BP Oil Spill » Everything in Its Own Time

Now that everyone has had their chance to complain about all of the major players in the BP Oil Spill, it’s time to take a moment and reflect on what it all really means. The Congressional Hearing with Tony Hayward started off with quite a bit to keep the media hopping. While there was just a little coverage on the crazy woman that decided to cover herself in oil (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), the big story of the day was Congressman Barton, and his apology to Hayward.

Personally, since the dust has somewhat settled, I am thinking that the mainstream media and most bloggers alike would have been better off focusing on the crazy lady. First of all, the whole situation was blown out of proportion primarily because Barton’s speech was too long, and that made it possible for the press to edit at will. Now, if he’d said just one sentence – “I’m sorry that our President has found it necessary to dispense with the use of our court system to settle the financial end of this disaster” – the headlines, and the situation, would be much different. Primarily, I suspect that the crazy lady would have been lead on the evening news.

Hayward has been tripping over his tongue since the explosion, and it is easy to understand why just about everyone has no desire to see anyone play nice with him. While the GOP has been blaming Obama for not meeting with Hayward until nearly 60 days after the explosion, there’s room to wonder whether or not the BP executive had anything to do with the delays.

If one bothered to keep up with the British press, one would know that as of June 6th, Hayward was saying there was no need to meet with Obama. Of course this is coming from a man who in mid-May was severely downplaying the entire situation. All in all, Hayward is a public relations nightmare, and even Slate.com has taken a stab at evaluating the company from that perspective.

And that brings us back to Congressman Barton and his beleaguered statement. Although I can’t pretend to understand precisely what prompted the Congressman’s apology, I can figure out that it probably stung Hayward rather severely. Since Hayward was so arrogant about our legal system, I can understand why he wouldn’t be comfortable with any of our leaders suggesting that he be left to its not-so-tender mercies.

“This is America—come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

That statement was met with a fair amount of righteous indignation when it was made early on in the situation. But apparently it was forgotten, or not even considered in the context of Barton’s statement. We were stuck on being called “little people”, or something like that, I suppose. And while creating a Federal fund out of monies from BP to disburse to those affected by the spill might sound like a lovely idea in comparison with the long process of lawsuits, perhaps that’s precisely what BP wants. Maybe it will be like the age-old question – which came first, the chicken or the egg? – did BP offer billions to Obama before or after the president came up with the idea to handle the finances of the clean-up without lawsuits against BP?

Now that’s the practical end of the situation, and Barton waded into the murky ideological end. While it might be tempting to immediately assume that because Barton is a Republican and received monies from oil companies directly related to the disaster, he was speaking from greed, that isn’t necessarily a correct assumption. If one bothered to listen to the entire speech that is now splattered all over the web, Barton talked about taking money as a Congressman in consideration for a favor as an example paralleling what Obama is doing with BP. He was pointing out that Obama was allowing BP to side-step legal actions by paying what can only be considered at this point as an out-of-court settlement on behalf of thousands of litigants that were never granted the ability to obtain legal counsel.

The problems in our legal system, particularly the fact that lawsuits of this nature can take years to settle, are the first justifications for this course of action. It is a fair argument, but so is the case for limited Federal intervention in the legal system. There is no reason to simply ignore the option of temporarily creating deadlines for settlements of cases against BP. Extra personnel would be needed, and that would cost money – however it is already typical for court costs to be bundled into settlements. BP could be left footing the bill for judges, magistrates, and court personnel. States and localities could be given the ability to appoint and hire the people needed temporarily. Since BP has already demonstrated that they are willing to pay for the clean up, there is no reason to think that monies could not be acquired from them to pay for these people up front. Regardless, this is a far better option than telling the world – and businesses – that we have no problem with dispensing with silly things like due process for the sake of politicians saving face.

While there are people out there trying to come up with solutions to the BP oil spill, there is little indication that there is much headway being made. The spill keeps spreading, more oil is being dumped in the Gulf, and BP Corporate seems to be keeping everyone with any desire to help at arm’s length. Of course, there’s also the British citizens claiming that Americans aren’t very pleased with them over all of this, but honestly, there doesn’t seem to be much proof of that.

Most are assuming at this point that Obama is going to be pinning all his hopes on the concept of closing the barn door after the horses have all left, by taking over the the claims process, theoretically ensuring that the people affected are compensated for their losses. And that may very well be his undoing, particularly when the Brits are questioning his credibility. This shouldn’t be unexpected, since Obama’s waited close to 60 days to bother talking directly with BP officials.

