Thanks to an era of the federal government's deregulation of almost all regulated industries, the U.S. failed to implement a safety feature for off shore oil drilling that is required in most countries that participate in this practice.
From St. Ronald the Great through the Bush II Administration, the Republican majority has been and continues to be on a 30 year crusade to allow the oil boys to do whatever it takes for them to turn a quick buck.
Republican lawmakers hope and believe that the oil boys will continue to donate generously to the campaign coffers of all enabling politicians that willingly turn a blind eye to the raping and pillaging of our environment.
Norway and other countries require the implementation of a safety device that costs a mere $500,000 for all offshore drilling rigs. Norway and other countries anticipate and plan for calamities so that they don't live the ecological nightmare and economic horror show that BP Petroleum has created for us.
Below is a glimpse into the W.'s Administration's efforts to work on behalf of big energy while throwing the American people to the dogs.
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.
Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.
"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of what it calls the Bush administration's penchant for deregulating in areas where industry wants more freedom. He called the coming deluge "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts."
Meanwhile, W. continues to clear brush, or do whatever he does in Dallas while raking in boatloads of cash.
The outcome for residents in the Gulf region, thanks to the Republican energy agenda, is not so rosy. Frank the fisherman lost his source of income along with Helen the hotel owner, Rachel the restaurant owner and Sally and Burt who run the local supermarket and bait shop.
A big debt of gratitude should also be extended to Dick Cheney and all of those high flying oil boys he invited to write our nation's energy policies. Perhaps all of those who wrote the policy, including Mr. Cheney, should be required to help pay for cleaning up BP's environmental carnage. Perhaps they should also be made to form charitable foundations in order to financially support fishermen and others whose livelihoods have been devastated for a long time to come. This should also apply to the tourist industries, towns and cities that will also be impacted by the ravages of this unforgivable oil spill.
Of course I am dreaming. Since when do Republicans give a crap about anyone except for their big moneyed fat cats who take care of their Republican lawmaking mistresses needs as long as madame the Republican lawmakers delivers.
Republican politicians, of course will back peddle, if they have not already done so, on their passionate commitment and proclamations to drill, baby, drill.
Sarah weighs in.
Michael wants to party with the drilling boys too.
FOX and Rush have a lot of 'splaining to do too for this oil spill carnage seriously interferes with both Rush and Fox's narratives on cap and trade, global warming and their serial dependence on bashing Al Gore.
As one would predict, a psycho babbling Rush, in one of his typically paranoid and pathologically deranged moments, blames the oil calamity on environmentalists who sabotaged the rig.
Fox could obviously also use a seriously new pusher man.
I guess when truth and reality interfere with a Republican talking point, the right will jump through hoops to change the subject. If that does not work, the right will find an evil doing scapegoat on whose back they will paint a target.
Governor Perry chose to blame the BP oil leak on God.
Their behavior is becoming so transparent and predictable that it would be hilarious if the consequences of right wing Republican ideology were not so horrific. Two years ago former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson allowed the banks to empty our national treasury into their armored trucks, no questions asked. Meanwhile Wall St. had crashed causing tens of thousands if not millions to lose their life long savings, jobs and homes. A couple of weeks ago a terrible gas leak at a coal mine killed 29 workers. And now we have the oil spill debacle in the Gulf which may be the worst in history.
I am afraid to think about what new Republican made catastrophe will happen next. And if and when does, I am sure St. Ronald, W. and Dick Cheney will have a had a hand in it too.
Update 5/5/10: An article in the Washington Post today reveals that BP had been granted a categorical exclusion from the National Environmental Policy Act on April 6, 2009.
The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.
Is this the outcome of incompetence or corruption at the federal level?
"They never did an analysis that took into account what turns out to be the very real possibility of a serious spill," said Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has reviewed the documents.
Lobbying money played a big role.
The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans," Suckling said.
BP has lobbied the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- which provides NEPA guidance for all federal agencies-- to provide categorical exemptions more often. In an April 9 letter, BP America's senior federal affairs director, Margaret D. Laney, wrote to the council that such exemptions should be used in situations where environmental damage is likely to be "minimal or non-existent." An expansion in these waivers would help "avoid unnecessary paperwork and time delays," she added.
It seems to me that we have a bunch of heckofajobs as regulators whose butts should have been fired yesterday.
