It Will Happen Again

'It' is the BP oil spill of April 2010. If the conditions described in this post-mortem by Peter Maas are still the way oil companies operate, then a repeat is a certainty. And there are few signs that the BP spill has changed the way these companies and their overseers operate. Yes, the Minerals Management Service has a new name, but has it really become an agency responsible to us or to the oil companies? Have the oil companies become more sensitive to the environment, or are they still focusing solely on profits? How often will OSHA inspect the safety conditions prevalent in oil companies?

Remember the conclusion of the president's commission that studied the disaster: "The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur."