Deepwater Horizon Disaster; Time For The Feds To Take Over

Opinion

BP, you've had your chance to try and stop it....it was a problem created in your quest to make some big bucks from America's insatiable addiction to oil. Its been more than a month now, and the oil continues to spill out of the hole in the Gulf of Mexico that you dug. The amount of oil you say is spilling seems to vary on a daily basis, as do reasons why your latest attempts to correct the situation has failed. Allegedly you have the technology to plug up the leak, but we have yet to see any tangible results.

But its time for you to step aside and let the federal government take over. BP can't get it done, and the consequences are too great to let them continue to fail. Its time for the Obama administration to take over the situation because its become bigger than just an industrial accident; it has the potential to do to the Gulf and even the Eastern Seaboard what the mismanagement of soil did in the 1930's, creating a Dust Bowl in America's heartland.

If the spill is allowed to continue unabated, the consequences will be economic devastation for the Gulf Coast states, extinction of species of animal and plant life, and tourism and its trickle down effect will be removed from those economies for at least a generation. This cannot be allowed to happen.

If the government takes over, then Barack Obama will own the problem.....and that's just the way it will have to be. Because to let BP continue in its futile attempts to plug the leak would be even more damaging to all concerned.

To the libertarians who believe government should stay out of the way of private enterprise, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is Exhibit A why we need government regulation, and why government is needed to step in when all else fails. I don't see too many people screaming about "big government" when floods, earthquakes, hurricanes...and oil spills....destroy all they have, and the population needs more than the charity of others.

Political fallout for intervening be damned....the situation is too dire to be concerned about that now. The nation that used its best and brightest to harness the atom and and send men to the moon in past generations has the capacity to end this ecological and economic nightmare.

If this requires the 21st century equivalent of the Manhattan Project, just do it...right now.

What we need now is the political will.

Mr. President....it's time to act now. Good luck, and may God bless.....for all of our sakes.