First off let me say that in general I am satisfied with the way our federal government works. However, with regards to the BP spew (it’s not a spill) I am very disappointed with the feds. While PB is responsible, the feds are ultimately at fault for not adequately regulating and overseeing the industry. It takes big government to keep big business in check and it didn’t do its job. The apparent reason is the extra cost to the industry, which it would of course have passed on to the consumer. I would gladly have paid extra to see that we did the best we could to prevent this horror from happening because boy are we gonna pay now. Sadly no amount of money will remedy the suffering and destruction resulting from the spew. The articles below provide more detail on what I mean by lack of regulation and oversight.
The most horrifying part to me is the amount of oil spewing that is causing death and suffering to so many animals and plant life. And, the fact that it can and likely will go around the tip of Florida and out into the Atlantic and on to Europe. So sad to think of the dire consequneces that our (humankind) greed for the almighty dollar causes.
Mother Earth is not happy.
Now, we need a solution for this tragedy and preventive measures in place for the future.
There were a lot of backups and most of these drillings are accident free. Looks like it was partially a cost cutting feature, but also losing the command post in an explosion made recovery harder.
BP got complacent, and I think the Feds were too. Obama wants to blame Bush for the lack of regulation, but it has been over a year since he picked his own people to run things. When does he accept that?
And now he wants to shut down drilling off Lousianna, in addition to fishing. That state will be in a world of hurt when those checks stop. Or when the drilling platforms move overseas taking jobs away.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
