This really grinds my gears. BP screws up and America bans deep water drilling while other countries expand. Way to strive towards getting off foreign oil Obama.
REALLY?
Because the process is so thoroughly refined and controlled, and there are solutions in the event of a catastrophe.
LOL. ^^^ +1
well played joe… well played.
I’d have to say we probably have the most strict safety regulations over any other country in the world. So us stopping isn’t really protecting the world’s environment at all, if that is your reason then toss that out the window.
If your reason is pro because it will protect local environments I may tend to agree with that, but we still destroy so much I don’t think this is a valid place to start. (Considering the monetary loss involved.)
north sea!
I completely agree with halting new projects
A guy driving an F150 with the brake warning light on and wheels wobbling like they were about to fall off crashed into a hospital and killed 30 people. In light of this event the government is halting the registration of all new full sized pickup trucks.
sorry JayS, but that’s a pretty stupid comparison
Has that ever even happened? Did the idiot even attempt to use the e-brake? Was the car inspected? Inspections exist for a reason, and it DOES work for motor vehicles. The inspection process for these oil rigs obviously doesn’t work. SO, for the time being, we need to hault new projects, get it sorted out, make sure that rigs are inspected for safety, then we can continue on.
How many people will really be affected by stopping NEW drilling for 1 year so that we can review the process? Probably not that many. A few oil companies (already rich companies) will be pissed, but probably only a small percent of our population would be impacted. However, halt registration on pickups, and you have all sorts of people messed up.
This is more accurate:
1 of 80 special use pickup trucks that was poorly maintained crashed into a hospital and caught fire and killed thirty people. The subsequent fire is still burning months later, and despite the best efforts of the ENTIRE WORLD, continues to claim lives and consume the surrounding landscape.
As a result, the US has halted registration of these 80 trucks.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127222160
Good read there on the costs.
Another way to look at it. We’ve been drilling for decades with no issues. A company that was pretty clearly ignoring established safety procedures causes a disaster and we stop all new drilling? It’s a knee jerk political reaction not based on science or evidence.
EVIDENCE? There is a ocean full of evidence slowly making landfall.
THERE IS STILL OIL PISSING OUT OF THIS THING…
You can regulate the shit out of it to make it SAFER… accidents still happen, we clearly don’t have the tech to fix this problem.
Alternative energy…when are we going to learn?
Where is the proof that this was just one oversight? How many other rigs out there, right now, have working blowout preventer valves?
I don’t know much about it, but my understanding is that if the blowout preventer was working, this shit would have been fixed in a few days. So what regulations need to be put into place to ensure they are working? AT LEAST a yearly test IMO, and the reports, proof, paperwork, etc… needs to be signed off by someone who matters. Not just some joe-schmo who plays golf with that prick on the BP commercials.
I have the solution 
That is seriously the best they can do as far as constructing a timeline of what the fuck went down with all this safety testing?
Yeah, that’s a great fucking process for safety checks.
Why was deep water oil drilling the standard int he first place? If we were allowed to drill closer to shore , in shallower watter, could this entire problem have been contained easier? Why haven’t we approved more on shore oil drilling? Why don’t we also approve more nuclear energy plants to easy the diesel powered plants and even cancel them out?
It sounds like not so much a failure of the safety procedures (which to me would warrant a moratorium) as a failure to follow the existing safety guidelines.
It’s much the same after a large scale incident of gun violence. The anti-gun crowd comes out wanting more gun bans despite the fact that 9 times out of 10 the gun used was illegal under existing laws. The anti-drill crowd is using this spill to stop drilling because they don’t want to drill period.
I can see both sides of this issue though. The fact that we’re 5x days into this and oil is still flowing is unacceptable and if this is the best we can do we shouldn’t be drilling. What I don’t believe based on all the evidence presented thus far is that this was anywhere close to the best we can do. Prior to the blowout you had gross negligence to cause to redundant systems that are supposed to prevent this to fail. Then after the blowout you have BP fumbling the operation from the start and a government who would rather use the issue to score political points for cap and trade than work to stop the leak.