GOP senator applauds move to ramp up West Coast missile defense

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 10:41 AM ET

The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sunday praised the administration’s decision to bolster the West Coast missile defense, after threats from North Korea.

“I think all of us applaud the efforts to beef up our missile defense on the west coast,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on “Fox News Sunday” of efforts to deal with the potential nuclear threat from the rogue nation.

The senator, though, acknowledged the threat from North Korea is not “imminent.”

“I don’t think the threat is imminent, I don’t think they have the delivery mechanisms that are necessary to really harm us but I think it’s really good that we’re taking those precautionary measures to make sure they do not do damage,” Corker said.

The ranking member told host Chris Wallace, that he’s going to be speaking with the Pentagon and State Department this week to hash out the “technical issues.”

The administration announced last week that it would augment its missile-defense capabilities in Alaska by deploying additional missile interceptors on the West Coast.

“The reason we're advancing our program here for homeland security is to not take any chances, is to stay ahead of the threat and to assure any contingency,” said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The move came after North Korea ramped up its rhetoric against the United States and South Korea and on the heels of a recent nuclear test.

Pyongyang has in recent weeks threatened to declare the end of the armistice which ended the Korean War and criticized new sanctions passed by the United Nations Security Council and military training exercises being held by Seoul and Washington.

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Shell Runs Its Arctic Drilling Rig Aground; Coast Guard Prepares For ‘Possible Spill-Response’

Photo: Jon Klingenberg / US Coast Guard

by Kiley Kroh

It appears 2013 will begin much like 2012 ended for Shell’s Arctic Ocean drilling efforts – with yet another mishap.

After several failed attempts to secure the equipment in harsh weather, Shell’s enormous Kulluk drilling rig ran aground near Kodiak Island, Alaska late Monday night. With approximately 143,000 gallons of fuel and 12,000 gallons of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid on board, the Coast Guard is now preparing for the “salvage and possible spill-response phase of this event.” Two Coast Guard flyovers on Tuesday did not detect any leakage but a severe winter storm – with winds up to 70 mph and waves as high as 50 feet – has prevented crews from conducting a full assessment of the damage.

After an initial exploratory drilling season plagued with technical failures, struggles with Mother Nature, and numerous warnings about the lack of preparedness to operate in the region, the oil company’s woes have only continued. In November, the challenging and unpredictable Arctic conditions created a logistical nightmare as Shell struggled to get the Kulluk out of the Beaufort Sea as winter sea ice encroached.

As the Anchorage Daily News reports, the rig was headed to Seattle for maintenance last week when a mechanical failure in the tow vessel halted its progress and left “crews struggling against worsening weather and a mobile drilling unit that was unmanned with no propulsion capability of its own.” Huge winds and fierce swells thwarted numerous attempts to reattach tow lines and bring the rig to safety. Once grounding appeared inevitable, crews worked to steer the vessel to an area where it would have the least environmental impact.

Fortunately for Shell, this latest incident occurred in close proximity to the Coast Guard station in Kodiak, which enabled the helicopter rescue of 18 crew members on Saturday in extremely challenging conditions. The station also happens to be the closest permanent Coast Guard facility to where the oil company intends to use the Kulluk when they resume drilling this summer – over 1,000 miles away or 3 to 4 hours by plane in ideal conditions.

Like each of the incidents before it, the ongoing crisis with the Kulluk underscores the numerous challenges presented by operating in the Arctic, as well as the industry’s lack of preparedness to anticipate and overcome them. Drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean carries an enormous amount of risk – a fact pointed out not just by environmentalists but a major insurance company, bank, legislative body, and even a fellow oil major among others.

As Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) emphasized in a statement released Tuesday, “Oil companies keep saying they can conquer the Arctic, but the Arctic keeps disagreeing with the oil companies … Drilling expansion could prove disastrous for this sensitive environment.”

Problems with logistics, infrastructure, and scientific knowledge only add to a bigger problem: that the Arctic is already being battered by accelerating climate change. In the summer of 2012, the region lost a mass of ice the size of Canada and Texas combined.

Shell’s Arctic endeavor has been riddled with problems from the outset. As the company looks toward a full drilling season in 2013, there are far more questions than answers and far more mishaps than successes.

Watch a video of Shell’s stranded rig:

Coast Guard overflight of Kulluk aground from anchoragedailynews on Vimeo.

Kiley Kroh is the Associate Director for Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress

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What You Need To Know About The Impending East Coast Port Strike

Unless a deal is reached with management, some 14,000 East Coast port workers plan to go on strike on Sunday, affecting ports from Boston to Miami. Here’s what you need to know about the impending strike:

1) Management wants to cut workers’ pay. The largest sticking point in the negotiations between the port workers and a coalition of companies known as the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) is a payment to workers for each container they unload. Instituted in the 1960s, the payments are meant as compensation for the mechanization of America’s ports, which allows one worker today to do what used to take three workers. As the New York Times explained, “The companies want to freeze those payments for current longshoremen and eliminate them for future hires.” The companies also want to cut future raises for workers to below the rate of inflation.

2) Port workers are highly skilled. The companies claim that workers are paid too much, rendering east coast ports uncompetitive. But the workers — whose numbers have dropped from 35,000 to 3,500 due to automation — are highly trained and “cannot be easily replaced.” They also do not work consistent hours. According to the union, “longshore labor cost amounts to between 3% and 4% of the shipper’s total cost.”

3) The economic impact could be significant…or not. As Brad Plumer explained in the Washington Post, it’s hard to figure out the economic impact of port closures. Estimates place the impact of a 2002 West Coast port closure at $1 billion per day, but the cost may have actually been far less than that.

4) Businesses are using political pressure to entice workers to cave. Business leaders and right-wing governors are urging the White House to invoke special powers to end the strike, should workers walk out. President Obama, for his part, urged the two sides to forge an agreement “as quickly as possible.”

The strike would be the first at East Coast ports since 1977.

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