A Before and After

The damage of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is being felt in all areas.

Barack Obama has emphasized that there will be a before and after for the energy future of the United States, to be marked by the disaster of the oil platform operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. In the two months since its collapse, which killed 11 workers, everything has gotten worse. The oil spill is horrifying for Americans and is holding the White House in suspense while 60,000 barrels of oil spill into the sea every day — which, in the course of four days, is equivalent to the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989. Thousands of fishermen are ruined, as well as the tourism industry in four southern states.

This week, the U.S. president has made the multinational oil company fold to his demands that it establish a fund of $20 billion that will be beyond its control for compensation and cleanup of contaminated land and water, and that it eliminate the payment of any dividends this year. This is promising, but probably insufficient. BP, the absolute villain of the story, with a lousy safety record in its U.S. operations, has bowed to the obvious. Whoever pollutes pays, especially in a country such as the United States, with fine-tuned mechanisms for financial accountability. The quoted value of the oil giant has collapsed and its image has been shattered.

But Obama has also been politically damaged. The president reacted late to the formidable disaster, contemplating helplessly for a month in an attitude that is now being offset by repeated trips to the site of the disaster. The American government — that of Bush, but also of the present administration — is, being responsible for the regulatory framework for an industry full of contrasts, not unfamiliar with what has been happening. Relations between London and Washington have also been hurt by a situation that, in the face of transatlantic fury, has brought the worst of nationalistic victimhood in political mediums and news media in the U.K. to the surface.

It remains to be seen whether the drama will finally lead to a new and more decisive impulse to develop alternative energies, as Obama promises. So far, the sequence between the abrogation of regulatory standards, the irresponsibility of large corporations and the disaster is too reminiscent of the financial crisis that started in Wall Street banks.