The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf five years ago sure exposed a lot of holes in the current system. By that, I certainly mean holes in our system of environmental regulations, as BP was allowed to get away with all kinds of risky cost-cutting maneuvers during the drilling process, right up to the explosion that killed 11 people and spewed more than 4 million barrels of crude oil into the precious Gulf ecosystem. But I'm also talking about the aftermath of the spill, and the glaring gaps in our political system that have been laid bare over the course of the 2010s. It started with a cover-up, when our federal government practically served as co-conspirators in allowing a British oil company to lie about how much oil was leaking from the damaged rig and then allowing the firm to spray massive quantities of a highly toxic dispersant to try to make that oil disappear. Perhaps even more criminal, a federal commission then recommended numerous steps to bring offshore oil drilling safety into the 21st Century, and yet despite the passage of time little has become of these common-sense proposed safety measures. The one idea that seemed most fundamental to making sure ...
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