The Oil Has Landed…

Ever since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 there has been a surreal vigil for the beaches and marshlands along the Gulf Coast.  Well, the oil has landed. And it is giving a new ecological meaning to the dreaded term,” Black Death;” because the environmental damage will be catastrophic.  Oil has now washed up on over 65 miles of Louisiana coastline….

It was not at all surprising early on when the finger-pointing began: with BP blaming subcontractor Transocean because its blowout preventer, which was supposed to close off the well in the event of disaster, failed; Transocean blaming BP because it signed off on every flawed aspect of the offshore operation in order to save time and maximize profits; Halliburton blaming BP because, in its rush to get the oil, BP never allowed Halliburton to properly close off the well with a cement plug; and the Obama administration blaming BP for the whole mess.  And if none of this makes any sense to you, you are a perfect candidate for an executive position at BP.

What is surprising, however, is the extent to which environmentalists and other supporters of President Obama are now blaming him. In fact, no less a person than liberal egg head James Carville was all over TV yesterday spouting off about how “lackadaisical” and “naïve” Obama was for leaving BP in charge of the clean up.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the finger pointing, BP has already accepted full responsibility not only to clean up the mess but also to pay for it.  And nobody doubts that that includes paying for all consequential damage to beaches and marshlands as well as fair compensation to the fishermen whose livelihoods have been adversely impacted.

Moreover, it is clear that BP has been doing everything humanly possible to plug the leak from a ruptured pipe that, according to CBS News, has been gushing over four million gallons of oil a day for 34 days … and counting. And in open and notorious fashion, the company has dutifully telegraphed and televised all of its failed efforts in this respect; notwithstanding the tone-deaf PR spin by its top executives to downplay the environmental impact of this spill.

Actually, no matter how driven by the bottom line, BP is acutely aware that its survival as an ongoing business in the United States depends of maintaining good faith not just with the government but with the American people as well.  As Obama’s point man, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, says:

This is an existential crisis for one of the world’s top companies. (CNN, May 23, 2010)

No doubt this is why BP’s corporate mission now is to “top kill” the well instead of doing anything to extract any more oil for profit.

Likewise, it is clear that the Obama administration has been doing everything humanly possible to get BP to plug the leak.  And Secretary Salazar reinforced this point rather poignantly over the weekend:

I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed… [The federal government has sent a team of] scientific all-stars, that are now leading an Apollo 13-type effort, to BP’s Houston headquarters. They have pushed BP in every way that they can to kill the well and they have pushed BP in every way that they can to stop the pollution.

(Reuters, May 22, 2010)

And there’s the rub. Because what most critics find utterly incomprehensible is that Obama is relying on a British petroleum company to deal with what is looming as the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history. What they fail to appreciate, however, is that the mighty US government does not have the technical expertise or the drilling resources to do any better than BP. And this makes all of Salazar’s talk about “keeping a boot on the neck of BP” and “pushing them out of the way if they don’t do what they’re supposed to” nothing more than hollow political bluster.

In any event, the irony seems lost on Obama’s critics that they are partly responsible for this untenable dependency.  After all, fear of incurring the political wrath of liberals and environmentalists has inhibited the U.S. government from exploring the deep sea for oil the way it explores deep space for God knows what.  If this were not the case, instead of dispatch scientists to offers suggestions, Obama would clearly have been able to dispatch a NASA-like team to do what BP is trying so haplessly to do.

For the record, though, Obama has ordered a bipartisan commission to determine the causes of the spill and all indications are that he will direct the Justice Department to prosecute if this commission finds that BP was criminally negligent.

Nonetheless, some criticism of Obama is warranted. Because having no ability to plug the leak is one thing; but not doing everything humanly possible to prevent the oil from washing ashore is another. And Obama could have done a lot more to marshal resources for this effort.

Instead, he has maintained a Nero-like detachment as local politicians fought daily with BP for permission to mount desperate self-help missions to keep the oil at bay, and avoid a catastrophe.  Frankly, it is incomprehensible that Obama did not nationalize this aspect of BP’s operation weeks ago and dispatch the Army Corp of Engineers to organize the clean-up effort.

So, if there’s any sense in which this BP spill can be fairly called Obama’s Katrina, it would stem from his Bush-like failure to send in the cavalry long ago, not to plug the leak but to prevent the spillover effect it’s having on the ocean and Gulf Coast.

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