The irony....
I cannot believe how ill-prepared the industry was for an accident such as this... And I cannot believe the regulatory bodies allowed the industry to be so ill-prepared.
Actually, I can believe how ill-prepared BP (and most likely the rest of the industry) was and is to prevent or react to a major malfunction. Their disaster plans were obviously made up sitting in an isolated cubicle somewhere, and haven't been updated for decades. I read an article today that indicated the plans they filed for the well in question, only a year ago, listed response and resource people who have been dead for years, nonexistent resources, etc. It also stated that they could fully contain a spill at least ten times the size of the current fiasco without affecting the shoreline or much else besides a short term water quality issue. Talk about BS.
As for the regulatory folks, I can definitely believe that. Maybe folks don't want to hear it, but a large part of our regulatory system has been corrupted by the movement of people between government and corporations, and the huge amounts of money involved just makes it that much harder to effectively regulate anything. Why should the oil and gas regulators be any different than the folks at the SEC or other financial regulators? The system is broken, it has been broken for quite some time, and I don't see anything that indicates our leaders have a plan to fix it. Congressmen aren't going to limit their future "earnings" by putting a ban on government folks moving over to the corporate side, for instance.
Enjoy the environment we have right now, because if things continue on the present course the corporations will destroy much of it in the name of the almighty dollar, abetted by the crooks in government. I see evidence of this locally, where the state environmental agency rubber stamps air and water pollution permits for BP that allow
increases in emissions into our air and into Lake Michigan, in direct conflict with the Federal guidelines that call for ongoing reductions. The same state government also changed property tax laws to massively benefit BP (and the local steel companies) to the detriment of the homeowner's in the region who have to pick up the slack. Like someone once said, we have the best government that money can buy these days. Too bad the little guys on the gulf, and all the wildlife, don't have as much money as the corporations.
Jerry
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Topic: BP Oil Leak (Read 977 times)