Oil Spill » Everything in Its Own Time

President Obama’s Oval Office Address to the nation on Tuesday evening was a lot of talk about the problem, but no real solution. For the first two thirds of the speech, when he talked about the clean up, he seemed distant and may have contradicted himself. When he talked about clean energy being the future it seemed like it was the same old big dreams song I had heard before. Obama, like former President Jimmy Carter, is big on dreams and long term goals, but weak on immediate solutions.

Calling together panels of experts to solve the problem of the spill is all well and good, but 8 weeks later still not having a solution is unacceptable. The American people expect results, not committee meetings to further discuss possible strategies for reducing the leak. If another 8 weeks go by without that leak being shut down, then Obama’s numbers may never recover.

Saying BP will pay is nice, but making them pay long term is a much more complicated matter. An escrow account is a good start, but is 20 billion enough? Do we even have a clue yet of the final cost? What happens when BP decides enough is enough?

Using this disaster to push for alternative energy would be nice, but he talked about wind energy and other alternatives none of which really deal with what we use oil for. Oil is mainly for cars, Mr. President. What are we going to run them on? Not the hybrids or the smart cars, but all the cars that belong to people too broke from the recession to afford the new vehicles even if they were readily available.

A Gulf Coast Restoration Plan is nice, but again this is a long term goal not a short term solution. The reaction coming from those who make their living from the Gulf is that we do not need plans, but solutions. Counting days no longer matter when the root of the problem has still not been solved.

Carter faced a different oil crisis, but his lack of leadership and solutions in that time is being mirrored in this time by the current administration. We need solutions, not dreams. We need prompt results, not long term planning. We need leadership that we can get behind now, not hope that change will come some time. We were promised change, but not from bad to worse.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

When I would be asked whether I was for or against off-shore drilling, my reply would invariably have something to do with this age-old adage. In the wake of the recent accident and resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it isn’t hard to understand why future plans of off-shore drilling may be in jeopardy. In my book, that’s just fine.

Back to that adage, drilling for oil under the sea near shorelines never made much sense to me, precisely because of the danger of spills. I’m not a tree-hugger – I’m a pragmatist. Right now they are tracking the movement of that spill as it moves closer to the shoreline. It is endangering industries of all kinds in that region. We can expect to see higher prices for not only oil, but also seafood like shrimp. The shipping industry of the region will suffer as well, since it’s doubtful that mariners consider it a “good” thing to sail through the spill.

Then there’s a potential for damage to the shorelines, and tourism to the region. Sorry, but oil-laden beaches aren’t going to be a draw for travelers. That certainly isn’t what the region needs, particularly since it hasn’t completely come back from the damage done by Katrina and other storms. Take into account the current nationwide economic problems, and this spells disaster for many sectors of the gulf shore economy.

Sure, the argument could be made that there will be at least temporary jobs there to aid in the clean-up, but that’s not even certain. For now, there is talk of contracting fishermen to aid in containment of the spill, and training volunteers and prison inmates to clean the shores and help wildlife. Once the fishermen take what they can from their usual routes, of course they’ll take the government up on the contract offers. It’s not like they’ll be able to do anything else to earn a dollar.

We had fishing, shrimping, shipping, and tourism industries in the gulf region. They were our bird in the hand. Getting the oil from under the sea was the two birds in the bush. Time will tell whether or not trying to get the oil was worth sacrificing all of the other industries in the region. Guess I’d better get out to get a nice shrimp dinner while I can still afford it.