It's been a year since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and if you were to listen to BP things sound just peachy on the Gulf Coast.
Like the soil of the Louisiana marshes, however, a little digging uncovers something very ugly. BP has used clever advertising campaigns to make light of the situation, but officials in the area are not agreeing at all. BP claims that 99 percent of waters are open, but on the ground, 300 miles of coastline still has oil on it.
While BP spends a lot of money on massive advertising campaigns, it's hard not to be reminded of the lives lost and destroyed by the spill. It has made plenty of promises following the disaster, but has lived up to few. It has promised to replant oysters and build a saltwater hatchery; both have been unrealized.
BP uses the $20 billion fund set up to help the people they damaged as a shield to seem like it is doing right by the Gulf, but the reality is different. Only 25 percent of the money has been paid out a year later, and many residents have complained that BP is dragging its feet in paying out.
In a recent effort to mitigate its monetary losses, BP started a suing spree. It has sued Transocean, the owner of the rig, Halliburton, the contractor for the rig, and Cameron, the builders of the failed blow-out preventer. While these companies do share part of the blame, BP is ultimately responsible for the devastation. It was its oversights that led to the explosion. Its lax safety measures are most at fault.
These safety measures came under intense scrutiny after the spill. Many people called for congress to enact legislation to prevent further disasters like this, but as is typical of our political system, nothing got done. Legislation has been on the table since then, to the amount of 150 more bills, but each failed to pass. This legislation should be a top priority for our government. The atrophied congress is putting lives and livelihoods at risk each time it doesn't pass a meaningful bill.
It may be astonishing to some that none of these bills got passed, but it's a simple money issue. Oil and Gas companies spent over $100 million on lobbying in Congress, and it's difficult to compete with money of that magnitude. It's tempting to say that the bad economy has been the focus of the government, but in the last year legislation has passed that makes drilling contracts faster to attain.
Making it easier to drill offshore is an irresponsible decision when juxtaposed with the fact that there are no new protections against another disaster. It's obvious that BP was, and still is not, prepared to deal with the ramifications of its blunder, and there needs to be some sort of mandate for it to update its equipment and safety procedures.
Drilling offshore wells are a necessary evil for the time being. With gasoline prices so high and showing few signs of dropping, offshore oil becomes an important aspect of our oil industry.
What this whole debacle underscores most heavily is the need for alternative energies. You can enact all the safety legislation you want but it is only, in the end, a prevention of something inevitable. Alternatives like solar, wind and biodiesel not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but they also decrease our dependence on all oil. Only when we are completely independent of petroleum will the spills stop completely.
