[aruanan]

How to stop this sort of thing in the future:

1. Make BP pay for every damn thing they have caused, even if they go broke.
2. Whoever made the bad decisions in BP goes to jail (and I don't mean some low level scapegoat).
3. Whoever in the government MM division that allowed BP to use bad procedures goes to jail.


BP applied for and got expedited permission to drill this particular well, with waivers of environmental impacts studies, from the Obama Administration. After the drilling was complete when BP wanted to bypass standard procedure and do what ultimately led to the disaster, it applied to the MMS and got the okay. The ones ultimately responsible for this are the ones who made it happen by altering standard procedure. The question is what induced them to permit this kind of bypassing? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Obama got more money from BP than any other single candidate?

[Razzz42]

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the flume being monitored at the end of the string of pipe is now much more mud colored with less black oil ejecting and at a slower rate. That plume would have to be completely mud for a column of mud to begin forming inside the pipe and backing down the well.

Promising?

Whether the well can hold together without further damage and keep a mud column in place is yet to be seen but even the restricted flow now is better an open well head.

[The Cajun]

As I said, the people involved need to go to jail no matter how high up on the food chain they are.

[worst-case scenario]

Let’s be accurate. Obama got more money from people who are (or were) employed by BP. BP itself - the corporate entity or its PAC - gave no money to Obama at all.

How long has this kind of slipshod regulation been going on with the oil industry? How many other of those 3400 rigs in the Gulf were signed off on with expedited permits? How many wells actually get approved by “standard operating procedure” anymore?

And isn’t getting rid of government regulation, stepping aside to let business do its job, part of the push for smaller government?

You can’t have it both ways. Obama and Bush both, in order to meet public demand to drill and produce more oil more quickly, approved drilling in a posthaste fashion. Everybody except the Greenies thought that this slashing of regulations was a great thing. Now that there’s been a disaster - because of the industry’s own impatient cutting of safety procedures- everyone is angry that the regs were bypassed.

Two months ago, everyone wanted drilling off-shore to be approved even MORE quickly, for the wells to be up and producing yesterday. Cutting corners was a good thing! It was getting rid of government interference.

What exactly is it Americans want? Because they can’t have it all.

[thecodont]

The question is what induced them to permit this kind of bypassing? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Obama got more money from BP than any other single candidate?

Smoking gun?