Thursday, June 30, 2016
51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria
WASHINGTON
— More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo
sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
The
memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State
Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the
unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of
stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more
focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Such
a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach
to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama
has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military
campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.
But
the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,”
underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the
administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than
400,000 people.
The
State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for
employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest
with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of
reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of
signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not
unprecedented.
The
names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials — many of them
career diplomats — who have been involved in the administration’s Syria
policy over the last five years, at home or abroad. They range from a
Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former
deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While
there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department
officials are known to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has
pushed for stronger American action against Syria, in part to force a
diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad. The president has resisted such
pressure, and has been backed up by his military commanders, who have
raised questions about what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was
forced from power — a scenario that the draft memo does not address.
Document
State Department Draft Dissent Memo on Syria
In a draft version of a dissent memo filed with the
State Department's senior leadership, dozens of diplomats and other
mid-level officials called for military strikes against President Bashar
al-Assad of Syria.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
When a government goes bankrupt, it loses its sovereignty.
When a government goes bankrupt, it loses its
sovereignty. In 1933 the United States declared bankruptcy, as expressed in
Roosevelt's Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111, and 6260, House Joint Resolution
192 of June 5, 1933, confirmed in Perry v. United States, (1935) 294 U.S.
330-381, 79 L.Ed 912, as well as 31 USC 5112, 5119, and 12 USC 95A. The bankrupt
United States went into receivership, reorganized in favor of 115 creditors and
new owners. In 1913, Congress turned over America... lock, stock and barrel to a
handful of criminals whose avowed intent from the beginning was to plunder,
bankrupt, conquer, and enslave the people of the United States of America and
eliminate this nation from the face of the earth. The goal was, and is, to
absorb America into a one-world private commercial government, a "New World
Order."
U.S. CONCENTRATION CAMPS
FEMA AND THE REX 84 PROGRAM
BREAKING HURRICANE KATRINA CONSPIRACY STORY!
September 5, 2005:
"I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp"
There over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States.
The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a mass exodus of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.
The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.
located in southern California. His findings are as follows:
Over
the last couple months several of us have investigated three soon-to-be
prison camps in the Southern California area. We had heard about
these sites and wanted to see them for ourselves.
The first
one we observed was in Palmdale, California. It is not operating
as a prison at the moment but is masquerading as part of a water
facility. Now why would there be a facility of this nature out in
the middle of nowhere with absolutely no prisoners? The fences that
run for miles around this large facility all point inward, and there
are large mounds of dirt and dry moat surrounding the central area
so the inside area is not visible from the road. There are 3 large
loading docks facing the entrance that can be observed from the
road. What are these massive docks going to be loading?
We observed white vans patrolling the area and one came out and greeted us with a friendly wave and followed us until we had driven safely beyond the area. What would have happened had we decided to enter the open gate or ask questions?
This facility is across the street from the Palmdale Water Department. The area around the Water Department has fences pointing outward, to keep people out of this dangerous area so as not to drown. Yet, across the street, the fences all point inward. Why? To keep people in? What people? Who are going to be it's occupants?
There are also signs posted every 50 feet stating: State of California Trespassing Loitering Forbidden By Law Section 555 California Penal Code.
The sign at the entrance says: Pearblossom Operations and Maintenance Subcenter Receiving Department, 34534 116th Street East. There is also a guard shack located at the entrance.
We didn't venture into this facility, but did circle around it to see if there was anything else visible from the road. We saw miles of fences with the top points all directed inward. There is a railroad track that runs next to the perimeter of this fenced area. The loading docks are large enough to hold railroad cars.
AboveTopSecret.com is advertising supported. Help keep information free, support our advertisers.
I wonder what they are planning for this facility? They could easily fit 100,000 people in this area. And who would the occupants be?
Another site is located in Brand Park in Glendale. There are newly constructed fences (all outfitted with new wiring that point inward). The fences surround a dry reservoir. There are also new buildings situated in the area. We questioned the idea that there were four armed military personnel walking the park. Since when does a public park need armed guards?
A third site visited was in the San Fernando Valley, adjacent to the Water District. Again, the area around the actual Water District had fences logically pointing out (to keep people out of the dangerous area). And the rest of the adjacent area which went on for several miles was ringed with fences and barbed wire facing inward (to keep what or who in?) Also, interesting was the fact that the addition to the tops of the fences were fairly new as to not even contain any sign of rust on them. Within the grounds was a huge building that the guard said was a training range for policemen. There were newly constructed roads, new gray military looking buildings, and a landing strip. For what? Police cars were constantly patrolling the several mile perimeter of the area.
From the parking lot of the Odyssey Restaurant a better view could be taken of the area that was hidden from site from the highway. There was an area that contained about 100 black boxes that looked like railroad cars. We had heard that loads of railroad cars have been manufactured in Oregon outfitted with shackles. Would these be of that nature? From our position it was hard to determine.
In searching the Internet, I have discovered that there are about 600 of these prison sites around the country (and more literally popping up overnight do they work all night). They are manned, but yet do not contain prisoners. Why do they need all these non-operating prisons? What are they waiting for? We continuously hear that our current prisons are overcrowded and they are releasing prisoners because of this situation. But what about all these facilities? What are they really for? Why are there armed guards yet no one to protect themselves against? And what is going to be the kick-off point to put these facilities into operation?
What would bring about a situation that would call into effect the need for these new prison facilities? A man-made or natural catastrophe? An earthquake, panic due to Y2K, a massive poisoning, a panic of such dimensions to cause nationwide panic?
Once a major disaster occurs (whether it is a real event or manufactured event does not matter) Martial Law is hurriedly put in place and we are all in the hands of the government agencies (FEMA) who thus portray themselves as our protectors. Yet what happens when we question those in authority and how they are taking away all of our freedoms? Will we be the ones detained in these camp sites? And who are they going to round up? Those with guns? Those who ask questions? Those that want to know what's really going on? Does that include any of us? The seekers of truth?
