Articles by Ruth Conniff

Source: The Progressive

As oil soaks the coast of Louisiana, the fingerpointing has begun. Government officials, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and BP, executives are trading accusations. But the blame-sharing leads nowhere. A front-page story in The New York Times points to "the enduring laxity of federal regulation of offshore operations." The current disaster "has shown the government to be almost wholly at the mercy of BP . . . to stop the bleeding well."

Meanwhile, estimates of the size of the disaster keep getting worse. From the 5,000 barrels a day BP claimed and the media widely reported on the first day after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are now moving their estimates up to 25,000 to 80,000 barrels a day, with ten-mile-long plumes of oil spreading deep in the Gulf waters. No one knows for sure how much oil is pouring into the Gulf, but Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, said on Good Morning America that there is no doubt it is the worst spill in American history. read more