And there lies the biggest problem – the lack of communication amongst the stakeholders involved. That failure is snowballing at nearly the same rate that the Gulf is filling with oil. Instead of worrying primarily about making BP pay for the damages, it would be better if Obama was focusing more on solutions. Taking over full control of clean-up would be a nice start. Putting out a standing call for help to all corporations and individuals worldwide would be an even better move. Yes, it would be chaotic to say the least. Of course, a few phone calls to the environmental organizations out there to recruit people to manage phone calls, emails, and letters would be a smart first step. The point is that there should be absolutely no headlines about anyone offering help and being flat out refused. Whether it’s a group of people like Shoq Value’s #corral project, or Hollywood personalities like Kevin Costner, no source of ideas should be ignored.

Big corporations in the U.S. have been demonized lately, so it isn’t hard to understand why it would be difficult to come out suggesting something like radical tax breaks for companies that would do anything significant to help with the oil spill. Each minute that this situation isn’t addressed meaningfully is inches and feet worth of spoiled coastline. Eventually someone will come up with the bright idea to come up with an equation to figure out at least a reasonable estimate of the losses. The fact that Alaska still has not recovered completely from the Exxon Valdez spill should be plastered in the back of the mind of every person involved in the clean up now.

Talk this evening will undoubtedly limited to reassuring the public that the problem is of the highest priority in the White House, and that BP will be held financially accountable for the damages. We’ll have to watch in the coming months to see what effect that has on our relations with Britain. But it’s doubtful that there will be any mention of opening the floodgates, and taking suggestions from the public at large for solutions – doubtful there will be talk about incentives to encourage corporate America to lend a hand in the clean up. And those incentives are needed, because unless the clean up is directly related to the current business goals of any given corporation, there is no chance they’ll consider lifting a finger. Even if their business is management of disasters of this kind, they will do nothing unless there is some promise of benefit on their end, or if they are directly hired to help. BP is not showing any signs that they are interested in enlisting help, so that is a moot point. It is tempting to leave them to clean up their own mess, but since they are proving to be grossly ill-equipped to manage it, we need to take the reins. Hopefully Obama won’t be talking just about money from BP. It’s a small hope, and there’s little chance that the situation is going to change.

It was a facile complaint, but not entirely off base. Glenn Beck called out President Obama tonight for comparing the oil spill to 9/11. To be fair, and completely accurate, what the president said was true in its own way, but saying it the way he did was at best, a poor choice of comparisons.

“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come” Obama told Politico.com.

First, it is inappropriate on its face to compare the oil spill with 9/11, if for no other reason, out of respect for the families of those that died that day. Then, in spite of any aspirations Obama may have for turning this situation into legislative opportunity, it remains a case of “apples and oranges” because it doesn’t involve an active attack on our country. (Additionally, I doubt the president would like to leave an open invitation to compare any of his energy or environmental legislation with the Patriot Act or the war on Iraq.)

Additionally, this is not a situation for Obama and Congress to use for their own benefit in pushing through sweeping changes in our energy and environment policies. Tempting as it may be, regardless of how badly it is needed, this is not the time to upend our economy with radical changes. Yes, green jobs would be nice, but not at the radical expense of fossil fuel jobs. If the economy was in better shape to begin with, that would be something to consider.

The primary problem goes back to the time when OPEC was created. Instead of spinning our wheels without a care in the world about where we were going to get oil for all of these years, once the U.S. wasn’t calling the shots on the oil market, we should have buried ourselves in research to come up with alternatives. The writing was definitely on the wall when T. Boone Pickens started talking about a future without fossil fuels. Even he was late to that dance, though. And it isn’t about bowing down to ones like Al Gore.

“This is a consciousness-shifting event. It is one of those clarifying moment that brings a rare opportunity to take the longer view. Unless we change our present course soon, the future of human civilisation will be in dire jeopardy.” – Al Gore on the BP Oil Spill

Opportunities to take the longer view are not rare – they’re rarely taken. Yes, the future is in jeopardy, but not in the way Gore implies. We cannot continue to leave ourselves open to the whims of crazed dictators, societies that we disagree with on basically every root principle, and bluntly, any other nation in the world. It is not a matter of returning to isolationist policies. It is a matter of lessening our dependence on unstable nations – or nations we have no business trusting. At this point in time, dependence on any nation in the Middle East is folly, and instead of dabbling in their affairs as we have been with no real success, we should be focusing on removing the necessity to deal with them at all in the first place. We need to get off our dependence on oil. That is the wake-up call that this spill is giving us.

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