When first coming across this information I was in a state of total denial. How could this be? I believed our country was free, and always felt a sense of comfort in knowing that as long as we didn't hurt others in observing our freedom we were left to ourselves. Ideally we treated everyone with respect and honored their uniqueness and hoped that others did likewise.
It took an intensive year of searching into the hidden politics to discover that we are as free as we believe we are. If we are in denial, we don't see the signs that are staring at us, but keep our minds turned off and busy with all the mundane affairs of daily life.
We just don't care enough to find out the real truth, and settle for the hand-fed stories that come our way over the major media sources television, radio, newspaper, and magazines. But it's too late to turn back to the days of blindfolds and hiding our heads in the sand because the reality is becoming very clear. The time is fast approaching when we will be the ones asking "What happened to our freedom? To our free speech? To our right to protect ourselves and our family? To think as an individual? To express ourselves in whatever way we wish?"
Once we challenge that freedom we find out how free we really are. How many are willing to take up that challenge? Very few indeed, otherwise we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation that we are in at the present time. We wouldn't have let things progress and get out of the hands of the public and into the hands of those that seek to keep us under their control no matter what it takes, and that includes the use of force and detainment for those that ask the wrong questions.
Will asking questions be outlawed next? Several instances have recently been reported where those that were asking questions that came too near the untold truth (the cover up) were removed from the press conferences and from the public's ear. Also, those that wanted to speak to the press were detained and either imprisoned, locked in a psychiatric hospital, slaughtered (through make-believe suicides) or discredited.
Why are we all in denial over these possibilities? Didn't we hear about prison camps in Germany, and even in the United States during World War II? Japanese individuals were rounded up and placed in determent camps during the duration of the War. Where was their freedom?
You don't think it could happen to you? Obviously those rounded up and killed didn't think it could happen to them either. How could decent people have witnessed such atrocities and still said nothing? Are we going to do the same here as they cart off one by one those individuals who are taking a stand for the rights of the citizens as they expose the truth happening behind the scenes? Are we all going to sit there and wonder what happened to this country of ours? Where did we go wrong? How could we let it happen?
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US MILITARY AND CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE HAVE COMITTED TREASON ON AMERICA MASS MIGRATIONS INTO ANOTHER NATION IS WAR WHEN OBAMA AND CONGRESS AND THE US MILITARY BRING IN Syrian refugees WHEN WE ARE AT WAR WITH SYRIA THEY NOW DECLARED WAR ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WE NO LONGER HAVE TO OBEY ONE LAW OR PAY ONE TAX
MASS MIGRATIONS INTO ANOTHER NATION IS WAR
President Obama from the mayors of 18 US cities explains how anxious these dutiful Cultural Marxists are to bring disrupters to their city, literally begging refugees be sent to their city because, after all, diversity makes us stronger:
We commend your decision to open America's doors to at least 10,000 Syrian refugees displaced by civil war, and applaud your commitment to increase the overall number of refugees the U.S. will resettle over the course of the next two years. This announcement is a vital initial step to honoring America s commitment to support those fleeing oppression. As the mayors of cities across the country, we see first-hand the myriad ways in which immigrants and refugees make our communities stronger economically, socially and culturally. We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities. Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.
51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria
WASHINGTON
— More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo
sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
The
memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State
Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the
unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of
stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more
focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Such
a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach
to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama
has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military
campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.
But
the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,”
underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the
administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than
400,000 people.
The
State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for
employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest
with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of
reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of
signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not
unprecedented.
The
names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials — many of them
career diplomats — who have been involved in the administration’s Syria
policy over the last five years, at home or abroad. They range from a
Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former
deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While
there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department
officials are known to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has
pushed for stronger American action against Syria, in part to force a
diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad. The president has resisted such
pressure, and has been backed up by his military commanders, who have
raised questions about what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was
forced from power — a scenario that the draft memo does not address.
Document
State Department Draft Dissent Memo on Syria
In a draft version of a dissent memo filed with the
State Department's senior leadership, dozens of diplomats and other
mid-level officials called for military strikes against President Bashar
al-Assad of Syria.
The
State Department spokesman, John Kirby, declined to comment on the
memo, which top officials had just received. But he said Mr. Kerry
respected the process as a way for employees “to express policy views
candidly and privately to senior leadership.”
Continue reading the main story
Robert
S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, said, “Many people working on
Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the
Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated
political deal to set up a new Syrian government.”
Mr.
Ford, who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, resigned
from the Foreign Service in 2014 out of frustration with the
administration’s hands-off policy toward the conflict.
In
the memo, the State Department officials wrote that the Assad
government’s continuing violations of the partial cease-fire, known as a
cessation of hostilities, will doom efforts to broker a political
settlement because Mr. Assad will feel no pressure to negotiate with the
moderate opposition or other factions fighting him. The government’s
barrel bombing of civilians, it said, is the “root cause of the
instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.”
“The
moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in
Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,”
it said. “The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly
dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related
challenges.”
The
memo acknowledged that military action would have risks, not the least
further tensions with Russia, which has intervened in the war on Mr.
Assad’s behalf and helped negotiate a cease-fire. Those tensions
increased on Thursday when, according to a senior Pentagon official,
Russia conducted airstrikes in southern Syria against American-backed
forces fighting the Islamic State.
The
State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not
“advocating for a slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation
with Russia,” but rather a credible threat of military action to keep
Mr. Assad in line.
Once
that threat was in place, the memo said, Mr. Kerry could undertake a
diplomatic mission similar to the one he led with Iran on its nuclear program.
