It now appears that the oil spill in the Gulf will continue unabated for several months, with BP’s cover its ass approach to containment the only relief in the meantime. Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers has taken a break from his laudable efforts on behalf of cephalopods and against the forces of unreason to make what seems to me a very constructive suggestion, which is worth passing on:
Everyone is fixated on that one burning mess in the Gulf, which is probably exactly what the oil companies want — they are probably sweating pungent carcinogenic petrochemicals at the thought that someone might look around and notice all of those other rigs, which almost certainly have a paper trail of shortcuts and risks and shoddy management. While BP is struggling to catch up with its responsibilities and close off the well and clean up the poisons, I think a great thing for the Obama administration to do would be to descend on each of those other wells with a force of elite regulatory accountants, documenting all the potential and extant problems, and telling each company to fix them. Now. Without cheating, without getting any special dispensations. If they can’t fix them, shut them down or hit them with massive penalties.
I don’t know if this is even possible, since we might very well lack the “elite regulatory accountants” necessary to do the job, but if it’s possible, they should do it, both for the substance and the political theater of it. It’s becoming more and more clear that this particular oil spill involves criminal behavior, and there’s no reason to believe that it is an isolated instance. As Myers points out, there are thousands of wells in the Gulf alone. It’s more likely than not that BP and other oil companies chose the best financial case when making decisions about other wells. Obama, assuming he’d be interested, is hindered by the fact that he has to work through a captive regulatory agency, where at the moment most of the employees are probably busily covering their own asses and writing resumes. It’s also the case that what Myers is proposing is what the agencies should have been doing as a matter of course.
BP killed 11 people and has caused billions of dollars worth of damages, damage that, in the end, it will probably resist paying for. Don’t believe its present protestations for a minute. Once the leak is stopped, it will begin to walk back its assurances. If history is any guide, sometime in the late 2020s the victims of BP’s criminality might recover a few pennies on the dollar, and of course, most of the victims, the plant and animal populations being decimated, don’t even have the right to sue.
We get ourselves into a panic about every bumbling would be terrorist, but if the more effective destroyer is incorporated and has billions of dollars in assets, our response to what amounts to a full blown attack is surprisingly relaxed. Well, not surprising really.
On another aspect of the leak story: being no expert, I’m not competent to judge, butI wonder if this fellow knows what he’s talking about. It would be no surprise at all if both BP and the government didn’t care to hear from outsiders, no matter how expert they might be.
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