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Jewish World Review June 21, 2010 / 9 Tamuz 5770 Who told Obama drilling is ‘absolutely safe’? By Byron York http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There was one particularly striking moment in President Obama's widely panned Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil disaster. About midway through his talk, Obama acknowledged that he had approved new offshore drilling a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion on April 20. But Obama said he had done so only "under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe." Absolutely safe? Even before the Gulf spill, few defenders of offshore drilling would go that far. And when the president announced his drilling plan, on March 31, he said it was "not a decision that I've made lightly" and that he and his advisers had "looked at [it] closely for more than a year." Surely he was told of the possible risks. "If you can find anything that's absolutely safe, I sure want to find out about it," says Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "There is no engineering system that I am aware of that has zero likelihood of failure." "We can never be absolutely safe," adds Ken Arnold, an independent consultant to the oil and gas industry. "The only way you can be absolutely certain of being absolutely safe is to shut down all production and all drilling from offshore today." So how did the president get the idea that new offshore drilling would be absolutely safe? Obama has often said he relies on a "green team" for advice on energy and environmental decisions. The top three members of the team are the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Did Browner, or Salazar or Chu assure the president that new offshore drilling would be "absolutely safe"? No, says a spokeswoman for Chu. "That is actually a question for the Department of the Interior," says the Energy Department's Tiffany Edwards. "The secretary of energy is not involved in that decision making." Well, then, perhaps it was Salazar or Browner. But a spokesman for Salazar did not respond to questions. Neither did a spokesman for Browner. So at the moment, we don't know who assured the president that new offshore drilling would be absolutely safe. That's certainly not the way experts talk about the issue. When discussing projects like offshore exploration, engineers often use the phrases "PF," which stands for probability of failure, and "CF," which stands for consequences of failure. The Deepwater Horizon disaster was a classic low-probability, high-consequence event. Even with good safety procedures, strange combinations of human error, mechanical failure and sheer bad luck can combine to cause a devastating accident. "There has been a constant improvement in safety, but you can never say that a very low probability but very high consequence event is impossible," says Ken Arnold. "You can never say that." That's the point that comes back over and over in discussing offshore oil drilling. Even though technology has gotten better and better over the years, you can't say it is absolutely safe. Yet Obama said just that. It could be that one or more of his advisers explicitly told him that drilling would be absolutely safe. If that's the case, he got bad advice. Or it could be there were mistakes in communication as the assessment of risk made its way through the bureaucracy to the president's ears. Say a government official who specializes in calculating risk determines that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance, or 1 in 100,000 chance, or 1 in 1,000,000 chance of something happening. When the information goes from the specialist to his boss, and then up another level or two, what had begun as a specific risk assessment becomes simply "safe." Then maybe it becomes "absolutely safe." "By the time it gets to the green team and then to the president, you get these horrible distortions," says Robert Bea. Of course, there's a third possibility. Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Obama has taken a lot of heat from liberals who never liked his pro-drilling decision in the first place. Maybe he used the words "absolutely safe" to deflect blame and make himself look a little better in retrospect. That would be troubling, but not as troubling as the possibility that Obama actually believed his own claim. What would that say about the president many commentators have described as brilliant? Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment on Byron York's column by clicking here. Previously: 06/14/10 Billions for ‘green jobs,’ whatever they are 06/07/10 Sestak a no-go for any job. So what was the deal? 05/31/10 As economic worries worsen, White House puts on the glitz 05/25/10 GOP dilemma: Fight Kagan, or go along? 05/11/10 Enforcing nation's immigration laws would be a bargain 05/03/10 How Obama could lose Arizona immigration battle 04/27/10 What's behind the anti-Tea Party hate narrative? 04/20/10 As government expands, beware the post-office example 04/19/10 Who wins in 2010? Good luck reading tea leaves 04/12/10 GOP Obamacare strategy: Try repeal, then cut 04/05/10 Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth 03/30/10 Message to Dems: People still don't like Obamacare 03/23/10 The coming consequences of Obamacare 03/16/10 Marco Rubio and the Republicans who love him 03/15/10 GOP hopes town halls take health care off table 03/08/10 Dems turn risky health vote into manhood contest 03/01/10 Why Obama defies the public on health care 02/22/10 South Carolina mulls 2012: Romney? Palin? Huck? 02/16/10 GOP winning war over Miranda rights for terrorists 02/09/10 Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? 02/02/10 Is Obama dissatisfied with being president? 01/19/10 The Republican dilemma: Good Michael or Bad Michael? 01/12/10 Now the lawmakers are figuring out what they didn't know 01/05/10 GOP deserves blame for Democratic excesses 12/29/09 Dems' dreams of a blue West begin to turn red 12/22/09 Why Dems push health care, even if it kills them 11/30/09 Dems' kamikaze mission: Health care by New Year's 11/23/09 Why it's a mistake to bring Gitmo prisoners here 11/16/09 Dems' slick fix: $210 billion of fiscal restraint 11/10/09 Obama can't be community organizer for the world 11/02/09 At key moment, Obama leaves health post unfilled 10/26/09 ‘Fierce urgency' for jobs, not health care’ 10/12/09 Facts hurt Jennings in youth sex controversy 10/05/09 Amid terror threat, Dems chip away at Patriot Act 09/27/09 In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors 09/21/09 Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in drove 09/14/09 Dems stifle Republican health care plans 09/08/09 For Dems, a serious Charlie Rangel problem 09/07/09 Obama's speech: Wrong setting for a sales job 09/01/09 What happened to the antiwar movement? 08/24/09 Why Dems may jam through health care plan 08/17/09 GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010 08/10/09 The empty words of a journalist turned flack 08/03/09 Probe finds new clues in AmeriCorps IG scandal 07/27/09 Obamacare haunted by unkept promises of stimulus 07/20/09 Why the GOP failed the Sotomayor test 07/13/09 What the GOPers will ask Sotomayor 06/29/09 Serious questions remain for Mark Sanford 06/22/09 How GOPers can crack the AmeriCorps scandal 06/16/09 Worried about Sotomayor? Consider Andre Davis 06/08/09 Can Mitch Daniels save the GOP? 06/01/09 When the Dems derailed a Latino nominee 05/26/09 Why the GOP will defeat Obama on healthcare 05/19/09 Rosy report can't hide stimulus problems 05/12/09 The Reagan legacy is the man himself 05/05/09 Sen. Specter, meet your new friends 04/27/09 Ted Olson: ‘Torture’ probes will never end 04/20/09 Who's Laughing at the ‘Axis of Evil’ today? 04/14/09 Congress needs Google to track stimulus money 04/06/09 Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary 03/30/09 On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right 03/24/09 It's Obama's crisis now 03/17/09: Geithner-Obama economics: A joke that's not funny © 2009, NEA

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