The expression of dissent came a week after Mr. Assad showed renewed defiance
of the United States and other countries, vowing to retake “every inch”
of his country from his enemies. The cease-fire, which Mr. Kerry helped
negotiate in Munich last winter, has never really taken hold. Mr. Assad
has continued to block humanitarian convoys, despite a warning that the
United Nations would begin airdrops of food to starving towns.
“There
is an enormous frustration in the bureaucracy about Syria policy,” said
Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near
Eastern Policy. “What’s brought this to a head now is the real downturn
in the negotiations, not just between the U.S. and Russia, but between
Assad and the opposition.”
Last
month, Mr. Kerry rejected the suggestion that the United States and its
allies would never use force to stop the bombings or enforce
humanitarian access. “If President Assad has come to a conclusion
there’s no Plan B,” he said, “then he’s come to a conclusion that is
totally without any foundation whatsoever and even dangerous.”
Still,
Mr. Obama has shown little sign of shifting his focus from the campaign
against the Islamic State — a strategy that probably acquired even more
urgency after the mass shooting Sunday in Orlando, Fla.
In
the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action
against Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Islamic State because
it would bolster moderate Sunnis, who are necessary allies against the
group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
While
the State Department has a tradition of being open to dissent — in the
1990s, Secretary of State Warren Christopher met with Foreign Service
officers who had written a 30-page dissent on the Clinton
administration’s Balkans policy — Mr. Christopher and his successors
have been frustrated when these classified memos become public.
In
this case, the memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time:
The State Department’s rank and file have chafed at the White House’s
refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria.
During a debate in June 2013, after the Assad government had used chemical weapons against its own people, Mr. Kerry brandished a State Department report
that argued that the United States needed to respond militarily or Mr.
Assad would view it as “green light for continued CW use.”
Three
years later, the sense of urgency at the State Department has not
diminished. The memo concludes, “It is time that the United States,
guided by our strategic interests and moral convictions, lead a global
effort to put an end to this conflict once and for all.”
Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would
suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders
have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the
stroke of a Presidential pen:
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance
Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds,
designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for
populations.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the
Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all
Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international
tensions and economic or financial crisis.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department
of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to
institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative
liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional
institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness
function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative
Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency
Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the
mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages,
salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in
any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of
emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the
action for six months.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every
aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil
Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as
a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental
leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from
sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from
gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of
crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate:
- the National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic
relocation of industries, services, government and other essential
economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower,
resources and production facilities;
- the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy;
- the Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the
Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any
transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other
purpose related to the emergency; and
- the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which
enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or
national.
These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.
FEMA - The Secret Government
FEMA - The Secret Government
By Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul
Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995
Some people have referred to it as the "secret government" of the United
States. It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public
disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of
dollars. This government organization has more power than the President
of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws,
move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant
and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies,
transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution.
Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it
was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a
product of a Presidential Executive Order. No, it is not the U.S.
military nor the Central Intelligence Agency, they are subject to
Congress. The organization is called FEMA, which stands for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. Originally conceived in the Richard Nixon
Administration, it was refined by President Jimmy Carter and given teeth
in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush Administrations.
FEMA had one original concept when it was created, to assure the
survivability of the United States government in the event of a nuclear
attack on this nation. It was also provided with the task of being a
federal coordinating body during times of domestic disasters, such as
earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. Its awesome powers grow under the
tutelage of people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and General Richard
Secord, the architects on the Iran-Contra scandal and the looting of
America's savings and loan institutions. FEMA has even been given
control of the State Defense Forces, a rag-tag, often considered
neo-Nazi, civilian army that will substitute for the National Guard, if
the Guard is called to duty overseas.
THE MOST POWERFUL ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Though it may be the most powerful organization in the United States,
few people know it even exists. But it has crept into our private lives.
Even mortgage papers contain FEMA's name in small print if the property
in question is near a flood plain. FEMA was deeply involved in the Los
Angeles riots and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Some of the black helicopter traffic reported throughout the
United States, but mainly in the West, California, Washington, Arizona,
New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, are flown by FEMA personnel. FEMA has
been given responsibility for many new disasters including urban forest
fires, home heating emergencies, refugee situations, urban riots, and
emergency planning for nuclear and toxic incidents. In the West, it
works in conjunction with the Sixth Army.
FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential
Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by
its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed.
Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management
Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil
defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA
has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies,
the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret
underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a
major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656
appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that
should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase
domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would
restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the
government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National
Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S.
air space and all ports of entry.
Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would
suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders
have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the
stroke of a Presidential pen:
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance
Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds,
designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for
populations.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the
Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all
Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international
tensions and economic or financial crisis.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department
of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to
institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative
liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional
institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness
function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative
Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
- EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency
Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the
mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages,
salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in
any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of
emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the
action for six months.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every
aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil
Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as
a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental
leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from
sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from
gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of
crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate:
- the National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic
relocation of industries, services, government and other essential
economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower,
resources and production facilities;
- the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy;
- the Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the
Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any
transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other
purpose related to the emergency; and
- the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which
enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or
national.
These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.
HURRICANE ANDREW FOCUSED ATTENTION ON FEMA
FEMA's deceptive role really did not come to light with much of the
public until Hurricane Andrew smashed into the U.S. mainland. As Russell
R. Dynes, director of the Disaster Research Center of the University of
Delaware, wrote in The World and I, "...The eye of the political storm
hovered over the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA became a
convenient target for criticism." Because FEMA was accused of dropping
the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced to study this
agency. What came out of the critical look was that FEMA was spending 12
times more for "black operations" than for disaster relief. It spent
$1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in
anticipation of government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval.
Yet fewer than 20 members of Congress , only members with top security
clearance, know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural
disaster situations. These few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has
a "black curtain" around its operations. FEMA has worked on National
Security programs since 1979, and its predecessor, the Federal
Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions of dollars
before being merged into FEMA by President Carter in 1979.
FEMA has developed 300 sophisticated mobile units that are capable of
sustaining themselves for a month. The vehicles are located in five
areas of the United States. They have tremendous communication systems
and each contains a generator that would provide power to 120 homes
each, but have never been used for disaster relief.
FEMA's enormous powers can be triggered easily. In any form of domestic
or foreign problem, perceived and not always actual, emergency powers
can be enacted. The President of the United States now has broader
powers to declare martial law, which activates FEMA's extraordinary
powers. Martial law can be declared during time of increased tension
overseas, economic problems within the United States, such as a
depression, civil unrest, such as demonstrations or scenes like the Los
Angeles riots, and in a drug crisis. These Presidential powers have
increased with successive Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993
Crime Bills, which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed
under the Constitution and to seize property of those suspected of being
drug dealers, to individuals who participate in a public protest or
demonstration. Under emergency plans already in existence, the power
exists to suspend the Constitution and turn over the reigns of
government to FEMA and appointing military commanders to run state and
local governments. FEMA then would have the right to order the detention
of anyone whom there is reasonable ground to believe...will engage in,
or probably conspire with others to engage in acts of espionage or
sabotage. The plan also authorized the establishment of concentration
camps for detaining the accused, but no trial.
Three times since 1984, FEMA stood on the threshold of taking control
of the nation. Once under President Reagan in 1984, and twice under
President Bush in 1990 and 1992. But under those three scenarios, there
was not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking martial law. Most experts
on the subject of FEMA and Martial Law insisted that a crisis has to
appear dangerous enough for the people of the United States before they
would tolerate or accept complete government takeover. The typical
crisis needed would be threat of imminent nuclear war, rioting in
several U.S. cites simultaneously, a series of national disasters that
affect widespread danger to the populous, massive terrorist attacks, a
depression in which tens of millions are unemployed and without
financial resources, or a major environmental disaster.
THREE TIMES FEMA STOOD BY READY FOR EMERGENCY
In April 1984, President Reagan signed Presidential Director Number 54
that allowed FEMA to engage in a secret national "readiness exercise"
under the code name of REX 84. The exercise was to test FEMA's readiness
to assume military authority in the event of a "State of Domestic
National Emergency" concurrent with the launching of a direct United
States military operation in Central America. The plan called for the
deputation of U.S. military and National Guard units so that they could
legally be used for domestic law enforcement. These units would be
assigned to conduct sweeps and take into custody an estimated 400,000
undocumented Central American immigrants in the United States. The
immigrants would be interned at 10 detention centers to be set up at
military bases throughout the country.
REX 84 was so highly guarded that special metal security doors were
placed on the fifth floor of the FEMA building in Washington, D.C. Even
long-standing employees of the Civil Defense of the Federal Executive
Department possessing the highest possible security clearances were not
being allowed through the newly installed metal security doors. Only
personnel wearing a special red Christian cross or crucifix lapel pin
were allowed into the premises. Lt. Col. North was responsible for
drawing up the emergency plan, which U.S. Attorney General William
French Smith opposed vehemently. The plan called for the suspension of
the Constitution, turning control of the government over to FEMA,
appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments
and the declaration of Martial Law. The Presidential Executive Orders to
support such a plan were already in place. The plan also advocated the
rounding up and transfer to "assembly centers or relocation camps" of a
least 21 million American Negroes in the event of massive rioting or
disorder, not unlike the rounding up of the Jews in Nazi Germany in the
1930s.
The second known time that FEMA stood by was in 1990 when Desert Storm
was enacted. Prior to President Bush's invasion of Iraq, FEMA began to
draft new legislation to increase its already formidable powers. One of
the elements incorporated into the plan was to set up operations within
any state or locality without the prior permission of local or state
authorities. Such prior permission has always been required in the past.
Much of the mechanism being set into place was in anticipation of the
economic collapse of the Western World. The war with Iraq may have been
conceived as a ploy to boost the bankrupt economy, but it only pushed
the West into deeper recession.
The third scenario for FEMA came with the Los Angeles riots after the
Rodney King brutality verdict. Had the rioting spread to other cities,
FEMA would have been empowered to step in. As it was, major rioting only
occurred in the Los Angeles area, thus preventing a pretext for a FEMA
response.
On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's new
goals. The goal was to suspend the Constitution in the event of a
national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal
dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt.
Col. North was the architect. National Security Directive Number 52
issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National Guard Troops to
Quell Disturbances."
The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power to turn the United
States into a police state in time of a real crisis or a manufactured
crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established the apparatus for
dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General prevented the
plans from being adopted. But intelligence reports indicate that FEMA
has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in case
of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the
framework of North's concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly
abandoned.
The crisis, as the government now see it, is civil unrest. For
generations, the government was concerned with nuclear war, but the
violent and disruptive demonstrations that surrounded the Vietnam War
era prompted President Nixon to change the direction of emergency powers
from war time to times of domestic unrest. Diana Raynolds, program
director of the Edward R. Murrow Center, summed up the dangers of FEMA
today and the public reaction to Martial Law in a drug crisis: "It was
James Madison's worst nightmare that a righteous faction would someday
be strong enough to sweep away the Constitutional restraints designed by
the framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive
privilege, an arbitrary governmental authority over the individual.
These restraints, the balancing and checking of powers among branches
and layers of government, and the civil guarantees, would be the first
casualties in a drug-induced national security state with Reagan's Civil
Emergency Preparedness unleashed. Nevertheless, there would be those
who would welcome NSC (National Security Council) into the drug fray,
believing that increasing state police powers to emergency levels is the
only way left to fight American's enemy within. In the short run, a
national security state would probably be a relief to those whose
personal security and quality of life has been diminished by drugs or
drug related crime. And, as the general public watches the progression
of institutional chaos and social decay, they too may be willing to pay
the ultimate price, one drug free America for 200 years of democracy."
