It is frustrating to listen to the Obama White House and top political appointees on the Gulf Oil Spill. The "all hands on deck" approach-- ie. sending Cabinet officials and advisors like Carol Browner-- to the Gulf for first hand visits, and the president visiting himself, has failed to capitalize on this teachable moment.
The message I'm missing most is how regulatory failure lead to the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. I want to hear the Obama administration explain that American politics has made no room for tough, effective regulation of polluters and pollution. The tragedy of the Gulf is the exact result of foxes running the hen house.
Carol Browner, in particular, knows this because she is from Miami and passionate about the Everglades. Although the pollution of the Everglades occurs in parts per billion and the Gulf Oil spill is measured in tens of millions of gallons of oil; the cause is the same: ineffective regulators, bad regulations, and poor enforcement. That's part one of the message.
Obama could add: here is what I am going to do. I am going to prioritize a system-wide improvement of environmental regulation at the federal level including the effect of pollution on public health. In Florida, the record of enforcement by federal regulatory agencies on the environment is pitiful. The enforcement arms of the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Service and EPA stand out as desperately needing reform. (What most people don't understand, is that the federal judiciary gives very wide berth to federal agencies. It takes almost an act of God for the judiciary to come down hard on these agencies and on the side of the public. The assumption is that government serves the public interest.)
There is a further point: the environment protects the economy and not the other way around. I'd like to hear Obama say: it is time to stop treating the environment as something we can endlessly exploit. The days of cost accounting that fail to include the true price of protecting our air and water have come to an end. The Gulf Oil catastrophe happened because fake book keeping helped Big Oil dictate how much money they would spend on contingency and backup systems in the case of a deep sea blowout. And if I were president I would go further. I'd say, Big Oil earns tens of billions per quarter. It is time to chase the money changers from the temple.
Surely the Obama White House can embrace some part of this message?(For an interesting blog on science going on now in the Gulf of Mexico related to the oil spill, click on this site run by a University of Georgia researcher.)
3 comments:
too little too late. the coast of the US could have provided food and protein to take care of us forever but look what we've done instead. weak kneed politicians, lazy bureaucrats pulling a paycheck, and A-type personalities looking only to get rich have sacrificed it all.
Absolutely right! Here is a call for permanent receivership for Big Oil. After billions of dollars in profits, due in part to lax regs for which we paid at the pump so they could lobby so effectively; after billions of taxpayer dollars in defense spending for oil; after half the children living near highways struggle with asthma; it is time for them to mobilize and finance protection and cleanup NOW, as it occurs!
It will never happen. Money is far more powerful than our cries for help in protecting our environment. Look at the environmental atrocities being commited in Dubai when they dredge and fill the ocean like it was a sand box in their bathtub.
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