No oil spill for McCain

(Photo is of oil rig washed ashore by Katrina at Dauphin, Louisiana)

John McCain, as you know, is a fan (now) of drilling for oil in the coastal waters of Florida and other states. He maintains the pretense that this will somehow help our current "crisis" caused by high gas and oil prices. He probably knows better (or not) but is playing to his base and of course his pandering for more drilling also warms the heart of Exxon-Mobil and other corporate monsters of greed. And they have lots of money to spend in his increasingly faltering attempt to get elected as president of the U.S. of A.

But McCain's lack of knowledge problem keeps raising its ugly head. Just about every time he opens his mouth he shows the world how ignorant he really is. It's embarrassing! I mean people are laughing at him.

For example, a couple of days ago another of his senior advisers, one Nancy Pfotenhauer, said (falsely) that not a "drop of oil" was spilled by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Shortly thereafter, she backtracked, claiming she had been "misinformed." Misinformed by whom? McCain?

But that didn't stop ol' John. On July 18, he opened his mouth and promptly stuck his foot in it - again! He said that all those oil rigs out there in the Gulf of Mexico "survived, very sucessfully, the impacts of hurricanes."

Here's the fuller version which was his response to the impact of drilling on the environment:

"...I'm aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes - hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned."

Think Progress corrected ol' John:

"McCain is wrong. According to press reports, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 'tore through the Gulf of Mexico's offshore oil and gas fields, toppling production platforms, setting rigs adrift and rupturing pipelines.' The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported that the hurricanes totally destroyed 113 offshore platforms.

"The hurricanes cost Transocean, the largest offshore driller, 'about $135 million in repairs, downtime and equipment upgrades' alone, and damage to offshore producers accounted for 77 percent of the oil industry's storm costs. One offshore rig, the Ocean Warwick, drifted 66 nautical miles before running aground."

There's more. It is estimated that 7-9 million gallons of oil spilled from damaged pipelines, refineries and storage tanks onshore!

In May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service reported that along with the offshore platforms destroyed, and 457 pipelines damaged, "At least 741,000 gallons [of oil] were spilled from 124 reported sources." According to the Coast Guard, any amount over 100,000 gallons is a "major" spill.

Maybe ol' John needs new advisers or perhaps he should do a little more studying before he begins pontificating about things of which he is obviously ignorant.