Can We Blame Dick Cheney for the Oil Spill?

According to William Galston of The New Republic, we just might be able to pin a good bit of the blame for the Deepwater Horizon spill on our illustrious…no, that’s not the word I’m looking for…despicable former Vice President. There’s no single smoking gun, or rig, as it were, but there is a collection of facts and a timeline that can’t help but lead one to believe that the Hand of Cheney is at work here.

Although there has not yet been an official cause determined for the BP rig’s destruction, this passage is very interesting. And see if you recognize the company referred to:

First, an oil-drilling procedure called cementing—which is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor—has been identified as a leading cause of well blowouts. Indeed, a 2007 study by the Minerals Management Service (or MMS, the division of the Interior Department responsible for offshore drilling) found that this procedure was implicated in 18 out of 39 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over the 14 years it studied—more than any other factor. Cementing, which was handled by Halliburton, had just been completed prior to the recent explosion. The Journal notesthat Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea off Australia. While BP’s management has been responsive to press inquiries and relatively forthcoming as to its responsibility, Halliburton has refused to answer any questions—an all-too-familiar stance on its part.

Additionally, the doomed rig lacked a “remote-control acoustic shutoff switch”, a component standard on rigs in many parts of the world. In fact:

[A]fter a spill in 2000, the MMS issued a safety notice saying that such a back-up device is “an essential component of a deepwater drilling system.” The industry pushed back in 2001, citing alleged doubts about the capacity of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency backup. By 2003, government regulators decided that the matter needed more study after commissioning a report that offered another, more honest reason: “acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly.”

So, under the Clinton administration, a government regulatory agency recommended what they considered to be a very important safety device. Then, under the Bush administration, the oil industry was able to get the recommendation thrown out because they said it was too expensive. Government regulators bowing to corporate interests under a Republican administration? I’m shocked.

Taking into consideration Dick Cheney’s affiliation with Halliburton and the oil industry in general, along with, as Galston writes, the fact “that unfettered oil drilling was to Dick Cheney’s domestic concerns what the invasion of Iraq was to his foreign policy—a core objective, implacably pursued regardless of the risks,” it’s hard not to believe that His Dickness bears some responsibility for this disaster. Now, if we can just figure out some way to blame Bush for the Phillies pitching staff…