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.
