Response to Gulf oil spill is disappointing

It’s more than disheartening to observe the federal government’s and British Petroleum’s response to the disastrous April 20 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the unprecedented oil rig accident explosion and fire there has been a lot of handwringing and finger pointing going on, but no single concerted effort to clean up the mess as fast as it is created. Critics point to a lack of leadership in mounting a concerted effort to cut the flow of oil and clean up the mess.

Initial estimates of 20,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil leaking per day from the Deepwater Horizon rig were raised to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day mid-June when more accurate methods of estimating were used. A barrel of crude oil is equivalent to 42 gallons, so more than 2.5 million gallons could be leaking per day in the Gulf. That’s a lot of oil to clean up and it’s only getting worse rather than better after all of this time.

Wall Street Journal writer Paul Rubin offered a number of suggestions the federal government could be doing to solicit more outside assistance in battling the massive one-mile deep oil leak. The Environmental Protection Agency could relax its restrictions for skimmers on the amount of parts per million of oil in discharged water. This is now 15 parts per million and is a “peace time” figure, but this is a war against the spreading slick of oil. These EPA restrictions should be lifted so more skimmers and tankers can be allowed to eliminate most of the oil from the water. It would seem that any oil removed from the water is better than none.

Rubin further suggests that the Obama administration waive the Jones Act, which restricts foreign vessels from operating in our coastal waters.  This action, like lifting strict EPA regulations, only makes sense and should  have been done a long time ago. We should have been requesting assistance on cleanup activity a long time ago and allowing countries like the Netherlands and Belgium to help us. They have ships and technologies that would have greatly assisted in the cleanup. Why hasn’t this been done?

The WSJ writer says the combination of these two regulations is delaying, and may even prevent, the world’s largest oil skimmer from being deployed in the Gulf. The Taiwanese-owned “A Whale” has the capacity of processing about 500,000 barrels of oily water a day and has arrived in the Gulf. It hopes to receive Coast Guard and EPA approval before it begins skimming operations in the Gulf. The ship from Taiwan is not the only one being held back.

Rubin reports that of the 2,000 skimmers in this country (not subject to the Jones Act or other restrictions), only 400 have been dispatched to the Gulf. Federal restrictions have kept the others elsewhere in case of other oil spills in spite of what is going on in the Gulf. On June 29 the Coast Guard and EPA finally issued a joint temporary rule suspending the regulation, more than 70 days after the spill. To say there is a lack of urgency in getting this mess cleaned up is an understatement.

Stopping the flow of oil at its source should be the priority. We don’t hear much about how this is being done except for the so-called relief wells that are supposed to be drilled near the original leaking well in August. If that doesn’t work, there don’t seem to be a lot of other options. Until oil drilling experts do find a way to stop the flow, we need to do all we can to expedite cleanup efforts and cut through the red tape.

This is a war against the oil slicks and we need all hands on deck to get the job done with as many skimmers as possible. Thus far there doesn’t seem to be any real sense of urgency on the part of the government or BP. That’s disturbing and disappointing to say the least.