. Stacey Johnson, who lives off Rea Road in south Charlotte, said a temperature gauge there showed 111 degrees Friday. Even Boone, at 3,333 feet altitude, had a 91-degree temperature Saturday.

That was quite a test of air conditioning systems across the region. Like others without air conditioning, Tim and Dana Reilly had to make a decision Friday night – stick it out at home, or seek shelter with a friend or at a motel.

“We had offers from friends, but we didn’t want to bring our 108-pound dog with us,” Dana Reilly said. “So we stayed home.”

The got out several fans and slept on the floor, thinking the warmest air in their three-story townhouse would rise. The temperature slowly climbed to 83 degrees by the time Jeff Buhl, of All City Heat and Air Conditioning, arrived at 9 a.m. Saturday. The Reillys were the first of many service calls on Buhl’s schedule for the day.

Buhl got a “warm welcome” from the Reillys when he got out of his truck and walked to the rear entrance of the townhouse, where the air conditioning compressor was located. “I get that a lot during heat waves,” Buhl said. “I’m sort of a savior.”

This time, the fix was relatively easy. A capacitor had blown, and Buhl had the system repaired and running in 15 minutes.

“That’s fairly common,” said Buhl, who has spent about two decades in HVAC work. “A lot of times, they’ll blow from power surges.”

Within a half-hour, the temperature had dropped into the upper 70s at the Reillys’ residence. Buhl cautioned the couple that the cooling process would be a slow go, with temperatures climbing above 100 degrees again Saturday.

The most common problems with the systems are Freon leaks, blown capacitors and burned contactors, Buhl said. Occasionally, there’ll be a big problem – a motor or compressor failure.

Controlling the grid

But he saw several cases of another problem Friday.

“I had three calls from people with load boxes,” he said. Buhl said the boxes are installed by Duke Energy as a means of saving energy use during peak demand periods. Customers get lower electricity rates. In return, Duke Energy can cut off the power to high-use equipment, like air conditioning, for short periods of time, Buhl said. Typically, that is five to 10 minutes.

Buhl said some customers found their air conditioning units not working and immediately called for service.

“People get the boxes and don’t understand what they do,” he said. “There are tens of thousands of those boxes installed in the Charlotte area.”

Tim and Dana Reilly said it was the first time their air conditioning had gone out during a heat wave. “I hope it doesn’t happen again,” Dana Reilly said. “That was not pleasant.”

While the Reillys were able to cope with the lack of cooling, local officials are worried that some people – especially the elderly and those with chronic health problems – could be at serious risk without fans or air conditioning during the 100-degree weather.

Social service agencies opened cooling stations across the region, distributed financial aid so some people could pay their power bills and keep the air conditioning going and distributed fans.

In York County, sheriff’s office spokesman Trent Faris said deputies were delivering fans to those in need.

While residents without air conditioning are suffering, so are the technicians. Buhl spent two hours late Friday afternoon on the roof of an Eastway Drive restaurant, repairing a system. When he touched his knee to the roof surface, he received a burn.

“This is pretty hot stuff,” he said.





New Duke faces big tasks

As the new Duke Energy prepares to begin corporate life this week, after 18 months of regulatory filings and after-hours rulings, winning approval might start to look like the easy part.

In the years ahead, Duke’s leaders will have to mesh two corporate cultures into the nation’s largest utility and trim 1,860 jobs. They will spread $650 million in operating savings among Carolinas customers – while raising rates. They’ll decide the fate of a crippled nuclear reactor in Florida and try to settle the huge cost overruns of a new plant in Indiana.

The $32 billion merger with Progress Energy will give Duke the financial heft and political muscle that make hard problems a little easier to solve. It culminates decades of growth through mergers and acquisitions for both companies. North Carolina regulators approved the deal Friday; South Carolina’s utilities commission meets on the final piece Monday.

Wall Street is bullish on the deal, which diversifies Duke’s earnings and power sources. Duke’s stock price has surged 30 percent, and Progress’ stock 35 percent, since the merger was announced in January 2011.

For Duke’s 7.1 million customers, it’s a mixed bag. They’ll see a power company that’s leaner and, Duke hopes, more efficient. It will be able to borrow money at lower rates, saving money for customers.

But customers pay for what utilities build, and Duke is on a construction binge. After decades of little change, power bills are going up.

Old coal plants, some dating to the 1920s, will be shut down rather than upgraded to meet new environmental standards. Duke and Progress are building new natural-gas plants to take advantage of cheaper, cleaner fuel. Both want to build nuclear plants – price tags estimated in the $10 billion range – but may share new ones with other utilities.

“All of that is going to drive our prices up,” Duke CEO Jim Rogers told the Observer. “The reason you do a merger is to make you stronger financially, but also because anything that offsets a rise in price is a good thing.”

