by L.B. Woodgate

Created on: June 11, 2010   Last Updated: June 12, 2010

21st Century Leadership is Lacking in Energy Policy Making

The public outrage being expressed at the ineptitude of oil giant BP for not having a backup plan to deal with their disaster and the apparent time-honored collusion of oil interests positioned in government oversight agencies like the Minerals Management Services (MMS) is being lost on the industry leadership and their congressional cohorts in the House and Senate.

Instead of aiming their vast resources towards correcting what went wrong in the first place as a strategy to prevent another environmental disaster of this magnitude, BP and many conservative supporters are spending billions on a PR campaign to correct their image of uncaring executives who cut corners on safety and equipment to boost their bottom line and appease stockholders.  This was the same approach that led to the Gulf Oil failure at the Deepwater Horizon rig this last April. 

A decade ago the upper management team at BP made a decision to promote a “green” image to give consumers the impression that BP was “Beyond Petroleum” and leaning toward the inevitable demise of fossil fuels by showing a willingness to invest in cleaner technologies of wind, solar and bio-fuels.  Billions were spent to create this image but in comparison pennies were actually expended on developing these greener sources of energy.  BP does not stand alone in the fossil fuel industries creating this deception to the public.

Furthermore, there are those in government who offer a counter-balance approach to this false image by insisting that we need the offshore oil and cannot let our drilling efforts slow down to “achieve energy independence”.  This argument really doesn’t have legs to stand on based on the data, yet it is as interesting as it is frustrating to watch pro-oil and coal legislators lay out arguments to defend it.

Recent examples of this latter absurdity is Louisiana’s Senator Mary Landrieu warning that a moratorium on new off-shore oil drilling would “wreak economic havoc on this region that exceeds the havoc wreaked by the oil spill, the worst in American history” if it was extended beyond a few months.  “On behalf of the people I represent, I am asking: Can you give any time certain that we can get our people back to work?”, Ms. Landrieu pleaded at a recent hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  Her Republican counterpart,

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