BP response plan: "fraud, fantasy, or forgery." US government deserves hefty share of the blame.

[Karmadillo]

ABC News focused on this report tonight. As one might have expected, it turns out the government had ample reason to know a disaster of this scale could not be handled by current methods. Teachers, we hold accountable. Government and corporations? We “need to look forward and not backwards.”

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2079/

According to interviews and after-action reports obtained by The Center for Public Integrity and ABC News, the training exercises conducted in 2002, 2004, 2007, and just this past March caused federal officials to express concern about a host of issues...

<edit>

Experts maintain, however, that the government does deserve a hefty share of the blame, especially in regard to ensuring that both safety and containment technology kept pace with the oil industry’s expansion of drilling in deep waters. They said inflatable booms were an ineffective tool.

“The technology that’s being used on the surface is over 30 years old,” said Jerome Milgram, a professor of marine technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I can say this. I don’t see any practical effect for putting out booms when the sea conditions are such that the booms are totally ineffective.”

Yet, BP’s “worst case” scenario for a huge oil spill in the Gulf relies heavily on being able to boom and skim a half million barrels a day, according to the oil spill response plan the company filed with federal regulators.

That is “either fraud, fantasy or forgery,” said Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club, the environmental lobby. “These are not serious plans, and yet the government accepts them as a basis for drilling.”

The Obama administration acknowledged Tuesday that the Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department agency in charge of offshore drilling, needed to do a better job in its oversight of safety. As a result, the administration has decided to divide the agency into two offices: one focused on managing oil leases and the other focused on safety and preparedness.

more...

[Little Star]

1. What a surprise!

NOT!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. This is the same government

that is hammered by corporate America and the GOP for being too concerned with regulation right? This is the same government hampered, hasselled and harrassed by multi-nationals to 'de-regulate', isn't it? Remember the mantra of the Right's icon-god, Ronald Reagan; 'government is the problem'
These departments have been gutted and de-fanged. Now that the chicken has come home to roost, it's powerless to really get anything done. It's not governments fault, it's our fault for letting the Right/Corporations/Conservatives get away with this.......... :mad:

[noise]

4. "No one could have imagined"

Just like the banking deregulation. And of course when the companies cut corners and things turn to shit they expect the public to bail them out.

[Karmadillo]

6. What would they do without the serfs?

nt

[noise]

3. Has anyone resigned?

Has anyone been fired?

What good are commissions, studies and investigations when the oversight and regulation breaks down due to corruption?

[gimama]

5. Well said!

what goood are laws, if not applied equally, fairly, JUSTly?

[Karmadillo]

7. Accountability is for the little people. Leaders need lots of elbow room.

nt

[BeFree]

8. Teabaggers are to blame

They have constricted the government.

Made it so small they could drown it.

In the gulf, any minute now, government is about to wash up on the beach.

[amborin]

9. kr