Governor Gray Napolitano
Wed August 20th, 2003 09:56 MSTOr, as the Arizona Republic titled it: “Napolitano, pipeline company pointing fingers.”
Governor Gray Janet Napolitano said:
“I’m angry Arizona is being put through this because this pipeline broke and there didn’t appear to be an adequate backup plan,” Napolitano said during a news conference. “And I’m angry that the private sector, which is supposed to be in charge of running gasoline into the Valley, doesn’t have its act together to deal with a critical situation, so now the public sector has to step in.”
Actually, Gray Janet, the private sector is in charge of making profits and obeying the law. Furthermore, the public sector is responsible for the problem in the first place, by requiring that the Phoenix area use a blend of gasoline used nowhere else in the country, and then by failing to act appropriately when the shortage was predicted. The private sector’s main contribution to the problem was media hyping causing a buying panic.
Here is the chronology:
- July 30 - Pipeline Ruptures
- July 30 - Kinder Morgan (pipeline company) notifies US Department of Transportation (which regulates the pipeline).
- July 30 - KM notifies Arizona Corporation Commission (which works for Gray Napolitano, of course).
- Aug 8 - KM shuts down pipeline completely for repairs.
- Aug 8 - KM notifies US DOT.
- Aug 8 - KM notifies the Arizona Corporation Commission, which works for Napolitano.
- Aug 8 - KM starts preparing paperwork for government approval.
- Aug 10 - Arizona Petroleum Marketer Association notifies Napolitano, who should have already heard of it from the ACC. Predictions of spot shortages over the weekend of Aug 17-18 were made, based on normal demand.
- Aug 11 - Pipeline repaired but not turned on due to government regulations.
- Aug 11 - AAA Arizona warns public of possibility of spot shortages.
- Aug 15 - Kinder Morgan submits government paperwork. Government tries to apply natural gas testing standards to liquid line.
- Aug 13 - Napolitano predicts spotty gas outages. The media starts hyping the problem, finding the few stations short on gas and highlighting them on TV.
- Aug 17 - Massive gas shortages in Phoenix because of media-induced panic buying.
- Aug 19 - Government finally approves testing of line.
- Aug 19 - Napolitano finally takes action, demanding conservation among state employees (unlikely to have much effect), urging private companies to reduce commuter trips (unlikely to have any effect) and lifting restrictions on how many hours truck drivers can work in a shift (either these restrictions are unnecessary to begin with, or she is endangering the public by lifting them).
- Aug 19 - The EPA finally gives a 30 day waiver on the requirement for the “Phoenix blend” fuels (either the requirement is unnecessary or the EPA is endangering public health. In any case, this was NOT mentioned in the article.).
- Aug 20 - Just in! Pipeline test fails.
Does anyone notice the heavy hand of government in this? Certainly Gray Janet doesn’t.
Napolitano’s biggest complaint is that her office wasn’t notified until two days after the start of the incident, even though offices reporting to her were notified the same day as the pipeline rupture. She also complained that the petroleum industry failed to anticipate the consumer panic, but this was caused largely by irresponsible media coverage, which Janet’s entire state government also failed to anticipate.
Napolitano failed to mention that the entire problem would never have occurred except for EPA rules requiring a unique “Phoenix blend” of gasoline in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Had Napolitano been forward looking, she would have requested a temporary EPA waiver, which would have been granted in time to avert the crisis.
Finally, nowhere in the superficially comprehensive newspaper article are environmental restrictions or the “Phoenix blend” requirements mentioned. The detailed listing of events even fails to mention the most significant recent event - the EPA waiver!
This is not the first time that the Arizona Republic has shown a significant pro-environmentalist bias in its stories.
Very well said, John.
I am going to link to your essay ASAP! Gray Napolitano - heh heh
BTW I think the panic buyers must be getting filled up, the lines seem much shorter today. Still not short enough for me to wait in, but better than Monday by far.
Public vs Private Sector
More on the gas situation here in Phoenix. John wrote a great explanation and timeline of the current gas crunch. We have our very own Governor ‘Gray’ Napolitano - hee…
I sent a friend of mine a link to this story. He is involved inside a major gasoline company in the valley and he wrote:
Every word of that (this story) is true but there’s more. Two days after the pipeline
broke represenatives of at least three oil companies, Chevron, ARCO, and Phillips
66 met with the Governors office to brief them on the pipeline problem. They
requested that day a temporary lifting of the Phoenix blend requirement to
start getting other sources of gas into the valley. The Governors office
refused their request telling them that they were “over reacting”. Chevron briefed
their dealers two days before the lines began to form that there was an
impending severe shortage with 30% of the valleys gas shut off and that the
governors office refused to allow non Phoenix gas into the market. Two days later the
valley ran out of gas. Thanks Janet. She had good information delivered to
her from industry people who understood the situation, and she chose to ignore
it. Now she is grandstanding claming to be “solving the very problem that
she created”. In addition, she is demonizing the very people who gave her the
correct information. Hope this clears it up a bit.
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