Here it is: my 100th entry, and it's neither political nor inherently snarky. AND it only took, what, four years of intermittent blogging to make it happen? That averages out to a post every other month, and I think that's something that we can all be happy about. You haven't gotten bored with overposting, I haven't become annoyed by the need to write. It works. We'll just ignore the whole binge-and-purge bulimic blogger reality that it's five posts in a week and then three years off. That bit's irrelevant.
So my only resolution for 2010 was this: choose health. I reiterated that during Lent: make healthy choices. It's not so much about losing weight, though that's a great side effect. It's not about getting in shape for the wedding, though that's a good one, too. It's about the way I feel when I'm eating better or working out. My whole spirit is lifted. It's about not spending my life trapped in stationary hobbies because, much as I'd like to hike or run or play with my kids, I can't because I'm too big or out of shape. It's about someday being able to bear healthy children. It's about not losing a single moment with Jeremiah--about saving even one more day of my life to spend with him. I want them all--I'm greedy for them.
This has been an amazing year, too--Jeremiah gave me a gift of health in the form of a membership to a gym. and I've been really good about making it to the gym or doing something at least three times a week. It's actually getting to the point that I notice the days that I don't go more than the days that I do--case in point, I was thinking that I only went twice this week, checking, and noticing that I went to the gym twice and biking once. And therein lies the ache.
Jeremiah took me bike riding last week, and it was the first time I've been on a bike that actually moves (vs. the stationary ones at the gym) in probably five years. No lie. It may even have been longer. And I am here to tell you that they bike at the gym is a liar. "Let's do a hills workout," it says. "Sure," you say, convincing yourself that it's actually getting harder the more bars show up on the screen. "I must be pedalling up K2," you think, sweat rolling down your forehead. You huff and puff to the summit, and 45 minutes later leave satisfied that you could totally ride a trail for 45 minutes with no problems.
HAH! Lying stationary bikes with your lying stationary bars.
We borrowed my dad's old bike for me and drove up this killer hill (huge, huge hill--literally climbing out of a river valley in 50 or so yards) to park at the dump and ride a wonderful bike trail along the "highway" (big for us, but it's really only 3 lanes each way). Riding wet was great--going with traffic and the wind, pedal pedal pedal, get used to having to balance and look and what is this hard thing on my head? It was a lot of fun, and we rode 6ish miles to the Ft. Richardson exit. Then Jeremiah gave me some BS about how we have to ride back. Excuse me? I mean, I knew that when we started, but you want to talk inconvenient truth? That was it. Because now we're riding back to Eagle River against the wind and against traffic, which is creating bonus wind. That's right--bonus wind. Wind in addition to the stuff that's down the mountains and along this lovely man made wind tunnel.
On the way back, I had to learn about this thing called "gearing down." It's where you click some stuff and pedal like you're fleeing the Devil himself, while in actuality you're moving slightly faster than a geriatric sloth and barely fast enough to stay upright. The faster you pedal, the more the quads burn, and yet you're still moving practically backwards. (I'm not just being a wuss; we were going 2mph slower on the way back than on the way out, and I was pedaling faster. I know. I told Jeremiah and he didn't argue. That's almost like agreeing.) In the end, I had to send Jeremiah the last 500 feet alone, because my legs just weren't going to make it.
I didn't realize that my legs weren't the only sore bits until Tuesday, when I went to the gym to lecture the stationary bike about the evils of lying. I got on the seat and almost hopped off--bum bruising! What is up with that? And the same thing happened yesterday--Jeremiah showed me the best route to to work last night so that I can bike to work on (what else?) Bike to Work Day and I had so much fun (no wind resistance!) but dang! My rear is still sore, and that's not good when you sit at a desk all day.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my butt hurts but it's worth it--so worth it. I had a ton of fun. I conquered a couple of hills and my fears of moving quickly down a hill (I'll get to "fast" next week). I even started speeding up to go over some culvert humps, and coming off the seat. All those bike-riding things started coming back. More than that, though, I did it anyway, even though it wasn't entirely comfortable, because I need to do it. And I wanted to do it. Because the other choice was to sit on the couch and watch TV or blog, and for the first time in a long time that was less attractive than doing something active. This weekend: another bike ride. Next weekend, maybe a hike in Hatcher Pass. I've always had those ideas, but I've never actually done it. And now we're doing it.
