The scary thing is, they're all clueless

The big problem with BP's gusher in the Gulf, and what no one will admit, is nobody really knows what to do about it. Head honcho of the Coast Guard, Thad Allen has this to say last week.

"We're dealing with something that's more complicated than any spill I've ever dealt with," Allen told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. "The national system did not contemplate that we would have to do all of this at once."

Deep water drilling is relatively new technology and the oil industry underplayed the risks when they pitched for permits. Not that our government didn't willingly swallow that snake oil. Under the Bush administration, MMS worked with the oil corps offering monetary incentives and lax regulatory oversight to jumpstart the drilling.

Worst case scenarios were theorectical and now that the reality crashed into the computer models, they're trying to hide the wreckage. From the beginning, the workers were coerced into joining the cover-up and our government appears to be more interesting in assisting it than exposing the negligence. I really don't want to be hearing we should trust the industry on blind faith considering BP's long record of screwing up by costing costs.

Instead of calling them out as criminals, a Coast Guard spokesman told the media today that "BP is our friend." No, they're not. They're more interested in protecting their image than our environment. But that aside, if anybody has a clue on how to end this nightmare, now is the time for the Obama administration to demonstrate some of the promised transparency. This is a disaster that affects every single person on the planet. If they do have a clue on how to deal with it, then tell us what it is. Otherwise we can assume there really is no plan.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]