Louisiana Shouldn’t Let BP Spill Regulations Be Erased | The Times-Picayune
Fireboats pour water on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast after an explosion that killed 11 workers and caused the massive BP oil spill in 2010. (Photo by Michael Democker)
The next time an oil spill is oozing toward the Cajun coast Louisiana business leaders and politicians who try to beg the nation for help and sympathy can expect this answer:
“Hey, this is the bargain you made. Live with it.”
You may be thinking: What about that compassionate response we got just six years ago when BP sent waves of oil toward our already crumbling coast? Those tearful pleas from commercial fishermen, tourism leaders and anguished coastal parish pols that worked so well? And those claims about “innocent victims suffering for the nation’s appetite for cheap gas” that played on the nation’s sympathy?
Don’t even try next time.
That’s because none of you have raised a peep of opposition as the local oil industry leads the effort to roll back the regulations put in place to help prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster.
This is what the nation will remember: When those oilmen said the cost of protecting the coast you claim to hold dear was too high, your silence said you agreed.
Read the rest of the article at The Times-Picayune.