Yeah. We. There's the difference, and it's the whole world.
Ok. I'm good. You can go puke now. I won't look. I know it's jealous puke, and that's ok, too. ;)
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Changing the Rules When You Lose the Game
In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I work for a company that has contracts with BP, and that I've been an embedded contractor at a BP office for the last 2-1/2 years.
That said, I'm not any happier about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico than anyone else is. I'm not a "drill at will" person, any more than I think that we should shut down oil production altogether. We're not ready for either one of those things. I'm praying for the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and for those who make their living on the shores and in the waters of the Gulf.
What gets my goat is what's happening in Congress right now. Currrent law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990) caps an oil company's spill liability at $75 million dollars. That's not even close to the potential cost of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. However, that law, enacted after the Valdez spill of 1989, is the law that was in place when the Deepwater project received its permits. That was the law that was in place at the time of the well blowout two weeks ago. It is the law under which all parties involved were operating, quite content that it was sufficiently stringent.
Now this: House To Take Up Bill Increasing Oil-Spill Liability Cap To $10 Billion. That's right: Congress is upping the ante to $10 billion dollars, and honestly--that's its prerogative. We know that the more "efficient" these operations get (more oil, less infrastructure) the more catastrophic these spills have the potential to be. My issue is with this key point (emphasis mine): "Pelosi's announcement marks the beginning of an effort by Democrats to ensure that BP Plc (BP) pays for environmental damages caused by last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico."
Wait a second--since when is a law allowed to be retroactive? Regulations, sure--happens all the time. But the law? I'm fairly certain there's a clause against that in the Constitution (and, as it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed that: CBS Political Hotsheet.).
The 1990 law was fine for 20 years, even after the biggest spill in recorded history to that point. That tells me that in 20 years we haven't had any issue of this size. In the past 20 years, the United States has been sufficiently comfortable with the ability of the oil companies to handle spills that it has allowed offshore drilling. In the past 20 years, the United States, by permitting the drilling and accepting the mountains of tax dollars and benefits of domestic production, accepted the risk associated with offshore drilling.
No oil company ever claimed that a spill of this size would be impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. There's always the possibility of catastrophe--it was just improbable. Both the oil company and permitting agencies knew that the consequence of an incident like this would be catastrophic, but that the likelihood of its occurence was miniscule, and was therefore, by all parties, an acceptable risk for the potential return. Both sides assumed that risk, proof of the rarity of these incidents is that a blowout of this kind has never happened before. In the last 20 years, there has been no incident like this in U.S. waters.
Now, however, the rarity of this kind of incident is no longer relevant. Americans are not prepared to pay for it with lost production and environmental damage, so BP will, and has actually said that it will pay all legitimate claims anyway, irrespective of the $75MM cap. I thought that was pretty good. Apparently, though, it wasn't good enough for the Obama administration, who is pushing the legislation even while seeming to claim that in this case it isn't needed because "'the cap is not in place if somebody is found to be either grossly negligent... involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations,' [according to presidential spokesman Robert] Gibbs at his daily press briefing yesterday" (CBS).
Gotten goat number 2: That kind of statement from the White House implies that an investigation will find BP grossly negligent, involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations, when we haven't had time to investigate anything because everyone is focussing on stopping the oil spread. The Administration has assigned guilt, when the only people with time to investigate are the media. From what I've been able to read, even in more liberal media sources, none of that's true. BP used industry-proven technology properly and made every effort to assure the quality of both its contractors and equipment--even if a faulty BOV slipped through, that's human error, not gross negligence. I haven't heard anything about misconduct, and the only violation of regulation that anyone's proposed is the lack of a site-specific spill plan, and in that case MMS permitted the project anyway because according to its interpretation of the regulation, Deepwater was covered by the GoM spill plan.
