This is absurd

Rex. W. Tillerson doesn’t know anything about the chemical industry apparently.  In defending BP and the oil industry, he’s committed the “there’s no gambling going on here” sin in front of a watching world.  May Jon Stewart crucify him in the public arena.

If you haven’t seen his comments, he says – quoting the Wall Street Journal - “that if [oil] companies follow proper well design, drilling, maintenance, and training procedures accidents like Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 ‘should not occur.’  Sure, BP went over the top in insuring this accident happened by pushing deadlines and taking shortcuts; however, the reality is that there’s no industry immune to accidents.  The impunity of Rex’s comments only cements the case that these guys were not planning for major disasters in any real form.  Chemical extraction and processing is inheritantly risky and we should be mandating that some form of the oil industries billion dollar profits go to preparation for disaster.  With hundreds of oil rigs off of the Gulf of Mexico,  this wasn’t a matter of IF but a matter of WHEN. 

Ezra Klein has an excellent post about how the true cost of gasoline is starting to reveal itself.  Ughhh … this whole thing is so maddening.

Milestones

Well, we've finally made it into the history books. Just before Memorial Day weekend, when Americans near and far hit the road in pursuit of summer distractions, it was announced that – yes – BP’s offshore oil extravaganza has likely surpassed Exxon Valdez levels.

No surprise, really. Since the rupture first opened, I suspect that neither the Administration nor BP had any doubt that things would get this bad. I mean, we’re not talking about a limited supply of oil sitting in storage tanks aboard an ocean transport; we’re talking about a hole in the earth, 5,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not like fixing the bathroom sink. As Keith always says, you’d think someone would have said, “hey, what do we do if this valve breaks?”

Unfortunately, no one did. We have oil spill containment strategies but nothing to assist with closing off a well nearly a mile underwater. BP and the government knew it from day one. So how has each party handled it so far?

The Administration, eager to PR the event to death, told media outlets that BP was responsible for the spill and would have to cover all costs associated with the cleanup. For its part, BP will continue to insist that indeed they are responsible, for they know better than anyone what will happen if they try to push this on regulators. No new drilling.

But from a PR standpoint, this puts BP in the driver’s seat. Sure, they will pay billions, but they are trying. How does this leave the Administration? Always one-step behind, having to recalculate and recalibrate every time one of BP’s containment strategies fails. The Administration becomes a passive party to the whole charade. Sure, BP receives slightly more of the public’s blame, but the Administration loses an opportunity to inspire confidence in the federal government at a time when there is none.

And so we enter the summer with the Administration playing catch up, providing cover to BP's seemingly infinite capacity to obfuscate and act surprised. Top kill has failed and so we all await the outcome of a new containment dome. If it doesn’t work?

Oil will spill until relief wells can be drilled – August at the earliest. Murmurs of “Obama’s Katrina” will grow louder. The Weather Channel, eager to fan the flames of any disaster, will buy up all the rooms in one of the new Flotels alongside the spill and hire Campbell Brown to anchor its hurricane coverage in 2010. Odd sewage/gas/rotting/mold smells in New Orleans will grow worse and residents will be urged to stay indoors.

And we’ll see how the Administration's PR strategy fares this November.