The first targets in any FEMA emergency would be Hispanics and Blacks,
the FEMA orders call for them to be rounded up and detained. Tax
protesters, demonstrators against government military intervention
outside U.S. borders, and people who maintain weapons in their homes are
also targets. Operation Trojan Horse is a program designed to learn the
identity of potential opponents to martial law. The program lures
potential protesters into public forums, conducted by a "hero" of the
people who advocates survival training. The list of names gathered at
such meetings and rallies are computerized and then targeted in case of
an emergency.
The most shining example of America to the world has been its peaceful
transition of government from one administration to another. Despite
crises of great magnitude, the United States has maintained its freedom
and liberty. This nation now stands on the threshold of rule by
non-elected people asserting non-Constitutional powers. Even Congress
cannot review a Martial Law action until six months after it has been
declared. For the first time in American history, the reigns of
government would not be transferred from one elected element to another,
but the Constitution, itself, can be suspended.
The scenarios established to trigger FEMA into action are generally
found in the society today, economic collapse, civil unrest, drug
problems, terrorist attacks, and protests against American intervention
in a foreign country. All these premises exist, it could only be a
matter of time in which one of these triggers the entire emergency
necessary to bring FEMA into action, and then it may be too late,
because under the FEMA plan, there is no contingency by which
Constitutional power is restored.
Benghazi Probe Finds Marines' Response Was Slowed by Uniform Changes
Benghazi Probe Finds Marines' Response Was Slowed by Uniform Changes
|
A new congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack
on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead
found that the Marines
tasked with responding to the attack had to change in and out of
uniform four times, slowing their arrival at the scene of the attack.
The 800-page report, released Tuesday by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, is the last in a series of Republican-authored probes into the attack and the response of administration officials. It provides nearly two dozen more details about the chain of events taken from the testimony of key leaders, detailing what are described as communication and intelligence failures and leadership gaps.
Among these were delays imposed on the 50-man Marine Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team, or FAST, which launched from Rota, Spain, more than 2,000 miles away from Benghazi. The team was loaded onto C-130 aircraft, but held on the ground for three hours before being allowed to take off.
According to the report, Navy Vice Adm. Kurt Tidd, then-director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that the State Department had dithered about how to send forces into Libya without creating a larger international incident.
"State was very, very concerned about what the footprint would look like in Tripoli," Tidd said in testimony cited in the report. "They didn't want it to look like we were invading. That was the gist or that was the genesis of the discussion that occurred over whether or not when the FAST arrives at the airport in Tripoli -- because they wanted to reinforce security at the embassy -- but there was concern that it not have this image of a big, invading force."
The team was going to be transported in vehicles to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Tidd said.
"And there was just concern of parading a bunch of trucks or buses full of Marines in uniform, what kind of image that would present, recognizing it was going to be daylight when they arrived," he said.
The Marine commander of the FAST platoon, unnamed in the report, testified that the Marines' orders changed constantly as they waited to depart.
"We were told multiple times to change what we were wearing, to change from cammies into civilian attire, civilian attire into cammies, cammies into civilian attire," he said. "There was also some talk of whether or not we could carry our personal weapons. I was basically holding hard and fast to the point where we were carrying our personal weapons. Like, we've got a very violent thing going on the ground where we're going, so we're going to be carrying something that can protect ourselves."
Ultimately, the commander said, the Marines would change in and out of uniform four times.
The report's authors concluded that these hours of indecision contradicted official statements that the administration had responded with all haste in response to the attacks.
"Although [then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin] Dempsey told the U.S. Senate that once forces began moving, 'nothing stopped us, nothing slowed us,' it appears the U.S. Military's response that night was delayed -- because it started too late," they wrote.
In his 2014 memoir, "Worthy Fights," Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and later defense secretary, defended the administration's response to the Benghazi attack.
"Any suggestion that anyone, from the president on down, delayed or was indifferent to the ambassador and his staff in Benghazi is simply false," he wrote. "One conspiracy theory held that the CIA security team in Tripoli had been ordered by their chain of command to 'stand down.' That was not only false but directly the opposite of the sum of everyone's efforts in response to the president's orders, which was to move as quickly as possible to help."
The House report also concluded the uniform issue spoke to a lack of clear leadership.
"The issue of military attire versus civilian clothes illustrated no one seemed to be taking charge and making final decisions," the authors wrote.
It remains unclear whether the three-hour delay made a difference in the fast-moving events of that night in Libya. Ultimately, the FAST Marines were never ordered to Benghazi.
-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
The 800-page report, released Tuesday by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, is the last in a series of Republican-authored probes into the attack and the response of administration officials. It provides nearly two dozen more details about the chain of events taken from the testimony of key leaders, detailing what are described as communication and intelligence failures and leadership gaps.
Among these were delays imposed on the 50-man Marine Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team, or FAST, which launched from Rota, Spain, more than 2,000 miles away from Benghazi. The team was loaded onto C-130 aircraft, but held on the ground for three hours before being allowed to take off.
According to the report, Navy Vice Adm. Kurt Tidd, then-director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that the State Department had dithered about how to send forces into Libya without creating a larger international incident.
"State was very, very concerned about what the footprint would look like in Tripoli," Tidd said in testimony cited in the report. "They didn't want it to look like we were invading. That was the gist or that was the genesis of the discussion that occurred over whether or not when the FAST arrives at the airport in Tripoli -- because they wanted to reinforce security at the embassy -- but there was concern that it not have this image of a big, invading force."
The team was going to be transported in vehicles to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Tidd said.
"And there was just concern of parading a bunch of trucks or buses full of Marines in uniform, what kind of image that would present, recognizing it was going to be daylight when they arrived," he said.
The Marine commander of the FAST platoon, unnamed in the report, testified that the Marines' orders changed constantly as they waited to depart.
