Congressman Michael Burgess (R) of Texas is calling for the Office of Mineral Management Services to testify before congress. The MMS is the regulatory agency that oversees the oil industry.
The oil industry is heavily regulated. The building of those deep sea platforms had to pass the scrutiny of federal agents. The agents who authorized the building of those rigs are just as culpable for the Gulf oil spill as BP. The media is again negligent on their reporting of this disaster.
This is analogous to home construction. When a house is built, permits have to be pulled and inspections take place at every phase of construction. If you fail to meet the codes set forth by the county and state; you will have to correct them, even if that means you have to tear the whole damn building down.
There are those who say that BP corrupted those agents. No, they corrupted themselves. At what point does a person take responsibility for their actions. A corrupt agent is a corrupt agent.
During the great depression the federal government paid farmers to plow under or not plant certain crops; or to leave their fields barren. Federal agents were hired to monitor the farmers to ensure there was no cheating. Of course those agents began to accept bribes and the federal government hired agents to regulate the regulators. This absurdity continued to the point where aerial photographs were taken of each farm to demonstrate that the laws were being followed.
President Obama has appointed Michael Bromwich to reorganize the Mineral Management Services. He is to break the MMS into three separate entities in an attempt to eliminate a conflict of interest. I guess the next thing they’ll do is create a whole new agency to counter corruption. I wonder how effective satellite imagery is on monitoring the building of deep sea platforms.
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