According to my good friend Rand Paul, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was an accident and accidents happen.

Let’s get one thing straight. This was no accident. The Wall Street Journal, a right-leaning newspaper mind you, has been doing some fantastic investigative journalism. BP did not make one or two mistakes that led to this disaster. They made too many to count. Making matters worse, we now know quite well that a heated argument occurred hours before the disaster and the victors assured their own demise. When the situation went from bad to worse, the rig was completely unprepared for disaster.

BP has gone above and beyond what we could ask for in trying to brand themselves as a green company with their “Beyond Petroleum” campaign. Yet we all know now that this BP campaign was a load of BS. Actually, people were calling them out on this point back in 2002. But that’s another story.

The point is this is the worst environmental disaster in United States history. Worse than Exxon Valdez. We want to show our populist rage. Rightfully so, Americans are ready to be angry. Who doesn’t want someone to blame?

Should we blame BP. Yes. Clearly, they messed up. Big time. On the other hand, what can we possibly do to adequately punish them? Take them to some big fancy trial and sue them for billions of dollars? Look at it from their point of view. Sure they should have installed some half-million dollar valve that might have prevented all this, and bought double-lined tubing, etc. Yet remember what they are: a corporation. The purpose of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders, and as the seventh largest in the world, BP is quite good at that. Sure they’ve invested a great deal of money into solar power, but they didn’t make $160 billion last year on it. Most of their revenue comes from oil and natural gas. They’ve been exploiting those resources, digging deeper than they should and cutting costs, to fulfill their purpose. Really, how much can we blame them?

So let’s turn to the regulators. Since corporations will never do something unless there’s financial incentive, it’s the government’s job to minimize negative externalities. First, I’d like to point out they can only do so much when Deepwater Horizon has a flag of convenience. In other words, while BP has no connection to the Marshall Islands, that’s the flag the rig flies. This means they can use the lax regulations of that country, tell US Coast Guard inspectors to back off and BP can hire it’s own inspectors. It’s a sham. At the same, look at the financial industry, the regulations exist. There’s just no enforcement of them. The politicians and bureaucrats that would are just waiting for jobs in the oil industry down the road where they can make some money off of black gold, so of course, why would they?

So does this mean we turn the blame to President Obama? Is this Barack Obama’s Katrina? Not really. Sure, the gulf coast is getting pummeled again and the response has been less than adequate, but they’re not one in the same. By all indications, the President has been doing everything he can and only 45% of Americans disapprove of his handling, while 70% disapprove of BP. The cocktail of agencies sent down have been disorganized, uncoordinated and don’t really know what to do. That’s not really Barack’s fault. People want him to be angry and get upset, but that’s not his style. He gets his cred from being calm and appearing to be in control. As much as I hate to say it, there are a lot of Americans who would still react extremely poorly to an angry black man, and combatting the Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson stereotype has been a key to Obama’s success. The cleanup is still going on, and it will be for years, but at the moment I think the administration has been doing a solid job, not great, but good enough, which is the antithesis of what FEMA did in response to Hurricane Katrina.

On the other hand, Katrina was a natural disaster and there was nothing really we could do to prevent it. This was not. This President has called for more offshore drilling. This President has not held his regulatory agencies accountable. For that, he should be blamed. The cleanup is still being carried out and will be for a long time. But just as an oil spill that was a fraction of the size of this one caused Earth Day to be created and the Clean Air Act to be strengthened, the President needs to stand up and call for sweeping reform of our energy policy (and by that I don’t mean the highly flawed Kerry-Lieberman bill). He hasn’t done that either and until he shows that we have learned from this disaster and will never let anything like it happen again, he should be blamed. Not like Bush was for Katrina. This is different. Obama doesn’t deflect blame, he seems to enjoy it. Nevertheless, while Katrina comparisons are ridiculous the magnitude of the decisions the President must make are just as great. His legacy is at stake. Act swiftly and boldly, Mr. President. You must.