Basically, a Federal judge struck down the Obama-imposed moratorium on new offshore oil drilling, saying that the moratorium was rash and heavy-handed. Personally I agree. It was rash and heavy handed, and it was very baby-like. Kind of like a little kid who makes a rule that no one can drink milk anymore because one kid in a class of thirty ripped a hole in his milk carton and spilled it all over the floor. The appropriate response is to punish the kid who spilled his milk, which is something that the Governor of Louisiana basically had to scream for a month before Obama decided to back the “BP should pay for this mess” idea. But, Obama jumped all over the moratorium.
Now I understand you could make an argument for the moratorium. You could say that this incident was a clear signal that the oil industry does not follow stringent enough safety regulations and that all drilling and all oil extraction from the earth is suspect. I’m not so sure of that, and the reason I’m not so sure of that is because the oil industry, along with the chemical industry, the gas industry, the coal industry, and pretty much every industry that is not aviation or nuclear related, is massively under-regulated. Now you could point and then say “Ah ha! You admit that everyone’s not being safe,” and then I could say “no, you’re being an idiot. What I said is that we don’t know. My bet is that everyone is playing by the rules, and is probably doing a better job now, after the accident, than they were before.” And when I say under-regulated I don’t mean that we need more regulations, I mean that we need to actually enforce the regulations on the books. If you look at the coal mining accidents that were big news before the oil spill, you’ll see a very clear trend. Safety regulations are in place, but some companies ignore them because no one enforces them.
If I were the president, I’d use some of that magic money they’ve been using to do everything else they’re doing and conjure up a crap ton more inspectors and go out and inspect the damn rigs and exploratory drilling stations. Something they should have been doing already. And ensure they are safe, instead of announcing a moratorium and then doing nothing, which is what they are doing. The nothing portion of what they’re doing is waiting on congress to jam through another set of regulations, which will make the public feel better about the situation, but which won’t actually change anything BECAUSE THERE’S NO ONE TO ENFORCE THE REGULATIONS.
So, in short: the moratorium is stupid because it doesn’t actually fix the problem. Not sure if I was clear on that, but this is a rant so what can you expect. 🙂
