Let's get real

Note: originally released for publication May 26, 2010

While oil drillers, petroleum engineers and other experts are frantically trying to stifle the blown out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico, most of the rest of us are doing what we do best.

We’re complaining about the government ever allowing something to go wrong, about big business contributing to the problem by not caring about the little guy, about ... well, about the fact it makes us feel bad.



Let’s get real.

Forget about campaigning against offshore drilling. It will continue until we find some way to get by without oil and gas. The old oil fields are shrinking and the bulk of remaining oil lies beneath seawaters.

Expect new regulations and additional inspections – because those are actions at which governments excel – but the drilling must go on.

Face the fact government cannot protect us against everything. Heck, there is very little from which it can absolutely protect us, but accidents do happen. (Look up the definition of accident.)

That said, it is surely obvious in hindsight things should have happened differently. Guess what; I am certain there were hundreds of safety measures – now routine and given little notice – in effect on that drilling platform because of things learned from previous problems.

It looks likely the Obama administration is finding its own Katrina in its inability to respond thoroughly enough to satisfy people. Just like the Bush administration found it impossible to prevent the hurricane damage and agonizingly difficult to clean it up, Obama’s people are learning they are not prepared to deal with an environmental threat as massive as the BP spill.

In years to come, it’s possible the government will have fancy equipment deployed near all offshore oil producing areas just in case of another massive blowout.

It is also possible that equipment will prove immensely useful with a future problem, but it is a certainty, in my humble estimation, that yet another unforeseen catastrophe will occur and whoever sits in the White House at that time will face charges he or she was unprepared. The charge will be true, of course, because we simply cannot prepare for everything.

Back to the current situation.

Casting a glance at headlines, there appears to be a cry for the government to take over control of the operation from BP.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let’s remove oil people from handling an oil problem and put a bunch of bureaucrats in charge.

Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen put it well: "To push BP out of the way would raise a question, to replace them with what?"

However, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s cry is different, and yet familiar.

He said his state wants to set up dredging operations to build new barrier islands to keep the oil from reaching sensitive marshes and wetlands, but the federal government seems to be dragging its feet in granting a permit for the procedure.

One wonders if his plan has any chance of being executed and whether it will create new problems. It also seems somewhat doubtful they could get anything done that quickly.

However, those closest to the problem and those with the most to lose seem to provide a good starting point.

Jindal even suggested he might proceed without a permit, even at the risk of serving jail time.

Well, doing so would at least move him from the list of people just talking about it.