Jim Stillman
Nevar
BP isn't the only one at fault
June 5th 2010 16:53
Perhaps BP is not “at fault” for the Gulf disaster.
There is a well-known fable about a scorpion and a frog. For any reader who is unfamiliar with the tale, this is from Wikipedia:
The primary, if not the sole, nature of a business is to return a profit to its owners. It is not the business’ aim to protect the environment, the public at large or do anything other than serve its stockholders.
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, about 40 miles from the Louisiana coast, owned by Transocean, Ltd, and leased to BP, collapsed and burned, creating the worst environmental disaster in United States history. As I write, numerous attempts by BP to stop the discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico have been universally unsuccessful.
The most recent attempt to stop that discharge will not succeed, if its purpose is to stop the discharge. The “cut and cap” procedure is designed to allow BP to harvest the wasted oil and make money. The captured oil, while only a portion of the oil that is gushing from the broken pipe, is the same stuff as the product that has made BP lots and lots of cash.
One of the critics of President Obama opines that if only the president yelled at BP and the tide, the oil would vanish
The investigations of how and why the disaster occurred will, without doubt, continue for months if not years. Yet preliminary reports indicate that BP’s engineers were concerned for over a year that metal being used was likely to collapse under high pressure. Moreover, a report published in the New York Times on May 29, 2010, discusses the many instances where BP executives had actual knowledge of potential dangers and, intentionally, ignored the warnings.
Were these executives venal? No, they were following the Prime Directive.
Consider, also, the many recalls of automobiles during the past year. In each case, the manufacturer knew of the potential dangers and flaws; in each case the potential damage was treated as a cost of doing business and weighed against the cost of correction.
So is there anyone to blame? Damn right there is, and Bob Cesca has it correctly:
At the very time that BP’s well continues to gush forth an estimated 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the fragile wetlands along the Gulf begin to get coated with crude, which is also headed into the Gulf Stream for a trip past the Everglades and on up the East Coast, the company is demanding that Canada lift its tight rules for drilling in the icy Beaufort Sea portion of the Arctic Ocean. Canada has a current safety requirement that undersea wells must also include a side relief well, so as to have a preventive measure in place that could shut down if blown. If the US had had such a provision in place, the Deepwater Horizon blowout could have been shut down almost immediately after it blew out, just by turning of a valve or two, and then sealing off the blown wellhead. BP, in a display of chutzpah and arrogance is demanding that the Canadian regulation be dropped because it was too expensive!
I have written about the demand of politicians, catering to the well-meaning but ill-informed anti-government believers, to privatize government functions and regulations and will not repeat the many illustrations of unrealistic hope that private businesses will act contrary to their financial interests in order to serve the “public interest”. We have recently witnessed the virtual collapse of the country’s economy causing tremendous hardship on our citizens. We have recently watched the news accounts of death in the coal mines of West Virginia. Much of the blame for these events can also be placed on lax or non-existent government regulations.
The mantra, “Government is the problem” was spoken by Republican Ronald Reagan and, indeed, has been adopted by the Tea Party folks and the Far Right. As I have written previously, the Jeb Bush push for privatization of Florida government and his brother’s weakening of environmental protection and even food and drug safety has resulted in great harm and loss. In all fairness, this refusal to allow government to protect us has not been the exclusive failure of the GOP; Democrats are also complicit.
Jim Hightower sums the situation succinctly:
So what is to happen now? We have to grow up to reality. We have to demand an activist government that will protect us. We have to demand that our elected representatives not sell their souls, and votes, to corporate interests.
And we have to stop bellyaching about the payment of our dues as citizens, that is, taxes.
According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, considered to be one of the most influential conservative research organizations in the United States, taxes in the United States, local, state and federal, are far less than in other industrial countries when measured as a percentage of gross national product. For example, the percentage for the United States is 28.2%; the rates for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Switzerland are, respectively, 30.0%, 40.6%, 46.1% and 39.8%. Our neighbor, Canada, has taxation of 33.4% of its GNP.
Does this mean we should not try and have more efficient government? Should we not insist on prudent expenditures? Of course not.
But at the same time, we must be able to count on government regulations to keep us and our environment safe, we must be able to insist that government provide services that we need, services as affordable health care, reasonable and affordable public transportation, assurance that the water we drink and the food we eat is safe.
These functions cannot be delegated to private industry or financial institutions, not because such businesses are venal but because their primary interests are not those of the rest of us.
There is a well-known fable about a scorpion and a frog. For any reader who is unfamiliar with the tale, this is from Wikipedia:
The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees; nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, about 40 miles from the Louisiana coast, owned by Transocean, Ltd, and leased to BP, collapsed and burned, creating the worst environmental disaster in United States history. As I write, numerous attempts by BP to stop the discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico have been universally unsuccessful.
The most recent attempt to stop that discharge will not succeed, if its purpose is to stop the discharge. The “cut and cap” procedure is designed to allow BP to harvest the wasted oil and make money. The captured oil, while only a portion of the oil that is gushing from the broken pipe, is the same stuff as the product that has made BP lots and lots of cash.
One of the critics of President Obama opines that if only the president yelled at BP and the tide, the oil would vanish
The investigations of how and why the disaster occurred will, without doubt, continue for months if not years. Yet preliminary reports indicate that BP’s engineers were concerned for over a year that metal being used was likely to collapse under high pressure. Moreover, a report published in the New York Times on May 29, 2010, discusses the many instances where BP executives had actual knowledge of potential dangers and, intentionally, ignored the warnings.
