re: #548 Obdicut

But that’s just it, Reine: Even if the other companies have historically been well-run, BP and this accident has shown that we can’t depend upon those best interests to keep this sort of accident from happening. Another company could be bought by the same sort of people running BP, or a particular rig could be run by people with that mentality. After all, Massey mine shouldn’t have happened, too— it’s not in their best interests. Nor should have Centralia. Nor should have many other industrial disasters.

How many disasters of this scale could we handle in a century? Right now, we can handle zero.

And even if the other companies really do their best, all the time, there is still the chance of a perfect storm of human and equipment error that would produce another catastrophe. The industry’s testimony about the physical response to this was that, basically, BP really was doing the best that could be done in response— that means we wouldn’t even be prepared for a much lesser catastrophe.

The main thing I am arguing here is that placing blame on the MMS makes it seem as though even though the regulators were on the case and zealous, the regulation failed. It’s not true; the regulators were overburdened with an obvious history of waving through BPs plans with exceptions. To me, that indicates that the regulations need tightening, and the agency needs reformation— and that all agencies dealing with stuff of such catastrophic import likewise need to be examined to see if they can actually do their job, because their jobs are important. Incredibly important.

I have no issue with appropriate and SAFE regulations being implemented and enforced. And the MMS needs to be looked at and overhauled.

Your question to me was how many other companies are being given the exceptions? I could not answer that; all I have is decades of historical evidence to rely on, and 3 decades of experience that my husband has to draw on. That’s a lot of experience.

I do, however, have an issue with people in this thread who INSIST on trying to blame Bush and the Republicans for a perceived “soft on MMS” stance, but yell like banshees if we dare to mention that well, yes, but this particular exception was granted under the Obama administration. The final point being that it isn’t the fault of EITHER PRESIDENT. The damned federal bureacracy is so huge, no one person can oversee everything, all the time, and unfortunately, it takes a mess like this to bring to light when an agency has ceased functioning effectively needs to be reviewed and revamped.