"Obama overlooked key points in giving OK to offshore drilling" is the title of a McClatchy article written by Steven Thomas on 6/11/10.
"It's really important to understand you have decades of nothing going wrong," said one senior administration official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity as a matter of White House policy.
"The last time you saw a spill of this magnitude in the Gulf, it was off the coast of Mexico in 1979," a second senior administration official said. "If something doesn't happen since 1979, you begin to take your eye off of that thing."[emphasis added]
So what else happened in 1979?
Follow me over the jump for the answer.
If you guessed Three Mile Island, you win a two headed stillborn calf! (Not Really)
"If something doesn't happen since 1979, you begin to take your eye off of that thing."
If this is an example of the mindset behind the approval of offshore drilling,
maybe it's time to revisit the decision to back new nuclear plants as well.
The Union Of Concerned Scientists had something to say about the new push for Nuclear Power in an article from 2009 titled Nuclear Power: A Resurgence We Can't Afford.
Nuclear power could play a role in reducing global warming emissions because reactors emit almost no carbon while they operate and can have low life-cycle emissions. Partly for that reason, advocates are calling for a nationwide investment in at least 100 new nuclear reactors, backed by greatly expanded federal loan guarantees. However, the industry must resolve major economic, safety, security, and waste disposal challenges before new nuclear reactors could make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions.[emphasis added]
As we have learned again (have we really learned something if we need to keep relearning it?): Private industry tends to focus on profit, not safety.
Essentially, oil executives have said:
Offshore drilling is safe, except when it isn't, and when it isn't we're kinda screwed.
"When these things happen, we are not well equipped to deal with them," acknowledged Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil.
So we are assured that things are different this time, it's a new world, there's been innovation, besides nothing bad has happened in a long time, trust us.
It's the same magical thinking that made possible the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act in 1999, which led to the financial meltdown.
This hasn't been fixed, by the way, and the Masters of The Universe are still gleefully gambling.
The Union Of Concerned Scientists article had this part which jumped out at me:
by significantly expanding the use of energy efficiency and low-cost and declining-cost renewable energy sources, consumers and businesses could reduce carbon emissions from power plants as much as 84 percent by 2030 while saving $1.6 trillion on their energy bills.
as opposed to Nuclear where the article pointed out:
A forced nuclear resurgence, in contrast, could make efforts to cut the nation’s global warming emissions much more costly, given the rising projected costs of new nuclear reactors. A nuclear power resurgence that relies on new federal loan guarantees would also risk repeating costly bailouts of the industry financed by taxpayers and ratepayers twice before.
For more on this issue, see this excellent diary by Laurence Lewis
So we have a choice: An expensive bet on so-called "clean" energy, which is clean except when it isn't, or a "space race" style commitment to a green solution.