To Be or Not to Be? That is Apparently the Question

I can fully and happily admit that as much as I talk about how much our government needs to improve itself in relation to the current oil crisis it also is making a concentrated effort into holding itself and especially the oil industry accountable (albeit possibly failingly).

Because the Obama administration is coming under so much fire by the media for not taking a strong enough stance against B.P. measures have been taken to excuse this reputation in the public eye. Besides numerous public statements Obama has set up a bi-paritsan commission to figure out what went wrong in the current oil spill and target what needs to be reformed to prevent this oil spill from occurring again.

Sadly this commission plans to implement new rules for off-shore drilling, not discontinue off-shore drilling indefinitely.

It appears to me that our President is between a rock and a hard place, or at least that is where he is uncomfortably situating himself. He has to convey to the public that he will be responsible about off-shore drilling and prevent this crisis from happening again, yet he also wants to continue with his plans to drill in unprecedented places.

In his words "...we can only pursue offshore oil drilling if we have assurances that a disaster like the BP oil spill will not happen again."

So basically President Obama is attempting to be responsible, but while doing so creating a paradox.

It is impossible to have an assurance that the Louisiana Oil spill will never happen again. The nature of oil spilling itself involves weighing the economic benefits of energy with the very catastrophic consequences of environmental disaster. In his attempts to appease the public Obama has set up a commission that will try in no doubt vain to curtail the consequences of off-shore oil drilling, but there is no amount of advancement in technology that will make the threat of an oil spill 100% obsolete.

It is a nice thought that at least Obama is trying to be responsible, and a commission to figure out what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico is by all means more than necessary. But by continuing with his plans for off-shore drilling while at the same time saying that he will only continue if there is no threat of danger President Obama is failing to really take a stance on this issue. The only way to truly prevent this accident from happening again is to stop off-shore drilling completely. If Obama is worried about how it might look to the public if he continues off-shore drilling without the absolute of stopping all threat of environmental disaster then maybe he should reflect upon his energy agenda itself.

Quotations and Information used in this post:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us/23address.html?hpw

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24spill.html?ref=us