"We were told multiple times to change what we were wearing, to change from cammies into civilian attire, civilian attire into cammies, cammies into civilian attire," he said. "There was also some talk of whether or not we could carry our personal weapons. I was basically holding hard and fast to the point where we were carrying our personal weapons. Like, we've got a very violent thing going on the ground where we're going, so we're going to be carrying something that can protect ourselves."
Ultimately, the commander said, the Marines would change in and out of uniform four times.
The report's authors concluded that these hours of indecision contradicted official statements that the administration had responded with all haste in response to the attacks.
"Although [then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin] Dempsey told the U.S. Senate that once forces began moving, 'nothing stopped us, nothing slowed us,' it appears the U.S. Military's response that night was delayed -- because it started too late," they wrote.
In his 2014 memoir, "Worthy Fights," Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and later defense secretary, defended the administration's response to the Benghazi attack.
"Any suggestion that anyone, from the president on down, delayed or was indifferent to the ambassador and his staff in Benghazi is simply false," he wrote. "One conspiracy theory held that the CIA security team in Tripoli had been ordered by their chain of command to 'stand down.' That was not only false but directly the opposite of the sum of everyone's efforts in response to the president's orders, which was to move as quickly as possible to help."
The House report also concluded the uniform issue spoke to a lack of clear leadership.
"The issue of military attire versus civilian clothes illustrated no one seemed to be taking charge and making final decisions," the authors wrote.
It remains unclear whether the three-hour delay made a difference in the fast-moving events of that night in Libya. Ultimately, the FAST Marines were never ordered to Benghazi.
-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
Related Topics |
Featured Headlines Global Hot Spots Libya Marine Corps Department of State Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Marine Corps Uniforms Uniforms Hope Seck |
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Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Obama Administration Approved Gulf of Mexico Offshore Hydraulic Fracking During 2014 Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Obama Administration Approved Gulf of Mexico Offshore Hydraulic Fracking During 2014 Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) technology has been widely
used to maximize oil-and-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico in recent
years, and the government allows offshore drillers to dump fracking
chemicals mixed with wastewater directly into the Gulf, according to
documents released to Truthout and the Center for Biological Diversity
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
From 2010 to October 2014, the Obama administration approved more than 1,500 permit applications for offshore drilling plans that included fracking at hundreds of wells across the Gulf of Mexico, according to the documents. An unknown number of permit applications have yet to be released, so the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf is likely larger.
During this time regulators issued more than 300 “categorical exclusions” to exempt drilling plans that included fracking from complex environmental reviews. The use of categorical exclusions has been under heavy scrutiny since 2010, when the media learned that BP’s drilling plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig was categorically excluded from review in the months before a deadly explosion on the platform caused the worst oil spill in United States history.
Federal records show that regulators approved several drilling plans involving fracking in the Gulf of Mexico even as the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolded and oil from a broken well spewed into the Gulf for weeks on end.
“The Deepwater Horizon disaster should have been a wake up call that we need to move away from offshore drilling,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an interview with Truthout. “But now the federal government is rubber-stamping practices like fracking without doing any environmental review or notifying the public, and it’s just another disaster waiting to happen.”
Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, chemicals and sand
underground or under the seafloor at high pressure to break up rock and
release oil and gas. Offshore fracking techniques are often used in the
Gulf to reduce the amount of sand and grit in produced oil and improve
its flow path out of the well, according to regulatory documents.
Sometimes, acids such as hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid are also used to dissolve undersea rock formations and increase the flow of raw fossil fuels. Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most dangerous chemicals used in any industrial process and can cause severe burns on human skin and form a poisonous vapor cloud when heated, according to the Environmental Defense Center, which has studied offshore acid treatments.
Regulators point out that offshore fracking and “acidizing” are much smaller in scale than the unconventional onshore fracking techniques that sparked a controversial oil-and-gas boom across the US. However, environmentalists are concerned about the offshore operations’ potential for accidents, and about the fracking chemicals that are routinely dumped overboard along with wastewater and other fluids.
The release of documents to the Center for Biological Diversity and Truthout marks the first time that details on the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf have been made available to the public. In the past, officials at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), one of two federal agencies that oversee offshore drilling, told Truthout and other investigators that the agency does not specifically keep track of fracking in the Gulf. The Center sued BSEE for failing to respond to FOIA requests, and last year BSEE agreed to compile and release the information.
Is Offshore Fracking Safe?
Environmentalists have been sparring with BSEE and its sister agency, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM), over offshore fracking since a 2013 Truthout investigation revealed that the technology had been in use off the coast of California. The agencies claim offshore fracking has a good safety record and little impact on the environment, but environmentalists say there is not enough research and data to back that claim up.
The Obama administration set up both agencies in the aftermath of the BP spill to improve oversight of offshore drilling and put an end to cozy relationships between federal regulators and the industry. BSEE was put in charge of enforcing environmental standards, but a recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that the agency has since made “limited progress in enhancing its enforcement capabilities” and failed to develop guidelines for basic functions such has handing out warnings and fines to offshore drillers.
After facing legal challenges from environmental groups, BSEE and BOEM agreed in February to place a temporary moratorium on offshore fracking in Pacific waters while regulators prepared a formal environmental assessment of the practice. The assessment found that offshore fracking does not have a “significant impact,” and the moratorium was lifted last month despite protests by environmentalists, who called the assessment “flawed.”
In March, 30 scientists from across California sent a letter to BSEE and BOEM urging regulators to extend the moratorium, pointing to independent analysis that found “significant data gaps” on fracking in the Pacific. Even the agencies’ own analysis admits that there is a “lack of toxicity data” on chemicals used in the fracking process, but regulators concluded that the chemicals don’t cause much harm because they are diluted by wastewater and the ocean.
