I’ve seen a lot of stories lately about how BP is essentially dragging their feet and otherwise mucking up the clean up effort. So why hasn’t the federal government stepped in and assumed a bigger role?
What do you suppose it is that they can do? The federal government doesn’t have an agency full of well-control experts, they don’t have undersea oil rig ROVs, they don’t have the equipment, pumps, boats, holds, tanks and other assorted doohickies required of such an operation.
An argument could be made that they should be taking a more supervisory role in the matter, but the people best qualified, and with the best resources, to deal with the disaster are the oil companies already out there.
I guess that’s the point I was getting at, why haven’t they taken a more supervisory role in coordinating these efforts.
Huh?
Granted the government may not have oil spill experts on staff but if they wanted to step in the government would hire experts. BP is not the only oil company in town. Beyond that the government has ROVs and ships and stuff.
The issue is BP wants to minimize costs as much as possible. Better to have the government step in and, in true government form, say “Cost is no issue!” Then send the bill to BP. If they refuse to pay I have no doubt the government could find ways to get the cash far more painfully such that BP would grudgingly write a check.
Where do you think those experts would come from? BP has already retained the best blowout experts in the business.
They don’t have the kind of ROVs that work on underwater oil equipment. They don’t have ships with mud pumps that can generate enough pressure to counter an oil gusher under 5000 feet of water.
It’s true that BP wants to minimize costs as much as possible. It’s also true that BP is already on the hook for the entire cleanup cost which will be billed to them. And BP has stated publicly that they will cover the complete cost of the cleanup. (Not that they have a choice.) The Coast Guard and other government agencies are already doing many millions of dollars of work in that regard, and there’s more to come.
(You can expect some litigation over the final bill, of course, but they are going to be out a rather large chunk of money.)
What you need to consider is this: what’s going to be more expensive for BP in the long run? To cap the well ASAP, or to sit around with their thumbs up their asses while more oil spills into the gulf? And do you think the executives, risk analysis experts, and accountants at BP are smart enough to figure that out?
They are in an impossible situation, trying to improvise technology to solve an extremely difficult engineering problem that has never been solved before. They are also in the shitty situation of having the best expertise and tools to solve it. Yeah, it’s true that the disaster is their fault and they probably should have been better prepared. But I have yet to see a compelling argument that the government, or even another oil company, would be better equipped to handle it.
The US government doesn’t know shit about oil wells, especially the current administration or congress. Yet they are on the news everyday making statements as if they know something. This is political hay-making for them, because BP isn’t going to contradict anything they say because of negative publicity.
The current sound bite from Washington is that “they have their boot on BP’s neck.” WTH??? Why would you want to keep your boot on the person’s neck that you need to fix the problem? Because it sounds good to potential voters?
well the OP has a great point, in why is BP being allowed to directly control access to areas effected? Reporter’s trying to visit beaches being told that the coast guard is “operating under BP’s instructions?”
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6496749n
Effectively this means no independent verification is possible of BP’s claims on the size or best method of dealing with the spill.
Why the hell is the US government allowing them to get away with that?
Well BP made the mess so let them clean it up. This is the idea behind it all.
If the government steps in, then BP can simply back off. Oh not officially of course, no company wants that much bad public relations, but this way with the government stepping in, even in a stepped up supervisory role, BP can claim, “Hey look we are trying but we’re getting government interference.”
It’s only when BP is starting to show total or willful incompetence that the government will step in a bigger way.
This is what really galls me. BP won’t even allow decent measurements of the oil flow rate to be taken. They’re also going to turn off the cameras soon, so there won’t be any video evidence if they screw up the top-kill. Talk about the inmates running the asylum.
And if the government *wasn’t *giving us daily updates, all we’d be hearing is “What the hell is the government doing?” There’s no political hay to make here- this is all damage control. Nobody is going to profit from this disaster.
No, the reason you “keep your boot on BP’s neck” is to force them to keep working on it. BP is screwed and they know it. While they might work hard to cap the well, the best place for them to cut corners is on the cleanup- leaving the rest of us to pay for their mistake.
What the hell do you want the government to do? Just sit back and trust BP to do a good job and hope it works out okay? The administration doesn’t have the experts- because they’re the government, not a freakin’ oil company. The best thing for them to do is to force BP, the entity which does have the experts, to keep doing the necessary work.
This thread is very interesting, by the way- in the space of just a few posts, we’ve seen posters saying that the government isn’t doing enough, and other posters saying that the government should just back off and let BP do their job. That, right there, is a good indication that the administration is doing just the right amount.
No, how about, hire some independent experts to verify that what BP says is the best course of action, is really the best course of action? Force BP to allow those experts the same access that BP’s own staff has to all relevant data.
Secondly, whats all this BS “the government has no oil experts”, what do you think the DOE, NOAA, MMS and EPA are paid to do? They would all have people with relevant knowledge and experience who could be used to verify BP’s claims about the spill.