And just in case BP is found not to be negligent, has conducted itself properly, and didn't violate any federal regulation, and has already publicly committed to paying for the cleanup, the Administration and Congress will force them to pay anyway by retroactively lifting the ceiling on liability. Criminal or not, BP's going to pay, and that's pretty much the sentiment forwarded by the bill's author, Sen. Robert Mendez (Rep., NJ): "This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses."
Which excesses are those? Excess risk? Not so much, because the goverment is okay with risk as long as it turns out tax dollars and domestic energy, jobs and political capital. Excess arrogance? Not really, because every time a car drips on a gravel pad Congress drags an oil exec in front of a special committee for a pillory and a lecture on C-Span, and the execs keep taking it. No, Big Oil has to be responsible for its excess profits. For making money when the economy's weak. Big Oil has to be responsible for being one of the few viable industries in a country that hates itself for being so oil dependent that we can't say no to a $110 barrel, that preaches renewable energy while rejecting all attempts to actually make it happen (we'll spend $5 on a gallon of gas, but don't dare spend tax dollars upgrading the grid for wind power or the rail system to replace planes with highspeed rail).
Honestly? I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we no longer want offshore drilling because, however rare, we cannot afford or recover from these kinds of disasters. I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we're going to ditch fossil fuels altogether, because that might be a challenge with some merit to it. But a Congress that has spent the last year being pissed beyond reason at a financial system that hedged its bets on the mortgage market cannot then turn around and try, after a crash, to offload the risk that the country took in saying yes to offshore drilling. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of wealthy politicians berating wealthy people and companies for seeking wealth--politicians do the same thing, only they call it reelection.
We wanted oil, and we risked an ecosystem to do get it. We wanted tax dollars, and so we enabled one of the largest taxpaying industries in the country to do what it does best, and all was fine until we got caught by what is, in all likelyhood, an accident. A one-in-a-million happening. (Or, for the conspiracy theorists, an act of war by North Korea or an act of domestic terrorism by environmentalists reacting to the President's claim, a week before the spill, that the risk from production is not the rigs, but the refineries.)
Well, friends, this is the price of doing business. Congress made the rules. Now the country has to play by them. Suck it up.
That said, I'm not any happier about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico than anyone else is. I'm not a "drill at will" person, any more than I think that we should shut down oil production altogether. We're not ready for either one of those things. I'm praying for the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and for those who make their living on the shores and in the waters of the Gulf.
What gets my goat is what's happening in Congress right now. Currrent law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990) caps an oil company's spill liability at $75 million dollars. That's not even close to the potential cost of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. However, that law, enacted after the Valdez spill of 1989, is the law that was in place when the Deepwater project received its permits. That was the law that was in place at the time of the well blowout two weeks ago. It is the law under which all parties involved were operating, quite content that it was sufficiently stringent.
Now this: House To Take Up Bill Increasing Oil-Spill Liability Cap To $10 Billion. That's right: Congress is upping the ante to $10 billion dollars, and honestly--that's its prerogative. We know that the more "efficient" these operations get (more oil, less infrastructure) the more catastrophic these spills have the potential to be. My issue is with this key point (emphasis mine): "Pelosi's announcement marks the beginning of an effort by Democrats to ensure that BP Plc (BP) pays for environmental damages caused by last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico."
Wait a second--since when is a law allowed to be retroactive? Regulations, sure--happens all the time. But the law? I'm fairly certain there's a clause against that in the Constitution (and, as it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed that: CBS Political Hotsheet.).
The 1990 law was fine for 20 years, even after the biggest spill in recorded history to that point. That tells me that in 20 years we haven't had any issue of this size. In the past 20 years, the United States has been sufficiently comfortable with the ability of the oil companies to handle spills that it has allowed offshore drilling. In the past 20 years, the United States, by permitting the drilling and accepting the mountains of tax dollars and benefits of domestic production, accepted the risk associated with offshore drilling.