Before the merger, Duke already had invested more than $3 billion in three new power plants. It won a 7 percent North Carolina rate hike in January to pay for them, raising typical customer bills $7, and will ask for another this summer. This fall, Progress, which has nearly $2 billion in new plants to pay for, will seek its first base-rate increase since 1988.

For most Carolinas customers, the $650 million in fuel savings Duke will share with them over five to six years will come to about $1 a month.

The new Duke Energy will be the world’s second-largest private utility, the company says. If it were a nation, its generating capacity would rank 14th-largest globally, just behind South Korea. Rogers jokes that he’s ruled out applying for membership in the United Nations.

The combined political action committees of Duke and Progress would be the state’s largest, based on past spending, the watchdog group Democracy North Carolina has reported. Duke is likely to be interested in nuclear plant financing, environmental rules and carbon legislation.

Environmentalists insist that, with its new clout, Duke takes on a larger obligation to replace its coal plants with renewable energy.

“Duke has so much power that if they went in a new direction, it could change everything,” said Jim Warren, director of Duke’s most dogged merger opponent, the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network.

Duke’s to-do list

While the old Duke prided itself on its engineering savvy, power plants on the northern and southern ends of its new range show how wrong construction projects can go.

In Indiana, the Edwardsport coal-fired power plant has leading-edge technology that will produce low emissions but is more than $1 billion over budget. Duke’s former No. 2 executive and Indiana’s top utility regulator lost their jobs after chatting by email about it.

In Florida, Progress’ Crystal River nuclear plant needed large new replacement parts called steam generators. Progress punched a hole through the reactor’s thick concrete containment structure to replace the components. Now the concrete is failing.

Repairing the damage is estimated to cost up to $1.3 billion. Progress is negotiating with insurers but could end up retiring the reactor.

Crystal River loomed as Duke’s directors considered the Progress deal. The merger agreement gave Duke the option of walking away if costs rose enough to affect about 15 percent or more of the combined company’s value.

“We don’t perceive it as being that big a problem, so we don’t perceive our right to walk has been triggered,” Rogers said. “So the short answer is, this is in the ordinary course of business that this has happened, and we’ll deal with it.”

He ranks it No. 1 on the new Duke’s to-do list.

Destined for marriage?

The corporate marriage of Duke and Progress seemed inevitable to some of the people who have worked for the companies.

Both were born more than a century ago. Duke built its first hydroelectric plant on the Catawba River near Charlotte. Progress’ oldest still-operating hydro plant dammed the Pee Dee River, just 65 miles east.

Duke electrified the cotton mills that fueled Charlotte’s industrial growth. Progress became synonymous with downtown Raleigh, moving only three blocks, from Martin to Fayetteville streets, since 1908.

From its beginnings, Duke prided itself on building its own power plants and running them well. Engineers or linemen could expect to spend their careers there.

“The motto was, ‘Do it yourself and do it right,’ ” said Cathy Roche, a retired senior vice president who joined Duke in 1983. “We looked down on the companies that hired the big construction firms to build nuclear plants, with huge cost overruns.”

Duke and Progress have had separate retail territories in the Carolinas but competed for wholesale customers. They also helped each other make repairs after storms in the turbulent Southeast.

Through the decades, both grew by combining with other companies. Now they’re part of a national trend. In 1995, 98 investor-owned U.S. utilities operated. Last year there were 55.

Duke and Progress dabbled in natural gas as deregulation swept through the industry in the 1990s, but both have refocused on electricity.

Progress is considered the more conservative company.

It now owns only regulated businesses that provide service to state-designated territories, a model investors regard as less risky. Nearly one-quarter of Duke’s revenue last year came from unregulated commercial businesses, such as its western wind farms and international division in Latin America.

How merger talks began

Progress began talking about potential mergers with two unidentified utilities in 2009, according to securities filings. Duke identified Progress as a potential partner the next year.

An intermediary, Duke financial adviser JPMorgan Securities, put the companies in touch.

Both companies envisioned greater financial strength as a combination, including access to capital needed to build new nuclear plants. The Progress board would get their chief executive, Bill Johnson, as the new Duke CEO, and faster earnings growth. A move toward more regulated businesses appealed to Duke directors.

Rogers, then Duke’s CEO, called Johnson in July 2010 to ask for a meeting.

Over the following months, the companies sparred over the number of Duke shares to be swapped for each Progress share and the composition of the board. Negotiations continued until the eve of Jan. 8, 2011, when the merger agreement was signed.

Progress investors will get 2.6125 Duke shares for each of theirs and will own 37 percent of the combined stock. Duke will hold 11 of the 18 board seats and five of the top nine officers under Johnson and Rogers.

Phone calls came from other potential acquirers, to both companies, hours before Duke and Progress signed their deal.

2 cultures must become one

Now the new Duke, with more than 29,000 employees across six states, must make two cultures one.

“It’s not just about your asset and operational mix, it’s about how you do business,” Rogers said. “There’s a difference in the ‘how’ and we need to work together to find the common ‘how’ going forward.”

