I’m beating a dead horse here, but just look at the AP’s stunning analysis of BP’s alleged oil spill clean-up plan. Excerpt:

BP PLC’s 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company’s preparedness to deal with one, according to an Associated Press analysis. The lengthy plans were approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incensed Wednesday after reading the AP story and said BP has been reactive — not proactive — all along.
“Look, it’s obvious to everybody in south Louisiana that they didn’t have a plan, they didn’t have an adequate plan to deal with this spill,” Jindal said. “They didn’t anticipate the BOP (blowout preventer) failure. They didn’t anticipate this much oil hitting our coast. From the very first days, they kept telling us, ‘Don’t worry, the oil’s not going to make it to your coast.'”
Among the glaring errors in the report: A professor is listed in BP’s 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.
The plan lists cold-water marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals as “sensitive biological resources.” None of those animals live anywhere near the Gulf.
Also, names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are disconnected.
“The AP report paints a picture of a company that was making it up as it went along, while telling regulators it had the full capability to deal with a major spill,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wrote in an e-mail to the AP. “We know that wasn’t true.”

The company flat-out lied. As outrageous as that is, the government took the company at its word, and didn’t check up on them. Just rubber-stamped the document. You didn’t need to be a soothsayer to understand the stakes of a major Gulf oil spill. You just needed a basic sense of moral responsibility. You just needed to care.
Has the government reviewed the plans from other oil companies doing work in the Gulf? Is the government sure that the work of its own regulators is solid, and not rubber-stamping nonsense? If the chief executive officer of USA, Inc., is looking for something to do to make a difference in this mess, and for some butt to kick, there’s something right there: do due diligence on your own people, Mister. The U.S. government is complicit in this disaster too. Epic moral FAIL on the part of big industry and big government.