Were these executives venal? No, they were following the Prime Directive.
Consider, also, the many recalls of automobiles during the past year. In each case, the manufacturer knew of the potential dangers and flaws; in each case the potential damage was treated as a cost of doing business and weighed against the cost of correction.
So is there anyone to blame? Damn right there is, and Bob Cesca has it correctly:
The list is long, but, in part, I blame anyone who bought into the lines: "government is the problem" and "the era of big government is over." It's been systematic deregulation and the elevation of free market libertarian laissez-faire capitalism that have wrought this damage and allowed potentially destructive corporations to write their own rules and do as they please.
Does anyone seriously believe that BP has suddenly become a philanthropic venture interested in doing whatever it takes -- sparing no expense -- to make the Gulf region whole again? It will do the absolute minimum necessary to weasel its way through this crisis. Not a red cent more.
Does anyone seriously believe that BP has suddenly become a philanthropic venture interested in doing whatever it takes -- sparing no expense -- to make the Gulf region whole again? It will do the absolute minimum necessary to weasel its way through this crisis. Not a red cent more.
At the very time that BP’s well continues to gush forth an estimated 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the fragile wetlands along the Gulf begin to get coated with crude, which is also headed into the Gulf Stream for a trip past the Everglades and on up the East Coast, the company is demanding that Canada lift its tight rules for drilling in the icy Beaufort Sea portion of the Arctic Ocean. Canada has a current safety requirement that undersea wells must also include a side relief well, so as to have a preventive measure in place that could shut down if blown. If the US had had such a provision in place, the Deepwater Horizon blowout could have been shut down almost immediately after it blew out, just by turning of a valve or two, and then sealing off the blown wellhead. BP, in a display of chutzpah and arrogance is demanding that the Canadian regulation be dropped because it was too expensive!
I have written about the demand of politicians, catering to the well-meaning but ill-informed anti-government believers, to privatize government functions and regulations and will not repeat the many illustrations of unrealistic hope that private businesses will act contrary to their financial interests in order to serve the “public interest”. We have recently witnessed the virtual collapse of the country’s economy causing tremendous hardship on our citizens. We have recently watched the news accounts of death in the coal mines of West Virginia. Much of the blame for these events can also be placed on lax or non-existent government regulations.
The mantra, “Government is the problem” was spoken by Republican Ronald Reagan and, indeed, has been adopted by the Tea Party folks and the Far Right. As I have written previously, the Jeb Bush push for privatization of Florida government and his brother’s weakening of environmental protection and even food and drug safety has resulted in great harm and loss. In all fairness, this refusal to allow government to protect us has not been the exclusive failure of the GOP; Democrats are also complicit.
Jim Hightower sums the situation succinctly:
The explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon well was the inevitable result of deliberate decisions made by avaricious corporate executives, laissez faire politicians and obsequious regulators.
As the ruinous gulf oil blowout spreads onto land, over wildlife, across the ocean floor and into people's lives, it raises a fundamental question for all of us Americans: Who the hell's in charge here? What we're witnessing is not merely a human and environmental horror, but also an appalling deterioration in our nation's governance. Just as we saw in Wall Street's devastating economic disaster and in Massey Energy's murderous explosion inside its Upper Big Branch coal mine, the nastiness in the gulf is baring an ugly truth that “We the People” must finally face: We are living under de facto corporate rule that has rendered our government impotent.
Thirty years of laissez-faire, ideological nonsense (pushed upon us with a vengeance in the past decade) has transformed government into a subsidiary of corporate power. Wall Street, Massey, BP and its partners -- all were allowed to become their own "regulators" and officially encouraged to put their short-term profit interests over the public interest.
As the ruinous gulf oil blowout spreads onto land, over wildlife, across the ocean floor and into people's lives, it raises a fundamental question for all of us Americans: Who the hell's in charge here? What we're witnessing is not merely a human and environmental horror, but also an appalling deterioration in our nation's governance. Just as we saw in Wall Street's devastating economic disaster and in Massey Energy's murderous explosion inside its Upper Big Branch coal mine, the nastiness in the gulf is baring an ugly truth that “We the People” must finally face: We are living under de facto corporate rule that has rendered our government impotent.
Thirty years of laissez-faire, ideological nonsense (pushed upon us with a vengeance in the past decade) has transformed government into a subsidiary of corporate power. Wall Street, Massey, BP and its partners -- all were allowed to become their own "regulators" and officially encouraged to put their short-term profit interests over the public interest.
So what is to happen now? We have to grow up to reality. We have to demand an activist government that will protect us. We have to demand that our elected representatives not sell their souls, and votes, to corporate interests.
And we have to stop bellyaching about the payment of our dues as citizens, that is, taxes.
According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, considered to be one of the most influential conservative research organizations in the United States, taxes in the United States, local, state and federal, are far less than in other industrial countries when measured as a percentage of gross national product. For example, the percentage for the United States is 28.2%; the rates for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Switzerland are, respectively, 30.0%, 40.6%, 46.1% and 39.8%. Our neighbor, Canada, has taxation of 33.4% of its GNP.
Does this mean we should not try and have more efficient government? Should we not insist on prudent expenditures? Of course not.
But at the same time, we must be able to count on government regulations to keep us and our environment safe, we must be able to insist that government provide services that we need, services as affordable health care, reasonable and affordable public transportation, assurance that the water we drink and the food we eat is safe.
These functions cannot be delegated to private industry or financial institutions, not because such businesses are venal but because their primary interests are not those of the rest of us.
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