More Of This And Less Of That
by digby
It was a fairly empty speech to me but I’m sort of immune to these things so I’m not a good gauge. I figured he’d bring up the space program, but also talking about the planes and tanks in WWII was a nice touch. (Maybe he should have talked about how that helped end Roosevelt’s error in cutting spending during the depression.)
But I would, as usual, really like to see a Democratic president do much more of this:
One place we have already begun to take action is at the agency in charge of regulating drilling and issuing permits, known as the Minerals Management Service. Over the last decade, this agency has become emblematic of a failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility – a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves. At this agency, industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight. Oil companies showered regulators with gifts and favors, and were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and write their own regulations.
When Ken Salazar became my Secretary of the Interior, one of his very first acts was to clean up the worst of the corruption at this agency. But it’s now clear that the problems there ran much deeper, and the pace of reform was just too slow. And so Secretary Salazar and I are bringing in new leadership at the agency – Michael Bromwich, who was a tough federal prosecutor and Inspector General. His charge over the next few months is to build an organization that acts as the oil industry’s watchdog – not its partner.
Other than that, I didn’t find this speech particularly informative or inspirational. But like I said, I’m not a good gauge of these things.
No talk of climate change, of course. But that’s because the wingnuts have managed to convince their neanderthals that it’s the Devil’s work so that’s off the table now.
Meanwhhile Matalin, the reborn environmentalist, is screaming about lifting the moratorium because of the jobs. This is the same woman who didn’t want to save the auto industry in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Of course, that was “socialism” which is a far worse threat than killing the oceans, so you can understand why she sees it differently.
John King says that “some people” will find it inappropriate that Obama opened up a political debate at the time when he is calling for unity. Right. Those people are called Republicans and Democratic Oil lackeys and they have no standing to say anything about this. They caused this just as much as BP —- more because they actually took oaths to people other than shareholders. They need to shut their mouths and go down and clean up some birds and let everyone else clean up their mess and do what’s necessary to prevent anything like this happening again.
Especially Sarah Palin who babbled something incoherent about Obama needing to “stop stopping the gusher.” Remember, she’s their “energy expert.”
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