Obama’s Oil Spill Response Is The Worst One Possible….Except for All The Others

Image by uscgd8 via Flickr

President Obama’s speech to the nation last night has been roundly panned in the media with everyone from Keith Olbermann to Sarah Palin dismissing it as signifying little but sound and fury.  Americans are upset about the 40,000 – 60,000 barrels of oil that are, daily, gushing forth into the gulf of Mexico.  With each passing hour, it seems, the leak itself grows worse and the spill grows more severe.

Obama has been lambasted for his failure to take control of the crisis, for his failure to involve international assistance, and for his failure to – quite simply – stop the leak.

And there can be no contest; Barack Obama has failed to do all of those things.

Yet, perhaps the question Americans should be asking is, did we really want or expect him to?

Control

Obama has failed to take control of the crisis and for this the right has vilified him.  Pundits call the spill  “Obama’s Katrina,” evoking memories of Federal inaction in the wake of the disastrous hurricane in 2005.  We see footage of oil exploding into the Gulf waters and the President gravely intoning that “We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes,” and can not help but wonder what is actually being done.  The President seems inactive – supervisory at best – and largely removed from the day to day cleanup and containment operations.

Yet that is what the American people want — barely.  Gallup polling suggests that 49% of Americans think that BP should “continue to be in charge” of “the efforts to control the oil spill and its effects,” while 45% want the Federal Government to take charge.  Conservatives, not surprisingly, favor BP responsibility by the largest margin with 56% saying that BP should take the lead in the clean-up efforts while 61% of Liberals want the Federal Government to take charge.

Those numbers explain the lack-luster response the President received from left-leaning MSNBC, but suggest a partisan rather than pragmatic motive for Sarah Palin’s criticism of last night’s address.

Containment

Partisan or pragmatic, who can really blame the critics?  The simple truth is that Obama has failed to close off the leaking well.  5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico the wellhead is still pumping tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day into the murky depths.  Beneath the crushing pressure of more than 150 atmospheres – more than a ton per square inch – containment and collection efforts have failed and while BP’s relief well efforts inch closer by the day, Obama simply does not know how to stop the leak.

No one does.

There is a sense of impotent rage that comes along with viewing the video footage of that horrible inky blackness issuing forth into the Gulf Waters.  Americans are justifiably upset that the well has not been closed off and they have directed their ire at the President in large part because there is no one else – save BP itself, of course – to blame.  The American government is massive and powerful beyond measure and imagination and to see it rendered helpless by a broken pipe is infuriating.  Yet, despite the power and resources at his fingertips, there is really nothing Obama or anyone else can do.  BP’s relief wells are “Plan C,” after all, in the overall effort to stop and contain the leak and with their stock price plummeting nearly 50% since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, one presumes that BP is fairly motivated to get the well under control.

Cooperation

Obama has failed to tap into the vast wealth of international aid and expertise in the cleanup effort.  Since the extent of the Deepwater Horizon disaster became known, the United States has received offers from assistance from around the world.  For the most part, those offers have been rejected.  In part, this is due to the Jones Act – or Merchant Marine Act – of 1920, a protectionist provision that keeps foreign owned, operated, or registered ships from operating domestically out of US ports.  While the Jones act can and has been selectively enforced – it was temporarily lifted during the response to hurricane Katrina – the Obama administration has made no moves to ease the restriction in light of the current situation.

This has angered a number of people.

Belgium and other nations have suggested that, should the US lift the restriction, European oil crews could make significant headway in the cleanup effort.  While a tempting offer, cleanup matters little so long as the well-head continues to spew oil into the Gulf.  Massive undersea plumes of oil defy conventional containment and the dispersant chemicals favored by the Europeans are as yet not certified for use in US waters.

Perhaps more important, however, is the economic argument.  As a result of the Deepwater Horizon disaster there is little fishing going on in the Gulf.  Tourism is nearly non-existent, oil drilling is suspended, and a host of other dependent businesses and industries sit idle.  Oil cleanup has become among the only industries still functioning along Gulf shores and with the United States still climbing out of the deepest recession in generations, the prospect of handing that industry and those jobs over to foreign workers seems foolish.

Conclusion

What then do Americans expect of their President?  The crisis in the Gulf is BP’s leak and BP’s responsibility.  There is no government A-team of oil crisis response specialists, no unobtanium shielded super-secret drill-ship that can stem the flow of oil.  The process of stopping, then containing, and then cleaning up this mess will be months, years, and decades in length and, for the time being at least, may prove the only surviving industry along the gulf coast for some years to come.  If Americans tuned in last night expecting to hear something different they are no doubt dissapointed and wish the President had some better news to report.

And if wishes were fishes they too would be covered in oil.