Some Duke workers contend the new company will be tilted toward Progress’ leadership, although executive charts roughly parallel the companies’ relative size.

“There is a general concern over why the Duke board of directors and Jim Rogers are allowing Progress to come in and run so much of the company when ultimately, we are bailing Progress Energy out,” one employee emailed the Observer last week.

Johnson, the new Duke CEO, says the utilities are more alike than not.

“They’re not so much cultural (differences) as style, maybe,” he said. “For example, Duke has a much broader business mix and they tend to think about a lot of issues, and we tend to think only about the utility business. Our scope of focus is a lot narrower, which allows us to really just focus on just one thing.

“That’s the difference between the two management teams that the Progress folks are going to have to adjust to, because all of a sudden we’re a lot broader and bigger.”

Johnson says he’ll work to soothe a workforce that’s jumpy after a long merger process that left some unsure whether they’ll have jobs.

True impact of mergers

Studies of past utility mergers show that predicted operating savings are often hard to achieve. Combined companies may not find real economies of scale if they’ve already slashed costs before merging.

“Pretty consistently, you could characterize utilities as putting forward claims that turn out to be optimistic,” said Peter Schwarz, a UNC Charlotte economics professor who studies the electricity industry. “The difficulties of operating the merged companies have typically been underestimated.”

Schwarz, who has researched electricity pricing for Duke, said the ultimate test of the merger’s impact is whether the company’s costs are lower than they would have been. If they are, he said, consumers as a whole should benefit.

Even then, he added, some customers could pay more.

Duke and Progress will operate separately in the Carolinas for a few years. Duke’s North Carolina rates are now lower than Progress’, but the rates will have to be roughly the same once the Progress name disappears.

North Carolina’s Public Staff, which advocates for retail customers, did its own studies of whether the $650 million in post-merger fuel savings the utilities projected are likely to be accurate. The staff will assess other operating savings when rate cases are filed this year.

“They’ve got every incentive in the world to achieve all the savings,” said Gisele Rankin, a Public Staff lawyer. “And if they don’t achieve them, we’ll ding them in the rate cases.”

The N.C. Utilities Commission, in approving Duke’s 2006 merger with Ohio-based Cinergy, ordered Duke to return 42 percent of its expected savings to customers.

That translated into a one-year, $117.5 million rate cut.

For decades, utilities used mergers to grow. Now they more often see combinations as a way to stay profitable amid slumping demand while building new power plants and upgrading older ones.

“The logic has changed from what mergers used to be about,” said Pattabi Seshadri, a Dallas partner with The Boston Consulting Group in Dallas. “It used to be about bigger scale, growth and access to different markets. Now it’s more defensive in preserving balance-sheet strength and building financial flexibility.”

Utilities that overpay for acquisitions, cede too much to regulators or don’t find post-merger efficiencies can fail to add value, studies show.

An analysis by the global management consulting firm found that fewer than half of the utility mergers from 1997 to 2005 met their savings goals. Total shareholder returns typically fell after mergers.

Despite that, the group says merger opportunities await. Five utility mergers were announced in 2011, including the Duke-Progress deal.

Rogers predicts Duke will be in no hurry to make more acquisitions.

“But you have to be opportunistic,” he added. “That’s one of the lessons I learned, that you have to be opportunistic in what may come your way.”


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Sources: CBS News, McClatchy Newspapers, Washington Post, WCNC, WRAL, Google Maps

Pres. Obama Unveils Southern Portion Of Keystone Pipeline Permit To Oklahoma Audience

Obama defends his policy on oil pipeline


President Barack Obama took on critics of his energy policies Thursday, saying in carefully coordinated speeches that they weren't paying attention to increased oil production at home and were misleading the public about the cause of rising gas prices.

"Anyone who says that we're somehow suppressing domestic oil production isn't paying attention," Obama said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on the second day of a four-state tour to tout his policies.

"And anyone who says that just drilling more will bring gas prices down just isn't playing it straight," the president continued. " We are drilling more.

We are producing more. But the fact is, producing more oil at home isn't enough to bring gas prices down overnight."

In Cushing and a later speech at The Ohio State University, Obama repeated his call for a diversified policy that increases production of traditional energy sources such as oil and natural gas while increasing investment in alternative sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen power to compete in growing global clean energy markets.

In particular, he rejected Republican claims that U.S. oil reserves alone offer a solution to higher gas prices and long-term supplies.

"Even if we drilled every little bit of this great country of ours, we'd still have to buy enough from the rest of the world to meet our needs," Obama said in Cushing.
He added that "the price of oil is set by the global market, and that means every time tensions rise in the Middle East, so will gas prices at home."

In particular, Obama said, rising tension involving Iran was causing the current spike in global oil prices.

At Ohio State, Obama emphasized to a cheering student crowd that since he took office in 2009, "America's dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year."

