Help Me Understand This

Okay, so here is the deal. BP and their cohorts are drilling a mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Things are taking too long and corners are cut. Safety procedures are compromised, thanks to the cozy relationship between the oil industry and the government agency meant to regulate it. There is a problem. The drill rig explodes and lives are lost. Oil begins pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. BP lies about how much oil is pouring out and their ability to stop the leak. Over many weeks and months they try one failed idea after another to stop the leak. They spew toxic dispersants into the water to break up the oil, but all it does is create large toxic oil plumes under the water, which PB at first denies. As things get worse they promise to find a way to stop the leak and reimburse all legitimate claims for damage.


President Obama orders the Coast Guard and Federal resources to assist BP in containing the oil and stop the leak. He imposes a 6 month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf and appoints a commission to investigate the safety of the existing rigs and the cause and prevention of the current spill. He makes several visits to the Gulf Coast and talks to local officials, residents and fishermen about the pending disaster. The President has the Secretary of the Interior reorganize the regulatory agency overseeing the oil industry.

Things continue to get worse. Fragile wetlands and wildlife get coated with gooey oil and tar balls wash up on the beaches. We find out that BP is still lying about the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf. They are only partially successful in stopping the oil and in fact may have made it worse by some accounts. BP is slow to process claims for damages and lost wages. People are out of work, suffering and getting upset. BP stock drops and there are rumors that the giant corporation might actually go bankrupt.

President Obama continues to hold BP’s feet to the fire. He calls the top BP executives to the White House and gets them to agree to put $20 billion into a separate fund and appoints a respected, experienced person to efficiently pay out claims to the people suffering the most. This is money in the bank, even if BP goes belly up. A third party is now paying out claims and not some PB employee. He even gets them to agree to put another $200 million into a fund for out-of-work oil workers due to his moratorium on deep water drilling. Even with all of this money given up by BP, the President makes it clear that this was in no way a cap on what BP may ultimately owe people and businesses because of BP’s negligence.

Now here is what I need help with. This is what I don’t get. President Obama is getting blasted for not doing enough, fast enough. The same politicians that were shouting from the roof tops with warnings about “Big Government” needing to stay out of our lives and our business are now screaming that our government was not involved, was not regulating the oil industry…enough. Our “Big Government” is not reacting fast enough and big enough to stop the oil spill and clean up the mess. Where is the government they shout. These were the same people and the same cry when our financial system was collapsing recently. Gosh, how come the banks and the oil industry did not police themselves? For years conservative politicians would have us believe that regulation is bad and the government should just butt out. So what is it, too much government or not enough?

At a recent congressional hearing, BP company officers assembled for a session of “slice and dice” when Texas Republican congressman , Joe Barton, opened his statements with an apology to BP for President Obama’s “shakedown” of the $20 billion fund. Yes, he was pressured into rescinding his apology to BP later, but I suspect he was giving voice to many politicians who owe their campaign funds in part to BP and the rest of the oil industry. The fund was seen as Obama’s “shakedown” of BP rather than a plan to insure that victims are compensated. Why is that?

And the last thing I need help with is this anger at President Obama over the moratorium on deep water drilling. As oil is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, despite BP’s many “experiments” to stop it, politicians, fishermen and oil men are pushing to resume the drilling. With fear in their angry, warning voices, they make it Obama’s fault for men being out of work which will eventually cause the oil rigs to pack up and sail away to other oil fields thus causing even more damage to the already injured economy. But, wouldn’t these same voices be decrying President Obama if another deep water well began leaking because we never took the time to check the safety equipment and procedures, if we never completed the current investigation into WHY this disaster happened? Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Why is that?

Are oil profits more sacred than people’s lives and the environment that sustains us?

Food for THOUGHT…