No oil company ever claimed that a spill of this size would be impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. There's always the possibility of catastrophe--it was just improbable. Both the oil company and permitting agencies knew that the consequence of an incident like this would be catastrophic, but that the likelihood of its occurence was miniscule, and was therefore, by all parties, an acceptable risk for the potential return. Both sides assumed that risk, proof of the rarity of these incidents is that a blowout of this kind has never happened before. In the last 20 years, there has been no incident like this in U.S. waters.
Now, however, the rarity of this kind of incident is no longer relevant. Americans are not prepared to pay for it with lost production and environmental damage, so BP will, and has actually said that it will pay all legitimate claims anyway, irrespective of the $75MM cap. I thought that was pretty good. Apparently, though, it wasn't good enough for the Obama administration, who is pushing the legislation even while seeming to claim that in this case it isn't needed because "'the cap is not in place if somebody is found to be either grossly negligent... involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations,' [according to presidential spokesman Robert] Gibbs at his daily press briefing yesterday" (CBS).
Gotten goat number 2: That kind of statement from the White House implies that an investigation will find BP grossly negligent, involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations, when we haven't had time to investigate anything because everyone is focussing on stopping the oil spread. The Administration has assigned guilt, when the only people with time to investigate are the media. From what I've been able to read, even in more liberal media sources, none of that's true. BP used industry-proven technology properly and made every effort to assure the quality of both its contractors and equipment--even if a faulty BOV slipped through, that's human error, not gross negligence. I haven't heard anything about misconduct, and the only violation of regulation that anyone's proposed is the lack of a site-specific spill plan, and in that case MMS permitted the project anyway because according to its interpretation of the regulation, Deepwater was covered by the GoM spill plan.
And just in case BP is found not to be negligent, has conducted itself properly, and didn't violate any federal regulation, and has already publicly committed to paying for the cleanup, the Administration and Congress will force them to pay anyway by retroactively lifting the ceiling on liability. Criminal or not, BP's going to pay, and that's pretty much the sentiment forwarded by the bill's author, Sen. Robert Mendez (Rep., NJ): "This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses."
Which excesses are those? Excess risk? Not so much, because the goverment is okay with risk as long as it turns out tax dollars and domestic energy, jobs and political capital. Excess arrogance? Not really, because every time a car drips on a gravel pad Congress drags an oil exec in front of a special committee for a pillory and a lecture on C-Span, and the execs keep taking it. No, Big Oil has to be responsible for its excess profits. For making money when the economy's weak. Big Oil has to be responsible for being one of the few viable industries in a country that hates itself for being so oil dependent that we can't say no to a $110 barrel, that preaches renewable energy while rejecting all attempts to actually make it happen (we'll spend $5 on a gallon of gas, but don't dare spend tax dollars upgrading the grid for wind power or the rail system to replace planes with highspeed rail).
Honestly? I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we no longer want offshore drilling because, however rare, we cannot afford or recover from these kinds of disasters. I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we're going to ditch fossil fuels altogether, because that might be a challenge with some merit to it. But a Congress that has spent the last year being pissed beyond reason at a financial system that hedged its bets on the mortgage market cannot then turn around and try, after a crash, to offload the risk that the country took in saying yes to offshore drilling. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of wealthy politicians berating wealthy people and companies for seeking wealth--politicians do the same thing, only they call it reelection.
We wanted oil, and we risked an ecosystem to do get it. We wanted tax dollars, and so we enabled one of the largest taxpaying industries in the country to do what it does best, and all was fine until we got caught by what is, in all likelyhood, an accident. A one-in-a-million happening. (Or, for the conspiracy theorists, an act of war by North Korea or an act of domestic terrorism by environmentalists reacting to the President's claim, a week before the spill, that the risk from production is not the rigs, but the refineries.)
Well, friends, this is the price of doing business. Congress made the rules. Now the country has to play by them. Suck it up.
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