With regard to capping the damaged well, it’s not clear the government has much to offer, and they haven’t taken the lead because they are not the ones with the expertise.\u00a0 Yet this doesn’t mean for a second that the government should let up on the pressure for BP to get this under control.\u00a0 However, there are a couple of things the government should be actively doing or planning for.<\/p>\n First, the Interior department needs its house cleaned.\u00a0 Clearly the incestuous relationship of the extractive industries and the Interior department has resulted in a system where there is essentially no oversight.\u00a0 Yes, this department was pretty much dismantled by the Bush Administration, but Obama hasn’t cleaned it up at all since he’s been there.\u00a0 If ever there was a wake up call, this was it.\u00a0 Secretary Salazar should be out, and a good top down flush should follow.\u00a0 It would send a clear message to the oil companies that the party is over.<\/p>\n Second, the cleanup is coming.\u00a0 The environmental and economic damage from this spill will be enormous.\u00a0 And this is something the government does know how to handle and should take a lead in.\u00a0 BP should still get the bill (and not capped at $75m either), but they should not be organizing clean up efforts and making decisions about who gets what aid and when.\u00a0 So far, while Obama hasn’t dropped the ball on this, he’s not stepped up to the plate either.<\/p>\n If this disaster has a chance of becoming “Obama’s Katrina”, it will be because of a failure on the cleanup and the organizational fixes to assure there is never a repeat of this.\u00a0 Not because the well isn’t capped.\u00a0 The time to act is now Mr. President.<\/p>\n![\"Aquaman\"](\"http:\/\/2012thatsfunny.com\/2012news\/wp-content\/uploads\/aquaman.jpg\" "\\"Aquaman\\"")
<\/a>A few sane voices tried to point out that the problem at this point is not one of funding or will power, or competence.\u00a0 This is a really intractable engineering problem that no one knows how to fix.\u00a0 BP and the other oil companies likely have the best chance of coming up with a solution, but they are making this up as they go.\u00a0 It’s not like there’s an Army Engineering Corp unit sitting around a poker table grousing that if only they’d let them at it they’d have this puppy capped by sunrise tomorrow.\u00a0 There’s no crackpot scientist with a fix waiting to go.\u00a0 And so far Aquaman hasn’t returned BP’s call.<\/p>\n