Matt-Tortuga
I have an entirely different view of the "professionalism" of regulatory agencies. This is based on both my personal experience as a physician, as an environmental professional and my families experience.
Medicine has been encumbered by regulation--and in fact has become worse for it--very complex and long story, starting mostly with medicare and medicaid. I have been involved in many levels of medicine over the last 50 years, from teaching, to practice, a year of fraud investigation for the government, and as an administrator.
In the environmental sector, I have watched a paper mill pollute for over 16 years operating under a conditional use permit and a $500 a day fine. The "solution" was a scheme--which made things worse--proposed by the Florida director of DEP, who then was hired by this large paper manufactuer at a greatly inflated salary...(in a position out of his area of expertise). I have known many members of our local DEP, who eventually defected and gone into private environmental work, because of the dishonesty and incopetence involved in the public process.
I saw the same level of incompetence at the Federal EPA. The "professionals" assigned to these clean up sites often lacked in basic knowledge and education. They were bound by rigid and senseless regulations.
I believe that it is a naive belief that regulatory and politics are separate--they are inter-related. My father (who was chief of division of electrical engineering, and later a vice president of S. Calif. Edison Co and graduate of Cal Tech,) testified multiple times before the State and Federal Public Utility Commission. Each time he came home shaking his head at the lack of professional competence in thoset organizations. It was even worse when he had to testify before a congressional committee.
Many of our local building inspectors are folks who could not make it in construction....
Back to the oil spill--we would not be having this conversation, except a number of humans made mistakes. As i understand what happened--there was misreading (initially) of pressure guages. The heavy "mud" had been removed and sea water was in the column. The top heavy protocol prevented some workers from throwing the switch to close the BOP immediately when the mistake was apparent. (it is not clear if the BOP wouldl have functioned, but the assumption was that it should have)
Now, should have then been two BOP's? Why was A BOP which has over 200 failure modes used (by Transocean)? Had there been both a electrical (battery) and hyraulic malfunction which prevented the BOP from closing? (again a Transocean responsibility)
Or was it a faulty design? Would have an acoustic controller, from the drilling rig allowed the BOP to function? Or should you have a separate vessel and crew with an acoustic controler on a boat standing by (ans subject to someone calling them by radio and authorizing closure of the BOP? From what I have read probably not. It would have been a back up (of a system, which may have failed otherwise).
Was double cassing mandated? Was the cement properly applied and tested? Was it defective? Again--how would have testing or government oversite have avoided this?
BP takes the hit because they have deep pockets and they were the leaser of the field--and thus hired TransOcean to do the drilling. But both Cameron (BOP manufactuer ) and Halliburton were also very much involved and at fault. However, the public outcry is against BP.
So what level of government oversite was at fault in this spill? Would it assure that human errors would not occur? Would it show that the BOP was indequate for the job (that would mean testing each BOP)--I can go down the list, including the actions of each individual as well as company...
Yes, companies have to take on responsibilities. But frankly deep wate offshore drilling is a very dangerous and difficult task. We as consumers demand the oil. Generally companies which make a bad product do not endure. This is a very difficult road to walk, even if you had competent people involved.
Please do not take this to mean that there are not some very good and dedicated government empolyees- there are. But there are also a number who are not, and there are regulations which hamper them. Don't even get me started on the IRS or the Depart of Agriculture--both of which I have some personal experience with their incompetence!
Yes, guidelilnes may be necessary, but that was what the permitting was about--and apparently BP did not even have to file a scenerio for a potential blowout, because they had done a site specific plan in Feb 2009.