Internal agency communications released under FOIA show that regulators have been actively studying offshore fracking since the practice came under scrutiny by activists and the media. For example, a series of emails from 2014 show BSEE and BOEM officials discussing the need to update research on offshore fracking chemicals. They also discuss the Blue Tarpon, a large ship or “stimulation vessel” that pumps fracking and other fluids into oil and gas wells in the Gulf.
“It’s clear from some of the documents that [federal regulators] didn’t even know that [offshore fracking] was happening at all,” Monsell said. “Which is frightening and appalling — that our own government was allowing to the industry to frack at will without doing a environmental review or notifying the public or anything.”
Regulators are now studying fracking chemicals and have dedicated an increasing amount of space to offshore fracking in recent environmental statements required by federal law, indicating that their understanding of the practice is growing. These documents, which clear the way for continued drilling and fracking in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, provide a glimpse of what the government’s oversight of fracking actually looks like.
Fracking Chemicals Dumped Overboard
Every year, fossil fuel companies are allowed to dump into the Gulf of Mexico billions of gallons of the seawater, brine and chemicals that flow back from oil and gas wells. These include fracking chemicals and naturally occurring radioactive substances from deep under the seafloor.
The offshore oil and gas industry dumped 20 billion gallons of this “produced water” into the Gulf in 2014 alone, and nearly half of it was dumped in waters less than 60 meters deep, according federal environmental statements. In 2010, nearly 23 billion gallons went overboard, mostly into shallower waters.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that these fluids be treated to meet certain criteria before being dumped from offshore platforms. Most of the oil and diesel must be removed from the wastewater, and operators are required to visually inspect the surface of the Gulf and take note if a sheen appears. There are also toxicity limits, and operators must conduct toxicity testing either quarterly or annually, depending on how much wastewater goes overboard.
Chemicals used in the offshore fracking process, which are similar or even identical to those used onshore, can be dumped overboard as long as they are “commingled” with the produced water and not included on a federal list of “priority” pollutants, according to the EPA’s wastewater discharge permit. Operators are not required to report the discharge of fracking chemicals when they are diluted in produced water, so it’s unclear how much is dumped into the Gulf on a regular basis.
It’s also unclear exactly what the chemicals are. Federal regulators refer to a 2001 study that lists chemicals commonly used in offshore fracking and well stimulation, including corrosive acids, biocides, “foamers” and “defoamers,” surfactants and corrosion inhibitors. At least nine of these chemical products contain hazardous substances such as hydrofluoric acid and ammonium chloride. However, the industry has made major advances since 2001, and federal regulators admit that this list needs to be updated. Last year, BOEM launched a $400,000 study to update the list and compile a “descriptive inventory” of all the chemicals used during offshore drilling in the Gulf.
“That’s horrifying, especially considering that commonly used fracking chemicals include some of those that are most the toxic in the entire world with respect to aquatic life,” said Monsell, who added that the EPA’s discharge permit should be updated to at least require operators to report the chemicals they dump overboard, a policy currently in place in the Pacific.
Public affairs officers for BOEM and BSEE in the Gulf region did not respond to requests for comment from Truthout.
BOEM plans to use this study to analyze the risk that offshore fracking chemicals would pose to the environment in the event of a spill, and to evaluate how the chemicals may be impacting water, sediment and wildlife in the Gulf. While this appears to be a step toward more robust regulation, environmentalists say that the agency’s scientific record should have been updated years ago.
“While the federal government shouldn’t be allowing oil companies to frack our oceans at all, it certainly can’t sit idly by without any understanding of the effects of the toxic chemicals being dumped into the ocean,” Monsell said. “And [federal law] specifically requires that environmental analysis occur before decisions are made and before actions are taken, not after.”
Meanwhile, offshore fracking will continue in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere as regulators play catch-up with their chemistry. Monsell and other environmentalists are currently turning their attention to the Arctic waters of Alaska, where they say that a Texas company’s proposal to extend a large “multi-stage frack” under the Cook Inlet is threatening endangered beluga whales.
Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.From 2010 to October 2014, the Obama administration approved more than 1,500 permit applications for offshore drilling plans that included fracking at hundreds of wells across the Gulf of Mexico, according to the documents. An unknown number of permit applications have yet to be released, so the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf is likely larger.
During this time regulators issued more than 300 “categorical exclusions” to exempt drilling plans that included fracking from complex environmental reviews. The use of categorical exclusions has been under heavy scrutiny since 2010, when the media learned that BP’s drilling plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig was categorically excluded from review in the months before a deadly explosion on the platform caused the worst oil spill in United States history.
Federal records show that regulators approved several drilling plans involving fracking in the Gulf of Mexico even as the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolded and oil from a broken well spewed into the Gulf for weeks on end.
“The Deepwater Horizon disaster should have been a wake up call that we need to move away from offshore drilling,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an interview with Truthout. “But now the federal government is rubber-stamping practices like fracking without doing any environmental review or notifying the public, and it’s just another disaster waiting to happen.”
A
controlled burn of oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon disaster
sends pillars of smoke into the air in the Gulf of Mexico on June 9,
2010. (Photo: Deepwater Horizon Response)
Sometimes, acids such as hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid are also used to dissolve undersea rock formations and increase the flow of raw fossil fuels. Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most dangerous chemicals used in any industrial process and can cause severe burns on human skin and form a poisonous vapor cloud when heated, according to the Environmental Defense Center, which has studied offshore acid treatments.
Regulators point out that offshore fracking and “acidizing” are much smaller in scale than the unconventional onshore fracking techniques that sparked a controversial oil-and-gas boom across the US. However, environmentalists are concerned about the offshore operations’ potential for accidents, and about the fracking chemicals that are routinely dumped overboard along with wastewater and other fluids.