I live in the area.
The real reason the Gov’t hasn’t “taken over” is that everything that can be done is being done. By standing on the sidelines and complaining the politicians can get credit for demanding action while not being held responsible for results. If the Gov’t (state or federal) “took over” they would accomplish no more and almost certainly less than the oil companies. Can you imagine how anxious the oil company lawyers are for the Gov’t to take over? From that moment on, they would be able to argue that it was the Government’s fault-they were in charge.
Besides, the federal (and certainly the state!) doesn’t have anyone with much experience in drilling or oil spill cleanup. After all, when there is a spill in Texas, the few people in Louisiana state government with some knowledge of the subject don’t jump in a car and go over to help. So the state governments get only a portion of the experience the private companies do. As for ships and ROVs etc, the problem is 1 mile down. I can assure you that no one in the federal government (the state isn’t even worth talking about) has equipment or expertise to do anything at that depth. Perhaps a few pictures from a research ROV, but that is all. The Navy certainly can’t do anything at that depth. As for hiring companies with the requisite expertise-that is possible. I can suggest two companies: BP and Exxon. The only problem is that they are a bit tied up right now. Exxon engineers are working with BP in Houston developing the methods to fix the problem right now. As far as clean-up, there is a lot that is being done but the Gov’t could usefully step in there. The best thing that can be done for most of the marsh is to let nature take care of it. If the Gov’t ran the clean-up the effort would probably slow down dramatically and fewer people would be mucking around damaging the marsh. So that would be a good thing.
I have absolutely no connection with the oil industry-I am an oceanographer working for the Navy, but the politicians whining that BP isn’t doing enough and if only they were in charge they would smack a few heads and get things done really annoys me. It is like a 10-yr looking up at an adult and complaining that if only he were able to drive he could solve the problem. The major oil companies are the only entities with the expertise, experience, equipment and money to fix this major problem.
TransOcean owned the rig and was ultimately responsible for the mistakes that caused this blowout. Though certainly BP was in charge of the drilling and shares the blame for the original mistakes.
We in the area, at least the ones who aren’t down at the TV photo-op, know how bad this is and are upset that it happened, but also have some understanding of what is going on. But we also relieved that 95% of the oil has held offshore.
If you want to see another example of this check out SAR images:
http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&type=I&collection=Observing%20the%20Earth&single=y&start=6&size=b
SAR is much better than visible images for detecting oil on the surface, though a well-processed visible image is useful as well.
Because BP is responsible for the cleanup. It is exactly like a contractor on a job site. While the contractor is responsible for the site, he controls access. If that control passes to someone else, that other entity gets the responsibility. I am sure BP would be thrilled to have the Gov’t in charge-that dilutes responsibility and gives the lawyers more to argue over. As for independent verification, I contend that there isn’t a reporter on the planet qualified to judge the best method of cleaning up the oil. And frankly, who cares? Whether the spill is 5000 bpd or 50000 bpd the response is the same. Oil in the marsh? Terrible mess. But cleaning it up mechanically (the only method available), will do more harm to the marsh than good.
It’s not about the government backing off. It’s about the government acknowledging that BP has the best knowledge to clean up this mess, and acting like a partner with them to clean it up. The government should be offering whatever resources to assist them with the clean-up. The government should be working with them…not putting their “boot on their neck”. Which doesn’t mean anything it just sounds good because the government plays into the imagery of BP being the bad guy because that’s what the constituents of the current administration want to hear. Regardless it sends a tone of divisiveness between the government and the group that we are currently depending upon to fix the problem, which IMHO is not a good thing.
the NOAA has a whole fleet of different ROV’s and human occupied submersibles that can operate below 5000 ft.
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/subs/pisces/pisces.html
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/subs/hercules/welcome.html
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/subs/tiburon/tiburon.html
I’d like a cite for the government claiming boot on the neck claim, and from some whacko libertarian.
You two should get together and decide if the federal government is doing too much, or too little.
“We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done,” US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters after touring affected areas of the Gulf coast with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and a group of US senators.
Salazar is from Colorado, where they sometimes like to play cowboy. (Not as much as us Texans, of course.) In context, I can interpret his remark as a colorful way of saying the Feds will endeavor to ensure that BP exercises due diligence in the cleanup.
Of course, Salazar has already been chastised for using the phrase–by Doctor Randal “Rand” Paul:
Given BP’s history, I’m glad questions are being asked–to discover what happened & see how this sort of thing can be handled better in the future. Unless BP decides they want to stop drilling in our waters.
There is a multi Federal Agency team called the Flow Rate Technical Team made up of members of the NOAA, MMS, Coast Guard, DOE, and USGS specifically formed for the purpose of determining the flow rate from this leak. They have yet to give any estimate. Perhaps you should complain about them on this subject instead of BP.