Sometimes we put too much on the President's plate. There has been a lot of talk in the press about how President Obama needs to do something to fix this oil spill mess in the Gulf of Mexico. Is the Army Corp of Engineers going to come in and resolve this problem? I don't think so. We are a number years out from Katrina and the levies in New Orleans are still in jeopardy.
The government's role in this BP mess was "prior to" when the agency that regulates the permits allowed BP to proceed with drilling without the proper back-ups. We need back-ups to the back-ups when it comes systems to stop up the oil piping.
At this point, the gov't doesn't have more expertise than BP so I'm not sweating POTUS Obama to make some decision which will solve this crisis. He's taking some political heat because he proposed a couple a weeks ago to increase off-shore drilling in the Gulf and East Coast stating that the drilling techniques were very advanced and quite safe! Oops.
But I don't blame POTUS for something that is an accident. We live in an accident prone world. There are events where are beyond our ability to control. Katrina's happen. Challenger explosions happen . . .
9-11s happen . . .
As one of the fishermen said on NPR, there are some things that the gov't does and there are some things that private industry does. Cleaning up this mess and plugging that hole is in BP's area of expertise.
What do you think? Does the government help or hinder the clean-up efforts?
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