Black Gold And Red Tape

"A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy."
- John Stuart Mill, "On Representative Government"

"Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress."
- James H. Boren, "When in Doubt, Mumble: a Bureaucrat’s Handbook"

The BP gulf region oil spill has released a sticky substance has rendered pelicans, crabs and sea turtle immobile. There is also something sticky that has immobilized those who should be responding to this crisis: Washington bureaucracy. Efforts to minimize the damage have been thwarted by existing regulations, mindlessly applied to a situation where they are clearly inappropriate:

• French oil skimmers offered to help with the clean-up, but were turned away because of the Jones act, a maritime protectionist measure that requires such work to be done by American labor;
• The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 prevents U.S. oil skimmers from other parts of the country from being dispatched to the gulf; and
• In an attempt to prevent the oil from reaching the shores, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal wanted to build sand berms, but that solution was delayed by the Interior Department over concerns whether the sand berms would comply with environmental regulations.

What is particularly frustrating about their application of these regulations to the golf oil spill actually undermine the original purpose of these regulations. The Jones act was intended to preserve American jobs, and yet its application to the BP spill endangers large numbers of American jobs. And sand berms, a low tech barrier made of sand and hay, may have some negative ecological impacts, but can anyone seriously argue that the berms would do more environmental damage than a coat of oil on the Louisiana shores?

In an interview with "Today" show host Matt Lauer, President Barack Obama said, in defense of the federal response to this crisis

"I don't sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

The president caught some flack for the crudeness of his "ass to kick" remark. But there is a far more serious problem with this remark. Finding someone's ass to kick may be emotionally satisfying, but it does nothing to clean up the mess. To get this job done, the president should issue waivers to some of these regulations that are hampering the needed rapid response to this spill. Instead of asking whose ass to kick, the president should have asked "whose hands should we untie?"