Is BP the Sole Culprit?

The BP oil spill was a disaster. Now that the leak has been mostly contaiined, maybe we can start to look for it's real cause.

First of all, I don't think that anyone feels that BP deliberately blew up its own well. So if it wasn't sabotage, then it was an accident, a horrible accident that took several lives, damaged the environment and incurred billions of dollars in damages, but an accident nevertheless.

When an accident happens, you should first try to minimize the damage and correct the problem. Then you can assesss the incident and try to insure that it won't happen again.

One of the first government responses to this oil spill was not to minimize the damage, but to demonize BP and its executives. They played the blame game. Immediately, there were calls for Congressional hearings and criminal proceedings. It was defined as: "putting our foot on BP's throat".

What a rush to judgement! No Miranda rights. No Fifth Amendment. Just get them into televised hearings in front of Congress to tell us how they screwed up, so that we can punish them. We are more considerate of the terrorists being held in Gitmo.

Admittedly, the BP CEO was an insensitive jerk, but that ia s problem for the BP Board of Directors, not for Congress to deal with. And the BP Board has replaced him.

The spill caused havoc. Fish were affected. Birds and animal life were affected. Globs of oil reached our coastline. Fishermen lost their livelihood. Tourism at shore resorts was impacted.

While this was happening, the government refused help from the Dutch, who have considerable experience in cleaning up oil spills. This was done on the basis of a law which prevents "foreign" ships from operating in the Gulf of Mexico. The law could have been suspended by executive order, like President Bush did after Katrina, but that wasn't done for over 80 days.

There was a brand new American ship sitting nearby that was designed specifically to scoop up massive amounts of spilled oil. It wasn't allowed to be used because the EPA had not completed its paperwork authorizing its use. It took them ten more weeks to do that.

One of the first government actions was to ban all deep sea drilling in the Gulf, throwing thousands of people out of work. This in a climate of 10% unemployment. A federal court overruled this order, but the government is appealing. Many of the rigs have already been moved to foreign waters which have more permissive governments, so a lot of those jobs won't come back.

Accidents happen, and one of the contributing factors in this one was the fact that it was in such deep water. Who is reponsible for the regulations that prevent the drilling of wells in shallower water or in the Anwar region of Alaska? Can we apportion some of the blame here to the government and to the environmental groups which force the oil companies to go deep?

A lot has been made of BP's safety record prior to the spill. Where were OSHA and the EPA in enforcing safety regulations before the spill?

America is paying a huge price for this oil spill, whether or not BP assumes some of the costs of stopping the leak, cleaning up the mess and partially reimbursing people who have lost their jobs because of the spill. Many will not be reimbursed for the damages they suffered. Anyone who holds a mutual fund in their 401k account took a hit when BP share price plummeted, and another hit when the governments non-reaction caused the price of all oil shares to drop.

C'mon America! Wake up! Let's start acting like adults who react to an accident like this by effectively fixing the problem and minimizing the damage. We can worry later about who to blame and taking action to ensure that it won't happen again.

The government response to this accident reminds me of the train/tunnel accident in "Atlas Shrugged." WHO IS JOHN GALT?