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It's Time For a Change
by James Glaser May 25, 2010 
For the last 35 days, oil has been gushing out of a 21 inch in diameter pipe a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico. That is 35 days, 24 hours a day. Nobody knows or nobody is willing to tell us just how much oil is flowing out of that pipe, but it is coming out under a lot of pressure. British Petroleum (BP), the oil company that owns that pipe, and is responsible for the oil and its cleanup, claims that about 5,000 barrels a day are leaking out. They and many of our political leaders, including our President have referred to this environmental disaster as an oil "leak". Now to me a leak can be cleaned up with a rag, and then you can put a pan under the area leaking to catch the drips. The hard thing here is that the oil company and Washington are talking about "barrels" of oil, but we don't think in that term. A barrel of oil is usually 42 gallons, and that 5,000 barrels BP is claiming, equals 210,000 gallons of oil leaking a day, that is if we believe BP's estimate. Now 5,000 of anything sounds a lot better than 210,000. That is why the oil company and Washington keep using "barrels of oil" to describe this leak. However, many scientists believe the "leak" to be more in the range of 70,000 barrels a day, which would equate to almost three million gallons of oil "leaking" into the Gulf every day. In truth, it really doesn't matter what the true number is, because even at the low estimate, we are in a lot of trouble. Tomorrow will be day 36, and the day after that will be day 37, and so on. Someday, our government in Washington is going to wake up to the fact that the oil is still flowing out of that pipe, and something will have to be done. But wait, there is good news! President Obama put together a commission to study the problem. I bet that makes you feel about as good as it makes me feel. A commission might be a good idea after this disaster is over in hopes of preventing a new one, but this commission won't be of much use right now. Heck, if it is like other Washington commissions, they are still trying to decide how many Democrats and Republicans will be on board and what kind of staff they will be allowed to hire. Meanwhile the oil keeps gushing out of the pipe. Last night the Governor of Louisiana was asking for more equipment to help stop the oil already coming ashore. They have the man power, they have the boats, but they need oil booms and other cleanup equipment. I think this is a big deal. I also think it is about time for President Obama to step in and take some sort of charge. No commission, at least not right now, but the President has to put some American in charge of this disaster. It would be good to figure out just how much oil is "leaking" out so we know what we are up against, and we better put all the resources we can into this fight. There are a lot of countries that drill in the ocean, and it wouldn't hurt to ask for any help they can give. Like I said, this is serious. We have given British Petroleum over a month to get their act together, and we can see they are not up to the job. It is time for a new team to step in. Either that, or admit we don't know what we are doing and hope that oil runs out.
If you are thinking that we should stick with BP and let them continue to handle this, here is how Wikipedia reports BP's past troubles.
So, maybe after this oil problem is behind us, the Commission President Obama is putting together can look into why we would let a oil company like BP with its history of convictions drill for oil off of our coast. That would be another change we should look into. |
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