Obama’s Stain

As of today, it has been six weeks since the oil platform Deepwater Horizon started spilling, without stopping, 12,000 barrels of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, in what is considered the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. Tens of thousands of square kilometers of sea are today covered by an immense black stain that has begun to affect the coral and the fauna of the coast of Louisiana, the same coast that was hit severely by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The oil spill from the British Petroleum (BP) platform constitutes not only an environmental catastrophe of a magnitude that is almost impossible to determine, but also a symbol of how far advanced societies have become in their dependence on hydrocarbons. Given that the crude is running out in easily accessible places, new wells at high risk for accidents are being drilled from platforms on the high seas, hundreds of meters above the sea floor. Until a few months ago, this thirst for “black gold” had the White House’s support, including deep-sea exploration in the Arctic Ocean near Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Precisely the locations of the two most severe spills: the Exxon Valdez ship in 1989 and now Deepwater Horizon.

For more than a month, three failures and millions of dollars later, an effort to seal the well with cement and mud, called “Top Kill,” commenced last Thursday with a good prognosis, although it had to be suspended on two occasions and predictions of success are reserved. The oil spill may or may not be stopped, but the political consequences of the disaster are already beginning to be felt. Criticism of the management of the spill has been directed toward Washington, and is not stopping. It has been put forth by the Republican opposition, which is branding the spill as Barack Obama’s “Katrina.”

There are more than just a few similarities. Beyond hitting the same geographical area as the famous hurricane, the slow reaction to the oil spill by the current White House administration is similar to that during the time of George W. Bush’s presidency. Just as the controversial former president left the initial response to the New Orleans flood in the hands of local authorities, Obama did something similar by initially giving the responsibility to contain the accident to BP.

Second, the tragedy of Katrina revealed the negligence and incompetence of the federal agency in charge of reacting to emergencies such as this and patronage appointments in its senior management. In the case of Deepwater Horizon, there were unlawful relations between the regulatory offices of deep-sea oil explorations, the Minerals Management Service and the multinational oil companies. In fact, BP received a permit for exemption from environmental requirements for the well that broke. Lastly, just as in the last days of the hurricane in the Gulf, the continued failures of BP to seal the leak reflect the administrative and technological weaknesses of the White House in dealing with emergencies.

This growing sentiment motivated Obama to announce strong measurements, like the freezing of 33 explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, and to visit the zone of the catastrophe yesterday. Although 53 percent of Americans think the government response has been poor, it is too early to tell whether or not the spill will be as destructive for the Obama administration as Katrina was for Bush’s popularity. At the end of the day, the current president enjoys more political capital than his predecessor. The ability of the American president rests on whether or not the biggest oil spill in history will become the inspiration for the energy reform the superpower needs.