By Adam Bitely –
The Obama administration never ceases to amaze when it comes to employing stealth tactics to enforce their agenda on the American people. The latest tactic they are employing is stacking a seven member commission that is tasked with determining the causes of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and steps that can be taken to improve drilling safety.
The commission has a tall order. Their findings will inevitably determine policy that is enacted in the fall that will likely influence the lives of millions if not all Americans. Many Gulf Coast jobs’ fate rides on the report and the actions taken thereafter. But the members of the commission should trouble anyone who believes that the Obama administration response to the oil spill is serious.
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the biographical information for each member of the commission was provided to the readers as a way to peer through the smoke and mirrors of the Obama administration. Not a single member of this commission has any experience in oil drilling, let alone any knowledge on how to better manage an oil rig.
For instance, only one member of the commission has a background in engineering, specializing in physics and optics. Another member, the co-chair who is the former Democratic Senator Bob Graham from Florida, fought offshore drilling throughout his career. While another member, William Reilly, is a former EPA Secretary from the George H.W. Bush administration and spent decades in the environmental movement chairing and serving as President of the World Wildlife Fund. Reilly appears to be the only member with any sort of ties to an oil company by serving on the board of ConocoPhillips, providing them with an environmentalist perspective within their corporate governance.
Not a single member of the commission comes from a field that has any background in the task at hand. They are all academics or environmentalists lacking the knowledge necessary to make educated assessments on moving forward with offshore drilling practices. Surprisingly, Hollywood director and EPA favorite James Cameron, was not invited to join the environmental activist commission.
In short, this commission exists solely to deliver a specific result. The one Obama wants. This commission will deliver a report that devastates the future of offshore drilling and curiously will probably include some proposed regulation that lines the pockets of government and their environmental fundraising allies all the while.
Commissions like this are dangerous. They are sold to the public as wise endeavors that will lead to solutions to the problems they are tasked to deal with. We are told that the members are brilliant leaders in their fields or communities. In the case of this commission, these are dolts from the inner bowels of the environmental movement that peddled such theories as “global warming” as facts for the world’s governments to respond to.
This commission exists to deliver one of Obama’s major tenants on his agenda: Cap & Trade. While the commission should be searching for ways to prevent this kind of disaster in the future, it will only find ways to get Obama’s energy policies cemented in the books of history. This type of thing has happened already when the Obama administration doctored a report to make it appear that a group of scientists recommended a drilling ban. Having learned their lesson that appointing objective commission participants can backfire against the political agenda, Obama is leaving nothing to chance this time.
Make no mistake; any report from this commission should be treated for what it is worth — an elementary view from fringe environmentalists on their opinion of offshore drilling void of any expertise in the field they are investigating. This is political theatre, do not fall victim to it.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com.
