Gulf Disaster Worst in Decades

The explosion of the Deep Water Horizon oilrig last month– taking of lives of some 11 workers in the process – marked one of the worst ecological disasters the world had ever witnessed.  Millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil have since permeated the local ecosystem, sparing neither landscape nor inhabitant.  It is truly the “Exxon Valdez” of our times.

Both government officials and corporate CEOs scrambled to find answers and conclude where and upon whom to place the blame.  Representatives from BP, Halliburton, and Transocean saw themselves taking a “grilling” (posturing, in any effect) in front of both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee and the Environmental and Public Health committee a week ago today – each attempting to “point the finger” at someone else.  Many of the Republican, and even Democratic, senators who sit on these committees were and continue to be patrons of the oil magnates to the tune of some tens of thousands in campaign contributions: Richard Shelby (R, Alabama), Mary Landrieu (D, Louisiana), John McCain (R, Arizona) and Lisa Murkowski (R, Alaska), just to name a few.

“I would suggest to all three of you that we are all in this together,” a statement made by Murkowski, could not have come closer to the truth.  For decades now, the deregulation of the oil industry and the “cozy” relationship between the former and government officials, particularly from the Minerals Management Service (MMS) – an agency of the Department of the Interior responsible for allocating drilling permits and providing inspections to ensure workplace safety and compliance with environmental law – paved the way for a disaster of this magnitude.  It revealed with distinct clarity the financial interconnections and conflicts of interest between the oil multi-nationals, the banks, and State officials.

Who is responsible?

At the heart of the disaster lies the negligence on the part of the principal corporations, i.e., Transocean, BP, and Halliburton, to address fundamental safety and environmental concerns rampant on rig platforms in past decades.  The MMS, for its part, was complicit with the Deepwater Horizon explosion due to its provision of exploratory drilling permits to BP without first acquiring on its part the necessary documentation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  For the oil industry, this step was crucial: the NOAA repeatedly warned of the likely “impact” drilling would have on the Gulf region.  On April 6 of this year, the MMS went so far as to provide a “categorical exclusion waver”  to BP exempting the company from the laws and inspections included in the National Environmental Policy Act – concluding in advance that the potential threat posed to the Gulf ecosystem was “minimal or nonexistent.”

Numerous studies conducted over the past ten years or so reveal startling findings in conjunction with rig oversight and drilling by both the MMS and corporations like BP.  Many of the findings brought forth by engineers and the MMS concerning potential safety hazards went unheeded by companies like BP.  In most cases, the government “looked the other way.”  Even when the MMS conducted a comprehensive study in 2004, which found that many of the protective mechanisms designed to prevent leaks would not hold up under deep-sea pressure and conditions, no implementation of new standards followed and, as a result, business carried on as usual.  To date since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, 27 new drillings projects found approval by the MMS; only one was subject to environmental review.

Obama and offshore drilling

For all his “anger and frustration” at BP and those companies responsible for the drilling disaster, the Obama administration spoke out at a press conference in favor of current U.S. offshore drilling policy calling it, “an important part of our overall strategy for energy security.”  Like any capitalist politician, Obama has the interests of the oil industry at heart – he said next to nothing at an April 30 press conference regarding the impact the leak with have on the environment (not to mention the 11 workers killed due to the initial blast).

This past March, the Obama administration outlined a new offshore drilling policy that would open the doors wide to crude exploration along the entire Eastern coast of the United States from southern Delaware down to central Florida.  This was a major tactical maneuver to curry favor with Big Oil, and he gave them everything they could ever want: direct access to vast areas comprising the Outer Continental Shelf.  Referring to it then as a “new chapter in the nation’s search for a comprehensive energy policy that can open new areas to oil and gas development in the right way [our italics] and in the right places,” Obama has since not changed his tune even with an estimated hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude spilling out into the Gulf every day.  He was then and remains now complicit in the disaster.

The solution to pollution

The bosses at BP, Transocean, and Halliburton all share responsibility for the disaster off the coast of the Gulf.  An intensive investigation by the labor movement into the incident is necessary with prosecutions and lengthy prison terms for those found culpable.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent spill demonstrated the necessity on the part of the global working class and oppressed strata and peoples to wrest control of energy production from the capitalistic oil corporations.  That begins with the introduction of strict, effective industry standards and penalties determined by the workers’ movement to clamp down on corporate polluters.  Those that flout these protective laws should have their property confiscated, nationalized, and run under workers’ control. The entire energy sector must be nationalized and run under workers’ control without a cent paid out to owners or shareholders.

To promote a sustainable future for generations to come, we need to devise and implement a global plan, one moving away from the burning fossil fuels and into alternative forms of energy production, i.e., wind, wave, and solar power.  By confiscating the profits of the energy conglomerates and through increased punitive taxes on corporations and the rich, we can ensure the economic and logistical feasibility of such a plan.  This should start with a systematic, global emergency program designed to reduce the dependency of transportation systems on fossil fuels.

To reclaim the environment from the stranglehold of the bosses, the working class and its oppressed allies need political power.  Without such power, it would prove impossible to stop entirely the oil and natural gas corporations pursuing their cynical interests at the expense of the great majority of humanity and the ecosystem.