Obama's Katrina ?

Given the geography and the politics, there is an inevitable tendency to compare the Obama administration's handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster with the Bush administration's handling of Hurrican Katrina in 2005.  While the advocates and apologists often line up Left/Right, the issue is not ideology - it is competence.   

Much of the critique of President Obama's handling of the ongoing crisis is about the communications strategy -whether he has been fully engaged (between fundraisers and vacations); whether he is adequately infuriated (in his detatched intellectual way); who speaks for the administration?  But, it is more meaningful to look at the substantive management issues - before the explosion, in efforts to plug the leak, and in efforts to protect the coast.

Prior actions:

1. Both settings had a history of corruption - the notorious Louisiana levee boards which had allowed the defenses of New Orleans to deteriorate; the Materials Management Service which had effectively abandoned its role in regulating drilling platforms.

2. Both administrations had appointed an unqualified supporter to lead a key agency - racing industry administrator "Brownie" at FEMA; Harvard lawyer/green activist Liz Birnbaum at the Materials Management Service. (Obama's press conference admission that he did not know how she had been fired is an eye-opener.)

Plugging the leak:

1. Particularly if there have not been prior exercises, chaos frequently accompanies disasters. Katrina had its flooding, its overwhelmed rescue facilities, and its abandoned hospitals.  Disaster preparations and decision making between BP, Transocean and the government were ineffectual at best - both before and immediately after. 

2. The root issue - the hurricane and stemming the oil flow - were uncontrollable. It would seem that the best minds are now engaged and that those in the industry are the most qualified to lead the shut down efforts. For the future, it would seem better to have an industry consortium with government oversight since the scope can be large, and there are less qualified operators than Transocean and BP.

3. Much as the daily videos of people stranded on rooftops in the 9th Ward fed the media appetite following Katrina, the real time video of gushing oil remains available 24/7 on BP's web site. I am not sure that we need either.

Protecting the coast:

1. Bush had to work through a Lousiana governor (since deposed) who refused to be woken up to address the problems and a New Orleans mayor (since deposed) who wanted his "chocolate city". While the federal/state/local issue was significant, it was clear that FEMA was in charge federally. Obama seems to be intimidated by a 1990 law which may give BP the lead responsibility for the environmental defense efforts. (One wonders how long it would take Congress to pass legislation temporarily giving authority to the federal government.) In the current disaster, somebody fired the head of the MMS, the Coast Guard on-scene coordinator has been changed, and  the leaders of Interior, Homeland Security, Justice, the EPA, and the White House Climate Change Czar have all been prominently involved.   

2. FEMA was slow to realize the magnitude of the hurricane, organize the response, and deliver housing and other supplies.  (Republican) Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's request for sand berms to protect the coast were ignored for two weeks. A "do nothing" Army Corps of Engineers has been a problem in both events. And the MMS - Obama's FEMA - grants new drilling permits, then institutes a deep water moratorium, then extends the moratorium to shallow water, then seems to say that was a mistake.

3. The EPA apparently did a good job managing the subsequent health impact of Katrina. It is still unclear who - BP; the EPA - is making the decisions about the use of millions of gallons of chemical dispersants with their adverse impact on marine life.  

In the narrow sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster has shown the incompetence of the "we'll keep our boot on BP's neck; criminal liability" Obama administration. (By the way, most of BP's 2008 contributions went to the Obama campaign.)  Taken together with Katrina, it raises further the public's skepticism about the government's ability to run the health care industry, car companies, insurance companies, mortgage finance companies, and whatever else may come down the pike.

But keep the faith, this will remain Obama's top priority - right up there with jobs, the Eurozone debt crisis, Israel's problems at the UN, Iran's nuclear weapon program, the Korean crisis, and everything else that is going so well for the leader of the Free World. 

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For the 46% of voters who still "somewhat approve" of Obama's performance, here is his nomination speech where he intones with "profound humility" that the rise of the oceans has begun to slow and that the planet has begun to heal. Oops.

For those readers in California, please remember to support Tom Campbell for Senate in the June 8 Republican primary. And for those in San Francisco, John Dennis for Congress.

bill bowen - 6/4/10 

Comments

[Alan]

The USA seems tired of being the world's cop and guardian angel. Maybe a "good thing", provided that we also become energy and $$ self sufficient. Please recogonize that there is a price for USA disengagement--a stabilizing influence is lost. Iran may lob a nuke at Israel, or North Korea may sink one more ship than South Korea can tolerate. Let's trust that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will provide a protective barrier. If we do not "buy in" to our historic view that the USA is an "exceptional country", we should retreat and worry only about ourselves and our children.

[Bill McCormick]

Blaming Bush for everything that a Democratic Congress has done is really getting old. Forget the Presidents. For the most part a continual more money every year for everything "needed at home" to garner reelection by the Congress which has been controlled a majority of the time by Democrats has resulted in an ever increasing amount of debt for the American people. Presidents either are leaders or not. And that is what they do. Congress controls the money, the programs and the laws. Bush and Obama were in bed with oil. And, so are the Congressional memebers. Their oversight is political showmanship. Barney Franks and Chris Dodd failed miserably to oversee home ownership and lending rules. They were simply continuing Bill Clinton's policy of a "home for everyone". Obama pledged to regulate the oil companies and he did not. It was his administration who approved this deep drilling platform without adequate safe guards. That is not to say that there are not thousands of them out there just like it approved on Bush's watch. So, Obama got unlucky but he campaigned to bring safety to the process and failed to live up to it. Fairness is immaterial in a world of incompetant leadership. President's don't choose their emergencies: they either lead us through the crisis or they stumble and are replaced. The American people had a chance to replace Carter and they did. They had a chance to replace GWB and they chose to keep him. In 2012 we'll choose to keep Obama or not. In 2010 we'll fire a warning shot in the Congressional elections--or we won't. Obama has his chance to lead on many fronts and so far he appears to simply "blame someone". It is definitely in the interest of the country to keep BP solvent. Obama has to play that card carefully. A bankruptcy may leave the financial responsibilty once again on the backs of the American taxpayers. We'll see if the union organizer can stop the campaigning long enough to manage the crisis.

[Harrycat]

In the interest of fairness, it would be necessary to take note of the Bush administrations coziness with the oil industry. That, coupled with a atmosphere of non-regulation by the regulators in all areas of government, have played a significant role in BP's (and probably others) lack of attention to the possibility of a catastrophe and lack of anything like an adequate response. A thorough examination will tell us that lack of regulatory oversight, particularly in the oil industry, was a major contributor to this disaster. Attempts to call this Obama's Katrina are misplaced. This is Bush's second Katrina.