On April 20 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and began spewing enormous amounts of oil as the blow-out preventer apparently failed. It took eight days before Barack Obama could muster a response of any kind. It was ten days before the One could manage to find a spot in his busy schedule for this minor ecological incident. Obama was pre-occupied with truly important things- like upstaging Jay Leno at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Of course, Leno was told to tone it down. There’s no doubt in my mind Leno was told to cool it so Obama could be the star.
Michael Brown suggested that Obama waited eight days to allow the oil spill to become disastrous so Obama could use the event for political purposes but as appealing as that is, it’s not likely true. Especially since Obama gave that particular oil rig a safety award last year.
The federal agency charged with enforcing safety on deepwater oil rigs has also played a major role in promoting the industry’s claim that it is safe, and in 2009 handed out one of its top prizes for safety to Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon.
That had to be embarrassing to Obama, even for a guy who accepts no responsibility for anything that goes wrong. Barack Obama’s response (when he finally got to it) was entirely predictable; More government.
Obama reflexively proposed to split the Minerals Management Service into two agencies. Sounds great, but government agencies are like green plants. If you split the stem you can wind up with two plants larger than the original. There is no question that is exactly what would happen in this case as well. There would be another ever-expanding federal agency with salaries and pensions to feed forever.
And since no crisis should go to waste, Obama also seized the opportunity to propose a new oil tax.
But the problem isn’t the lack of a new agency. The problem is lack of enforcement of existing law (is it just me or does this sound a lot like other issues?) The AP reported that:
Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.
and especially damning:
A citation on Sept. 19, 2002, also involved the blowout preventer. The inspector issued a warning because “problems or irregularities observed during the testing of BOP system and actions taken to remedy such problems or irregularities are not recorded in the driller’s report or referenced documents.”
It was asserted by BP’s President that the BOP was modified in 2005 but it’s not clear how much testing and inspecting of this or other BOP’s have occurred since then.
The Obama response to this mess was poor and slow, especially given Obama’s harsh criticism of the Bush response to Katrina. That the press is so content to grant Obama a pass after being so harsh on Bush is grinding, but not unexpected. The last thing we need is another federal agency. The Department of Energy was formed in 1977 under Jimmy Carter. In 1979 40% of our oil was imported. Today 65% of our oil is imported.
The mission of the Department of Energy? To reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Like I said, the LAST thing we need is more government. We just need for what we already have to actually function. Is that a lot to ask?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.