"Even as the economy was growing, we've made progress in reducing the amount of oil we have to import because we're being smarter, we're doing things better," the president said.

Romney turns up heat on Obama energy policies

The whirlwind trip over two days followed weeks of criticism of his approach to gas price increases by Republicans on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail.

"He has an energy policy that is very simple," Rick Santorum said of the president during a campaign stop Monday in Illinois. "You can sum it up in two letters, N-O.

He is against everything that will create economic incentives to drill."

Newt Gingrich has made reducing prices at the pump a central promise of his campaign, telling voters at a recent event in Birmingham, Alabama, that "an American president who believed in energy and an American president who believed in science and technology would drive the price of gasoline below $2."

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl sounded a similar refrain after a Republican caucus meeting in early March, agreeing with the president's all-of-the-above approach, but adding, "We need it in action, not just words."

A focus of Republican attacks has been the delay in administration approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada's tar sands production in northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

Keystone pipeline: Separating rhetoric from reality

Last year, the administration put off a decision until 2013 after protests by environmentalists concerned about high carbon emissions from tar sands oil production and objections by Nebraska officials to a route near a vital aquifer.

Republicans in Congress, accusing Obama of avoiding the issue until after the November election, tried to speed the process by tacking a measure requiring an immediate decision to the temporary payroll tax cut bill last December.

The Obama administration then rejected the pipeline permit in January, saying an alternate route from Nebraska had yet to be decided. Since then, Republicans have persisted in attacking Obama for rejecting the permit.

The president announced Thursday in Cushing that he was using his executive authority to order federal agencies to expedite the approval process for large-scale infrastructure projects like oil pipelines.

More specifically, he ordered the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline running from Cushing to the Gulf to be placed at the top of the list.

"We're making this new pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf a priority," Obama said to cheers, later adding that "as long as I'm president, we're going to keep encouraging oil development and infrastructure and we're going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people.

We don't have to choose between one or the other. We can do both."

Many private companies -- including TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the Keystone XL project -- are working to build pipelines that relieve the bottleneck of oil in Cushing, a major hub for crude oil storage and trade.

While federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior have some involvement in the approval process for the domestic portion of the pipeline, the federal government has relatively little control when compared to the absolute say it holds over the portion that crosses the international border with Canada.

The ultimate decision-making authority for the pipeline's domestic route lies mainly with the states it crosses, prompting Republicans to question whether the president can actually claim any credit for speeding the project along.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday that Obama was claiming credit he didn't deserve on the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline while continuing to prevent construction on the northern leg from Canada.

"It's already gotten its approvals and this idea that the president is going to expedite this will have no impact on the construction of this pipeline," Boehner said of the Cushing-Gulf Coast portion. "The president has continued to block development of oil and gas reserves, big reserves, on federal lands.

And he can go out and make all the noise that he wants, but the facts are there."

Poll: Majority say build Keystone pipeline

On Wednesday, Obama kicked off his energy tour with stops in Boulder City, Nevada, and Maljamar, New Mexico, to focus on work on alternative energy sources.

The visit to Boulder City was designed to tout the success of solar technology at the largest photovoltaic solar facility in the nation. Photovoltaic solar panels create energy directly from sunlight without the need for any water or moving parts.

Obama acknowledged the high prices at the pump, but used the problem as a reason to abandon federal "subsidies" to oil and gas companies.

"We want to encourage production of oil and gas, and make sure that wherever we've got American resources, we are tapping into them," the president said. "But they don't need an additional incentive when gas is $3.75 a gallon, when oil is $120 a barrel, $125 a barrel. They don't need additional incentives. They're doing fine."

What the president calls subsidies, the petroleum industry calls the same tax breaks afforded those in many other industries.

The push to end what Obama deems to be preferential treatment to a petroleum industry that's never been more profitable was central to his two-day tour, but the president also used the trip to push back against those who call federal aid to the renewable energy industry a waste of money.

"Some of these folks want to dismiss the promise of solar power and wind power and fuel-efficient cars," Obama said in Boulder City. "In fact, they make jokes about it.

One member of Congress who shall remain unnamed called these jobs 'phony' -- called them phony jobs. I mean, think about that mindset, that attitude that says because something is new, it must not be real. If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they'd be charter members of the Flat Earth Society."

With nearly a million solar panels spread across 450 acres, Copper Mountain 1 in Boulder City provides power for roughly 17,000 homes, but employs just 10 full-time employees.

The solar plant's owner, Sempra U.S. Gas & Power, is in the process of building a second facility nearby that's set to more than triple the output of Copper Mountain 1.

Construction of the second facility -- Copper Mountain 2 -- has created 175 temporary jobs but, according to Sempra's own projections, the final solar plant will result in just five full-time positions.


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Obama To Approve Southern Portion Of Keystone; He's Preparing For GOP-Controlled Congress

On Thursday Pres. Obama will announce plans to approve the Southern portion of the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline.

