Drill Baby Drill!!! During the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign this was the mantra chanted at Republican rally after Republican rally. Crowd-after-crowd in city-after-city was stoked up by politicians like John McCain and Sarah Palin in passionate calls for more off-shore oil drilling. In 2008, American consumers were facing pain at the gas pump—gasoline was selling for over $3.00 per gallon in many parts of the country. Politicians, like McCain and Palin, latched on to a rather mindless and short-term solution to our nation’s oil problem. Why don’t we open our shorelines up for off-shore drilling? Won’t we add millions of barrels of oil to our supply and thereby decrease our dependence on foreign oil? The world will be wonderful and gas prices will go down. This was the rhetoric pushed on us by a number of our politicians at the time. Unfortunately, in this country our political leaders often reach for short-term solutions rather than long-term solutions—I guess it is the political climate—in this country no matter the party (Democrat or Republican) it has become increasingly hard to govern a partisan, mistrustful, and restless populace. How hard is it to govern? Ask President Obama.Several weeks ago I was struck by a political announcement—President Obama announced plans for his Administration to move forward with plans to increase off-shore oil drilling. During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Candidate Obama opposed increased off-shore oil drilling. Flash forward to 2010, President Obama reversed course and announced plans to increase off-shore oil drilling. Drill Baby Drill became the official policy of the Obama Administration. I can only speculate, but it appears that President Obama was sending an olive policy branch designed to placate Republicans, by announcing his newfound support for off-shore oil drilling.
The Louisiana BP oil rig tragedy this past week has forced us to examine and deliberate on the efficacy of off-shore oil drilling. It appears that this tragedy could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Coastlines from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama could be affected. Already, these are fragile coastlines and ecosystems. The first oily birds have started to reach the beaches. This is a tragedy beyond belief. It will take years for this region of the country to recover.
Are we really willing to bear these sorts of tragedies for a meager amount of more oil? How would you like to see the beaches of Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware choked with oil? This is something no right-minded person would want to see. This should serve as a wake-up call for our nation’s leaders to develop a comprehensive alternative energy program. We can’t keep drilling for oil. We literally are destroying our planet and environment. Selfishly we are destroying the future of our children and grandchildren.
How does all of this relate to corporate justice? Keep reading and I’ll explain to you how this relates to corporate justice. Well, this week I was driving (yeah, burning oil) and listening to a right-wing radio host blast President Obama’s response to the BP oil spell. The talk show host blasted what he dubbed as Department of the Interior SWAT teams being deployed to inspect off-shore oil rigs. The talk show host characterized the Obama Administration’s response as a move to a police state, where the government would conduct warrantless searches in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. This radio host went on to say that President Obama was planning to nationalize the American oil industry. The host compared President Obama to Hugo Chavez. What was this guy smoking or drinking? Remind me not to drink from his cup. This is nonsense!
BP realized early on that its resources were inadequate to respond to an oil spill of this magnitude. BP specifically asked for government help. Apparently, the NAVY has at its disposal remotely-operated dive vessels and robots that can assist in capping the leaky oil rig. The NAVY would lend these vessels to civilian authorities to assist in their mitigation efforts.
Some schools of political thought preach a gospel that the government is always an impediment and should step aside. The gospel preaches that corporations and free-markets are be-all-to-end-all of the world. Again, government has no role in our lives. This harkens back to the right-wing radio talk show host that I referenced a moment ago. Instead of truly talking about the role that corporations and government can and should play vis-à-vis one another, this radio talk show host was distracting his targeted listeners from the real trouble. Yes, corporations are vast and control enormous resources—still there are times when they are playing outside of their league. This time around, BP is in the midst of a tragedy of nation proportions. Even with billions of dollars, BP can’t buy its way out this one. Undoubtedly, BP needs the government’s help. More importantly, the people of the Gulf of Mexico region need their government’s help in this time of need and tragedy. This tragedy reinforces in our minds that the path of corporations and governments sometimes collide and intersect.
Where are the people who were yelling Drill Baby Drill? What happens when the mantra gets reversed to Spill Baby Spill? I’m curios to hear your thoughts on the BP oil rig tragedy. What role and culpability do corporations like BP have when things go tragically bad? What role does or should the government play in this these types of tragedies or disasters? I want to hear from you.
Several weeks ago I was struck by a political announcement—President Obama announced ... plans to increase off-shore oil drilling ... it appears that President Obama was sending an olive policy branch designed to placate Republicans ...
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the man who supports locking Republicans out of all legislative negotiation and who stoops to parliamentary gimmicks to pass major pieces of legislation felt compelled to throw the Republicans a bone on offshore drilling. It couldn't have been that the idea of offshore drilling was extremely popular with the American people, as revealed by leading polls. Or, that President Obama wanted to be seen as doing something about rising gas prices that were threatening economic recovery. No, our pure and incorruptible leader had to be acting only to placate those evil "right-wingers".
