Hubris in the Gulf

Friday, June 4, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Since the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, an incessant game of finger-pointing has only grown greater with every failed attempt to cap the gushing oil well. BP America, which was drilling the well, is ultimately responsible, but there is fault to be found with others, including regulators who failed to properly oversee the project.

The blame game is under way because people are angry, and their frustration is understandable. The spill has become the largest in the nation’s history, and the oil is fouling the ocean, killing marine animals and staining beaches and wetlands along the Gulf Coast. People are livid with BP’s arrogant response, summed up by CEO Tony Hayward, who last month said the spill is “tiny” compared to a “very big ocean.”

President Barack Obama and his administration have come under increased criticism for their response because no one has been able to stop the spill.

It is maddening. Engineers have been trying to cap the well using techniques the oil industry has used successfully for years, but nothing has worked. The sobering reality is that this is a unique situation: No one has ever tried to cap a gushing well this deep. BP’s wellhead is nearly a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and the work is difficult because of the distance, the water pressure and the use of unmanned submarines.

The fact that this has never been done is troubling. BP supposedly had a fail-safe plan, complete with redundant systems designed to stop a blowout from happening, yet everything failed. Regulators who approved BP America’s plans apparently never checked out whether, in a worst-case scenario, the oil industry really could handle a spill from a deepwater well.

As we have noted before, regulators at the Minerals Management Service were entangled with the oil industry. Instead of challenging assumptions, they took BP America’s assertions as truth. After all, what could go wrong? The oil industry bragged about what it said was a long safety record, and wells were being dug at incredible depths — BP found oil in another part of the Gulf more than six miles below the surface of the ocean. If the company has the technology to do that, it could do anything, couldn’t it?

The oil industry was encouraged by the Bush administration, which peeled back regulation to the chant of, “Drill, baby, drill!” In the Bush administration’s eyes, the industry knew best and could regulate itself. Just drill, baby, drill.

The industry’s hubris has been bolstered by America’s insatiable demand for oil.

Americans have been slow to embrace alternative energy development or fuel efficiency measures — SUV, anyone? They would rather have cheap prices at the pump, and that means more drilling.

Obama has taken steps to improve fuel efficiency and develop alternative energy sources as ways to reduce the country’s oil use. But he also called for more offshore oil drilling for the near future to meet the nation’s demand.

The bottom line is this: Americans can blame BP, the government or anybody else for this mess, but when they start pointing fingers, they should also look in the mirror.