This announcement comes just 2 months after he said his administration needed at least 6 months to review plans of the pipeline for Environmental Safety purposes.

So why the sudden rush?

Politics! i.e., an approaching election & Gas Prices.

I told ya'll Pres. Obama is preparing to work with a 100% GOP-Controlled Congress just as Bill Clinton had to do.

Pres. Obama will most likely squeak through a Win but the Senate will most certainly go to GOP Candidates due to the amount of Big Money being spent by Wealthy GOP Super PACS & from Wall Street Executives.

As this election closes in don't be surprised to see Pres. Obama veering more & more to the Center.

Once the election ends & the new Congress is Sworn in, Pres. Obama is going to govern from a Very Conservative, Very Moderate perspective.

Just Watch.


Obama to fast track southern portion of Keystone XL Pipeline


President Obama plans to announce in Cushing, Oklahoma Thursday that his administration will expedite the permit process for the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline, a source familiar with the president's announcement tells CNN.

In January, the Obama administration denied a permit for the 1,700 mile long Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would stretch from Canada's tar sands development to the U.S. Gulf Coast. That decision was met by persistent Republican criticism that the president has not been doing everything possible to create jobs and combat high gas prices.

Late last month, TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline, announced it would move forward with the process to build the southern portion of the pipeline, which would begin in Cushing, the president's third stop on his two-day energy tour. The White House praised the move.

Still, the permit process for a project like this can typically take a year or more. The source familiar with the president's announcement says the administration could shave several months off that timeline.

Senior administration officials would not confirm the president’s plan to unveil the effort to cut red tape for the project, though one senior administration official acknowledged the need to deal with the glut of oil in Cushing, where oil from the Midwest hits a bottleneck as it is transported to the Gulf of Mexico.

Such an announcement would no doubt be met with opposition from environmentalists, many of whom spent weeks protesting the Keystone XL project outside the White House late last fall into the early winter, before the administration announced its objection to the pipeline.


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Sources: CNN, PBS, Youtube, Google Maps

Romney Says "Fire Energy Secretary Steven Chu!" Gas Prices & Keystone XL Pipeline Revenge

Romney calls for firing top energy officials


Mitt Romney called Sunday for three of President Barack Obama's top energy or environment officials to resign or be fired for contributing to rising gas prices through what the Republican presidential hopeful labeled failed energy policies.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Romney labeled Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson the "gas hike trio" and said it was "time for them to go."

The former Massachusetts governor made a similar call at a campaign event Saturday in Illinois, the next major primary in the Republican presidential race to decide who will run against Obama in November.

According to Romney, Obama and the three top officials want higher energy prices in order to increase the viability of solar, wind and other alternative energy sources.
On Sunday, the AAA reported that the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose to $3.84 for an increase of almost 17% so far this year, according to www.fuelgaugereport.com.



Obama contends that oil prices are set by a global market and there is little that any administration can do in the short term to prevent price spikes like what is occurring now.

The president advocates a broad energy policy that invests in clean energy alternatives while continuing oil, gas and nuclear development. However, Republicans including Romney and the other presidential contenders call for accelerated drilling and development of U.S. oil and natural gas reserves.

In the Fox interview, Romney also claimed that Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada's tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast at the same time the government was giving $500 million to Solyndra, the failed solar panel manufacturer.
However, Romney's assertion misstated the timing of those events.

The Solyndra loan originated in 2009, Obama's first year in office, while the State Department rejected a permit for the Keystone pipeline earlier this year.

The permit was turned down after congressional Republicans forced a decision as planners continued seeking an alternate route through Nebraska requested by state officials.

TransCanada, the company developing the pipeline, has said it will reapply for approval of an alternate route, and in the meantime will construct one segment of the project from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast that doesn't require State Department approval.


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Sources: ABC News, Bloomberg.com, CNN, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

Green Jobs For All! Green Living & Urban America!

"Green For All"! (Van Jones' Organization) Urban Farming, Producing Green Jobs, Green Living & Clean Living Opportunities has finally come To Urban America! Its time for the American Black Community to Get a piece of this "Green" Pie! (i.e., MONEY) President Obama & Van Jones have already Opened the doors. We just Need to Walk through them!

Van Jones introduced Black People to the "Clean Way, Green Way" Business Concept. He also discusses how Black Entrepreneurs can Produce Green Jobs and teaches on the Benefits of Urban Farming & Eco-Equity to the American Black Community.

What about Hosting or Launching a "Green The Block" Party in your Community in order to Educate and Introduce Green Living/ Green Jobs Business Opportunities to Black People (including Black Business Owners) in your region?

Just a thought.

Peace










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Sources: Green For All, Youtube, Google Maps

BP Continues Business As Usual With U.S. Dept Of Defense

BP Has Steady Sales At Defense Department Despite U.S. Scrutiny


The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil company comes under scrutiny for potential violations of federal and state laws related to Gulf of Mexico well explosion, according to U.S. and company officials.

