Federal Workers Taking A Break From Oil Spill
Jul 3, 2010 Political
While thousands of local citizens will be working through the Independence Day holiday to fight back the oil spill in the Gulf, federal workers there will be taking the holiday off.
Roberts told WWL First News that after they submitted the proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers last week, Corps officials said last Friday that discussion on the plan would have to be put on hold until the following Monday, because the Corps office would be closed for the weekend.
“Whoever reviews permits, and whatever departments and stakeholders and agencies need to give approval for this…should be working around the clock, just like the people are that are trying to get this oil picked up,” Roberts said. WWL
Roberts is absolutely correct. Those who are required to review permits and perform other functions vital to the Gulf effort need to be at work. If what they do is not important enough to stay and get done then it is not important enough for the locals to worry about.
In that light, Roberts and his people should just take the weekend to do what they need to do and what they asked for permits to do and be done with it. Who cares if the Army COE or other federal agencies are not happy? If they really cared they would keep working to get things done. Taking the holiday off means a 2-3 day delay in getting things done. That could be the difference between oil contained and oil on the shore.
So now would be a good time for the locals to ignore the feds and do what is necessary to get things done.
I also want to stress that we are working closely with the Gulf states and local communities to help every American affected by this crisis. Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill. But as President of the United States, I’m going to spare no effort to respond to this crisis for as long as it continues. And we will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused. And while there will be time to fully investigate what happened on that rig and hold responsible parties accountable, our focus now is on a fully coordinated, relentless response effort to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the Gulf.
– Barack Obama, May 2, 2010.
I guess spare no effort does not include people working on the holiday…
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: corps of engineers, holiday, ineptitude, permits, taking off