Don't you believe that BP should have had a response ready to go on DAY 1 that would have effectively stopped this problem?
First of all, it is important to remember that BP *DID* have a response ready to go on Day One -- the BOP. And it failed. Today, in retrospect, everyone wants to say it was "foreseeable", but the reality is that there was no reason to expect such a failure.
Going forward, I think there are things that can and should be done -- notably, the formation of a consortium charged with building systems and stocking materials for the next event, probably 50 years into the future. But we need to avoid the gut over-reaction that so often comes with government incompetence -- the first apparent incident of which is Obama's knee-jerk reaction for a moratorium.
It was obvious that they were winging it with failure after failure, finally settling for a partial failure.
This is not obvious at all. Ten's claims notwithstanding, there are not enough facts in for people to be laying blame at this time. BP has said the buck stops with them, they have backed up with their dollars, but we are a couple years away from knowing what actually caused this problem.
Why is it you conservatives whine for smaller, less "intrusive" government constantly until you need it to clean up one of the messes caused by conservative policy?
I can't speak for others but I believe government has to step in when a job is too big and important for any other entity to handle it. And that has to be automatic, planned, and competent -- none of which applies to this administration's blundering through this situation.
We need a response on par with GWB's response to Katrina. Massive effort on Day One to be ready to move (which the Federal government provided for Katrina), followed by a massive influx of people and materiel once the first responders are out of their depth (in this case BP is the first-responder). |