We can’t keep drilling for oil. We literally are destroying our planet and environment. Selfishly we are destroying the future of our children and grandchildren.
Finally, a leftist who is concerned that "we are destroying the future of our children and our grandchildren". Where were you when the Democrats were squandering trillions upon trillions of our children's and grandchildren's future earnings to little or no economic effect?
Drilling for oil is not literally destroying our planet and environment. The National Academy of Sciences reports that roughly 47 million gallons of crude oil is released into North American waters each year from natural seepage from the sea floor. That is far more - by orders of magnitude - than is released by drilling activities, including accidents. Our nation and civilization require energy. Alternatives, at this stage, are a pipe dream. The left has gotten so used to snapping it's fingers and having private industry perform, that it has forgotten that there are real scientific and economic limitations involved in the procurement of energy. One has to assume that when the government auctions off drilling leases it is cognizant of the possibility of an accident and weighs the risk of that possibility carefully against the benefit of recovering the oil.
Further, the outrage seems rather selective. Left-wingers were silent about the massive aquatic "dead zones" that appeared in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff created by mandates for corn-based ethanol. They were silent about their role in the ecological disaster caused by the federally mandated use of MTBE fuel additives to oxygenate gasoline and "reduce pollution". They rarely, if ever, mention the thousands of needless deaths related to their efforts to mandate automotive fuel mileage standards. They act innocent when confronted with the massive deforestation undertaken to meet the demand for their preferred "green fuels". The list could go on and on. Yet, we rarely read screeds about the anti-environmental policies of the left, demanding that they abandon their destructive efforts to reorder the nations fuel supplies. What role and culpability do environmentalists have when things go tragically bad?
Drilling for oil involves risks. There are literally thousands of oil rigs in the Gulf, and they have operated for years without incident. They are marvels of human engineering that have withstood massive hurricanes. It is very easy to take this for granted as we go about our lives, leisurely consuming the product of such an immense human effort, lifting our heads only long enough to sanctimoniously condemn those who perform this engineering miracle when something goes wrong.
Continued ...
ReplyDeleteThis radio host went on to say that President Obama was planning to nationalize the American oil industry. The host compared President Obama to Hugo Chavez. What was this guy smoking or drinking?
Maybe he was simply drawing a line from President Obama's takeover of the automobile, student loan and mortgage industries. Or, maybe it was exchanges, like this one, that caused him to believe that nationalization of the nation's oil industry was next on the agenda.
BP realized early on that its resources were inadequate to respond to an oil spill of this magnitude. BP specifically asked for government help.
Yes, and according to the New York Times, that help was very slow in coming:
“The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP. The Department of Homeland Security waited until Thursday to declare that the incident was “a spill of national significance,” and then set up a second command center in Mobile, Ala. The actions came only after the estimate of the size of the spill was increased fivefold to 5,000 barrels a day. The delay meant that the Homeland Security Department waited until late this week to formally request a more robust response from the Department of Defense, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledging even as late as Thursday afternoon that she did not know if the Defense Department even had equipment that might be helpful.” - U.S. Missed Chances to Act on Oil Spill, New York Times
Had this been the response of a Republican administration, I have no doubt that the press would be loudly questioning the administration's competence and caring.
Some schools of political thought preach a gospel that the government is always an impediment and should step aside ... that corporations and free-markets are be-all-to-end-all of the world ... Yes, corporations are vast and control enormous resources—still there are times when they are playing outside of their league.
This is a straw man argument, usually made by left-wing academics, who have spent most of their intellectual lives with their heads buried firmly up Karl Marx's backside. Maybe you should read Adam Smith's, Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith not only lays waste the "free-markets are be-all-to-end-all of the world" argument, he has the virtue of having been right about markets and the nature of man, where as Marx's only real claim to fame is as a failure. No one denies that the government has a legitimate regulatory role, the argument is over the limits placed on governmental authority.
"Right-wingers", like the nations founders, believe in a limited, well defined role for government. They see the left's attempted use of government's coercive powers in an effort to impose utopian outcomes as misguided and dangerous. As George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Where are the people who were yelling Drill Baby Drill? What happens when the mantra gets reversed to Spill Baby Spill?
They are rationally advocating that we learn from this accident, improve our technology and oversight, and continue to drill. That is how science and engineering advances, not by throwing our hands up in surrender, but by learning from our mistakes and moving forward. BP must make restitution to those whose livelihoods have been impacted by this tragedy and the government must reevaluate it's preparedness in the event of another accident. My heart goes out to the people of the Gulf Coast, but the Gulf will recover.