Up to 60,000 barrels a day of oil have been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig since April 20. More than two months later, the federal government is just beginning to take small steps to protect us from this ongoing catastrophe.
Barack Obama promised competence in his presidency. It’s unlikely he’ll be able to deliver.
It took nine days before Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano declared the spill to be one of “national significance,” a step necessary for the appointment of a national incident commander to direct the federal response. It took those same nine days before the president to even speak publicly on the growing catastrophe.
The level of the Obama administration’s incompetence is staggering. There were no federal stockpiles of the supplies necessary to address offshore drilling accidents, despite the virtual certainty some sort of spill would eventually occur.
The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service is in bed with the industry it supposedly regulates, regularly failing to inspect offshore rigs. Interior appears not to have any experienced oil experts of its own — certainly none has appeared in public — leaving us dependent on BP’s analysis and technical expertise.
He can’t make the claim that he inherited the mess at MMS this far into his term, after making offshore drilling a priority.
It would be unreasonable to expect President Obama to personally plug the oil leak. It isn’t unreasonable to expect that long before the 60-day mark he would have convened the heads of major oil companies, university petroleum engineering departments, and anyone with useful expertise, asked them to devise solutions, and found the resources necessary to implement the plans they devised.
Andrew P. Morriss is the H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business Professor at the University of Illinois. McClatchy- Tribune News Service distributed these essays.
