ANYTHING PEACEFUL

Oil on Government's Hands

JUNE 25, 2010 by SHELDON RICHMAN

The more we learn about the government’s mismanagement of seabeds it controls and permits oil drilling on, the worse it looks:

BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one. The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven these models, prepared by the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service, wrong…. The government’s optimistic forecasts reinforced the oil industry’s confidence in its spill-prevention technology, leading to decisions that left both oil companies and the government ill-prepared for the disaster that has unfolded in the Gulf since April 20.

–Wall Street Journal (subscription site), June 24

Enthusiasts for government control have a lot of explaining to do.

HT: Mario Rizzo at ThinkMarkets