It’s been more than a month since BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig keeled over and started introducing massive underground oil reserves to the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, we’ve been treated to a dizzying round of blame displacement and increasingly desperate (not to mention ineffective) attempts to stop the gushers. And it’s been fun, really it has. Especially when this guy was helping to run things.
But it’s getting to a point where BP’s approaches to plugging the leak have begun to resemble the product of a bunch of sleep-deprived, coke-fueled execs locked in a conference room with a bunch of Mad Libs. Today’s attempt is called a “top kill,” but it’s not nearly as awesome as it sounds; the general plan is to pour massive amounts of sludge over the leak like so much fondant over a spoiled cake. Of course, this method has never been tried before at such depths and there’s no guarantee it will work. Seriously, did every BP exec graduate from the Death Star School of Engineering? Nothing is too big to fail. Maybe you should have some backup plans in place before things start exploding.
The question many are asking now, including Florida Senator Bill Nelson, is whether the government can do any better. Sen. Nelson appeared on CNN Wednesday morning and called for the Obama administration to “completely take over” relief work if the problem wasn’t resolved that day. The federal government has already released tens of thousands of workers and over one thousand ships to assist BP in its efforts, but it hasn’t yet gotten involved in planning and directing any cleanup. Democratic politico/30 Rock guest star James Carville called the government’s approach to the spill “hands off” and echoed Nelson’s request to “get down here and take control of this.”
Even the Audobon Society is getting in on it, signing a petition asking President Obama to “protect the affected communities” on the Gulf Coast and “mobilize the resources of the federal government to address and contain the spill.” Earlier this week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he didn’t believe that BP officials “know exactly what they’re doing” and threatened to “push them out of the way” if they continue to miss deadlines.
Whether this was an actual promise or a scare tactic to encourage BP to work a little harder remains to be seen. There’s no question that BP has botched cleanup efforts at almost every turn, consistently under-reporting the rate of oil leakage and promising dramatic results with increasingly harebrained and ineffective solutions. The question isn’t “Has BP done a terrible job responding to the oil spill?” (because, um, yes) but “How can the government do better?”
The Clean Water Act makes it the president’s responsibility to “ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge… of oil or a hazardous substance.” But does the Coast Guard have more resources than BP? So far, there’s no clear answer. Meanwhile, the Gulf continues changing color.
Of course, if the “sludge attack” attempt at containment fails too, the Coast Guard might start looking pretty good.
Image: mikebaird