President Obama said last month that the company's "recklessness" in the gulf contributed to the disaster, and he promised that BP will "pay for the damage." Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking into possible violations of civil and criminal statutes. "If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," he said.

BP, meanwhile, remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. In fiscal 2009, BP was the Pentagon's largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to DLA spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher.

"BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs," Schirmacher said, without providing details. BP spokesman Robert Wine said he was aware of at least one "big contract" signed by the U.S. military after the oil rig explosion on April 20, involving the supply of multiple fuels for its operations in Europe.

So far, members of Congress have discussed barring BP from any new oil and gas drilling leases, not from fuel sales to the government. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who co-chairs the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, said last week that he would introduce legislation to shut BP out of such leases for the
next seven years, as punishment for what he described as "serial" legal violations.

But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a statement that "the U.S. government needs to look at all possible options when it comes to showing BP, or any corporate bad actor, that a continued culture of cost cutting and increased risk taking will absolutely not be tolerated."

Even before the gulf debacle, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun to explore cutting off BP from all federal contracts -- including those with the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which buys all fuel for the military services. The EPA plays the lead role in debarment proceedings related to the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and its probe was sparked by BP's 2006 oil spill in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas.



The EPA's deliberations, however, are suspended until the gulf spill investigations conclude, according to an EPA spokeswoman. The agency may decide to shut off federal contracts with specific divisions within BP, or with the whole company "if it is in the public interest to do so," it said in May. Any such action would be meant to punish "environmental noncompliance or other misconduct," it said.

Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently oversaw the review of BP's possible debarment, has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the Pentagon depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East. "My contact at DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces" in the region, Pascal said. She added that "BP was very fortunate in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in a military action or a war."

Pascal then sought a settlement to allow contracting with BP while forcing the company to elevate an internal office dealing with health, safety and environmental issues within its corporate structure. She also demanded that the company keep an ombudsman, retired federal judge Stanley Sporkin, whom BP first hired after the Alaska spill but had sought to let go. BP resisted both demands, and the talks were stalemated when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, Pascal said.

"At some point, debarment attorneys throughout the government need to look at BP's record," she said. "This is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. . . . Do we want to do business with this foreign corporation, which has a horrendous record of chronically violating U.S. law? You have to look at the overall behavior pattern."

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Wendy L. Snyder, gave a different account of the internal debarment discussions. She said the Defense Logistics Agency "informed the EPA that there are adequate procedures and processes to protect the U.S. military missions should EPA determine that BP should be debarred."

That claim was reinforced by Schirmacher, who said that "none of BP's current energy contracts are in direct support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan" and that the department could meet its requirements without BP fuel. But she indicated that the Pentagon had no intention of taking such action in the absence of an EPA decision.

Wine, the BP spokesman, said that although he is not familiar with details of the company's negotiations with EPA, Sporkin's tenure was extended earlier this year until the middle of 2011. He did not challenge Pascal's claim that BP's health, safety and environmental unit had been moved lower on the corporate structure before the gulf spill, reporting to the head of a business unit instead of directly to the top executive. But, Wine said, "what difference does that make?"

"Safety comes through the organization through every root," he said, and remains "paramount in every part of the business."

Several federal agencies have continuing contracts with BP, although none worth as much as the Pentagon's. Since 2008, the Federal Aviation Administration has contracted to spend at least $2.26 million to station weather, communications and aerial surveillance devices on several BP platforms in the gulf, including the Atlantis oil production platform roughly 100 miles from Deepwater Horizon's former location. Critics, including a former BP contractor, have alleged that the Atlantis was built without proper safety controls, which BP denies.

FAA spokeswoman Laura J. Brown said that BP's environmental and legal record was not a consideration in her agency's contracts. The Atlantis platform was selected "based purely on how it would support air traffic," she said.


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Sources: National Geographic, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Did Obama Give BP Free Pass On Oil Spill & Clean Up?

Obama Gives Brits Free Pass On Oil Spill While Lashing Out At Congress


President Obama on Saturday reassured Prime Minister David Cameron that his frustration over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not an attack on Britain.

But a day earlier, Obama blasted U.S. lawmakers and Tea Party activists for criticizing his response to the nation's worst environmental disaster, suggesting they are being hypocrites.

"I think it's fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending," he told Politico in an interview.

Obama also suggested the criticism coming from anti-big government protesters, such as Tea Party activists, was hypocritical.

"Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying 'do something' are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much," Obama said. "Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks, who just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms."

But Obama sang a much different tune to Cameron on Saturday when the two leaders held a "warm and constructive" telephone conversation for more than 30 minutes, Cameron's Downing St. office said.

Cameron's office said the prime minister “expressed his sadness at the ongoing human and environmental catastrophe,” but stressed BP's economic important to Britain, the U.S. and other countries.

