Weekly News Summary For November 29 - December 5, 2010:
Jacob “Jack” Lew was quickly confirmed by the Senate to head the White House’s Office of Management and Budget on November 18 after Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) announced she had dropped her hold on him upon receiving assurances that the administration would speed up drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. Senate rules had allowed her to place the hold on his nomination moving forward.
Landrieu said, “Tonight I received a commitment from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to provide certainty and regulatory clarity to an industry that has operated in the dark for months with shifting rules. The secretary will come to Louisiana on Monday to meet with industry and express the administration’s support for the oil and gas industry. He will outline the path forward so that permits will be issued and the people of Louisiana can get back to work in this vital industry. Given this commitment, I released my hold, so that Jack Lew can get to work balancing the federal budget and putting this country back on a path of fiscal discipline.”
Landrieu called Lew a “terrific nominee” who is needed to help reduce the federal budget. She said revenues from revived Gulf oil production will help in that task. Citing figures from a July report, Landrieu said revenues from independent oil and gas producers alone, not including the major oil companies, could produce $147 billion in tax revenues over the next 10 years.
She acknowledged that her hold on Lew had been a drastic step, but said numerous hearings she held on the slowdown in drilling permits and the hardships they produced in the Gulf did not succeed in focusing the administration’s attention.
As promised, Salazar met with oil industry groups on November 22 in Houma, La., to discuss the permit issue. But he made no specific commitments except to meet with them again in December….
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley cut the ribbon November 8 to formally open a new training center for the state’s shipbuilding industry.
The $12 million, 60,000-square-foot facility, located near the Causeway in Mobile, Ala., will provide shipbuilding companies the space and resources to train workers according to the companies’ requirements.
“The Maritime Training Center will help Alabama attract new industry, support the needs of existing businesses and train workers for careers in a growing sector,” Riley said. “As our shipbuilding industry continues to expand, we will be able to meet its demand with a workforce highly skilled for maritime jobs.”
Alabama Industrial Development Training (AIDT), the state’s workforce training agency, will manage the state-of-the-art facility and teach shipbuilding skills to work in Mobile’s growing maritime industry. The facility will offer instruction and real-world experience for everything from welding, fitting and crane operation to ship planning and shipyard supervision.
One Mobile company, Austal USA, is in line to receive a major contract from the Navy to build 10 Littoral Combat Ships. If Austal should win the contract, the 2,000 people it would hire would be trained at the center….
The Coast Guard announced November 18 in the Federal Register that it is expanding a special load line regime for certain unmanned dry-cargo river barges. They will be exempt from the normal Great Lakes load line assignment while operating on Lake Michigan.
Depending on the route, eligible barges may obtain a limited domestic service load line assignment or be conditionally exempted from any load line assignment at all. The final rule becomes effective December 20.
“This special load line regime allows river barges operating under safe conditions to directly transport non-hazardous cargoes originating at inland river ports as far as Milwaukee (Wis.) and Muskegon (Mich.) resulting in significant cost savings,” the Coast Guard said.
November’s ruling expands the scope of a 1998 rule that originally applied only to two specific routes: Chicago to Milwaukee, and Chicago to Muskegon. The new rule covers all of Lake Michigan. As with the original rule, compliance is not mandatory and is voluntary for those river barge operators who seek to expand their operations onto these routes….
On November 20, the second of three massive pre-fab sections of the new Huey P. Long Bridge was lifted into place in an operation that lasted 40 hours—8.5 hours ahead of schedule.
The operation, called “Big Lift II,” was done by MTI, a joint venture of Massman Construction Company, Traylor Brothers Inc., IHI Inc., and HNTB. The supervising company was Louisiana TIMED Managers, a project manager selected by the Louisiana Department of Transportation. The section, smallest of the three, was 503 feet long.
Tim Todd, a project engineer with Louisiana TIMED Managers, said the contractors “performed superbly in all phases of planning, construction engineering, and executing a lift that made a very difficult construction milestone look easy,” according to a November 22 announcement by Louisiana TIMED Managers.
The section was laid across four 900-foot-long barges, all belonging to Massman. Additional barges were moored to the bridge pier. Four 900-ton strand jacks began lifting the 5 million pound structure at 1:30 p.m. The lift itself, a 122-foot continuous lift, lasted seven hours.
Sean McInerney, an assistant project engineer for Massman, said, “The job went great! It was completed safely and ahead of schedule.”…
Innovative Safety Solutions, a training and safety consulting company founded 38 years ago, continues to live up to its name. Founded in 1972 by safety trainer Barry Gill, the company has grown steadily in tandem with increasing safety regulations monitored by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
The company has gradually added training in fire fighting, handling hazardous materials, safety and environmental training, and rescue. ISS’s most frequent offerings for the maritime industry include courses in confined space entry and rescue; OSHA compliance; incident command procedures for hazmat incidents; fire brigade and portable fire extinguishers; hoisting and rigging; mobile equipment; electrical safety; and high-angle rope rescue.
About a year ago, ISI announced the deployment of a unique high-tech mobile unit to provide on-site safety training in real-world scenarios. The trailer unit has proved popular, having been used by some of the inland marine industry’s biggest names, including Ingram Barge Company and James Marine.
“We recognized a need for bringing both vertical and horizontal confined spaces to the client,” said Innovative Safety’s owner, Barry Gill.
“Many clients could not provide confined spaces for teaching hands-on skills. … So we spent many hours designing the trailer. [We] worked with Featherlite and a local dealer to complete the outer-shell. Featherlite fabricated and installed our top 16-foot walk platform, fold-up handrails, access ladder, and one vertical and two horizontal entry portals.”…
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