Just 18 days before the BP Macondo oil well exploded in the Gulf Of Mexico, President Obama told a curios reporter "It turns out, by the way, the oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," he said, after the man had questioned the environmental safety of the president’s latest bill to allow deep sea drilling. The president was confident about their safety, almost cavalier.
Two month later and his tune had changed dramatically: "I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety, and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deep-water drilling to continue,” he said after announcing that a ban had been put in place on all new deep water drilling.
The incident has highlighted the problems with inquiry processes in the White House, because it has come to light that no safety or engineering questions were raised before the drilling was allowed, the only requirement was an environmental impact assessment. In fact the 14-month review which lead to the drilling being given the green light concentrated on where the drilling should be allowed, not on whether is should be allowed.
Politics played a large part in the decision, which started to weigh in on Obama’s thinking as early as the Presidential campaign, when rival McCain used the drilling moratorium as a campaign issue. The lead up to lifting the moratorium included far more political motives and inquiries, than those into safety, or environmental impacts of the decision.