Then Obama told the prime minister "that his unequivocal view was that BP was a multinational global company and that frustrations about the oil spill had nothing to do with national identity. The prime minister stressed the economic importance of BP to the U.K., U.S. and other countries. The president made clear that he had no interest in undermining BP's value.”

Cameron is under pressure to get Obama to tone down the criticism fearing it will hurt the millions of British retirees that hold BP stock. The company's stock has lost 40 percent of its value since the April 20 oil rig fire.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., fired back at Obama over his criticism of Congress, saying hypocrisy is no excuse for inaction "in addressing the dysfunctional and corrupt nature of the Minerals and Management Service" -- the agency that oversees offshore drilling.

"If President Obama had exercised some long overdue leadership and called on Congress to address the cozy relationship between MMS and the industry they regulate, I would have been the very first person to partner with him and give MMS the overhaul it desperately needs," Issa said in a written statement.

"After 10 inspector general reports, 10 GAO reports, a congressional investigation, the real question is, why did it take such a catastrophe for the president to call for action," he said.

Obama has sharpened his attacks on BP in recent days as the company struggles to stop oil gushing from its ruptured deepsea well.

Obama has said he would have fired BP's top executive, if he were in charge, and has supported the idea that the oil company suspend its quarterly dividend.

In a sign the company feels the pressure, BP said Saturday that its board would meet Monday to discuss deferring its second-quarter dividend and putting the money into escrow until the company's liabilities from the spill are known. BP said no decision had yet been made.

Obama also has reproached BP for spending money on a public relations campaign and occasionally refers to "British Petroleum," although the company years ago began using only its initials and is a far-reaching international corporation with extensive holdings in the United States, including a Texas refinery and a share of the Alaska oil pipeline.

This past week, the usually measured Obama said in a television interview, "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers -- so I know whose ass to kick."


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Sources: CNN, Fox News, Google Maps

Obama Will Address U.S. Tuesday On BP Oil Spill Disaster

Obama To Address Nation Tuesday Night On Gulf Oil Spill


President Obama will address the nation Tuesday night to talk about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The 8 p.m. ET speech will take place from the White House shortly after the president returns from a trip to the Gulf.

The speech will be delivered shortly after the president's return from a two-day trip to the Gulf region. He is expected to address efforts to contain the spill, the timeline for capturing the oil, the long-term recovery and restoration of the Gulf region and regulatory reform efforts at the Mineral Management Service.

"This is an ongoing crisis, much like an epidemic," David Axelrod told NBC television's "Meet the Press."

The 10-15 minute speech will also provide more details about a BP escrow fund the president wants established for fishers and trawlers whose livelihoods have been shot as a result of the spill. The administration wants a third-party reclamation process rather than BP managing distribution of funds.

The speech comes as the Obama administration faces criticism for a slow reaction time to the Gulf spill, including the approval for the construction of barriers and assistance to the states. At the same time frustration is growing about the slow pace of the clean-up and BP's inability to stop the flow while the estimates on the leak have grown exponentially.

BP's board is to meet on Monday to discuss deferring its second-quarter dividend and putting the money into escrow until the company's liabilities from the spill are known.

In addition, the president will make clear in his meeting Wednesday with BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and others about his expectation of BP's responsibility for caring for people affected by the spill.

"Our mission is to hold them accountable in every appropriate way," Axelrod said.

The amount of money set aside will be part of White House discussions with BP executives on Wednesday, but Axelrod said it should be "substantial."


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Obama Creates Independent BP Oil Spill Commission, Weekly Address

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Youtube

"BP Gate" Oil Spill Caused By Gas Bubble, Worse Than Exxon Valdez

Report: Gas bubble Triggered Rig Blast


The deadly blowout of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, rig workers have told BP's Internal Investigators.

The oil started spilling after the methane bubble expanded quickly and burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to a timeline described in documents revealed to the Associated Press.

The documents provide the most detailed account of what may have caused the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers.

Revelations of the workers' descriptions came as at least one scientist expressed concern that the resulting spill already has grown larger than the massive Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 and dumped as much as 13 million gallons of crude into waters off the U.S. coastline.

U.S. official say the underwater gusher has poured out more than 3 million gallons of crude. But Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University, told Reuters on Friday that official flow-rate estimates of 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded were much too conservative.

The real flow rate from the undersea well, based on aerial images of the oil slick and estimates of the thickness of the oil itself, is probably closer to 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) a day, MacDonald said.

A spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been monitoring the oil spill, said no one was immediately available to comment on possible revisions of the oil spill's size.

The Exxon Valdez tanker ship spilled about 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, in one of the world's worst environmental disasters ever. If his own estimate is accurate, MacDonald said BP's oil spill was already larger than its 1989 rival.

Investigation details revealed

Portions of the rig-workers interviews, two written and one taped, were described in detail to the AP by Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety and worked for BP PLC as a risk assessment consultant during the 1990s. He received them from industry friends seeking his expert opinion.

