05-26-10 by dugan
Big day today in learning about ways to demean and devalue safety. 1. A BP internal document (see it on Daily Beast) used a dismissive "Three Little Pigs" analogy in deciding to put Texas workers in flimsy trailers rather than blast-proof rooms next to a facility that exploded three years later, killing 15 workers. 2. Employees at the federal agency overseeing oil industry safety took "gifts" and valued their relationships in the industry more than doing their jobs. Oh, and some used their work computers to download porn, some came to work high. (AP story here)
Hard to decide which is worse.
BP swears it’s changed since its piggy decision that killed so many refinery workers, but a $500,000 remote cut-off device that it decided not to install would likely have halted the Gulf spill.
And it’s not like bad behavior at the federal Minerals Management Service is new. Its employees in Colorado who handled billions of dollars in oil royalties were caught in 2008 partying, having sex with and taking golf and ski outings from employees of energy companies.
I can’t entirely fault the current administration for failing to immediately overhaul a second-tier regulatory agency in the midst of the financial crisis and health reform fight. But a culture of scorn for regulation seems endemic in too many underfunded safety agencies overseeing a single industry–think federal mine oversight in West Virginia coal country, think FDA and the e coli scares, NHTSA and Toyota.
It’s time to quit the farce of letting industries regulate themselves. Wouldn’t it be better to pay a dime more for gasoline and a nickel more for lettuce if it put effective cops on on the safety beat? And gave us more alternatives to oil and coal?