Gov. Palin, today June 8, 2010 addressed the Obama administration's
gross lack of action on the BP oil spill in a Facebook
Note, the complete transcript of which follows:
50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking
revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf
oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted
that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward.
His reasoning: “Because my experience is, when you
talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me.
I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.”
First, to the “informed and enlightened” mainstream media: in all the
discussions you’ve had with the White House about the spill, did it
not occur to you before today to ask how the CEO-to-CEO level
discussions were progressing to remedy this tragedy? You never cease to
amaze. (Kind of reminds us of the months on end when you never
bothered to ask if the President was meeting with General McChrystal to talk about our
strategy in Afghanistan.)
Second, to fellow baffled Americans: this revelation is further proof
that it bodes well to have some sort of executive experience before occupying
the Oval Office (as if the painfully slow response to the oil spill,
confusion of duties, finger-pointing, lack of preparedness, and
inability to grant local government simple requests weren’t proof
enough). The current administration may be unaware that it’s the
President’s duty, meeting on a CEO-to-CEO level with Hayward, to verify
what BP reports. In an interview a few weeks ago with Greta Van
Susteren, I noted that based on my experience working with oil execs as
an oil regulator and then as a Governor, you must verify what
the oil companies claim – because their perception of circumstances and
situations dealing with public resources and public trust is not
necessarily shared by those who own America’s public resources and
trust. I was about run out of town in Alaska for what critics decried
at the time as my “playing hardball with Big Oil,” and those same
adversaries (both shortsighted Repubs and Dems) continue to this day to
try to discredit my administration’s efforts in holding Big Oil
accountable to operate ethically and responsibly.
Mr. President: with all due respect, you have to get involved, sir.
The priorities and timeline of an oil company are not the same as the
public’s. You cannot outsource the cleanup and the responsibility and
the trust to BP and expect that the legitimate interests of Americans
adversely affected by this spill will somehow be met.
White House: have you read this morning’s Washington Post? Not
to pile it on BP, but there’s an extensive report chronicling the company’s
troubling history:
“BP has had more high-profile accidents than any other
company in recent years. And now, with the disaster in the gulf,
independent experts say the pervasiveness of the company’s problems, in
multiple locales and different types of facilities, is striking.
‘They are a recurring environmental criminal and they do not
follow U.S. health safety and environmental policy,’ said Jeanne
Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who led its BP investigations.”
And yet just 10 days prior to the explosion, the Obama
administration’s regulators gave the oil rig a pass, and last year the Obama
administration granted BP a National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) exemption for its drilling operation.
These decisions and the resulting spill have shaken the public’s
confidence in the ability to safely drill. Unless government
appropriately regulates oil developments and holds oil executives
accountable, the public will not trust them to drill, baby, drill. And
we must! Or we will be even more beholden to, and controlled by,
dangerous foreign regimes that supply much of our energy. This has been a
constant refrain from me. As Governor of Alaska, I did everything in
my power to hold oil companies accountable in order to prove to the
federal government and to the nation that Alaska could be trusted to
further develop energy rich land like ANWR and NPR-A. I hired
conscientious Democrats and Republicans (because this sure shouldn’t be a
partisan issue) to provide me with the best advice on how we could
deal with what was a corrupt system of some lawmakers and
administrators who were hesitant to play hardball with some in the oil
field business. (Remember the Alaska lawmakers, public decision-makers,
and business executives who ended up going to jail as a result of the
FBI’s investigations of oily corruption.)
As the aforementioned article notes, BP’s operation in Alaska would
hurt our state and waste public resources if allowed to continue.
That’s why my administration created the Petroleum Systems Integrity
Office (PSIO) when we saw proof of improper maintenance of oil
infrastructure in our state. We had to verify. And that’s why we
instituted new oversight and held BP and other oil companies
financially accountable for poor maintenance practices. We knew we
could partner with them to develop resources without pussyfooting
around with them. As a CEO, it was my job to look out for the interests
of Alaskans with the same intensity and action as the oil company CEOs
looked out for the interests of their shareholders.
I learned firsthand the way these companies operate when I served as
chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC). I
ended up resigning in protest because my bosses (the Governor and his
chief of staff at the time) wouldn’t support efforts to clean up the
corruption involving improper conflicts of interest with energy
companies that the state was supposed to be watching. (I wrote about
this valuable learning experience in my book, “Going Rogue”.) I felt
guilty taking home a big paycheck while being reduced to sitting on my
thumbs – essentially rendered ineffective as a supervisor of a
regulatory agency in charge of nearly 20% of the U.S. domestic supply of
energy.
My experience (though, granted, I got the message loud and clear
during the campaign that my executive experience managing the fastest
growing community in the state, and then running the largest state in
the union, was nothing compared to the experiences of a community
organizer) showed me how government officials and oil execs could
scratch each others’ backs to the detriment of the public, and it made
me ill. I ran for Governor to fight such practices. So, as a former
chief executive, I humbly offer this advice to the President: you must verify.
That means you must meet with Hayward. Demand answers.
In the interview today, the President said: “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 a-- to kick.”
Please, sir, for the sake of the Gulf residents, reach out to experts
who have experience holding oil companies accountable. I suggested a
few weeks ago that you start with Alaska’s Department of Natural
Resources, led by Commissioner Tom Irwin. Having worked with Tom and
his DNR and AGIA team led by Marty Rutherford, I can vouch for their
integrity and expertise in dealing with Big Oil and overseeing its
developments. We’ve all lived and worked through the Exxon-Valdez
spill. They can help you. Give them a call. Or, what the heck, give me
a call.
And, finally, Mr. President, please do not punish the American public
with any new energy tax in response to this tragedy. Just because BP
and federal regulators screwed up that doesn’t mean the rest of us
should get punished with higher taxes at the pump and attached to
everything petroleum products touch.
- Sarah Palin