Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s camp already made a misstep on the subject last week when Nancy Pfotenhauer, his senior policy advisor, mistakenly claimed that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “did not spill a drop of oil”. Pfotenhauer admitted later to being misinformed, but that didn’t stop McCain from making another false statement about oil rigs and hurricanes the following day.
From Think Progress:
Q: I’ve been listening to your comments around renewable resources – solar, tide, and wind – you’ve talked a lot about that, but you keep peppering your comments with offshore drilling. But I’m not sure what you think the impact on our environment is based on that.
A: Keep the microphone. I’m aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes – hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned.
McCain is wrong. According to press reports, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “tore through the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore oil and gas fields, toppling production platforms, setting rigs adrift and rupturing pipelines.” The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported that the hurricanes totally destroyed 113 offshore oil platforms.
Think Progress further explains that the hurricanes cost the largest offshore driller, Transocean, about $135 million in repairs, downtime and equipment upgrades. In fact, damage to offshore rigs accounted for 77% of the oil industry’s storm costs. The photos above show some of the damage.
So, is McAddled intentionally lying so that offshore drilling sounds like a good idea, or is he just confused? I know the internet is really hard to use, so it might be tough to find the right websites that tell you what actually happened. There there, Senator. Your frightening journey through the world of modern technology is almost over.
Link [Think Progress]
