The oil spill/fiasco. My spin

First of all, I don’t blame Bush for it. Obama has been in office for over a year, so it’s his fault. If you might recall, Obama’s administration had just recently given this platform a safety award.

Second, the oil companies lease these drill rights from the US government. Now if I was a landowner who was going to lease/rent my property, I would make sure that the renter had the adequate insurance so my investment would not be ruined, it fact, it would be part of my agreement with them.  I’m pretty sure the US had such an agreement. If my agreement said “no smoking” and it turned out that someone was smoking in my house and it burnt down because of that, I would go after that renter for all of my costs. The US should do the same, but apparently there is an agreement that BP is only responsible for up to 75 million. What a shame.

Third, what I’ve read is these drilling platforms have various safety features built in so if the shut off feature on one doesn’t work, there are others to take their place. How come these safety features all failed???

Yes, this is BPs and the subcontractors fault, but in the end, I rest the blame on the US Government. Why weren’t adequate safety inspections done? I find it amazing that all of the safety measures did not work. If Obama is so concerned about the environment, his administration should have made sure that these inspections were being done, and if they weren’t, well he would have had grounds to shut down operations until the government had a adequate number of inspectors (On a side note, with the taxes the government gets from the oil companies, a portion should be set aside for these inspection, however, like government, government likes to spend those tax dollars on other “important” items. Pork can be such a wonderful thing!!).

 I don’t work for the oil companies, but I use their products daily and I thank them for it and the current low prices, however, we must look at ways to make sure this kind of accident, if it ever happens again, god forbid, that it can be plugged shortly after the incident. Sure, we cannot prevent accident and mistakes, but we can try our best to make sure they never happen again.

Off shore drilling will continue, period. Hopefully it won’t be prohibited in the US, but if it is, there will be other countries drilling. The industry, as a whole must develop adequate measures to prevent such disasters. Common sense is a big part. We all know that drinking and driving doesn’t make sense, especially if you’re the Captain of an oil tanker (We all recall the Valdez).

On a side note, I was part of a recent Harris Poll that was asking what I thought about several proposed radio and TV ads the oil companies were developing for the public. I thought they were all great, but added the comment that each needs to develop the idea of what they are doing to make sure this kind of incident never happens again.

Since the US Government owns the mineral rights, the Government must take an active role in making sure adequate protection is there. We can’t continue to rape our land for natural resources unless we provide adequate protect to make sure the damage is greatly limited. We have to look at the whole picture-what good is it if we say no, but other countries continue on?? We can’t prohibit them, but we can develop new technology and show a better and safer way. Our world can’t afford these environmental disasters. I do believe that in the end, if we don’t demand protection, that in the end “Nature bats last”.