The release of documents to the Center for Biological Diversity and Truthout marks the first time that details on the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf have been made available to the public. In the past, officials at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), one of two federal agencies that oversee offshore drilling, told Truthout and other investigators that the agency does not specifically keep track of fracking in the Gulf. The Center sued BSEE for failing to respond to FOIA requests, and last year BSEE agreed to compile and release the information.
Is Offshore Fracking Safe?
Environmentalists have been sparring with BSEE and its sister agency, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM), over offshore fracking since a 2013 Truthout investigation revealed that the technology had been in use off the coast of California. The agencies claim offshore fracking has a good safety record and little impact on the environment, but environmentalists say there is not enough research and data to back that claim up.
The Obama administration set up both agencies in the aftermath of the BP spill to improve oversight of offshore drilling and put an end to cozy relationships between federal regulators and the industry. BSEE was put in charge of enforcing environmental standards, but a recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that the agency has since made “limited progress in enhancing its enforcement capabilities” and failed to develop guidelines for basic functions such has handing out warnings and fines to offshore drillers.
After facing legal challenges from environmental groups, BSEE and BOEM agreed in February to place a temporary moratorium on offshore fracking in Pacific waters while regulators prepared a formal environmental assessment of the practice. The assessment found that offshore fracking does not have a “significant impact,” and the moratorium was lifted last month despite protests by environmentalists, who called the assessment “flawed.”
In March, 30 scientists from across California sent a letter to BSEE and BOEM urging regulators to extend the moratorium, pointing to independent analysis that found “significant data gaps” on fracking in the Pacific. Even the agencies’ own analysis admits that there is a “lack of toxicity data” on chemicals used in the fracking process, but regulators concluded that the chemicals don’t cause much harm because they are diluted by wastewater and the ocean.
Internal agency communications released under FOIA show that regulators have been actively studying offshore fracking since the practice came under scrutiny by activists and the media. For example, a series of emails from 2014 show BSEE and BOEM officials discussing the need to update research on offshore fracking chemicals. They also discuss the Blue Tarpon, a large ship or “stimulation vessel” that pumps fracking and other fluids into oil and gas wells in the Gulf.
“It’s clear from some of the documents that [federal regulators] didn’t even know that [offshore fracking] was happening at all,” Monsell said. “Which is frightening and appalling — that our own government was allowing to the industry to frack at will without doing a environmental review or notifying the public or anything.”
Regulators are now studying fracking chemicals and have dedicated an increasing amount of space to offshore fracking in recent environmental statements required by federal law, indicating that their understanding of the practice is growing. These documents, which clear the way for continued drilling and fracking in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, provide a glimpse of what the government’s oversight of fracking actually looks like.
Fracking Chemicals Dumped Overboard
Every year, fossil fuel companies are allowed to dump into the Gulf of Mexico billions of gallons of the seawater, brine and chemicals that flow back from oil and gas wells. These include fracking chemicals and naturally occurring radioactive substances from deep under the seafloor.
The offshore oil and gas industry dumped 20 billion gallons of this “produced water” into the Gulf in 2014 alone, and nearly half of it was dumped in waters less than 60 meters deep, according federal environmental statements. In 2010, nearly 23 billion gallons went overboard, mostly into shallower waters.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that these fluids be treated to meet certain criteria before being dumped from offshore platforms. Most of the oil and diesel must be removed from the wastewater, and operators are required to visually inspect the surface of the Gulf and take note if a sheen appears. There are also toxicity limits, and operators must conduct toxicity testing either quarterly or annually, depending on how much wastewater goes overboard.
Chemicals used in the offshore fracking process, which are similar or even identical to those used onshore, can be dumped overboard as long as they are “commingled” with the produced water and not included on a federal list of “priority” pollutants, according to the EPA’s wastewater discharge permit. Operators are not required to report the discharge of fracking chemicals when they are diluted in produced water, so it’s unclear how much is dumped into the Gulf on a regular basis.
It’s also unclear exactly what the chemicals are. Federal regulators refer to a 2001 study that lists chemicals commonly used in offshore fracking and well stimulation, including corrosive acids, biocides, “foamers” and “defoamers,” surfactants and corrosion inhibitors. At least nine of these chemical products contain hazardous substances such as hydrofluoric acid and ammonium chloride. However, the industry has made major advances since 2001, and federal regulators admit that this list needs to be updated. Last year, BOEM launched a $400,000 study to update the list and compile a “descriptive inventory” of all the chemicals used during offshore drilling in the Gulf.
“That’s horrifying, especially considering that commonly used fracking chemicals include some of those that are most the toxic in the entire world with respect to aquatic life,” said Monsell, who added that the EPA’s discharge permit should be updated to at least require operators to report the chemicals they dump overboard, a policy currently in place in the Pacific.
Public affairs officers for BOEM and BSEE in the Gulf region did not respond to requests for comment from Truthout.
BOEM plans to use this study to analyze the risk that offshore fracking chemicals would pose to the environment in the event of a spill, and to evaluate how the chemicals may be impacting water, sediment and wildlife in the Gulf. While this appears to be a step toward more robust regulation, environmentalists say that the agency’s scientific record should have been updated years ago.
“While the federal government shouldn’t be allowing oil companies to frack our oceans at all, it certainly can’t sit idly by without any understanding of the effects of the toxic chemicals being dumped into the ocean,” Monsell said. “And [federal law] specifically requires that environmental analysis occur before decisions are made and before actions are taken, not after.”
Meanwhile, offshore fracking will continue in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere as regulators play catch-up with their chemistry. Monsell and other environmentalists are currently turning their attention to the Arctic waters of Alaska, where they say that a Texas company’s proposal to extend a large “multi-stage frack” under the Cook Inlet is threatening endangered beluga whales.
Mike Ludwig is an investigative reporter at Truthout and a contributor to the Truthout anthology, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.
The original source of this article is Truthout
Copyright © Mike Ludwig, Truthout, 2016
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