BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act

BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act

NEW ORLEANS — As oil edged toward the Louisiana coast and fears continued to grow that the leak from a seabed oil well could spiral out of control in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House announced on Saturday that President Obama would tour the area “in the next 48 hours.”

His administration has publicly chastised BP America for its handling of the spreading oil gusher, yet a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame for the unfolding environmental catastrophe on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP.

The Department of Homeland Security waited until Thursday to declare that the incident was “a spill of national significance,” and then set up a second command center in Mobile, Ala. The actions came only after the estimate of the size of the spill was increased fivefold to 5,000 barrels a day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/us/02gulf.html?hp

Concerned? Yes about going bankrupt due to this spill.

and on and on from a 1000 radio stations

If they operating company say the well is contained , why would the government deploy resources.

happened. There are few resources in the immediate area to even try to get something done as quickly as possible. Takes time, lots of time to move in the sort of ships that act as area bases. This is not something that will be solved from onshore.

We still really have little real info other than the fact of the growth estimate in the size of the spill/blowout/what have you. Experts have to be rounded up and transported to the area, given the tools to understand the problem, and the support to come up with a solution that will work--then ordering in the ships/rigs/materials to do the job.

As usual, we here seem to run off half-cocked before real info, other than the spill itself, reaches us and the rest of the country.

BP has a tendancy to cause large spills.

GOP is always telling us how government needs to stay out of things. Why is the government now supposed to subsidize another corporate fuckup?

Have a timeline that doesn't "forget" major portions of the response details:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201004300053

Might need that. :evilgrin:

:evilgrin:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/95457-administration-taps-top-coast-guard-official-to-lead-oil-spill-response

snip//

The administration and its National Response Team, "an organization of 16 federal departments and agencies responsible for coordinating emergency preparedness and response to oil and hazardous substance pollution incidents," have been coordinating with British Petroleum (BP), the owner of a rig which exploded in April, leading to the oil spill.

BP and other industries said they would be responsible for self-regulating themselves. So while they were making record profits they cut corners and didn't opt for the option that other companies in the world implement on their rigs.

No this is not the governments fault this is all on BP. Don't fall for the bullshit, this is the right wing running away from their damned policies.

BP hid the proportion of the disaster in the beginning and last time I checked the U.S government does not own and is not responsible for these companies.

BP and the Republicans are responsible for this disaster.

Does the government have any responsibility for protecting the environment, or has it totally offloaded that responsibility to oil companies? Similar to the government having regulatory and supervisory responsibility over Wall Street so that when a private company doesn't carry out its responsibility, the government is there to step in to limit the damage?

It's simply that BP and the government don't have an adequate response over any reasonable time frame. There's neither a plan nor the resources to deal with this sort of a spill. The failure has occurred over many years, since the beginning of offshore drilling. Seems to me once offshore drilling is allowed, this is the inevitable result. Is it even possible to contain something like this with proper planning and resources?

It will be interesting to see if people's attitudes toward offshore drilling will change.