Make Big Oil Dance

by Deacon Blues

When you see all the work and desperate measures that BP is undertaking to try and stem the flow of oil in the Gulf, it pays to remember that:

1) The industry itself said just last year that this wouldn't happen;

2) Neither BP nor any other firm were ready to deal with this;

3) BP wants to blame its contractors for its own lack of accountability;

4) The Interior Department's MMS, a long-time industry captive with Bush holdovers, cleared BP to go ahead without safeguards in early 2009; and

5) Bush and Cheney let the industry run wild without any real supervision for almost a decade.

With this as a backdrop, and the reality that we have hundreds of wells operating right now without any real oversight since Bush/Cheney came into office, shouldn't Obama immediately force all deep sea well operators to file new permits and demonstrate what investments they will make to avoid blowouts and leaks like this? The industry has racked up unprecedented profits over the last several years, and has spent little of any of it on safety and prevention, aided and abetted by the federal government. We may need the oil, but we're way beyond letting Big Oil complain about costs and allegedly safe technologies that aren't.