A group of BP executives were on board the Deepwater Horizon rig celebrating the project's safety record, according to the transcripts. Meanwhile, far below, the rig was being converted from an exploration well to a production well.

Based on the interviews, Bea believes that the workers set and then tested a cement seal at the bottom of the well. Then they reduced the pressure in the drill column and attempted to set a second seal below the sea floor. A chemical reaction caused by the setting cement created heat and a gas bubble which destroyed the seal.

Deep beneath the seafloor, methane is in a slushy, crystalline form. Deep sea oil drillers often encounter pockets of methane crystals as they dig into the earth.

As the bubble rose up the drill column from the high-pressure environs of the deep to the less pressurized shallows, it intensified and grew, breaking through various safety barriers, Bea said.

"A small bubble becomes a really big bubble," Bea said. "So the expanding bubble becomes like a cannon shooting the gas into your face."

'Swoosh, boom, run'

Up on the rig, the first thing workers noticed was the seawater in the drill column suddenly shooting back out at them, rocketing 240 feet in the air. Then, the gas surfaced. Then the oil.

"What we had learned when I worked as a drill rig laborer was swoosh, boom, run," Bea said. "The swoosh is the gas, boom is the explosion and run is what you better be doing."

The gas flooded into an adjoining room with exposed ignition sources, he said.

"That's where the first explosion happened," said Bea, who worked for Shell Oil in the 1960s during the last big northern Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout. "The mud room was next to the quarters where the party was. Then there was a series of explosions that subsequently ignited the oil that was coming from below."

The executives were injured but survived. Nine rig crew on the rig floor and two engineers died, according to one account.

"The furniture and walls trapped some and broke some bones but they managed to get in the life boats with assistance from others," said the transcript.

The reports made the 73-year-old industry veteran cry.

"It sure as hell is painful," he said. "Tears of frustration and anger."

BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said he could not immediately comment on the report.

Containment Box lowered

On Friday, a BP-chartered vessel lowered a 100-ton concrete-and-steel vault onto the ruptured well, an important step in a delicate and unprecedented attempt to stop most of the gushing crude fouling the sea.

"We are essentially taking a four-story building and lowering it 5,000 feet and setting it on the head of a pin," BP spokesman Bill Salvin told The Associated Press.

Underwater robots guided the 40-foot-tall box into place in a slow-moving drama. Now that the contraption is on the seafloor, workers will need at least 12 hours to let it settle and make sure it's stable before the robots can hook up a pipe and hose that will funnel the oil up to a tanker.

"It appears to be going exactly as we hoped," on Friday afternoon, shortly after the four-story device hit the seafloor. "Still lots of challenges ahead, but this is very good progress."

By Sunday, the box the size of a house could be capturing up to 85 percent of the oil.

The task became increasingly urgent as toxic oil crept deeper into the bays and marshes of the Mississippi Delta.

A sheen of oil began arriving on land last week, and crews have been laying booms, spraying chemical dispersants and setting fire to the slick to try to keep it from coming ashore. But now the thicker, stickier goo — arrayed in vivid, brick-colored ribbons — is drawing ever closer to Louisiana's coastal communities.

Never tried before

There are still untold risks and unknowns with the containment box: The approach has never been tried at such depths, where the water pressure is enough to crush a submarine, and any wrong move could damage the leaking pipe and make the problem worse. The seafloor is pitch black and the water murky, though lights on the robots illuminate the area where they are working.

If the box works, another one will be dropped onto a second, smaller leak at the bottom of the Gulf.

At the same time, crews are drilling sideways into the well in hopes of plugging it up with mud and concrete, and they are working on other ways to cap it.

Investigators looking into the cause of the explosion have been focusing on the so-called blowout preventer. Federal regulators told The Associated Press Friday that they are going to examine whether these last-resort cutoff valves on offshore oil wells are reliable.

Blowouts are infrequent, because well holes are blocked by piping and pumped-in materials like synthetic mud, cement and even sea water. The pipes are plugged with cement, so fluid and gas can't typically push up inside the pipes.

Instead, a typical blowout surges up a channel around the piping. The narrow space between the well walls and the piping is usually filled with cement, so there is no pathway for a blowout. But if the cement or broken piping leaves enough space, a surge can rise to the surface.

There, at the wellhead of exploratory wells, sits the massive steel contraption known as a blowout preventer.

It can snuff a blowout by squeezing rubber seals tightly around the pipes with up to 1 million pounds of force. If the seals fail, the blowout preventer deploys a last line of defense: a set of rams that can slice right through the pipes and cap the blowout.

Deepwater Horizon was also equipped with an automated backup system called a Deadman. It should have activated the blowout preventer even if workers could not.

Based on the interviews with rig workers, none of those safeguards worked.


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Sources: CNN, Huffington Post, MSNBC, TIME, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps